What do you think is most exciting about how the tech / web industry has evolved and how it stands at the end of 2015?

I think the most exciting thing is the relentlessness and the speed of it, it has given everyone a glimpse of the possible and awakened the entrepreneur in us all. But MOST exciting of all, is the connectivity and the fact we can all communicate in instant time in such a variety of ways – so long as we have wifi or data.

If you could predict the thing that will dominate tech columns in 2016, what will it be?

Fintech, medical tech and transport tech

What single project are you most proud of?

The Festival of Code

Do you have a guilty secret ritual when it comes to watching films i.e. watching old Doctor Who episodes from behind the sofa or only watching Star Trek while participating in drinking games (these are not my guilty secrets btw! ~ grin!)

You can’t put Netflix and chill here (or if you print that people will laugh) but no – I do love a bit of bingewatching Netflix and duvet days.

Emma’s Talk:

The 97ers: Emma will be introducing you to the 97ers – a very interesting sub­category of millenials. She will talk about how they are learning, sharing, influencing and breaking things better for the children growing up in their wake.

You can see Emma’s talk at (R)Evolution on Friday 25th September at The Walker Theatre, Theatre Severn in Shrewsbury.

Tickets are still available and can be purchased from the dedicated conference website here: http://2015.shropgeek-revolution.co.uk/

The post (R)Evolution 2015 Speaker Interviews: Emma Mulqueeny appeared first on ShropGeek.

What do you do, day-to-day?

I’m a designer at Adobe Typekit, and mostly work on the web UI and UX. I also get to work on our integrations with Adobe apps. I spend around half my time coding also, recently I worked on updating our front-end to be more modular and easier to work on as well as making it responsive. I’m lucky that it is such a varied role and I have the opportunity to work on some many different great projects. My day-to-day routine varies depending on what projects we are working on but generally I’ll try and go to the gym in the morning before starting around 10. This means there is a bit more overlap in the evening with the most of the team in San Francisco. I work remotely from my home office in Bristol or sometimes from one of the many great local coffee shops.

How did you get where you are?

I studied typography at the University of Reading and whilst there taught myself how to code. Coming into web design from a type background put me in a really good position, as it isn’t the typical path. I also got into coding around the time responsive web design and CSS preprocessors were really taking off, so I didn’t have to unlearn table layouts and previous best practices. After I graduated I worked at fffunction in Bristol before joining Typekit.

If you could shape the future of your specialism, what are the first changes you’d make to the industry?

Well, hopefully I can! I’d like to think that the work we do at Typekit is helping to shape the future of how people access and use fonts. In an ideal world, the first changes I would make would be in font licensing. If licenses were more simple, more inclusive, and less limiting I believe that the type industry would be revolutionised. People need an easy way to get the fonts they want without worrying about what they can’t do with them.

Do you have a favourite B-Movie / Sci-fi tv show or film? if so, what?

I am a big fan of sci-fi films, especially the classic space ones — 2001 and Moon are both favourites of mine. I really enjoyed Interstellar recently too. I also love Shane Carruth’s films Primer and Upstream Color which are mind-bogglingly brilliant.

Do you have a guilty secret ritual when it comes to watching films?

Hmm, I wouldn’t say I feel guilty about it or that it is really a secret but I am currently working my way though Jake Gyllenhaal’s back catalogue. Before that I watched most of Ryan Goslings’. No shame.

Jake’s Talk:

The future(s) of typography: Find out how to time­ travel & teleport with typography and why we as web designers and developers have such an important role in shaping the future of communication.

You can see Jake’s talk at (R)Evolution on Friday 25th September at The Walker Theatre, Theatre Severn in Shrewsbury.

Tickets are still available and can be purchased from the dedicated conference website here: http://2015.shropgeek-revolution.co.uk/

The post (R)Evolution 2015 Speaker Interviews: Jake Giltsoff appeared first on ShropGeek.

What do you do, day-to-day?

I’m a freelance UX and product consultant. I make digital stuff better. I ask users what they want and help businesses meet those needs.

How did you get where you are?

I did and MSc in Human Computer Interaction about 12 years ago and got my first job in what was called usability and is now UX. I’ve been working with agencies and freelance ever since with clients like Glenfiddich, eBay, Marriott, University of Bristol, theTrainline and many others.

If you could shape the future of your specialism, what are the first changes you’d make to the industry?

UX is a process and is about getting results. Understanding what people want and designing to meet those needs. Where previously this has meant the design of the interface it needs to grow to be the design of the product and even the company or organisation behind that interface.

Creating a truly user focused company will make that company more successful. Basing a company on ideas dreamt up by by a bunch of men in a room is rather 1950s.

Start-ups and companies should be looking for unmet user needs and designing products to meet them rather than spending vast amounts of time and money marketing average products to people.

What single project are you most proud of?

My work over the years with the Trainline. Some of the basic design changes to the digital services meant we reduced waiting times to collect tickets at the station. Lots of other small changes like indicating busy trains, helping find cheaper tickets and just making train travel a little bit better.

If you could work on any project, for any company, anywhere in the world; what would it be?

I’d love to redesign the full customer experience for UK trains. Ticketing through to journey, online and on the train. It’s such an important service and it could be made so much better with very little investment.

Buying a train ticket on your phone on the bus on the way to the station. No need to collect a bit of paper, a seat reserved for you, a coffee ordered an brought to you in your seat. Simple changes that make the experience a little bit better.

Do you have a favourite B-Movie / Sci-fi tv show or film? if so, what?

It would be Starfleet, (or Go Nagai in it’s original Japanese incarnation) a wonderfully complex kids sc-fi show from the 80s. Huge robots, nasty baddies and a synth soundtrack to die for.

Joe’s Talk:

How to Design with Science without Loosing the Magic: We’ve all had that experience, that feeling when we poured our heart and soul into some UX or design work only for it to be not taken seriously, criticised or worse, ignored. How telling stories, understanding business, talking data & numbers and psychology can all be used together to get good design done. All the time making sure we don’t loose that magic inherent in great design.

You can see Joe’s talk at (R)Evolution on Friday 25th September at The Walker Theatre, Theatre Severn in Shrewsbury.

Tickets are still available and can be purchased from the dedicated conference website here: http://2015.shropgeek-revolution.co.uk/

The post (R)Evolution 2015 Speaker Interviews: Joe Leech appeared first on ShropGeek.

What single project are you most proud of?

At Stuff & Nonsense, we’ve worked on several client projects that made me proud, so it’s hard to narrow them down to one. It might be our design for Disney Store UK ten years ago that was the first major web standards based and accessible e-commerce store. Then our work on the Hillsborough Independent Panel website played an important role in telling the true story of what happened at Hillsborough. It could be the thing that I’m most proud of isn’t a client project, it’s my Contract Killer open source contract that’s been used by many, many designers and developers.

If you could work on any project, for any company, anywhere in the world; what would it be?

If you listen to my Unfinished Business podcast, you’ll know that if I could work on anything away from the web, it would be conservation of great apes, particularly gorillas. I’ve been a supporter of WWF for many years and ‘adopting’ a gorilla has been a regular present for me at Christmas. So I could not be more pleased that we’ve just been commissioned by WWF UK to redesign their adoption and donation pages. It’s a wonderful creative challenge for something that I care deeply about.

Do you have a favourite B-Movie / Sci-fi tv show or film? if so, what?

Of course, me being the second biggest Planet Of The Apes fan in the UK, I could say Planet Of The Apes, but I love sci-fi in general and in particular, 1960’s radioactive creature and giant monster movies like ‘Tarantula,’ ‘Them’ and ‘20 Million Miles To Earth.’

Andy’s Talk:

Creativity Over Predictability: Our industry has matured into something that’s very different from the almost joyfully naive, creative designer’s playground that it was when I started. While we focus our thoughts onto processes, methods and mechanics, instead of ideas, we’re losing the creative ‘soul’ of our work. I’m hopeful that all’s not lost and that we can make work that’s memorable if we focus as much on creativity as we do on implementation.

You can see Andy’s talk at (R)Evolution on Friday 25th September at The Walker Theatre, Theatre Severn in Shrewsbury.

Tickets are still available and can be purchased from the dedicated conference website here: http://2015.shropgeek-revolution.co.uk/

The post (R)Evolution 2015 Speaker Interviews: Andy Clarke appeared first on ShropGeek.

What do you do, day-to-day?

I’m technical director at Bath-based agency, Mud which I run with my partner-in-crime/co-director, Matt Powell. At a general level I oversee the development work of the company, make decisions on what technical tools we use and work closely with our development team. Day-to-day I’m usually elbows-deep in one CMS or another and attempting the impossible task of keeping up with our front-end developers.

How did you get where you are?

A long and rambling route. After finishing my PhD in archaeology I worked at a government agency as a landscape archaeologist. After a couple of years growing fed up digitising Ordnance Survey maps and staring at old aerial photos, I was looking for a change and my employer were looking to appoint their first web developer.I’d taught myself PHP during my studies and got the job after blagging I could build them a bespoke bilingual CMS. The rest was history.After two years there I moved to a digital agency in Edinburgh (as a senior designer, ha!) before going freelance in 2011.
We moved from Scotland to Somerset later that year and in 2013 I went into business with Matt, starting Mud.

What do you think is most exciting about how the tech / web industry has evolved and how it stands at the end of 2015?

Despite the evolution of our industry I love how at its core the web is fundamentally the same as it was when I first learned HTML. The techniques and tools have evolved but the underlying core remains. For example, if we look at the evolution of ideas like Responsive Web Design these are just simple extensions of the core tenets of progressive enhancement and accessible web design. These core principles will long outlive the latest trends and techniques.

Thankfully, otherwise I wouldn’t have a job anymore!

If you could predict the thing that will dominate tech columns in 2016, what will it be?

Data. Whether it is more data-driven stories or more detailed discussions on data-protection, ownership and privacy.

If you could shape the future of your specialism, what are the first changes you’d make to the industry

Slow. the. fuck. down. I wrote about this recently (http://cole007.net/blog/152/the-slow-web) but as an industry we dwell too much in the moment and are far too reactive. I’d like to see more widespread adoption of apprenticeships, drawing lessons from older industries and crafts to teach skills on-the-job for those starting out at a living wage. And compulsory time away from the screen for everybody!

What single project are you most proud of?

Apart from the afore-mentioned bilingual CMS (proud because I managed to build it), I think probably our job for the Warminster School (http://www.warminsterschool.org.uk/). It was a really tight turnaround but we spent a lot of time up-front on user research and got complete buy-in and trust from the client which I think shows in the end result. Also our recent launch of the new shop for the National Museums of Scotland (http://shop.nms.ac.uk/). Our front-end developers did a really great job and despite an uphill struggle with Shopify at times, I’m really delighted with the outcome.

If you could work on any project, for any company, anywhere in the world; what would it be?

So many decisions. As a Socialist I would have loved to work on the gov.uk site. I love how they have made something truly quite complex accessible, functional yet beautiful. Not a dream job but I’ve always wanted to redesign the Say no to 0870 site (http://www.saynoto0870.com/) – something that is really useful but looks like it was the illegitimate love child of Saved by The Bell and a dodgy copy of Windows 3.1. In terms of jobs that would make my heart sing, it would either be sports-related (a new website for Manchester United or the WRU) or music (something for 1 Giant Leap/Jamie Catto or Massive Attack).

Do you have a favourite B-Movie / Sci-fi tv show or film? if so, what?

Not a huge fan of sci-fi (and definitely not a B-Movie) but Blade Runner is one of my favourite films of all time. The music, acting and ambience of that film is utterly timeless.I also love the Tron films (even Tron:Legacy), and of course what self-respecting, scruffy-looking nerf-herder wouldn’t mention Star Wars (episodes IV-VI). For B-movies all the Hammer Horror films – the cheesier the better – and can’t go wrong with Tim Burton’s B-movies about B-movies (before he went a bit shit) Mars Attacks and Ed Wood.

Do you have a guilty secret ritual when it comes to watching films i.e. watching old Doctor Who episodes from behind the sofa or only watching Star Trek while participating in drinking games (these are not my guilty secrets btw! ~ grin!)

I’m a terrible popcorn scoffer. Definitely a handful-at-a-time kinda guy. One time my wife had to move seats to the other side of the cinema as she was so fed up of my noisy scoffing antics.

Cole’s Talk:

Choose your battles: tales from the front lines of a digital agency: Whether you are a freelancer or an agency ‘money’ can often be seen as a dirty word. A lot of us feel uncomfortable talking about money or charging accurately for our time. If we marry this with the constant need to adapt and learn as new technologies emerge it can be difficult to keep on top of running a business. Drawing on findings from the Freelance Rates survey and two years overseeing the technical delivery at successful digital agency Mud, this talk explores juggling the oft­ competing demands of purpose, profitability and play.

You can see Cole’s talk at (R)Evolution on Friday 25th September at The Walker Theatre, Theatre Severn in Shrewsbury.

Tickets are still available and can be purchased from the dedicated conference website here: http://2015.shropgeek-revolution.co.uk/

The post (R)Evolution 2015 Speaker Interviews: Cole Henley appeared first on ShropGeek.

What do you do, day-to-day?

I work as a freelance consultant and solutions architect – helping to understand people’s problems and needs, to turn those into solutions, and to explain any impacts in a way that is easily understood. It ranges from more specific technical architecture and integration projects, right through to higher-level digital strategy, process improvements, and transformation work. I often sit in between UX, business, and technical people, and work with everyone from little start-ups to clients including a college, a big travel company, an energy company, and a well-known bank.

How did you get where you are?

My first job in the industry was a placement year in the third year of my degree. I realised that I’d learnt much more by actually doing the job than I had on my ‘Internet Computing’ course, so decided to drop out, get the paperwork of a degree with Open University, but to carry on working full time. Initially I was a generic ‘Developer’ back before we had dedicated front and back-end teams, but as trends shifted I focused on the back-end, moving through the ranks and eventually managing the development team.

I’d started going to a lot of client meetings, and got to work closely with some of their technical teams, which made me realise that I enjoyed asking questions about what was possible and shaping solutions together rather than just delivering. My focus became more architectural and discovery-led before I eventually moved into a role as Head of Technology. This was a mix of internal management, making sure the right solutions were being proposed, and undertaking technical consultancy, which was the bit that I really loved. I worked alongside a Strategy team of UX and data consultants as well as the developers, helping to understand what people needed and what the options were to make this happen.

After 8 years agency-side and a move across the country later, I thought I’d “freelance until I found the right next proper job”… 3 years into my freelancing, a Limited company, and turning down several brilliant “proper job” opportunities later, I’m not sure that will happen any time soon!

What do you think is most exciting about how the tech / web industry has evolved and how it stands at the end of 2015?

My talk for the conference touches on this a little bit. I think that the evolution of technology and the web in general is fascinating, as it’s a mixture of planned and ‘natural’ evolution; the expected and unexpected. I love that no matter how you think something may be used, there will always be a great example of something else that you never predicted.

The web is all about evolution and it never really stands still, which can mean that things can be tricky – both in terms of our projects and keeping up as individuals. In that sense the future can seem quite daunting, but it can also bring lots of opportunities if you’re in a place where you’re ready and able to embrace it.

If you could predict the thing that will dominate tech columns in 2016, what will it be?

More predictions about what will be hot in 2016

I’m sure there will be the usual gadget lust/bashing when 2016’s latest Must Have thing comes out, and lots of chatter around how that impacts on creating for the web. I’m interested to see where concepts like wearables go now the Watch is well and truly out there – for me personally it still seems like a bit of a halfway house, and that we’re still too tied to traditional form.

A lot of the big discussions that we’ve had in recent years haven’t been entirely new, only amplified by context and events. The progressive enhancement chat, apps vs web, and whether UX/responsive/performance are killing design will all likely stick around for a while longer yet, but what I’d like to see is more discussion around the impact of the choices that we make when designing and building, and people sharing more about their decision making processes.

If you could shape the future of your specialism, what are the first changes you’d make to the industry?

Being freelance and working with lots of different people, I’m still amazed at how little work-life balance many of them have, and it’s this that I’d change. That’s not a problem exclusive to our industry, but it’s something that many places still do incredibly badly, and it’s a very damaging mentality for newcomers to be indoctrinated into.

What single project are you most proud of?

It’s not a single project, but of all time, I still look back most fondly on my work over the years as lead developer on projects for Electronic Arts. My first one was the Battlefield 2 site, and I think I worked on almost 20 other game title projects for them, which was brilliant not only because I’m a huge gamer, but because of the great relationship that we built up and the technical challenges that I got to play with.

I was working with a lot of in-game data, asking a lot of “could we do this instead..?” questions with regards to the APIs, and got to make tools that required lots of creative custom coding. I worked on a Flash site for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix with puzzles where the environment changed based on wand gestures, on several FIFA sites where we combined in-game and real Opta data, made a companion site for Burnout Paradise, and won some nice awards for Spore where we not only pulled out a massive amount of statistical data, but could recreate user-generated characters, allow people to grab PNGs, and import them directly into their game where they would then be fully editable. And then there was the incredibly simple brochure site for Mass Effect(s) and Dragon Age(s) which were amazing to work on simply because I love both titles.

Since I’ve gone freelance, I’m probably most proud of the direct consultancy work I have been doing with Inghams and their sister companies, because it spans technology, process improvements, lots of user experience work, and skiing!

If you could work on any project, for any company, anywhere in the world; what would it be?

I grew up in South East Asia and I’d love to do some work to give me an excuse to head to Singapore or Japan for a while. As you can see from my excited response above, I’d also absolutely love to get back into the gaming industry and to work on tie-ins between games and their online experiences. If anyone’s reading this wants to hire me to do exciting things, get in touch!

Do you have a favourite B-Movie / Sci-fi tv show or film? if so, what?

This is a pretty impossible question! I don’t think I can pick just one. My earliest memory of sci-fi was being shown the 1989 spoof film Lobster Man From Mars, which as a 5ish year old I found terrifying, but it didn’t put me off. I grew up on Star Wars, Flash Gordon, Superman, and all the classics (thanks, good parents), and my appetite for it has only grown over the years – I tried to deliberately read something other than sci-fi for a while earlier this year, but that resolve didn’t last long.

Do you have a guilty secret ritual when it comes to watching films i.e. watching old Doctor Who episodes from behind the sofa or only watching Star Trek while participating in drinking games (these are not my guilty secrets btw! ~ grin!)

There is something about the 20th Century Fox sequence that makes me sing along every time, but I can’t be alone in that. Can I?

Sally’s Talk:

All these moments will be lost in time: the web, the future, and us

As web professionals we’re used to hearing about the virtues of shipping fast and iterating regularly in order to meet changing needs, but how do we ensure that the projects that we’re planning now are still as relevant and robust when they launch in the future… and beyond? How do we prepare for the unknowns and constant shifts in technology; what can we do to progress the evolution of the web itself; and how do we, as individuals, ensure that our skills are as relevant as ever in this rapidly changing world?

In this talk we’ll look at past visions of the future, what we can learn from these lessons, and how to apply this in a practical sense to the work that we do.

You can see Sally’s talk at (R)Evolution on Friday 25th September at The Walker Theatre, Theatre Severn in Shrewsbury.

Tickets are still available and can be purchased from the dedicated conference website here: http://2015.shropgeek-revolution.co.uk/

The post (R)Evolution 2015 Speaker Interviews: Sally Jenkinson appeared first on ShropGeek.

What do you do, day-to-day?

Hmm. Good question. At the moment I’m working on lots of electronics projects, primarily servo drives for a 3D printer. But often I’m organising a large PixelPyros or Laser Light Synths install. Or just dealing with emails.

How did you get where you are?

I kinda fell into it. Which is a really dismissive and rather unhelpful answer coming from a position of huge privilege. But the long story is long, so maybe over drinks in Shropshire I’ll give you the full version.

What single project are you most proud of?

PixelPyros. It was the first really big thing I did and people seem to really like it.

If you could work on any project, for any company, anywhere in the world; what would it be?

I don’t really find it very easy to work for anyone else any more – I’m too used to working for myself. I’m a hard taskmaster for sure but it’s such a great luxury to be only working on things that you want to work on.

Do you have a favourite B-Movie / Sci-fi tv show or film? if so, what?

Really enjoying Humans at the moment.

Do you have a guilty secret ritual when it comes to watching films i.e. watching old Doctor Who episodes from behind the sofa or only watching Star Trek while participating in drinking games (these are not my guilty secrets btw! ~ grin!

None that immediately come to mind!

Seb’s Talk:

Playing with code: Venturing into the unknown is scary, but fun things happen when you try new things. Seb will show you that it’s rewarding to get out of your comfort zone and blur the boundaries between artist and coder. He’ll be talking about his recent experiments with lasers for his digital fireworks display, PixelPyros, and of course, expect some dangerous live demos.

You can see Seb’s talk at (R)Evolution on Friday 25th September at The Walker Theatre, Theatre Severn in Shrewsbury.

Tickets are still available and can be purchased from the dedicated conference website here: http://2015.shropgeek-revolution.co.uk/

The post (R)Evolution 2015 Speaker Interviews: Seb Lee-Delisle appeared first on ShropGeek.

In preparation for this years (R)Evolution conference we asked him a few questions.

What do you do, day-to-day?

I have the rather grand title of Head of Digital Transformation at the Office for National Statistics but primarily I act as the Product Manager for a small team that is rebuilding the ONS website. I’ve written and spoken a lot about the challenges involved in that over the last year or so. I also have wider responsibilities or involvement at ONS with things like open data provision, digital skills and social media.

I also spend a lot of time wrangling with procurement and recruitment issues.

How did you get where you are?

By accident like so many of my peers I guess. I did an English & History degree and was planning on being a teacher. That looked like a horribly stressful idea the nearer it came to reality and I read somewhere that being a Librarian was the least stressful profession. So I started to train as a Librarian at the University of the West of England in ’97 and basically got put in charge of a website or two because I showed an interest. Notepad, Netscape and FTP those were the days

Over time I moved around job to job mainly related to higher education and built up a little bit of know-how particularly around CMSs, usability, accessibility and then social media. I basically have just being doing this work so long I became semi-senior by default!

What single project are you most proud of?

I’m going to cheat as their our two close to my heart – the first was setting up a WordPress blog network at JISC http://jiscinvolve.org/wp/ to encourage projects to share their experiences (good and bad) and to be more transparent in general. This was back in 2007 and I love the fact that GDS encourage the same thing now with GOV.UK blogs https://www.blog.gov.uk/. At the time WordPress multi-site was barely an alpha itself so the project took some doing and I’m forever grateful to the team at Netsight who got it off the ground for me.

The second was the ONS Alpha project that we did the latter part of last year. Convincing a risk averse organisation like ours to support this project was amazing. We did an enormous amount of user research, completely reimagined the entire UX based on that work and then built something in just 12 weeks with each sprint being directly influenced by additional usability testing of what we had built. Then we just made it public and let everybody have their say. It was terrifying but also incredibly satisfying.

If you could work on any project, for any company, anywhere in the world; what would it be?

Probably not the most exciting answer but I’d love to work for 18F or the USDS – basically the equivalent of our own Government Digital Service in the United States. Partly this is because of a long standing West Wing obsession but also because I’m intrigued by their approach to bringing ‘talent’ in to help from big Internet companies like Facebook, Google, Twitter and beyond. It sometimes feels a little bit like the Real Madrid Galácticos approach https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gal%C3%A1cticos which every football fan knows never quite worked out so it would be interesting to see if it makes a difference.

Do you have a favourite B-Movie / Sci-fi tv show or film? if so, what?

God too many to count – I am a comic book collecting, sci-fi watching, B-movie viewing super geek.

I do have two framed movie posters on my wall – Veronica Mars and Serenity (Firefly) both signed by the cast. I even went to the premiere of Serenity at the Edinburgh film festival and I backed the Veronica Mars movie Kickstarter HEAVILY. So lets just say one of those.

Matt’s Talk:

The ‘Internet of Public Service’

You can see Matt’s talk at (R)Evolution on Friday 25th September at The Walker Theatre, Theatre Severn in Shrewsbury.

Tickets are still available and can be purchased from the dedicated conference website here: http://2015.shropgeek-revolution.co.uk/

The post (R)Evolution 2015 Speaker Interviews: Matt Jukes appeared first on ShropGeek.

We made this decision simply because of the time and effort involved to organise a conference of this scale. Every one of us that has been involved over the years has done so because we love the event and the community it supports, but we also all have full time jobs and have to do this over evenings and weekends. Organising a conference is a full-time job on its own, so fitting it around everything else leaves little time for sleep!

So why the last (R)Evolution and not just a break then?

As part of the promotion for this years conference, I’ve been attending as many other conferences and meet ups as I can get to / afford, and one question that keeps coming up: “Why is this the last one?”.

Zach and I started (R)Evolution back in 2009 for a number of reasons.

1. If you have attended (R)Evolution in the past, you will know that we always ask you to dedicate a drink to Dean (Leu) Thorne, co-founder of ShropGeek with Zach, who passed away in September 2008. Organising something more than just a monthly social was always his idea, so it seemed the perfect way to pay tribute to him.
2. At the time, there were very few web events outside of London and Brighton, and even fewer that were affordable for small businesses and freelancers. Basically, I got sick of travelling to conferences that cost a fortune!
3. Shropshire had a tendency to be overlooked by the larger digital community. An easy thing to do, because we are possibly the most rural county in the UK. So, we wanted to prove that Shropshire has a strong digital community of its own.

Basically, we have done everything we set out to do.

This year, we will have paid tribute to Leu on a large scale for six years and will continue to do so in other ways.

There are now hundreds of meet ups and conferences happening all year round all over the country, which is awesome and means I no longer have to travel so much to be inspired and meet super talented people (although I still enjoy my trips to both London and Brighton) so, Hurrah!

And, I’d like to think that we have now proven that Shropshire has an amazingly AWESOME digital community doing really cool and creative things.

Oh, and it turns out I really do like sleep!

Through (R)Evolution, we have achieved so much. We’ve seen the ShropGeek community grow and flourish. People have found jobs, new people to collaborate with, met new friends, learnt about new technologies and techniques and enjoyed EPIC after parties. There isn’t really any way we can top that, so now seems the perfect time to draw it to a close instead of just taking a break.

It has been an amazing and really fun journey. Personally I’ve met so many awesome people and seen first-hand how ShropGeek has helped others. It is incredibly satisfying to know that I had a part to play in that.

The end?

Not a chance. This is not the end of ShropGeek. Our monthly meet ups will still happen on the first Friday. We will also still be hosting Rebellion – our evenings of talks.

It is only the full-day conference that we will no longer host. (R)Evolution may be back in 2017 in a different format or someone else may decide to organise a web conference to take its place. The possibilities are endless!

Thank you’s

Over the years I’ve had a massive amount of help and support in organising these events and it wouldn’t be right not to thank everyone that has helped (if I miss anyone out please say!). So here goes…

Organisers, volunteers, promotional stuff!

Zach Beauvais, Pete White, Stina Jones, Martin Wright, Mike Hince, Emma Davis, Shari Thompson, Rebekah Harriman, Jamie Biddle, All of the guys in The Project WIP Team over the years, Vicky Cleaton, Heather Noble, Rob Maythorne, Jools Payne, Jo Gadsby, Hollie Whittles, Anil Amrit, Brian Fox, Richard Stonehouse and Orly Lyndon,

All of our speakers over 6 years:

Andrew Clarke, Seb Lee-Delisle, Emma Mulqueeny, Joe Leech, Sally Jenkinson, Matt Jukes, Emma Davis, Cole Henley, Jake Giltsoff, Paul Boag, Rachel Andrew, Amy Thibodeau, Dan Donald, Andy Davies, Andy Yates, Dan Goodwin, Sebastien Cevey, Chris Thorpe, Jonathan Snook, Elliot JayStocks, Laura Kalbag, Robert Mills, Joel Hughes, Dafydd Vaughan, James Whittaker, Paul Annett, Jake Smith, Neil Kinnish, Mike Kus, Duncan Bloor, Alex Hardie, Dan Catt, Zach Beauvais and Katy Cowan.

All of our sponsors:

Zengenti, Heart Internet, Greenfield IT, Pebble Pad, Psycle, Siftware, Shopify, Mixture, Campaign Monitor, Freeagent, Bytemark Hosting, FBC Manby Bowdler, Pale Purple, Orangeleaf and Stinky Ink.

And last but definitely not least, thank you to all of you guys. Without you (R)Evolution could never have happened!

Tickets for this year’s (R)Evolution Conference are available now – get yours here: 2015.shropgeek-revolution.co.uk

The post Why the last (R)Evolution? appeared first on ShropGeek.

We are still working on finalising a few things but in the interim here are a few more details about our lineup. Seriously, these guys are all so good I’m practically bouncing up and down with excitement! ~ grin!

Andy Clarke

@malarkey
stuffandnonsense.co.uk

Andrew Clarke is an art director and web designer at the UK website design studio ‘Stuff and Nonsense’ where he designs websites and applications for clients from around the world. Based in North Wales, he’s also the author of two web design books, Transcending CSS and Hardboiled Web Design, his many conference presentations and ten years of contributing to the web design community. Jeffrey Zeldman once called him a “triple talented bastard.” If you know of Jeffrey, you’ll know how happy that made him.

Seb Lee-Delisle

@seb_ly
seb.ly

Seb Lee-Delisle is a digital artist and speaker who uses computers to engage with people and inspire them.

As an artist, he likes to make interesting things from code that encourage interaction and playfulness from the public. Notable projects include Lunar Trails, featuring a 3m wide drawing machine, and PixelPyros, the Arts Council funded digital fireworks display that toured nationwide in 2013.

As a speaker he demystifies programming and explores its artistic possibilities. His presentations and workshops enable artists to overcome their fear of code and encourage programmers of all backgrounds to be more creative and imaginative.

He won 3 Microsoft Critter awards in 2013, including Web Personality of the Year and Voice of the Year (best presenter) and he was Technical Director on Big and Small, the BBC project that won a BAFTA in 2009. Notable clients include BBC, Lego, Sony, Microsoft, Google, MLB, Nickelodeon, Philips, and Unilever.

Emma Mulqueeny

@hubmum
www.emmamulqueeny.com

Emma is the founder of Rewired State and Young Rewired State, is a Commissioner for the Speaker’s Commission on Digital Democracy and a Google Fellow.

She has recently been included in the 166th annual edition of Who’s Who, voted onto the Wired 100 list, Tech City 100, BIMA Hot 100, has been voted one of the top ten women in technology by The Guardian, into the top ten Tech Heroes for Good by NESTA, named as one of the 25 most influential women in IT by Computer Weekly and one of 2014’s 50 most incredible women in STEM.

Emma writes regularly for the British Press and on her own blog, speaks on radio and on television, is best known for her campaign: ‘Year 8 is too Late’ (encouraging girls into technology subjects) and insights into the social digital generation: the 97ers.

Joe Leech

@mrjoe
UX Consultant – mrjoe.uk

@MrJoe, Joe to his friends is the author of the book Psychology of Designers.  He sometimes writes for Smashing Magazine, Net Magazine and others about how to use psychology to improve the user experience.

A recovering neuroscientist, then a spell as a elementary school teacher, Joe started his UX career 12 years ago. He has worked with organisations like Disney, eBay, Glenfiddich and Marriott.

Sally Jenkinson

@sjenkinson
recordssoundthesame.com

Sally is a technical consultant and solutions architect who, through her company Records Sound the Same, helps both big and small businesses with their discovery, planning, and strategic digital decisions. She focuses on using technology to enhance experiences, and is a speaker, coder, author, and gamer.

Matt Jukes

@jukesie

Matt is Head of Digital at The Office of National Statistics. The majority of his 15 year career has been spent managing digital teams in the space where research and government meet. This has included being the first Web Manager at the Economic and Social Research Council, responsibility for digital at Jisc, working with the Higher Education Funding Council for England, time at the Medical Research Council overhauling their online offerings and most recently joining the ONS to undertake the ambitious project of trying to retrieve the reputation of their website.

Jake Giltsoff

@designbyjake
jke.me

Jake is a designer & front-end developer at Adobe Typekit and is passionate about type, typography, and the web. He was previously nominated for young designer of the year and once was invited to meet the queen. When not looking at a screen, he will either be riding a bike or drinking coffee

Cole Henley

@cole007
cole007.net

Cole Henley is technical director at Mud and a recovering archaeologist. He juggles his time between front-end code, Content Management Systems and his two children, neither of which degrade gracefully.

As well as overseeing the technical delivery at a successful digital agency, Cole lectures on Web Design at the University of Greenwich, is a regular contributor to net Magazine and organises the SassXSW meet-up.

Emma Davis

@thewebbakery
thewebakery.co.uk

Emma is owner, director, front-end and back-end developer (and everything else in-between) at her company The Web Bakery. She has been building websites since 1999 when she did a website for her husband’s business and wanted to get back to her design roots. This was back in the dark ages of Frontpage, and yes, she will admit to using it at the start, followed along closely by Dreamweaver until she taught herself to code properly with HTML then CSS, PHP and Javascripts.

She started her own website business in 2002 and added 2 more businesses (related to dog agility – her hobby at the time) over the years but has now closed those down to focus solely on her passion of creating websites; though now she only codes and gets others to do the design work as she has realised that’s what she really loves to do.

Oh, and by the way, she is a Shropgeek

 You can grab yourself an early bird ticket at the bargain price of £75 here – Thats a saving of 25% of full price tickets.

Note: Earlybird tickets will be on sale until 10pm, July 31st 2015.

The post Introducing the (R)Evolution 2015 Speakers appeared first on ShropGeek.