Brian Fling Brian does the Andrew Sisters
By Ben Kepes,
Brian Fling is an authority in the field of in mobile user experience and designing for multiple contexts. He has worked with hundreds of businesses from early stage start-ups to Fortune 50 companies to leverage a variety of mediums, like mobile devices, to design for the needs and contexts of real people.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADOCkFuqyQ8What an introduction...
Actually (and sorry to anyone that disagrees) but Brian was crap. He rambled, he used old and outdated slides, he said little of relevance and he left the audience wishing he's shut up and let us get out to morning tea and the free ice-cream.
Last year Bruce Sterling was annoying and contentious, but at least he said something. Fling? Meh, I'm over it....
Comments
alastair thomspon
I thought it was a useful cautionary tale about the dangers of basing business models online. That stuff was news to me even if not everybody.
Matt Cooney
Yep, there was some good stuff in there. I thought Brian took a bit of a punt with his rhetorical device—just what is this speech going to be about?—and for some of us, it didn't really work. He’s clearly an articulate speaker who knows his stuff, and the frustration was the feeling that we didn't get the best of Brian. I'd love to catch him on a good day (and hear his workshop was really good).
It would be a pity to let this detract from what was a really enjoyable and though-provoking day 1 of Webstock 2010. Bring on the Friday session …
brenda
I think Brian took a punt on his style of delivery, and maybe he missed the mark for this audience.
However I enjoyed his presentation, he covered a lot of points while pretending not to be making them and he was entertaining.
OK so he didn't talk too much about designing for mobile devices but FFS what did you expect, a “how to”?
Kudos to @fling I say and pull your head in Ben.
Ben Kepes
@Brenda - fair enough, I guess I deserved that one. For the record, and for what it's worth, I stand by my statement that I thought Brian dropped the ball on this one. That said I've had numerous people comment that his workshop was excellent, I had an extended chat with him at the Onyas and I'll accept the fact that my rant was a little, shall we say *tough*.
Webstock sets such an incredibly high bar, it truly is one of the best conferences in the world (and, FWIW, I go to a LOT of conferences) and when a presentation or two fail to meet that high standard we're all left feeling a little aggrieved.
So there you go, Brian, despite being justified in doing so, bears no grudges. Webstock as a whole was awesome, the Twitterverse has dropped this issue and is now concentrating on Tiger Woods' press conference and, after three hours sleep post the Onyas, I'm putting this one to bed.
Word out…
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