we05 done and dusted

Well, I'm just back from we05. I'll be blogging about this quite a bit over the next few days or weeks as my brain is full at the moment.

I was sitting on the plane on the way home thinking 'Cripes. I've forgotten everything that was talked about' and 'Who was that guy that said blah?' but I realised that I was just in overload mode and gradually my thoughts started to clear a bit.

It was a great conference not least by just being able to sit in the same room as all those digital heroes that I admire and read their blogs and whose books sit on my shelf (or more likely are spread out over the desk).

Fantastically, podcasts of most sessions are available to keep the experience alive and also to kick start the old brain 'oh yeah - that's what she said!', as well as share the love with you poor souls that could not attend.

Overall assessment? 90% good. There were a couple of disappointing sessions (more later) but that's probably the way it goes. Some speakers need to learn to slow down a bit (Tantek, Steve and John - you know who you are), or the conference organisers need to allow more time rather than cramming these excellent speakers into 30min 45mins blocks.

The actual conference organisation was excellent and very well-planned, keeping to schedule pretty much. Love the satchel and the free Sitepoint Firefox Secrets book. (Til now, I didn't know sitepoint was pretty much Australian - great stuff!)

Most memorable incident of course will always be the fire evacuation that happened right at the end of the second session with Tantek - the first caught on podcast we believe and flickerd! This incident was handled extremely well and we all filed out in an orderly manner - well done to the organisers for maintaining calm and for handing out water when we went back in. Turned out that building work next door caused dust to get into the airconditioning system and set off the alarms.

Unfortunately most of the rest of the conference was accompanied by various decibel levels of jackhammering from next door - but them's the breaks.

Flickr photos of we05 sessions and speakers are up, official and by everyone else. I love this photo of Eric sitting on the street with his laptop - he was probably blogging about the evacuation or something...

Best and most inspiring speakers? Molly Holzschlag, Jeffrey Veen, Eric Meyer (second session), Kelly Goto, Douglas Bowman.

But now, I must go have words with Steve Faulkner who made some disparaging remarks about Dreamweaver in his session that I must correct...