Nathan's ... ...

@Webstock 2011, YOU ARE F***ING AWESOME!!!

About 2 months ago, I wrote a blog post about why I was going to Webstock (shame on you if you didn’t read it). After 2.5 days Webstock 2011 I need to confess that I was wrong, because Webstock isn’t the best conference in this country. It’s the best in the world. (for the ones don’t know who Jason was, shame on you too)

One of the message this year for me is about “Being Human”. From the very first talk by Frank Chimero’s The Digital Campfire to Doug Bowman (@stop)’s Delivering Delight or from Kristina Halvorson’s Content/Communication to Jason Santa Maria’s The Web Typography. They are all about “Making Technology Human”. And speaking of being human, what could be even more human than having 3 sign language interpreters live translate ever single talk during the entire conference, you just can’t fucking top that!!!

The other message resonate the most with me is “Just Go Fucking Do It”.  It all started the Instapaper guy Marco Arment taking about “Do Your Own Fucking Thing”, followed by Jason Cohen’s “A Geek Shifts Through The Fucking Bullshit” and lastly Michael Lopp’s “Engineer, Designer and Dictator” (basically how you fucking do it). I know there is a lot of “fucking”, just couldn’t help it. “Human Being” swears, right?

What’s unreal (extremely cool) about Webstock is you get a chance to talk to these world class, ass kicking individuals in person. It’s probably not a big deal to most people, but considering I’ve been following their ass online for ages, they are like “GOD” to me (not that I am religious, but you get the point). I talked to John Gruber @gruber, huge fan of Daring Fireball and The Talk Show. I talked to Jason Cohen @asmartbear, Jason taught me tons of stuff. I also talked to Nicole Sullivan @stubbornella, she’s the chick optimised the CSS for Facebook and Salesforce. Totally sick right? and she likes my shirt, which is awesome :-).

Did I mention @stop’s Delivering Delight? There are heaps of delights at Webstock this year. But the most subtle yet powerful delight is this pencil I found among the other Webstock swags.

Yep, “YOU ARE AWESOME”.

One of the goals of Webstock is to inspire. Tash @tashmahal, Mike @maupuia and the crews have certainly delivered a great conference. They’ve done Wellington proud. But would Wellington done them proud? I don’t know. But I believe, as long as one out of the 700 people at Webstock went away and done something with what they learned at Webstock, it would be enough!

So, thank you Webstock, thank you for everyone made Webstock 2011 possible. I will be coming back next year and I will be looking forward to meeting you all too.

Update: forgot to include this clip - Amanda Palmer & Jason Webley Perform at Civic Square

High Ropes Course & Startup Lessons

We got “tricked” to Oharui Farm this afternoon for the Activation Boot Camp 2. The reason I said tricked is there is a Live Wire High Ropes Course, which is the scariest thing I’ve done for a while. Also I was amazed by some start up lessons I leaned from doing the high ropes course.

Everything seems easy when you are watching others

Watching others doing the high ropes is pretty easy. All you gotta do is cheering, laughing and thinking “It would be totally sweet when I’m up there”. It’s the same as watching others starting up a business, especially when watching someone started a successful business. “It’s not a big deal, I had the same idea. I could totally do it if I chose to”. The reality is? you would know what the reality is once you started doing it.

The hardest part is when you start, especially the first few steps

I wasn’t expecting doing a push up on a beam 10 metres above the ground, I had a hard time even take my first step. I can see my leg shaking once I was up there. It was one of the moment when you body doesn’t want to listen to your mind. However, once I’ve done that and think again, it was the first few steps the hardest. Once you’ve done that, you will get through. Most start up business fail in the first couple of years. It’s the initial hurdle you need to get though. I’m not saying it will be absolutely blue sky after that, but it’s definitely the most challenging part.

It may take more than 1 try to get there

I was scared to death and had to give up at the first attempt. But the moment I got off the staple, I knew I would regret it for a very long time if I didn’t do this thing again. So I waited till everyone had their attempts and did it again. And this time, I walked from this end all the way to the other. I don’t know it’s the first failing experience made me stronger or I learned to trust the rope a bit more or the cheer from other activists got a bit louder. The fact is, I did it. So maybe your first startup failed for whatever reason, as long as you learn from it and do it again and again, there will be another chance to succeed

The reward is sweet

Sailing down from the beam felt great. But the accomplishment felt even greater. Starting up a company is not easy. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it. Expecting difficulties and struggles along the way, I am sure the victory will be sweet.

This is what a Chinese billionaire dressed like - Jack Ma, CEO of Alibaba Group

Alibaba Group has 20 billion Chinese Yen in the bank. As Jack said, “when you have millions, it’s your money. Once you reach billions, it’s not your money anymore. It’s the money of this whole society. You are just looking after the money for it”

Grandmother’s 80th birthday today

Huge celebration (said 470 people going to turn up), bummer we couldn’t make it. Horrible time management on my part, errrrrrrrrrr!!!

Happy 80th birthday 姥姥!