What I learned from Gary Vaynerchuk at FOWA

Gary Vaynerchuk – @garyvee – Wine Library TV.

• Just do it – don’t procrastinate
• Don’t be lazy – Stop watching LOST and get to work!
• Quit your dead end job and work at 7-11 while working on your dream.

Gary was very funny and inspiring! This was a great speech for the last one of the conference!

What I learned from Francisco Tolmasly at FOWA

Francisco Tolmasly – 280 North – How to create powerful web app user interfaces using Objective-J and Cappuccino

• Objective-J – Strict superset, no compiling, open source
• Cappuccino – Web app. framework
• Atlas – app. UI design made easy, uses redundant code used all the time in a UI. (eg. sliders, buttons). Out this summer, in alpha stage
• Makes iPhone apps. easy to start creating and other basic web functions – eg. RSS

What I learned from Joel Spolsky at FOWA

Joel Spolsky – Joel on Software – How to Achieve Tech Team Nirvana

• The smaller the team the better
• Productivity is mostly hurt by interruptions
• Having meetings after lunch – so people are more attentive (not hungary or previously doing something productive)
• Office equipment is very important for productivity – get a aeron chair, adjustable desk, two big external monitors, flowers in the bathroom, lots of food in the kitchen so they don’t leave for lunch everyday, eat lunch together as a group with long tables. The fewer the tables the better so that we all interact, etc.
• Treat your company and employees like a movie set

Joel showed pictures of his office and it is awesome! All employees should be treated like that!

What I learned from Aza Raskin at FOWA

Aza Raskin – Mozilla – Order from Chaos – Future of the web

People, tabs, and no maps in email? New web app. from Mozilla does this – Ubiquity – See the web the way you want to see it.

Ubiquity is useful for somethings, but basically takes the Google API – maps, translator, etc. to do certain things – putting a google map in an email, translating any text on a website from one language to another, replacing the Google logo with you own text (ex. Amy’s Web Search) and when you go back to google.com it will still be there.

What I learned from Kristina Halvorson at FOWA

Kristina Halvorson – Brain Traffic – Outside the interface: more words to worry about

Designing for content

• Keep a content inventory
• Create a style guide – doesn’t have to be a book – more like an outlined plan
• Track copy as it comes to you – don’t get rid of it because you could use it again.
• Use Wiki for a style guide
• Track what copy is needed when and check it off as it comes in using a Wiki so that everyone involved can participate

Kristina brought up a conversation with Ryan Carson about why there are barely any women doing speeches at these type of web conferences. I think that a lot of women out there in the web world that would speak at a web conference. I don’t know why any of them wouldn’t ask to speak at a conference, but most likely they are just too busy. Carsonified should start asking women to speak. I can think of some right off of the top of my head – iJustine or Gina Bianchini (co-founder and CEO of Ning).

What I learned from Joe Stump at FOWA

Joe Stump – Digg – Scaling your tech team

• Lower barriers – make it easy for people to use code, focus on specialties and specific areas.
• Communicate using tools such as Basecamp and Trac
• Pick your coding standards and conventions and stick with them
• Make sure to use SVN.
• Promote ownership – we are not experts in all areas
• Design using a whiteboard before starting – come up with names and code flow.
• Use a framework – Symfony, cakePHP, etc.
• Do unit and web based testing – Selenium does web based testing
• Document your code (ex. PHP documenter)

What I learned from Ben Galbraith & Dion Almaer at FOWA

Ben Galbraith – Mozilla & Dion Almaer – Google – What is the Future of the Browser?

Dion started ajaxian.com

Ajax and fast web apps. are the future of the browser along with:

• Canvas
• Fast Javascript
• Web Worker
• Desktop Integration – revolutionary technologies

There is a new Firefox web app. in the works called Bespin. It is a experiment they are conducting to build an extensible Web code editor using HTML 5.

What I learned from Jason Fried at FOWA

Future Of Web Apps 2009 – Miami, FL

Jason Fried of 37 Signals – Getting Real 2.0

• Focus more on business models, instead of programming, coding, etc.
• Make money off biproducts (ie. doing stuff on the side) can create more business. 37 Signals extracted Ruby on Rails from Basecamp. Screencasting of something you already do well – video tape how you code, etc. and sell it to people.
• No business should be free – they usually end up getting bought out and then never used again. (eg. iwantsandy.com)
• Share what you know and sell it
• Don’t pay attention to competitors, build your own.
• Before you hire do the job yourself. - Smart but not sure if it would work in all cases.