Build Conference - My experience graph
November 5th was spent at Build Conference hosted in Belfast at the Waterfront Studio created by a one-man epic event making machine Andy (Good) McMillan. Andy has been organising many events for the web community, but Build was his biggest undertaking and he absolutely over-delivered in every aspect – this was especially evident when he got a standing ovation at the end of the conference day.
Building a better web is absolutely what I took away from the event, each of the six speakers were engaging and informative and the day continued to get better and better, my experience graph represents what I feel I took away from each of the fantastic presentations.
Photo by Paddy Donnelly
Build was more than just a conference as there were a host of fringe events from an Objectified screening and an evening with Airside to a Flickr meetup and plenty of social outings for dinner and drinks.
Design by Front have written a great Build Conference Recap which describes each of the individual presentations during the day, Build was featured on Wired, BBC and was even given a unique Gowalla badge.
I spoke to so many awesome people in Belfast including: Andy McMillan Tim Van Damme Eric Meyer Andy Budd David Parsons Jason Cale Mark Boulton Chris & Nic – The Standardistas Inayaili de León Jack Osborne Maykel Loomans Si Jobling Trevor Morris Ryan Sims Wilson Miner Eamonn Murphy Sean Delaney Paddy Donnelly Lee Munroe & Nik Fletcher to name but a few.
Ultimate web geek breakfast
Photo by David Parsons
Other highlights included:
- Guinness. Enough said.
- Sneaking into the Standardistas workshop in the afternoon with Andy McMillan.
- Tim doing a fantastic Steve Ballmer impression to kick off the day.
- Getting called a jackass by Tim during his presentation.
- Getting a fake moustache from David Parsons for Movember. Cheeky bastard.
- Gowalla spot creation racing.
- Brief Trip around the Ulster Museum.
- Getting delayed by 2 hours on the way home. Oh wait, not a highlight.
I thouroughly enjoyed Build Conference though, I took so much away from the day itself and the many discussions I had with some really great people who are so excited about this industry we are in. Andy put on hands-down the best web event I have attended and others such as FOWD and @media will really have to sit up and take notice as there is a big new player in town. I’m looking forward to the 2010 event already, you should be too.
Additional Reading:
- #buildconf – Web Designer Notebook
- Built – Web Standardistas
