First and foremost, I thank every single person on the planning committee. It took a tremendous amount of work to pull everything together for the conference, and Penn State is incredibly lucky to have such a professional, dedicated, and hard working committee in place. I'll let you in on a little secret...the committee had a lot of fun planning the conference. The personalities of the individuals are quite divergent, and yet we all came together to make your experience the best we knew how...and had quite a few laughs along the way.

I'd also like to thank all of the presenters. Wow, what a fabulous job you all did! I was amazed and impressed by the quality and relevance of the proposals we received, which allowed us to put together an informative and very special agenda for both days.

A special thanks go out to the committed speakers from other higher education institutions, as well as Kevin Morooney. Your thoughts and insights brought a tremendous amount of value to the Penn State web development community and got us to thinking about how things might be done differently.

And what can I say about Steve Krug? I could listen to him talk all day! Hmmm...perhaps that means I should take his all day workshop some day. I feel really blessed that I had the opportunity to visit with him for a short while. Not only is he intelligent and a wonderful speaker, he is a genuinely nice man. And yes, he is humble (and one cool dude)!

Finally, I'd like to thank the wonderful staff at the Penn Stater and Business Building. Your support behind the scenes made everything run smoothly...which not only made us look good, it also gave us the confidence to try new things.

So many ideas came out of the topics that were discussed at the conference. We have some thoughts about how to continue the momentum that we hope was started there. Stay tuned...

P.

The committee has been working hard on all of the last minute details in order to bring to you two days of informative presentations and other fun activities. I find it incredibly gratifying when we reach this point. The decisions have been made. The attendees have registered. The presenters have planned and practiced, and the Penn Stater and Business Buildings have our event needs on their schedules. We are now creating name tags, filling conference bags, and generally getting ready for you.

If you have registered, you should receive an email before the end of the week that will provide many details for the conference and tutorials. Hopefully, it will include everything that you will need or want to know.

We are all looking forward to our big day next week, and we hope you are as well!

P.

Even with his keynote presentation beginning at 9:00 on the morning of the conference, he did not hesitate to say yes to doing a book signing from 8:00 until 8:30. How cool is that? The Penn State Bookstore will be on location with his books available for purchase (not to mention that they are giving attendees a 20 percent discount on the books our presenters recommended all day).

After his keynote presentation, Steve will provide a breakout session where he will demonstrate how to do a usability test. Once again, way cool! We are truly fortunate that he has not only agreed to come to Penn State for a keynote address, but also to give us more in depth insight into the nuts and bolts of usability testing.

When I attended “An Event Apart” in New Orleans last month, Jeffrey Zeldman asked me who would be our keynote speaker. When he heard it was Steve Krug, his immediate response was that we were really going to enjoy him. Later on, I re-introduced myself to Jeffrey Veen. He also asked about our keynote, and again, sang Steve Krug's praises. I was already excitedly anticipating his presentation, and these comments just added fuel to the fire.

If you haven't registered for the conference yet, head on over to http://webconference.psu.edu/ and register today. The excitement is building within the conference planning committee because we know just how special it will be to have Steve Krug with us, even for just a short time.

P.

The last couple of weeks have been very busy for the committee. We have been making the final edits and updates to the information on the conference Web site, and for the printed program you will receive when you register on the morning of the conference.

We continue to finalize the details for the conference and tutorial venues. We work closely with the Penn Stater personnel to make sure that all of your physical, dietary, and technical needs are planned out for the conference day. We will also be working with the Business Building and a caterer to prepare for for all needs on June 10. It takes a great deal of foresight and sometimes improvisation to insure that everything runs as expected for such a large number of people as attend the conference.

We are looking forward to seeing all of our planning and work come together. We are only about a month out from the conference, which in some ways doesn't seem possible. The year since the last conference has just flown by in a flurry of planning and activity. All in the hope that you will enjoy your time with us, learn a lot, and network with other like-minded eccentrics...I mean Web developers ;-)

P

It has been a long, and wonderful day for me at "An Event Apart" in New Orleans, and it is far from over. My day started out with breakfast and a terrific conversation with Jeffrey Zeldman. How fortunate was I that he chose to sit down beside me?

About thirty minutes later, I listened to his presentation that brought to mind the conversation Kevin Morooney had with Web developers at the last Web lunch. I'll give my interpretation of what he said that reminded me of Kevin's talk.

One topic his presentation touched on was how we as Web developers are not valued as much as we ought to be valued. He suggests that part of the problem may be created by the lack of standardized job or position titles for our field. Also, the Web community has many and varied ways to approach site development, which can effect the quality of each site. The qualifications to become a Web developer are not clear cut or prescribed in any way. A recent survey of Web developers indicated that about half had no training in their college careers that was related to Web development. Additionally, the image of a Web developer seems to have been harmed by the crash of the DotComs. As a result of these factors, among others, we are not valued as highly as say, an architect.

Kevin had some practical ideas of how we can go about changing how the Web is valued in our units. You can view a recording of his talk by visiting https://breeze.psu.edu/p78235580/.

After Jeffrey Zeldman's presentation, I happened to be standing in the coffee line with Jason Santa Maria. We had a nice conversation about Pennsylvania since he is originally from the Philadelphia area, and his brother went to Penn State. Jason's presentation on "The Design of Communication" was about an hour later, and I hope we will be lucky enough to talk him into visiting his home state in the future so that he can share his insights at the Web Conference.

Ok, so I'm having fun name dropping...I told you that I was having a wonderful day. I feel fortunate that in my position, I am able to travel to this conference. I'm listening to a number of potential keynote speakers and having a good time seeing how the conference is run.

I'll be back in State College next week...energized and ready for the final push for our Web Conference.

P

This year, a special networking opportunity that has been under consideration for several years will take the place of the reception at the conference. Following the town meeting, you may join with other conference attendees at your choice of several local restaurants to further the conversations of the day and extend the fun. We are calling this activity Restaurant Hops (sounds fun, doesn't it?).

The conference planning committee will make reservations for the group and provide a host or hostess, however the cost of dinner will be your responsibility.

There will be limited seats available at the various restaurants, based on their group size restrictions. The seats will be filled on a first-come-first-served basis. The restaurant choices will be listed on the registration form and where possible, a link will be made to their menus. We also hope to pull together a page on the conference site for this information.

We are looking into ways to provide transportation to the restaurants from the Penn Stater and back again. The registration form will ask you to indicate whether or not you will want to take advantage of this option. That will be the only way we'll know if it is needed, and the size of the van or bus.

We hope you will join in on the fun and sign up for a restaurant hop. We trust it will extend the day in a unique and fun way.

P.

The first difference you'll note is that the registration desk will have moved. No longer will you line up down the long hallway and try to figure out which line is for your last name. Instead, you'll visit the former hotel front desk, which is just inside and to the left of the spinning doors on the main level.

When you register, you will receive everything you will need for both the conference that day and the tutorial workshops on Tuesday (if you are participating). No need to re-register on Tuesday morning!

Once registered, you'll have the opportunity to experience a new aspect of the conference. We are starting the day off with our poster sessions, which will be set up in the Senate Suites. We have invited several vendors to display in that area as well, and will provide a breakfast break. The posters and vendor displays will also be available during the final breakout session of the day, just prior to our closing town meeting...for those of you who may be arriving later because you are coming from out of town, or who have a hard time rolling out of bed early in the morning.

The Web Conference planning committee felt that you might enjoy a more gentle and flexible start to your conference day. We hope you will take the opportunity to visit the Senate Suites, talk to the poster presenters and vendors, and enjoy some refreshments.

In my next post, I hope to tell you about a new networking activity that we will be organizing around the conference.

P

This year at the conference, you will see a noteworthy strengthening of the connection we have with the HighEdWebDev Conference. Not only will Dan and Mark be returning, we will have two new (to us) speakers from other higher education institutions who will present a session and/or a tutorial. Matt Winkel, Communications Officer for Web and New Media at The College of New Jersey will join us along with Steven Lewis, Web Manager and Information Security Coordinator at SUNY, Brockport. This fortunate circumstance brings a unique opportunity for all of the conference attendees to benefit from the diverse perspectives of individuals from other institutions.

To that end, we will be finishing our agenda a bit differently at the Web Conference this year. Instead of a regular closing keynote presentation, we will offer a town meeting with our colleagues from other higher education institutions, led by our own outstanding communicator and CIO, Kevin Morooney. The planning committee is thrilled by the prospect of allowing the conference attendees to drive the topics discussed by this diverse group!

Of course, this format will present some challenges and opportunities. We must trust that the attendees will be interested enough to either ask a question, or "write in" a question for us to pose to our panel. Based on the energy that I've seen at the end of the day in past years, I'm confident that this will not be a problem! We will also need to rearrange the setup of the room to facilitate the town meeting format. It should be very entertaining and has the potential to be incredibly fascinating.

P

The Program Committee met and reviewed each proposal, not only on its own merit, but also as its topic compared with the others proposed. Nothing we have done was more difficult than the necessary step of choosing which ones would not make the cut.

We found that we needed to take into consideration the results of the survey we sent, asking past attendees to let us know what topics were of most interest to them. It helped to give us some direction in differentiating between proposed sessions.

We had such an enthusiastic response to our call for proposals, we could have provided another half day of sessions. Unfortunately, this was not an option.

The option of adding more sessions concurrently was also rejected because we received a tremendous amount of feedback last year that having seven sessions to choose from was just too much. It wasn't fair to either our attendees or presenters.

While having so many proposals to choose from seems like a good problem to have, it is also challenging. We have to hope that our reputation doesn't take a hit because we did have to make so many really tough decisions.

My sincerest thanks to all who submitted a proposal. We need you to make the conference a success!

P

Several members of the Web Conference planning committee have heard Steve speak, and they all agree…we are in for a real treat! In researching information on him, I found him described as, “a genuinely humble guy,” “a usability guru,” and, “a Web Design God.” What a fascinating range of qualities!

We are gathering materials and information and expect to have formal announcements ready soon.

It is a wonderful day!

P

If you visit here over the next few months, you will get some sense of many of the changes in store for you if you attend the Web 2008 Conference. Probably the most obvious will be how and when the conference starts. We don’t have all of the details ironed out yet…but we heard you loud and clear that an 8:00 start time on Monday morning provided a rough ride last year. Something a bit more fluid is in the works, if we can pull it off…

This year, the Web Conference will see a number of changes. Some will be subtle, we hope. Those are the “behind the scenes” adjustments that the planning committee has made to try and have things run even more smoothly. Other changes may be quite obvious to those of you who have attended the conference in past years. Most modifications are a result of the feedback we received on your evaluation forms. We really do listen!

P

The planning committee was fortunate this year that we had several excellent options to choose from when selecting the keynote speaker. We hope this portends well for future years!

We started the keynote search about a month after the conference last June. We began by brainstorming about who might provide a presentation that would be of wide appeal to our diverse group of Web professionals. Several feelers were sent to potential speakers to inquire as to their interest and availability, as well as to request information on their fee structure.

About half of those we contacted charged more than our budget could handle without significantly raising the conference registration fee. A small number did not respond to our inquiries. Others were not available during our time frame, which has been a real challenge in the past (a large Web conference has been scheduled in London within a day or two of our conference in the last few years).

This year, we have a verbal commitment from yet another speaker who has been part of a select group who has sat atop our wish list for the last few years. We are so excited, and can hardly wait to get the word out! When we get things signed, sealed and delivered, you will definitely be hearing more about it.

The closing keynote speaker selection is a slightly different animal which I will write about on another day...

The Penn State Web Conference has become my new baby. Well, it is more like my new adolescent ;-/ I inherited the coordination of an event that is well run, and well received. My intention is to keep the positive momentum while also pushing toward new frontiers, so to speak. The committee will reign me in if my ideas stray too far off of the beaten path.

The energy of the Web Conference Committee is contagious. Our meetings have been intense, yet fun and exciting. We have so many new ideas...the possibilities are endless (though the budget is not). We will take it one step, or one year at a time.

We hope to have a big announcement soon...

As the conference chair, I am open to discussing ideas for how to improve the conference. We realize that there are many ways to do what we do.

In any case, I wish you all a Happy New Year. Really...

P

Wishful thinking is meant to be a positive, reflective title. I like to believe that just about all things are possible until the last option is attempted. I hope that the writings here will reflect that mind set.

Happy blog surfing. Or blurfing, as it were...