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Today I attended MinneBar. MinneBar is an (un)conference aimed at getting those in Minnesota’s tech and design communities together to discuss topics that interest them. I try to go to as many conferences that I can.  What I really like about this one is it isn’t just a presenter with an audience.  At this conference it is all about everyone in the room adding input, the presenter is more of a facilitator of a discussion in the room.

All the sessions were under 5 main categories: Development, Design, Startups, Social Media and Other. Take a look at the schedule here.

Not only is this conference highly informational it also is a great opportunity to network. I met a lot of great people today and attended a lot of great sessions.

3 of my favorite sessions.

1. Success in Software Consulting by Scott K Davis.
This guy was a great speaker and had a lot of great advice for people looking to begin consulting and already consulting.
I was able to obtain a copy of his slides from his site.

2. Paper Prototypes: There and Back Again by John Malone, @john_malone.
He spoke about something I think everyone knows they should do, but few actually practice. Mocking, wireframing your site before you even get into designing it. He discussed 3 very simple ways to do this. Non of which require any artistic ability. The idea is actually to keep it light-weight so everyone can see how the site will be used.

1. Use pencil and paper.  This is something you can do while sitting on the couch.
2. Use post-it notes.  Using post-it notes allow you to move things around, ie. sign-up box, navigation tabs, etc.
3. Use software to do it.  In his example he suggested Balsamiq Mockups. I have also heard good things about this software.  Many others were shouted out as well, the main thing is to just try one out and find what you like.

The group discussed ways that they convince their clients / bosses this is something we need to do.  Some suggestions were:

• The prototypes are very easy to understand
• They’re not intimidating at all.
• They’re very easy to add input to
• Cheap!  What does a pen and paper cost, $1.60?
• They will feel engaged, they get to add their input right away
• The 1/10/100 rule.  If an issue is found in these, it’s only going to cost a buck to fix. If it is found in development it is only going to cost $10.  If one is found in production it is going to cost $100.

** Update**
Slides from the session can now be found on slideshare.

3. How Can Minnesota Be Better? This was a panel discussion with 5 great panelists.

• Robert Weber – W3i
• Jon Dahl – Zencoder
• Marti Nyman – Altavail Partners
• Chris Smith – Coral Group
• Dan Grigsby
• Facilitated by Jeff Pesak & Mike Bollinger of Tech.mn

More information about the panelists can be found at TECH{dot}MN.

I thought the diversity of these 5 individuals were great and they really had a lot of good things to say.  It seemed the dominance of the discussion was about startups getting funding which I was a little disappointed in. I really liked how Dan chimed in and basically said, “you know what you don’t have to have funding to start something.” They also compared the MN culture a lot to the Bay area and pointed out the many differences.

I took video of this session so watch it yourself.  Let me know what you think in the comments. (The first video says Part II as the title,but it is Part I.  If you have created a video before you know how long it takes, I didn’t feel it was worth it to redo it just the title).

Part I

MinneBar Spring 2010 Part I from Joel Dahlin on Vimeo.

Part II

MinneBar Spring 2010 Part II from Joel Dahlin on Vimeo.

Part III

MinneBar Spring 2010 Part III from Joel Dahlin on Vimeo.

Recap: The entire day was great.  Not only did I learn a lot but I meat some amazing people and a few people that I have engaged with on twitter I was able to meet in real life which is always nice.  This conference is such a great place to network.  If you’re looking for a job, many companies are there recruiting. I will definitely be going to the next one.

Thanks to all the organizers and sponsors for putting on such a great event!

Filed under: Conferences,Reviews   Tags: minne*, minnebar, networking, training,
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