Prettier Pixels

Bamboo Juice 2009

Bamboo Juice 2009 was the first outing for Richard Quick Design’s (hopefully) annual web conference. The event took place at The Eden Project in Bodelva, Cornwall, a stunning and unique venue which helped make the day as memorable as it was rewarding.

The day began with a well researched and informative presentation by Jeremy Keith. Jeremy discussed how increasingly suffocating copyright law, and its application to ever evolving technology is critically endangering our cultural heritage (think DRM). His talk was wonderfully presented, thanks not only to his impeccable public speaking skills, but also his excellent visual aides (which can be found at http://prezi.com/35967).

Jeremy’s presentation set a high benchmark for the rest of the days speakers to aspire to, thankfully Relly Annett-Baker followed him, with what for me, was the zenith presentation of the day. Relly spoke about the importance of web copy, and gave a brief workshop style lecture on how right brained, and copy reluctant designers can start writing content that sells. She outlined some key techniques through the use of a fictitious and humorous start up that specialised in making photos of ugly people beautiful using Photoshop filters, and offered the most practical and useful advice of all the speakers that day.

The final highlight of the days speakers came in the form of Paul Boag, and his assertive presentation on winning business in tough times. Paul highlighted the importance of keeping a human face on your business, and pointed out that people do not buy from brands, they buy from people. Paul also shared some handy techniques that Headscape use to ensure their clients mostly choose them over their competitors.

Unfortunately the picnics did not work as well as I was hoping them to. The idea behind them was that anyone could do a small 15 minute talk of their choice. It’s not that the talks weren’t interesting, it’s just that there was no timetable for them. They all happened at the start of the lunch break, which was a shame as I would like to have gone to more than one, but was instead forced to choose.

There were a couple of other hiccups throughout the day, things started later than planned, and a technical problem forced an early lunch (perhaps contributing to the poor picnic planning), but these setbacks could not have been planned for, and the Rich Quick team did an exemplary job keeping things running as smoothly as they did.

The event also gave me the opportunity to meet a number of my peers and talk to them about various projects that they are currently working on. I was particularly impressed by an early prototype of a CMS that Jamie Knight is developing, as well as an awesome iPhone app developed by the team at Redweb called the Wheel Of Tea that should be hitting the app store very soon.

Of course, I have to write a little more about the after party which took place in one of the two biomes of the Eden Project. Featuring a live band, free food, Guitar Hero, Becks on Draught (a pint of which I was allowed to pay for using my unspent lunch voucher). The party was the perfect garnish to a brilliant conference surprisingly in its first year. I expect that future events will have all the kinks worked out and that Bamboojuice will earn itself a place as a highlight on the conference calendar.