Add an eventGeekend 2011 schedule
Thursday 10th November 2011
-
Hackathon
-
Smart Stuff: Turning Your Passions Into A Podcast
by Cristen Conger
Join Cristen Conger and Jonathan Strickland, writers, bloggers and podcasters for the award winning website, HowStuffWorks.com, as they tell you about the journey from passion to podcast. In this keynote address, you’ll learn about the strategies HowStuffWorks.com employed when launching their podcasts that have kept them on the top of the iTunes charts since 2008. Co-hosts of Stuff Mom Never Told You and TechStuff, Cristen and Jonathan know how to make topics resonate with their audiences. Whether you want to cover topics that are technical or topical, learn how to find your podcast voice to engage curiosity and build a fan base.
Friday 11th November 2011
-
Drowning in Data? Make Google Analytics Work for You
by Tina Arnoldi
Data, data, and more data. The information in Google Analytics is overwhelming for techies and non-techies. Once installed, do you know where to look? Is your dashboard filled with cool reports that you never actually use? In this session, we’ll go through the information available, how to read the data, and ways to apply it. We’ll focus on the “bird’s-eye view” for senior management and the details important to development, marketing, and technology staff.
-
Knowing Is Half The Battle
by Erik Reagan and Bill S Kenney
Once upon a time we realized that we loved to create things. We decided to take a stab at doing this for a living, working for ourselves. Sure there have been risks and challenges, as well as a boatload of more work handling daily operations but we love it. We’ve become better at what we do by being able to understand all aspects of our business. If you’ve been thinking about taking the leap yourself, come chat with us in this informal presentation. We’ll share some of our greatest challenges, successes and discoveries we have learned over the past few years. Hopefully, when you walk out you’ll have a better idea if you’re ready to stop working for the man.
-
Viral Notes: Music Marketing & Social Media
by Chris Craft and Lamar Gillam
In this new music industry, the old rules of the game are collecting dust. If you’re a motivated independent artist today, there are platforms, marketing tools and services at your disposal that could help you gain a more digi-organic following. This session will discuss when, where, why, and how independent artists and labels can gain success by effectively leveraging these platforms, marketing tools and services.
-
Fulfilling People’s Needs Through Search
by MyCool King
Historically, Search has been about building content and links for Search engines. Now to be effective you have to be speaking to people. This talk covers persona development, integrated search, effective outreach link building, keyword research and presents tools to help with the scalability of each of these Search strategies.
-
Transmedia Storytelling: Connecting Consumers to Brands Through Modern Storytelling
From marketing to social media to branding, storytelling is the heart of communication, which is why transmedia storytelling has been named as one of the hottest trends of 2011. Brands such as Starbucks, Mattel and Old Spice have woven this modern storytelling approach into some of their most successful campaigns, proving that a well-told story resonates with audiences and connects consumers to brands. But what exactly is transmedia and how is it incorporated into a campaign? This session provides an understanding of transmedia as a storytelling and branding tool, debunks myths surrounding the technique, and looks at case studies that demonstrate successful implementation of transmedia to communicate a story or message.
-
Who’s Winning the Local Digital Audience War And Why
Did you know that local newspaper websites are generally the No. 1 trafficked sites in markets across the United States. That’s certainly true for most Morris markets. Michael Romaner has been leading Morris Communications’ digital operations for 16 years, based out of Augusta, Georgia. Before that, he was an award-winning reporter and editor. The digital operations at Morris have been leading the newspaper industry for many years. Michael is going to tell you why and how big those operations actually are, and also how little Morris DigitalWorks, of which he was founder and president, has been selling millions of dollars in publishing software around the world to some of the biggest players out there. Be prepared to be surprised.
-
Can Fans And Followers Pay For Your iPhone 5?
by Linus Olsson
Everything on the Internet is free. News is free. Information is free. Software is free. Distribution is free. And of course,media is free. Some of it is not entirely legal, but it’s free nevertheless. So how do bloggers, podcasters, developers and other creators get paid? Increasingly, through voluntary donations. Services like Vodo, Kickstarter and Flattr are helping a new breed of creators get paid by their fans and followers. This presentation looks at successful case studies and best practices for voluntary donations as a source of income for content creators
-
Make Search Engines Your B*#ch
Search engines are now your first impression. Patrick Ambron, CEO and Co-Founder of BrandYourself, learned that the hard way when his college friend (and future business partner) couldn’t get a job because he was being mistaken for an ex-convict. Even if you have no negative content about you on the web, most people are still poorly represented in their search results. Patrick will walk you through humorous anecdotes of the most common categories people fall under in search engines: the negative category, the irrelevant category and the “hey that’s not me” category. And he’ll provide specific tactics so you can start improving results.
-
Web Design The Old School Way
by Josh Weston
A hands-on workshop experience that will ask participants to change the way they approach web design. Be ready to cut things out, draw and experiment.
-
Alternate Cloud Architectures with CouchDB
by Benjamin Young
Typically, Cloud apps are made up of three tiers: a web server, some business logic (in PHP, Python, Ruby, node.js, etc), and a database. We’ll take a look at what happens when your database is also a web server. CouchDB opens up unique architectural and design options that promote fault tolerance, decentralization, and horizontal scaling. We’ll take a look at how CouchDB changes the Cloud architectural options providing a “local first” data model where a network connection becomes a value add to your app, not a mandatory requirement.
-
Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Kazoos
by Stephen Murray
Stephen Murray, President of America’s only plastic kazoo factory will share the history of the kazoo. Invented in America during the middle of the 19th Century, the kazoo is only one of a few American instruments. Stephen will demonstrate some historic kazoos and some of the cool new products that Kazoobie Kazoos produces, including the Wazoo, the Electric Kazoo, and the Kazobo. This presentation will end with everyone receiving a free kazoo and kazoo lesson.
-
Hip-Hop Meets the Digital Divide: What Start-Ups Can Learn From The Music Business
by Daddy-O
High degrees of uncertainty make up both Silicon Valley and the entertainment industry. Will my app be downloaded? Will my song reach a high position on iTunes? Interestingly, and surprisingly enough, there are lessons in both to be captured. Are the music business and Silicon Valley “brothers from another mother?” We’ll explore these ideas and more with music technologist @professordaddyo, founder of Stetsasonic and Open Source Recordings.
-
Beyond Gamification: Designing Meaningful Interactions Through Game Design Thinking
Let’s face it. The hype surrounding gamification has reached critical mass in the marketing industry with the bulk of attention directed to points and badges as a panacea for customer engagement and loyalty. While these tools have their place in drafting an engagement plan, simply shaking on game mechanics does not create a compelling or valuable player experience. In this talk, we’ll tap into behavioral and motivational psychology and examine the techniques game designers use to incentivize and guide player actions. With this, we can arm ourselves with an effective model for architecting more meaningful interactions and successful business goals
-
Latest Trends in Application Development with the Foursquare API
by Chad Elkins and Adam Steinberg
In this session, see the latest trends in application development using the Foursquare API and learn how you can get started incorporating Foursquare into your own applications. Specifically, we’ll cover the most popular applications that utilize the Foursquare API, including examples from American Express, Starwood and Instagram; examples of ways to build unique applications and campaigns with the Foursquare API; and how to start building your own applications with Foursquare’s API.
-
Wonderful Mayhem—The Agency Survival Guide
by Josh Barrett
We’ve all heard the cliché para-marketing phrase, “Let’s look at it from ten thousand feet.” I am no pilot, but I’ve managed to thrive in manic agency life for more than a decade and here’s my jilted, spot-on view on how it goes down—at sea level. How do we navigate the fickle maze of meeting client expectations? How do we maintain our creative integrity? What does that even mean? How do we transition from an order-taker to a creative partner? How do we stay stoked? What is the concept of creative sharing? What is the dreaded Territorias-creativeas? I can explain to my dad what an Art Director does, really. This is my 411 on how design, music, technology, lifestyle and attitude can foster creativity and create a pocket of daily inspiration that will keep you fresh for the long haul. We have the best gig going—and here’s why.
-
Friday Night Keynote With Baratunde Thurston of The Onion
by Baratunde
Geekend is proud to welcome Baratunde Thurston to the keynote stage. For the past four years, he’s helped bring one of America’s finest journalistic institutions into the future, serving as Director of Digital for The Onion. His political blog, appearances on cable talk shows, and experiments with new technologies have also helped put Baratunde on the map. This technology-loving stand-up comedian will share his unique perspective on the geek world and pop culture. Prepare to laugh and be entertained. We can’t think of a better way to close out our Friday.
Saturday 12th November 2011
-
Get Technical with GM
by Vijay Iyer and Jussi Timonen
Ever wanted an inside peak of how GM brings ideas and concepts into the real world? Curious about global product creation and integration? How about the future of urban mobility? Join GM’s Jussi Timonen, Creative Designer, and Vijay Iyer, Vice President, OnStar Communications, as they provide personal insights on their respective functions and how they keep GM on the cutting edge of technology.
-
Going to Mobile: Repurposing Your Existing Work
Are you a designer wanting to showcase your work on a mobile device or show off your designs on a tablet? Multi-purposed designs are today’s digital recycling program. Learn how to take your existing pieces from familiar design software—Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign—and enhance them for mobile utilizing simple techniques. Your design does not end with print. It is just beginning.
-
Post-PC Marketing: Engaging People on Connected Devices
Smartphones and tablets have erupted on to the scene. Consumers are adopting these new technologies, and this rapid pace of change in media consumption and creation has left many marketers reeling. This session will make use of a custom study and other research to debunk common smartphone and tablet marketing myths, discuss insights gathered from our study, and leave attendees with firm strategies to integrate these devices seamlessly, and correctly into marketing plans. Other connected devices that are becoming more important to marketers such as video game consoles and automobiles will also be discussed to explore the longer-term future of the space.
-
Developing For The Web, On The Web
by Matt Pardee
It is happening: writing all your code in the browser. Whether you write HTML5, Javascript, Node.JS, Python, PHP or Ruby, you can now do this online. In this presentation, Cloud9 IDE developer and evangelist Matt Pardee will highlight the advantages of developing software in the Cloud, and how writing your code online is both fun and highly productive. With a development environment in the cloud, collaboration between developers takes on a whole new dimension. Pair programming, social coding, faster debugging, team management or reviewing code on your favorite mobile or tablet. It is all possible when your code is online. And when everything is online, testing and deploying to a cloud platform will be the natural next step. In this talk, we will visit all these different topics and why writing your code online will have massive benefits for all types of developers.
-
Geekend Mentors
by Jim Goodlett, Josh Jones and Nelson Wells
Bring your startup ideas, portfolios or general career oriented questions and join a five-minute one-on-one session with one of our mentors.
-
The Importance of Branding in an Era of Payments Convergence
by Pete Hottelet
Store. Retrieve. Report. Publish. Integrate. The modern desktop has grown to become a powerful means for simplifying your working life. Hyper-efficient at storing and retrieving data of all kinds while easy to program, the desktop database now easily integrates the web and other office systems. In this session, we will show the powerful yet simple methods for storing, manipulating and retrieving data. Learn to create workflows that integrate your database with Adobe Creative Suite and Microsoft Office. Then share content using custom batch emails or publish to the web and social network sites.
-
Cross-Platform Native Applications With Titanium Mobile
In this session, web developers will be introduced to the Appcelerator Titanium platform, which allows developers to build native mobile apps (iOS, Android, and BlackBerry) using JavaScript, HTML and CSS. Rapidly develop and deploy apps that are more social, local, media rich, interactive and extensible across multiple platforms with your web development skills. Learn about the architecture of the platform and explore a number of sample apps, from “Hello World” to more complex apps showcasing Titanium’s capabilities for mobile (demos and code walkthrough).
-
Distributed Teams and the Modern Company: Matters of Trust
Distributed teams and the modern company: is this the new way of getting a business off the ground? Is this the new way to grow an organization when the local talent pool isn’t sufficient? If not nearby, you can get what you need (talent, skill, experience, etc.) elsewhere and still reach success. But there’s a catch. How do you build trust among a team when they’re rarely together?
-
The Glass House: Zuckerberg’s Vision for Transparency
by Clay Duda and Noah Echols
The headlines tell us that privacy is dead. They tell us to watch carefully what we post to Facebook and Twitter but is that really true? Facebook has pushed the privacy bar with each of its major site changes, asking its users to evolve socially. With the exception of a loud minority that erupts in temporary protest after each new addition, society has generally adapted. All the while niche sites like 4chan cling to anonymity. So who is right and why? Which is more beneficial for society: transparency and accountability, or freedom and anonymity?
-
Case Study: Turning Dr. Seuss’s Classic Books into Digital Book Apps
Join Michel Kripalani to learn how Oceanhouse Media secured the rights to become Dr. Seuss’s digital publisher and bring all classic 44 Seuss titles to the app market. Michel will highlight the steps taken to adapt these beloved books into interactive digital book apps that encourage reading and literacy, all along staying true to the original content of Dr. Seuss. From his beginnings as a video game pioneer to running one of the most prolific children’s app businesses on the App Store, Michel will detail what it is like to be involved with cutting edge ventures time and time again.
-
Don’t Let Your Baby Die!
by Wolf Becvar
Marketing is the hardest part of running a web app business, because there is much more to it than an innovative idea or technical knowledge. To put it simply, without marketing no one cares about your great idea or your cool new service. Marketing is not about selling anymore. It‘s all about communicating and connecting with your audience, adding value and involvement. But first you have to create a lively and expressive brand identity. This presentation is about branding and marketing a web app and should function as an interactive, hands-on session, packed with strategy tips and best practice examples.
-
Making Facebook Relevant…Sell Global, Think Local
by Kathlene Hestir, Christien and Christina Blaisdell
Creating a Facebook Fan Page and buying ads is easy, but with Facebook’s universe now reaching more than 750 million members how do you dissect your audience and deliver relevant messages to your audience that will convert into sales? This panel will answer that question with discussions on various strategies and technologies being used by many brands to create a powerful social experience for their consumers.
- 1
- 2
Schedule incomplete?
Filter by Day
- Thursday 10th 2
- Friday 11th 16
- Saturday 12th 17