My MIX11 Recap: Day 1
With the pre-con day being somewhat underwhelming, the hopes were high for some energy from the keynote to get MIX11 truly started. In the end it not only failed to energize the crowd (judging by the comments on the hallways and on Twitter afterwards), but it also didn’t take the chance to reiterate a message that some commentators of the “Standards-based web, plug-ins and Silverlight” blog post seem to have missed (quote): “Neither plug-ins nor standards-based approaches, however, represent the single answer to client development”.
Obviously Microsoft has to tout their capabilities in the shiny new world of HTML5, but I think it’s a huge mistake to let it happen that Silverlight is declared dead by people who have no idea how tough it is in the enterprise to roll out a new browser. Maybe these people also think that the IT departments are simply too dumb or lazy and that their fear of breaking mission-critical web applications from the IE6/7-era is completely unfounded.
Session: HTML5 for Silverlight Developers
Being a Silverlight developer, this session sounded like something I should attend - and it was. While not being perfect in terms of presentation (too many apples and oranges comparisons between HTML5 and Silverlight for my taste), it was interesting to see where HTML5 is today and were it is currently lacking.
Session: Fonts, Form and Function: A Primer on Digital Typography
Robby Ingebretsen rocks, period. Passion, competence and great presentation skills. Watch the video!
Session: Inspiring UX - UX Lightning Series
Four speakers, ten minutes each, slides advancing automatically. This sounded like an interesting concept and as user experience (UX) is an important part of my daily work, I thought this session would by worth checking out.
- Why is that monkey wearing no pants?
- 21st Century Design
- Goodbye Mouse, Hello Touch
- Lessons in Design
After hearing these “presentation-lets”, I only had one wish: MORE! Others had the same feeling and Twitter exploded with praise, leading to crammed rooms during the other sessions of the UX Lightning Series in the following days.
Ask the Experts
Known from other conferences but this time with a “speed dating” twist and prepared questions as conversation starters, this simply didn’t work for me. I was hungry and wanted something to eat but food was only available at the (full) experts tables. And the Elvis-impersonator abusing the microphone didn’t help either. Let’s put is this way: I left the building before Elvis.
Next up: My MIX11 Recap: Day 2