Carsonified

Louise recently announced, via the Carsonified Newsletter, the names of the people we have chosen to fill the “Local Speaker Slot” at each of the upcoming FOWA Tour dates. They are:

Edinburgh - Graeme Mathieson (http://woss.name)
Leeds - Lorna Mitchell (http://www.lornajane.net)
Cambridge - Dorothy Briggs (http://www.rabbitsoft.com)
Bristol - Ian Broom (http://www.weboo.biz)

They are in the process of finalising their talk titles but their sessions will focus on:

- Learning from start-up mistakes (Graeme)
- Architecting web services (Lorna)
- Building for the enterprise (Dorothy)
- Extreme efficiency in web development (Ian)

Thanks to everyone who entered a talk. There were some amazing ideas for talks and it was really hard picking four.

As you may know we are taking FOWA on the road in late May and early June 2009. Starting in Edinburgh we move onto Leeds, Cambridge and end up in Bristol.

We thought it might be nice to come and visit each city before the event and check out the night life. We are pleased to announce four pre FOWA Tour Meet Ups that will take place in April and May. We’ll be throwing some money behind the bar so if you are around come join us for an evening of web dev and design chat. Here’s all you need to know.

Edinburgh - Tuesday April 14
Leeds - Wednesday April 15
Bristol - Thursday April 16
Cambridge - Thursday May 7

Jo’s currently checking out the venues and we will add these to the Upcoming listing when confirmed.

Let us know you are coming along by registering on Upcoming

Don’t forget that we are still accepting entries for our FOWA Tour “call for speakers” - http://bit.ly/wtTM

Last week we announced details of the 2009 FOWA Tour. In case you missed it FOWA will be heading to Edinburgh, Leeds, Cambridge and Bristol in late May and early June. Each event comprises of a free morning workshop about “Cloud computing” presented by Microsoft, Amazon and Salesforce followed by an afternoon of talks focusing on web apps and culminating in your opportunity to get to know new people in our first ever speed networking session.

It’s set to be a great day. You can grab your ticket for only £59 from our events site.

In another first we have decided to leave one 30 minute speaker slot open for each event and are asking you to help us fill it. We know there’s an amazing wealth of talent in the UK and we would like to help showcase it. It doesn’t matter if you’ve never spoken at an event before or are a seasoned professional, we would love to hear your ideas.

Submitting your talk is easy, just head on over to our online “call for speakers” form (http://bit.ly/wtTM) before the end of April and get your ideas in.

Details of accepted talks will be announced on this blog in April.

We are delighted to announce that the Future of Web Apps (FOWA) is going on tour in 2009. We will be heading to Edinburgh (May 27th), Leeds (May 28th), Cambridge (June 2nd) and Bristol (June 3rd).

It’s a brand new event consisting of a morning of FREE “Cloud computing” workshops hosted by Microsoft and Amazon followed by an afternoon of talks from some of the web industries most well respected professionals.

We will be focusing on good solid technical content, sessions that will give you great take away points and an insight into various aspects of the industry. There will also be a chance for you to take part in a 45 minute speed networking session, the perfect opportunity to connect with local web people, forge new relationships and even pick up some new business.

Going Local

Like everyone else we are conscious of the economic situation going on around us. We know companies and freelancers are watching their pennies more closely these days which is why we wanted to bring the show to you. Whilst we will continue to do events in London such as The Future of Web Design in April and the Future of Web Apps, which will take place in London from September 30th - October 2nd, we wanted to give more people the opportunity to attend a FOWA event closer to home.

FREE Cloud Computing Workshop

We are really pleased that Microsoft and Amazon are joining us on tour. They have kindly agreed to host a free morning workshop for all attendees on “Cloud Computing” which will give attendees a fantastic insight into the future possibilities of building and hosting web applications and services. It will be a great opportunity to get your questions answered and learn about hosting your apps on Azure and EC2.

Your Chance to Speak at FOWA

In addition to some of the industries biggest names, we are keeping one speaking slot open which we would love to be filled by a local web professional. We know there’s a wealth of talent in the UK and we would like to help spotlight it. If you think you have a great idea for a talk and would relish the opportunity to speak in front of like minded web people then let us know via our online “call for speakers” form (http://bit.ly/wtTM). We look forward to seeing what you come up with.

How Much?

Here’s the good bit. We have worked really hard to keep the cost of the events as low as possible. The first 30 tickets for each event are only £39 + VAT, after this the price will rise to £59 + VAT. Each venue holds around 200 attendees so get in quick.

Visit the Site

For more information check out the new tour site: http://events.carsonified.com/fowa/2009/tour

Future of Web Apps is coming to Dublin and we’re bringing along some of the most talented and expert speakers in the industry with us!

Some of you guys may remember our FOWA Road trip where we visited some major cities including Dublin. We had such a great reception from the web community there so are really excited to be launching the first ever FOWA Dublin.

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Update: The first lot of seats sold out in two hours. We will release 100 more at $200 on Friday Oct 3rd at 1pm Miami time.We’ve just launched FOWA Miami! Mike has been working hard on the new design and we think it’s absolutely gorgeous.

We’re only releasing 100 conference passes at $100 ($395 normally). We’ll release more later, but they’ll be more expensive. The lineup is killer, so I hope you can join us:

* Jason Fried of 37signals
* Mike Arrington of TechCrunch
* Joel Spolsky of Joel on Software and Fog Creek
* Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library TV
* 280 North makers of Cappuccino and 280 Slides
* Cali Lewis of Geek Brief TV
* Dion Almear of Ajaxian & Google
* Freshbooks

Here’s Mike on the design …

The idea for FOWA 2009 was to make it beautiful and accessible. I tried my best to lay off the imagery in order to make the site faster, more accessible and easier to update. I’m pretty pleased with the result as I don’t think the design looks compromised. From a pure design point of view I’m really into the hand drawn thing at the moment. I love it… it just make a design so individual. It helps to create a story behind the canvas of the screen.

We’ve really made a big effort to make this site accessible and easy to use with hand crafted semantic markup. We’re also sporting our new For a Better Web badge for the first time. This means we’ve done our best to make our sites as accessible and easy to use as possible.

The Future of Web Apps is coming back to Miami and we’ve got an amazing lineup for you.

You’ll be hearing from the best of the web including:

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