Today was day two of An Event Apart DC and I opened up the show. I was very nervous because this was a brand new talk. I wasn’t sure whether I would come in way under time, or way over time, or whether anybody would be interested in the subject matter.
As it turned out, the timing was okay. I got through a lot of stuff faster than I was expecting, so that left me time for a good ol’ rant towards the end of the talk. I ranted about progressive enhancement. I ranted about digital preservation. I ranted about “the cloud”. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that people think I’m an angry person (I’m really not; honest).
It seemed like people really enjoyed the talk. There were lots of positive tweets and lots of people came up to me to tell me how much they enjoyed the “big picture” nature of my talk. But I’m not going to be complacent about it: a few years ago at An Event Apart in Boston I gave a less technical talk than usual and it seemed like people really liked it (positive tweets, kind words, etc.) …but then when the feedback surveys were totted up, I ended up getting the lowest rank I had ever received. So time will tell what the audience really thought of my talk today.
In any case, I enjoyed it. As usual, I just got up on stage and geeked out for an hour to a captive audience about stuff that really excites me. How cool is that?
I was glad to have the talk done. Afterwards I could relax and enjoy all the other talks, and have a bit of a chat with some of the smart and friendly attendees.
Now that the conference is over, it’s time for me to depart Alexandria. Next stop: Philadelphia.