Making the most of @media

June 12th, 2005 · events, Web 25 comments

As I was heading down to London for @media 2005, I managed to make the most of it by fitting in some other meet-ups as well. I’ve had an utterly fantastic time! But now that @media has come to a close, I think it’s far from over. Let’s continue to make the most of it.

I think I’ll just write a little overview for now. A full run-down of the last week’s events is beyond my capacities at this moment in time!

Making the most of socialising

I’m still a little tired from having been one of the Magnificent @media Seven: the seven most hardcore conference-goers who stayed up until gone 5am on Friday night making the most of the @media wind-down. A big thanks to the lovely Molly, Norm, Patrick, Jeroen, Ellen and Alex for a wonderful evening. An extra shout to Derek who also fought valiantly through the night, but didn’t quite make it all the way through to 5am.

Both wind-down and @media Party were great. I met loads of people, some I’d met before and was great to see again, some who are big names in our industry, some that I didn’t realise were even going to be there! I would put out further shouts, but I’d be here all night. Perhaps I’ll save that for another post, but I will say that it was bloody brilliant to meet every one of you. I just wish there was more time to meet even more people!

Making the most of the trip to London

Never one to miss out on the chance to put faces to names, I arrived in London on Tuesday to make it to a Web Accessibility seminar hosted by the BCS where I met Mike Davies and Grant Broome for the first time.

I’d planned to meet up with Mike again the next day to go camera shopping – I didn’t want to be the only one at @media without one! Alas, I ended up not having enough time before a meeting with a client, so I was camera-less for the conference (hence, I’m particularly thankful for Flickr).

On the Wednesday night, Patrick Lauke and I managed to catch a sly pint with Trenton Moss of Webcredible before heading out for Patrick’s birthday drinks in SoHo with people (a few from Accessify Forum).

Making the most of ourselves

It may sound soppy, but I left @media with far more than I arrived with and many new friends. The event was fab, the speakers were great and everyone was just so approachable and down-to-earth.

Thinking of making the most of @media, I’m really looking forward to seeing everything that’s to come out of the conference. I think it provided a great opportunity for growth and for collaboration. @media may have come to a close, but I think it is far from over.

I love events like this. I’ve been to several business conferences before, but this last week has been the first time I’ve been to a conference where I can say that I’ve really felt like I was among peers. Everyone at @media had a passion for the Web and a vision of what it could become and that made it really interesting and fun. I think everyone who went to @media has something to offer and I completely agree with Molly’s sentiments – let’s keep the momentum going and make the most of it!

Bloody brilliant

I think everyone who attended will agree that @media 2005 was a fantastic success. Patrick Griffiths – you should be very proud of yourself! You’ve done an absolutely stellar job with @media. I’m really looking forward to next year!

The buzz

There are already loads of photos going up on Flickr. Check out the @media Flickr group for a taster.

Also, reading around other peoples’ write-ups is interesting. Reading the blog entries and the subsequent comments, I’m really noticing what I’ve started calling “the Derek Featherstone observation” – I’ve started hearing voices!