Webstock is one of those events I have always wanted to attend, ever since it started when I was at Xero. But for some reason or other I never managed to make it.
This year I finally sorted my shit and made it and I was blown away! (and now regret not find the time to attend the previous 7!)
I was blown away because of the way the event was run and the awesome quality of speakers.
As I reflect the speakers were so different to what I normally see at conferences I attend for a raft of reasons, but the reasons that stick in my mind are:
- They were experts in their field and talked with authority
- They all had simple and beautiful slides, that augmented the presentation, but weren’t the presentation
- They all told a story rather than presenting facts
- They talked with passion
- They all made me laugh
The guts of Webstock14 was interesting. I was expecting web geek tech stuff with a bit of design, what I got was commentary of how the web tech geek is effecting our world. The major underlying themes for me were:
- The US govt is evil and big brother is watching
- Venture Capitalists are evil and massive growth is not an ethical or sustainable business model
- If you have a choice choose making something that will make a difference in the word some how
And the final confusing one:
- Fail fast / keep going to you make it / never stop / quit often / everything should be driven by data / use gut feel first / ship early / ship right
There were some great quotes throughout the speeches, but my favourite has to be:
“If not you, then who?”
If I had to describe Webstock via a simple comparison, to me it is more TED than TECHED
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