The photos in this post were taken with my iPhone, which doesn’t have a flash, and I find performs not so great indoors/in low light. Sorry for the blurriness.
WDN08 is over (for me, some are still out skiing), and I’m back home now. It was a great conference, with a really good line-up. I didn’t take the time to blog throughout, so I thought I’d put in a bit of a wrap-up post here.
I met lots of really great people, and got to make some great connections. The number one recurring question I had was “isn’t this expensive for a freelancer to attend?”. Yes. Yes it is. So, the theme of this post is “was it worth it?”
The Costs
I cheated a bit. In fact, I cut costs wherever I could. The biggest cost for me was conference registration, but a little known fact about me is that I’m a part-time graduate student. Thankfully, the good people at Web Directions offer a discounted student rate ($395) which is much better than the full rate ($895). Don’t get me wrong on this, I think that $895 is still good value — the speakers were top notch, the venue was great, and the food was amazing. It’s worth the 895 price tag, but I probably wouldn’t have been able to afford it at that rate. It’s like a brand new Mac Pro with dual 30 inch monitors — it’s worth every penny, but just outside of my realm of affordability.
I stayed with my friends @ Simon Fraser University for the first two nights that I was there (yay having friends in the big city!). I booked a room at a hotel downtown for the last night because I didn’t think I’d be in good shape for an hour’s drive after the Media Temple party. The conference hotel, even at the discounted conference rate, is far from the best deal in town, so I found an $80 a night alternative at a place I’ve stayed at before.
Other costs: meals, gas, parking and ferries. The ferry is never worth the money (bah, overpriced boat ride). Gas is just one of those things you can’t avoid — although I probably could have saved a little extra by using transit. Meals were no problem, there’s a pile of affordable dining options in downtown Vancouver.
Total cost for me was probably $600 bucks or so. That’s enough billable hours to make me give it serious thought.
The Benefits
The speakers at WDN08 were, on the whole, pretty good. I rarely find the knowledge gained from speakers to be the biggest advantage of attending a conference. Jeffrey Zeldman’s talk was entertaining and interesting, particularly because I’ve been doing a lot of writing lately about the history of web standards. Josh Williams’ talk was extremely relevant to my situation right now, and Josh is a super-friendly guy. Tara Hunt’s talk gave me a ton of ideas for stuff to try out (hopefully more on that in the future). I learned about some frameworks I had never heard of from Jonathan Snook, and Jared Spool is a super-entertaining speaker.
Eric Rodenbeck’s talk on Information Visualization was the one I was most looking forward to, and it didn’t disappoint. He gave some really interesting examples of projects that he and the folks at Stamen have worked on. I actually wasn’t really interested in Daniel Burka’s talk on UI case studies ahead of time, I just went to fill the time, but I really enjoyed seeing how he’s worked through the iterations of Digg’s designs.
So, while I started this section saying I don’t get a lot out of the speakers, this time around there were some big winners. From a business perspective, Josh Williams’ talk took it for me. From an ideas for future projects perspective, Tara Hunt wins. The award for living up to expectations goes to Eric Rodenbeck, and the award for pleasantly surprised by the content goes to Daniel Burka.
Intangibles
What is the best part of conference attendance for me? Glad you asked.
I got out of the house and got to interact with people in my industry, which I don’t get the opportunity to do on a day to day basis given my geography and company size. This leads to a flow of ideas, energy and inspiration for new and existing projects. The opportunity to meet folks who are local, and may be possible future collaborators is great. There may be some direct business leads that come of it, or there may not. Time will tell on that front.
Friendship & Camaraderie
Who knows if I’ll ever get to see or correspond with the people I met ever again? Maybe there’ll be a reunion at at WDN09, maybe not. I did get to meet people face to face who I’ve only met online previously. It was great to meet the guys at Opera, and the guys from Media Temple really made me want to switch hosts — without even a single sales pitch.
Will I do it Again?
Chances are (knock on wood) that I won’t qualify for the student rate next year, and who’s to say what my financial situation will be like (again, knock on wood). Given the resources, however, WDN is my conference of choice for keeping connected. Similar to some of my former co-workers. 
I had become somewhat disillusioned by the Internet industry. It’s really hard to stay enthusiastic about a business that is so up and down, and I honestly believed that I would never be able to work in another company given my intense dislike of corporate politics (and my inability to “play the game”). Meeting people at WDN from all walks of life, from huge companies (like Yahoo) to small companies (like Firewheel Design) who are all enthusiastic and passionate about what they do makes me happy. Thank you everyone.
