I received an email this weekend from Mike Jones, who I met at Barcamp London last year, informing me of a set of slides I should take a look at. The slides were from an @Media 2007 presentation given by Andy Clarke, the mastermind behind Stuffandnonsense.co.uk. @Media is one of the world’s foremost and well received web design conferences.
What was extremely fascinating about this presentation was that our Afrigator was mentioned and displayed on a massive projector in front of a packed conference venue. What he specifically said (15 minutes and 6 seconds into the presentation) when the Afrigator slide was displayed was “Is this sh%t important?“. Now if that isn’t enough to entice you to have a listen to the presentation, nothing will.
I’ve spent the last couple days trying to track down the mp3 of the presentation that goes with the slide show, and as you can see from the hyperlinks I finally found it.
In a nutshell, Andy Clarke’s presentation entitled “Royale with Cheese”, focusses on the “smothering influences of American flavoured globalised design” and how designer’s should be focussing on designing websites or applications that encompass regional variations at a regional level.
That sounds quite an intense subject and it is fairly debatable, but it is a fascinating presentation that I urge you to download and listen to, even if your not interested in hearing a little about Afrigator. Tertia’s “So Close” and even “Trash Media” are also mentioned, I bet they didn’t know that! (Tertia if your inspired by the presentation and want a little spicing up of your blog you know who to contact 🙂
Go now. Spend an hour with Andy Clarke.
10 responses
Hi, thanks for the mention. Just to correct; the slides and mp3 are actually at http://www.stuffandnonsense.co.uk/downloads/slides/atmedia07.pdf and http://www.stuffandnonsense.co.uk/downloads/slides/atmedia07.mp3 respectively.
Have fun,
Andy
Oops. Thanks Andy and welcome to my site. I’ve updated the links in the post.
Just to correct Andy the correct URL to the mp3 file is:
http://www.stuffandnonsense.co.uk/downloads/audio/atmedia07.mp3
Lol this is getting ridiculous. I have changed the link locations for the third time and I can now quite confidently say they are all correct. 🙂
Ok, just spent the last hour listening to it and I have to say it was a great presentation and well worth the listen. Really made a difference listening to the audio and paging through the slides as Andy went along.
The one thing I’m confused about is the South African stuff at the beginning. Is Andy implying that So Close and Afrigator are shit? I’m quite confused about that.
Ideas Mark?
Just subscribing to follow up comments quickly 🙂
Help! Can’t get either of the links to work?
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Web Server at stuffandnonsense.co.uk
Justin: I should have written so in the post, but the slides MUST be viewed with the audio playing as half the slides are website designs Andy discusses.
With regard to the South African content, I think Andy is definitely NOT implying that So Close and Afrigator are shit. It is his catch phrase that draws you through the content and to the conclusion where he concludes how important localization/culturalisation is.Remember the focus of the presentation is website DESIGN, so he is talking more so about the design of the site. Afrigator was a great example for him to use because the whole functionality of our app as well as the design is Africa focussed.
Africans may naturally prefer a different experience on a website due to cultural influences. What is important is that Afrigator understands the cultural influences and designs functionality and interfaces that Africans prefer to generic European/American sites.
I hope that makes sense.
Tertia: Try clicking on the links in the post again, they were updated last night.
K, working now.
V interesting. You know I am keen on an updated design. Maybe we should chat again. I’ll email you.
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