Last Saturday saw the second ever Geek in the Park event, organised by myself, taking place in Leamington Spa. However, this year it wasn’t so much Geek in the Park, more like Geek in the Pub, as the English summer presented us with rain for most of the day.
A core set of people were in the pub from noon onwards and there were some good conversations going during the day. I spoke mostly with Cole Henley (all the way down from Scotland!) and Sam Rayner about a range of interesting topics.
A lot more people arrvied around 7pm for the talks at KoKos. After setting up the projector and mics, and a few drinks later we were ready to go. Bruce Lawson, who talked at Geek in the Park in 2006, kindly kicked off the talks with a brief introduction. Jon Hicks talked about “Pixel Pushing”, using his renowned experience to give some useful tips to anyone who is looking to start icon design. After a short break, Bruce came back on and briefly talked about a certain web browser and company who are very web-standards focused; Opera. Drew McLellan entertained us with the cryptic title “What Brian Cant Never Taught You About Metadata”, a disguised talk on microformats. And, although Macs never crash, Drew’s machine didn’t seem to adhere to that mantra during the presentation.
There are some awesome Geek in the Park 2008 photos on Flickr. I recorded the two main presentations, so expect the audio, along with the slides and transcription (kindly sponsored by Opera) on a new look website in the coming weeks.
Finally, I would like to thank Gareth and One Black Bear who provided all the equipment which made the evening go so smoothly, as well as a round of drinks to finish off the evening. A hat-tip goes out to Bruce, who did a sterling job at short notice, and will definitely be invited back to any future events. Also, a big thank-you goes out to both Jon Hicks and Drew McLellan for kindly traveling to the Midlands and speaking for this event.