This video tries to explain why Mix08 is the conference for web designers and developers to attend. Apparently it has a lot to do with being hip and swearing. If I get this right, Mix08 is trying to be somewhere between a PG-13 or R rated conference this time around. The big difference the video says: more focus on designers.
So I ask: To be design-focused you have to mix in even more coolness? Who ever said engineers can’t create cool things? This is creating a division that’s silly. The answer to me is to enable more people to do more. Enable designers to do even more “coding.” Enable developers to create even better designs. I still don’t get this split strategy.
Someone needs to go to SIGGRAPH.
Here’s another suggestion I have for the Mix08 conference organizers. Read up on Randy Pausch, a Carnegie Mellon professor that’s done more than most to bring designers and developers together. Better yet, watch his “Last Lecture.” There’s a great line in the video that goes something like this: Randy said he could often tell if a team of designers and developers were going to come up with a great project by looking at how close they stood together when giving their presentation. Get it? How close they stood together. There’s no “throwing the project back and forth across an arbitrary wall.” It’s one team. One effort. One inspiration.
Again, don’t believe me. Go to SIGGRAPH.