Elly Williams’ Weblog

As has been noted elsewhere, it’s conference season. And, like last year, Meri and I shall be heading off to Austin for SXSWi. And I’m pretty certain I’m going to end up having this conversation (or something fairly similar) with a number of people:-

Other person: So, Elly, what do you do?
Me: I’m an Architect.
Other person: Information Architecture?
Me: No. Buildings.
…..
Other person: So, why exactly are you here?

After writing my own Fixed Width Article last week, I decided it was time for a change. If people are building fixed width layouts because it’s ‘the done thing’ then surely having a fixed width layout puts me in the ‘part of the problem’ camp, rather than the ‘part of the solution’ camp.

So, yes, I now have a liquid layout. What used to be a single image in the header is now a three part sliding door, and I can now be much more liberal with the length of my post titles.

And anyway, it’s been quite fun to do. And I fully intend to do lots more exciting things with sliding doors having only discovered what they’re called at SXSW – despite the fact I’d been using them since January

I used to like The Register. They used to be smart and witty and treated their audience like they were smart and witty too. But there have been a a couple of things recently that apart from displaying unusual amounts of bandwagondry seem to be written by people showing very little in the way of clue.

The frighteningly titled “Blog star ‘fesses up to payola spam scam” piece which attacked Matt Mullenweg and Jonas Luster, for example. I think their responses to the piece were much calmer than mine would have been in that situation, so hats off to them.

… horrible piece on the Register that not only got things wrong, but tried to mix my day job in with it in what I can only imagine is an attempt to cause me trouble there.Matt Mullenweg

Dear visitors from the Reg. I?d have a few choice words to say to Andrew Orlowski, but unfortunately he won?t talk to me, and hasn?t tried to before he posted his factually more than questionable piece. ?His partner in the spam caper was in denial today, and pleaded exhaustion.? he writes. Which goes to show a lot about Mr. Orlowski?s style of journalism, and his credibility in general.Jonas Luster

And all this only two weeks after they accused bloggers of Invading SXSW Music Fest – like this was the first year SXSWi had happened – or that there was the remotest possibility that it wouldn’t happen again! Personally I find the idea that “one blogger is plenty to describe the idea of an online journal” as ludicrous as suggesting that one musician is sufficient to describe the idea of music. I doubt that any of Mozart, Meatloaf, Eminem and Mariah Carey would give even remotely similar answers.

Women are a big deal in Architecture at the moment. January just gone BD launched its 50/50 Campaign for more Women in Architecture (The current percentage of architects who are female is 14%). Now, a few people have asked me if I have any insight on this. I’m not really sure if I do. Lack of role models (either in terms of famous female architects or university tutors (the token female in each year’s tutor batch was invariably seen as ‘the “nice” one’ during my course)) is certainly a factor. And the ‘boys club’ attitude (whether real or anticipated) on building sites probably has some bearing as well.

At SXSW I attended the Where are the Women of Web Design? Panel (Monday). I also attended the (stunningly mislabeled, but more on that later) How to Incorporate Stunning Multimedia Into Your Accessible Site, which was on the previous day (Sunday), and was suprised that most of the room was female. The “Women of Web Design”, it seemed, were quite happily getting on with their own thing and building Flash Sites. But anyway, I really enjoyed the Women of Web Design Panel. It was generally friendly and full of people going ’so it’s not just me?’, which is always encouraging. I felt that the session could have benefitted from an extra hour for ’so what can we do to help matters?’ but I felt that with a lot of sessions.

So here’s the thing – Molly wrote a similar piece the other day which is what got me thinking about it again – I don’t think the issue is that there aren’t women on the web. I think there aren’t enough VISIBLE women on the web. Take a look at a few blogrolls. There are usually significantly more male names than female names. Take a look at Technorati Top 100, take a look at RubHub Top 10. Now admittedly those two are somewhat skewed (the top 3 on rubhub are the xfn creators for example) but in terms of visibility, it’s what people see. And what I can see is an all male list of muses.

So, I finally got around to upgrade to WordPress 1.5 (can you tell?) and installing a couple of plugins and figuring out how this whole templating thing works (thanks to a handy tutorial and to Dave for being on the other end of MSN when I thought I’d messed it up)

So now I can get on with blogging SXSW, right? Well, kinda.

Meri, Simon and I all decided we were going to take business cards with us to SXSW, prompted by a combination of The unofficial geek guide to getting over yourself at SxSW Interactive 2005, and the OK/CancelTrading Cards from last year. After their adventures in Newport at the passport office, Meri and Simon used a machine at Bristol Station to make some. And I decided to put my hibernating printer to good use and make my own.

So I did. And I printed them on 5″x3″ index cards, because that’s what was available at 10pm the night before a 5am start to a 21hour journey. Which meant they’re a little on the oversized side.

Molly posed the following questions the other day, and seeing as I’m planning on going into some of these things in a bit more detail at some point, I figured I’d put some brief answers up here for the time being…

• Which was the most memorable panel you attended?

  I enjoyed “Does Design Matter?” It got me thinking a lot about the similarities between web & software design and architectural design. I think they’re closer than a lot of people realise. It was also the first panel I attended after recovering from jet lag.

• The most memorable keynote?

  Alex Steffan and Bruce Sterling. Most of the topic was reminiscent of my dissertation project and we got to play with printed objects.

• Do you think that SXSW is more a social or content-oriented event?

  I think it’s a healthy mix of both. It’s also quite personality driven. There were a number of panels I attended because of who was on that panel.

• What would you like to see more of at SXSW?

  Better room scheduling. There were too many overflowing panels in small rooms clashing with empty panels in the large room.

• What would you like to see less of at SXSW?

  Reliance on technology. I didn’t have a laptop with me and felt left out when IRC or iChat or blogging was made into an integral part of the conference. It’s one of the few times we’re all in the same building. There are much more inclusive ways of communicating in that environment. Writing questions on index cards was used in “How to be Beautiful” for example.

• How would you describe your experience overall?

  Fantabulous

• What will you remember about the food and drink you had while in Austin?

  So. Much. Food.

• Do you have a “best moment” or two (or ten) that will stay with you forever?

  in chronological order

  1. Contemplating “hipster backchat” (not to mention “hipster man-in-the-middle-attacks”) with Meri, Simon, Yvonne and Michael over BBQ on Saturday.
  2. Lunch with Molly, KC and Lyman before the “Women of Web Design” panel
  3. Vox Nox
  4. Being woken up by a large dog sticking her nose in my ear on Tuesday Morning