Have a Little Grease With Your UX

If I hadn't been so busy sucking down delicious ice cream, greasy onion rings and french fries, I might have wanted to take notes. Fortunately I didn't have to.

A Bit Frightening When Looked At Up Close

There was plenty of food, some of it scary food, available at the January San Diego UX Speakeasy meetup, along with a most edifying (the word seems to go along with "edible") discussion of the upcoming year's roundup of UX meetings and conferences.

For someone familiar with the world of User Experience conferences the slides flipping up on the overhead provided an opportunity to extoll the virtues of one vs. the other. We had people popping up and down taking turns talking about the best deals, the best experiences, the best after-conference parties, the best speakers from the past.

For someone not so familiar with the world of UX conferences it was enlightening to say the least. BIG conferences (Interaction 13 - alas sold out...; ConveyUX - looks cool, but seriously Not Cheap at $1195 registration), conferences just on mobile (MEX - ok, this one makes ConveyUX look cheap), wonderful conferences in wonderful places (SXSW - yes, I love Austin) and more wonderful places (CHI - I have a soft spot for Paris too), nicely specialized conferences (Design Research anyone? or Web Visions?).

Just for starters.

And then, there are those here in San Diego - some pretty cool conferences coming our way. Quite convenient for those of us at the meeting who for one reason or another can't constantly travel (although I'm often tempted). Interesting trivia pops up along the way: one conference was referred to as The Dolphin Conference; when I got home I couldn't remember its real name. But I'm pretty sure it is this one: Valio Con. Now if I could only remember *why* it has the cetacean nickname. Perhaps I didn't eat enough greasy french fries and onion rings to lubricate the memory neurons. Well... no, on second thought... ditch that gastronomic theory. I ate enough unhealthy food that night to last a lifetime.

Conferences with cool names and cool web pages: Aiga Y Design (your guess is as good as mine), and the obligatory surfboard portrayed for An Event Apart

and of course, to follow up on our wildly successful events of the past year, UX Speakeasy San Diego will be hosting UX Speakeasy Mobile Experience Conference - in the summerish timeframe. No website yet, but you can be assured I'll let you know. Our last two conferences sold out really fast - to our pleased surprise  - so we're plotting and planning our next adventure-in-conferences.

Meanwhile - if you are a member of the San Diego UX Speakeasy meetup, you can find a full listing of all the conferences we hunted down and spoke about posted in our meetup pages.

Kept My Distance From This One