An Event Apart is a brilliantly inspiring conference series crafted by Jeffrey Zeldman and Eric Meyer that provides attendees with a deeper understanding of web standards and emerging best practices in web design and development. They’ve recently published the schedule and list of speakers for 2008, and I’m happy to say I’ll be sharing the stage with Zeldman, Meyer, and a host of Web luminaries in New Orleans.
Aarron Walter
An Event Apart New Orleans: Hear Me Speak
Support for Building Findable Websites
As I have been wrapping up the final chapters of the book, some really kind support has been coming in from some folks I hold in high esteem. When conceptualizing Building Findable Web Sites: Web Standards SEO and Beyond I had hoped to create a natural continuation of Peter Morville’s Ambient Findability and Jeffrey Zeldman’s Designing With Web Standards with plenty of practical, real-world-ready examples to illustrate what it takes to make web sites more findable using web standards best practices.
Building Findable Websites: Coming Feb 2008
As I’ve mentioned previously on this blog, I’m currently working on a book to be published by New Riders called Building Findable Web Sites: Web Standards SEO and Beyond. I’ve been teaching a course at The Art Institute of Atlanta called Findability, which teaches students practical solutions for creating findable web content that draws in viewers, and encourages repeat traffic. While researching and developing the course I realized that most of the conversation around the topic is either very theory focused with little practical advice or very SEO/marketing focused appealing to business-minded readers with little knowledge of the way web sites are planned and built.
SXSW Panel Picker Open: Place Your Vote
South By Southwest, the coolest Web conference on the planet that takes place annually in Austin, TX, has let loose it’s panel picker. Rather than creating a schedule of discussion panels and presentations that may not interest conference goers, the SXSW organizers have devised a democratic way for people to vote on what they want to hear discussed.
Guest Talk on Findability at Macquarium
I recently had the wonderful opportunity to speak to the folks at Macquarium, an award wining interactive design firm located in downtown Atlanta, GA. They do amazing work, and are cool people to boot. The title of my talk was Findability: the Common Thread, and it explored how Findability touches each step of the project lifecycle. With an audience filled with diverse talents in Information Architecture, development, design, copywriting, photography, Usability, Accessibility and project management, my goal was to provide everyone a relevant perspective on the topic and how it relates to the work they do everyday. Findability is the common thread in which all members of a professional web team share responsibility, and can ultimately help drive more traffic to a site, help people find what they were looking for once they’ve arrived, and bring them back again. The net result of an effective Findability initiative is increased ROI (title: return on investment) for the client, and a broader dissemination of their message.
Here are the slides and audio from the talk, which are also archived in the resources section.
I’m currently working on a book for New Riders titled Building Findable Web Sites: Web Standards SEO and Beyond that, as the title suggests, looks at Findability solutions from the developer’s perspective, providing code examples, and best practices. It will be released in February of 2008.
How to Convince Your Employer or Teacher to Adopt Web Standards
It can be a tough task trying to convince your boss that the company or department should adopt Web Standards when building projects. Change is often seen as time consuming, inconvenient, tedious, expensive, and not worth the effort. Chances are that if you are trying to make the case to follow Web Standards to your boss by arguing from the “moral high ground” by saying “it’s the right thing to do”, you are not going to have much success. If you want to make real change in the industry, you have to speak to the bottom line: Profit.
Ben Chestnut of MailChimp.com Speaks at The Art Institute of Atlanta
Designer, Email Marketing guru, and co-founder of MailChimp.com, Ben Chestnut spoke to my Findability class in January offering some great advice for building successful email campaigns. Ben talked about what makes a good message subject line, and set us straight on the ethics of sending messages to customers. He is a wealth of knowledge on the subject as he is on the front lines daily building email campaigns, and helping hundreds of¬† Mail Chimp customers do the same. Ben’s lecture was video taped by Digital Film Production student Tammy Pasely and her film crew peers (many thanks guys).
Interview With Bill Flitter, Co-Founder of Pheedo.com
This past quarter I taught a class called Findability at The Art Institute of Atlanta, in which we explored practical strategies for how to build web sites that are findable, and will draw traffic back. You can take a look at some of the student projects that have come from this course in the teaching section of this site.
Bill Flitter, the co-founder of Pheedo gave an online interview for the class that fit nicely with our course conversations. Pheedo provides a number of RSS advertising services, delivering ads that are relevant to the content they accompany. Bill shared some interesting observations about how advertising in RSS offers a more personal and unique experience for consumers, and advertisers alike. Bill spoke via Skype, which was recorded and can be downloaded below.
