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