Journal tags: sanfrancisco

San Francisco. A cathedral to geekdom. The aisle of Market Street divides the city in two. The spire of the Transamerica Pyramid soars through the fog. The city rests on the San Andreas fault, a bedrock as safe and secure as the new economy. Erstwhile home to the gold rush of ‘48, San Francisco is now the epicentre of a whole different land grab.

I showed up on the weekend and spent a few days with Cindy checking out the street art in San Rafael, sampling some excellent sushi and making a fool of myself on the Wii. By Monday morning I had transferred over to Port Zero and together with Tantek, I headed out to the opening of Supernova 2008.

This was a very different conference to my usual diet of design and development. There was a definite whiff of “thought leaders” in the air, tinged with the odor of entrepreneurs and consultants. The day got off to a good start with the inimitable Clay Shirky followed by Esther Dyson. Things took a bit more of a corporate twist when Rob Iannucci from Nokia began boasting of the company’s market share. My usual reaction to hearing these kinds of statistics is the same as seeing the latest music or movie charts — to me, it all just reinforces Sturgeon’s Law.

The downward spiral continued with a panel devoted to television and advertising, two crappy flavours that taste crappy together. I don’t hate these subjects because they are outdated and doomed;I hate them because they are boring. Once again, Buzzword Bingo saved the day. At least three people in the front row (myself, Tantek and Kevin) were shooting buzzword fish in a buzzword barrel to save us from having to gnaw our own legs off.

Then, just when I thought that things couldn’t sink any lower, Arrington The Hutt waddled on stage, sucking the last remaining vestiges of cool from the room, leaving only a slime trail for attendant VCs to eagerly lap up. But at the last moment, the day was saved with the utterance of those two magical words: “free booze.”

Day two was very different. It started off with one of the best panels I’ve ever had the pleasure to attend. BJ Fogg expertly moderated the clumsily-titled People: What We Know, and What it Means? featuring Charlene Li, Eszter Hargittai and Elizabeth Churchill. Not only were all three excellent speakers, but they also brought a wealth of research with them to support their findings on user behaviour. The panel was entertaining and stimulating; the perfect antidote to the previous day’s channelling of Adam Smith by Rob Iannucci, who was convinced that all motivations were transactional in nature …a creepy, misguided viewpoint that completely fails to account for the rich tapestry of emotions that drives our activities.

The afternoon was taken up with a themed track of talks called Open Flow which had been put together by Tantek. In a nod to the spirit of openness, he projected a backchannel onto the wall: any Twitter postings containing the words “supernova2008 open flow.” Ariel and I rickrolled it just once or twice.

Tantek took the moderation reins for a panel entitled Whose Social Graph?, a title that prompted an absent Zeldman to propose a breakout session on advanced webcockery, my favourite comment of the day. The panel featured Kevin from Google and Dave Morin from Facebook, very deliberately separated by Joseph from Plaxo. Tantek pulled up David’s blog post entitled It Seems that Google and Facebook Still Can’t Get Connected and watched the sparks fly. Arguments around privacy and terms of service were tossed back and forth between Dave and Kevin until Dave finally played the lawyer card and refused to discuss the situation any further.

I was due to moderate the final panel and, much as I like to stir the shit when I’m the gamesmaster, I knew I could never follow the perfect shitstorm that Tantek had so cleverly whipped up. I could, however, have some fun.

A few times during his panel, Tantek confused Google’s Friend Connect with Facebook’s Friend Finder …or maybe it was Frend Feed? Anyway, it’s an easy mistake to make. It seems that most of the hippest new technologies are named by simply combining positive-sounding words like “connect”, “friend” or “open”. So while the other panels were still going on, I hacked together The Social Buzzword Generator (it seems to have tickled the funny bone of at least one journalist at the Wall Street Journal).

When it was time for my panel, I debuted the buzzword generator and also pulled up buzzword bingo, encouraging the audience to play along with both toys. The panel was called Bottom-Up Distributed Openness and I had Tantek, David, Chris and Leah lined up. The order of the line-up reflected the age of each technology I had them speak about:

• Tantek described microformats—three years old this week.
• David talked about OpenID—less than two years old.
• Chris gave the skinny on OAuth—a specification since November.
• Leah described oEmbed—just a few weeks old.

I was interested in finding the commonalities and differences between all these communities. As we delved into the inner workings of each one, it became clear that they were all “open” but to a deliberately limited degree. But that’s no different than, say, the open source movement. It’s clear that Linus Torvald’s contribution to Linux is going to count more than a complete stranger’s. I posited the idea that it was no different for each of the panelists in their respective communities. The term “benevolent dictatorship” was tossed around. A comment on Twitter summmed it up nicely: Open is as open does.

All in all, it was a good panel and a good day. Best of all, there was a visual journalist on hand throughout the afternoon, doodling all the ideas and connections that were flowing.

So Supernova was a bit of a mixed bag overall but when it opened up to real people who genuinely had something worthwhile to say, rather than company shills pitching their products, it really shone. Kevin put a lot of work into organizing this conference and it was a pleasure to be a part of it. In some ways, Supernova is the perfect reflection of San Francisco …warts and all.

Now that I’m done travelling for pleasure, it’s time for me to travel for business again. I’m heading out to San Francisco for the Supernova conference. Tantek has roped me into moderating a panel called Bottom-Up Distributed Openness.

I’ll be showing up in SF next Friday. Until then, I’ll be in Nashville for the somewhat embarrassingly-titled Voices That Matter conference where I’ll be delivering a half-day workshop on Ajax and a presentation on microformats.

While I’m in the heartland, I’m planning to treat myself to a new mandolin. Then I can bring that mandolin with me when I go to Copenhagen at the end of the month for Reboot 10 where, if my proposal is accepted, I’ll be talking on The Transmission of Tradtion. The video of my talk from last year, the pretentiously-titled Soul is available for your viewing pleasure. I’ll see about getting it transcribed and added to the articles section here.

All that’s ahead of me. Right now I need to prepare myself for the long and tedious trip across the Atlantic. See you in Nashville, San Francisco or Copenhagen.

The day that I was flying to San Francisco, Simon and Nat were flying to New Zealand for Kiwi Foo and Webstock so we shared a bus to Heathrow. They both look knackered because they had attempted to “get on New Zealand time” by staying up all night. We parted at the airport: See you in Austin I said. Good luck decentralising the social graph he replied.

Since arriving in San Francisco, I’ve spent most of my time trying to meet up with as many people as possible. A hastily-convened microformats/geek dinner helped to accomplish that.

Now I’m in Sebastopol for the SG Foo Camp. The letters SG stand for Social Graph, which is unfortunate—I’m not a big fan of that particularly techy-sounding term. That said, I’m really looking forward to hearing more from Brad Fitzpatrick about the new Social Graph API from Google. It isn’t the first XFN parser but it’s the only one with Google’s infrastructure. The data returned from spidering my XFN links is impressive but the fact that it can also return results with inbound links is very impressive, although it takes significantly longer to return results and often times out.

For most people, today’s big news was Microsoft licking its lips at Yahoo but that was completely eclipsed by the new API for me. While I was waiting at Tantek’s for Larry and Chris to drive by and pick us up, I spent my time gleefully looking through the reams of information returned from entering just one URL into the API. Just now, I was chatting with John Musser from Programmable Web and we were thinking up all the potential mashups that this could open up.

I’m not going to build anything just yet though. I’m far too tired. I need to find a nice quiet corner of the O’Reilly office to unroll my sleeping bag.

It’s time for my next Stateside trip. Tomorrow I’ll be making the long haul from Heathrow to San Francisco.

But this time, I won’t be staying in town. On Friday, I’ll be heading upcountry to join a gathering of ridiculously smart people for the Social Graph Foo Camp. I’m already feeling intimidated—I hope I’ll be able to bring something useful to the table even though my area of expertise feels woefully inadequate: hCard, XFN, and that’s pretty much it.

I’ll be spending ten hours on an airplane and then three days sleeping on O’Reilly’s floor. Between the flight and the camping, I’ll get a day or two in San Francisco, which I’ll probably spend running around like crazy trying to see my friends.

Mind you, most of my web design friends won’t be there. They’ll all be up in Canada living the designer cliché, snowboarding on the slopes of Whistler. Ah, how I wish I could be in both places at once! I’m sure Web Directions North will be amazing. I had a great time there last year. I still get a kick out of watching this little bit of mischief in the snow.

With a mixture of regret and anticipation, I boarded my flight from San Francisco back to London. I was looking forward to getting back to Brighton and seeing Jessica again. But I had such a good time in San Francisco, it was hard to leave.

It’s funny to think that up until this year, I had never been to Shaky Town. And now I’ve just returned from my third visit. I was ostensibly there for the Voices That Matter conference but if truth be told, I probably wouldn’t have attended the conference if it weren’t for the location—especially considering the speakers’ fee (or lack thereof).

During the conference proper, I was staying at a very pleasant hotel downtown. That was bookended with a few days on either side staying with Tantek. I couldn’t have asked for a better host. He showed me around the neighbourhood, shared his WiFi and generally showed me a good time.

The day before I skipped town, I went along to the geek picnic that Ariel organised in South Park. Nibbling on a nice selection of cheeses while Hugh McLeod churned out a cornucopia of cartoons, we enjoyed the last of the Summer sunshine in the epicentre of the geek mindhive.

That evening, I attempted to repay Tantek for his kindness by cooking up a pot of my signature chili while he organised guests for a little dinner party—the second in as many days. My last two evenings in San Francisco were spent eating good food, sipping good wine and enjoying really good company. It’s always fun to hang with the people who make the web apps I use—Blaine from Twitter, Leah from Pownce, Ted from Satisfaction—ply them with booze and then slip in a feature request or two.

All in all, this trip to San Francisco was the perfect mixture of seeing old friends and making new ones. Thanks to New Riders for giving me the opportunity to visit one my favourite places and thanks to everyone else for making me feel so welcome. As always, visual documentation is provided for your viewing pleasure.

The jolly japes continue in San Francisco. Sitting in the Tonga Room last night, Steve introduces Jina to Stephanie: “You two both work at Apple.” At that point, someone points out where Steve works: “LinkedIn!”

Well, I thought it was funny. But maybe that was just down to the cocktail I was drinking from a pineapple.

I arrived in San Francisco yesterday after a smooth flight (I bumped into Malarkey on the plane—how did I not spot him at the airport?). Now I’m on the ground, staying with Tantek for a couple of days—I’ll be moving into a hotel room once the conference starts.

I have a few days on either side of the conference to explore San Francisco. I’ll probably end up walking around a lot. It might be fun to make use of one of the newer features of Google Maps: put yourself on the map. If this feature had existed when I was in Chicago for An Event Apart, I would have plotted my explorations of that city.

If I do map my movements while I’m in San Francisco, you’ll be able to find them on my profile page. That page also has an hCard… sorta.

Alas, the hCard is contained within an embedded iframe. This means that most microformat parsers—bookmarklets, plugins, converters—won’t find the hCard because they parse at the URL level, reasonably enough. There doesn’t seem to be any good reason for using an iframe. This is exactly the kind of embedding that’s normally done on the server before a page is served up to the browser.

The guys over at Google are smart so I’m sure they’ll get this sorted out but I can’t help but feel that it’s a perfect example of why it’s important to use POSH markup before adding microformats. If you aren’t using the right elements to structure your content to begin with, it’s probably going to be more of a struggle to implement that extra sprinkling of microformats.

Another day, another airport. This time I must brave the maw of Heathrow. That’s where I’ll be catching a ten hour flight to the centre of geekdom on Earth.

I’m heading out to San Francisco for the New Riders Voices That Matter conference which runs from Monday to Thursday. I’ll be giving a presentation on microformats on the last day of the event. That should give me enough time to get my presentation together.

That still leaves me with plenty of time to be a tourist before and after the conference. If you’re in San Francisco and you want to show me around, give me a holler. If you send me a direct message on Twitter I’ll get it on my ‘phone so that’s probably the easiest way of getting in touch. Of course I’ll be updating Twitter with my movements and posting holiday snaps to Flickr.

Like a bad comedian, I’ll be here all week.

It’s the day before @media America and I’ve been making the most of what San Francisco has to offer. That doesn’t mean I’ve been a culture vulture, exploring museums and sits of historical interest. Instead I’ve been meeting up with fellow geeks and observing them in their natural habitat.

I went by the Flickr offices yesterday. It was somewhat, um, whacky. Within five minutes of my being there, a full-blown rubber rocket fight erupted. This sort of thing is, apparently, a perfectly normal occurence.

I liberated Paul, Cal and Dunstan (yes, he’s alive and well, honest) for a short break in the sunshine. They spent the entire time reminiscing about crappy English things that are hard to come by in San Francisco—like fried breakfasts and maltesers (that’s not a serving suggestion). What a bunch of sad bastards!

After a late night of microformat geekiness with Tantek, I went over to the offices of Six Apart. They had very kindly invited me to come by and see what they’ve been working on for the next (imminent) release of Movable Type. I had a lot of fun talking with them about code, user testing and community. I wish I could tell you everything they told me but my lips are sealed on a big announcement that’s coming. All will be revealed on June 5th.

From there, it was a short stroll to the Technorati offices to regroup with Tantek and continue the microformats mission together with Erin Caton, flown in fresh from Vancouver. We left the Technorati hub (which was, as might be expected, buzzing on the day of its freshly-launched redesign) and set up camp at Caffe Centro in South Park.

After a productive afternoon of coffee and wiki-editing, the coup de grace was visiting the offices of Twitter. I’m such a fanboy that I was practically squealing with delight at the mere thought seeing the home of ambient intimacy. The fact that all the people there were absolutely lovely was the icing on the cake.

After a day like that, I feel like a kid that’s been let loose in a toy shop.

You can listen to an audio version of Hyperdrive.

It’s a noisy night out on the streets—a baseball night. The crowd sounds jubilant. I’m inside, making my way through the pipe-filled industrial-tinged hallways, leaving the Technorati office. Leading me through the maze, Tantek points overhead to a pipe that’s shinier and newer than the others. The red paint covering the joins where the pipe emerges from the wall gives it a cyborganic feel like something from a Giger painting or a Cronenberg movie. This is the fibre that plugs the whole operation into the net.

“Fat pipe, always on…” I say. “…Get out of the way” finishes Tantek.

We leave the building and thread our way through the crowds of ebullient sports fans until we enter the underground car park. More pipes.

“Ever read any Sartre?” asks Tantek as we pass a sign that reads “No Exit” in loosely-kerned Helvetica.

Tantek locates his car. It’s hard to miss. The convertible is small, black and low to the ground, its sleekness tempered by the clear signs of an eventful history of use.

Despite the chilly temperature outside, Tantek rolls back the roof. To protect me from the cold, he gives me a spare hoodie with the word “Stanford” boldly emblazoned across the front. We strap in and Tantek starts to flip switches like he’s Han Solo preparing to leave docking bay 94.

The engine is revving but before we can take off there’s one last piece of prepping left to do. Jacking his nano through the stereo, Tantek cycles through genres; soundtrack; The Matrix. The unmistakable base line of the Propellerheads begins pulsing from the speakers, filling the air with its urgent energy.

I’m a nervous passenger at the best of times. I’m starting to get the feeling that this won’t be a sedate cruise across town.

“I’ve been warned about you” I tell Tantek.

“I’ll go easy on you” he says but there’s a mischievous gleam in his eye.

We shoot out onto the street only to be pulled up short by a red light. That’s enough time for Tantek: he reaches down in one Pavlovian-ingrained move, grasps his Blackberry and starts thumbing his way through the Twitter timeline.

“Concentrate on driving,” I tell him, “don’t Twitter this!” But that’s the worst thing I could have said: it’s like being told not to think of a pink elephant—you just can’t help it.

“Look” I say, “I’ll Twitter for both of us, okay?”

Reaching into my pocket, I pull out my jaded mobile phone. I start to methodically compose a message to the Twittersphere. This task becomes distinctly trickier when the light changes and the car begins to tear through the streets. We’re leaving South Park behind us, zipping past the meatspace protrusions of Citizen Agency and Obvious Corp.

Still thumbing my way slowly around the glowing blue numeric keys of my Sony Ericsson, I turn to Tantek and tell him, “Y’know, we’ve got completely different texting styles. You’re all about the contractions but I still insist on correct spelling and punctuation.” But this is too much to ask of me now and I decide to contract the words “San Francisco” to simply “SF”… I still capitalise both letters though.

By this time we’ve reached the on-ramp. The freeway is the shortest route connecting tonight’s nodes. The car accelerates exponentially up the ramp, reaching escape velocity as it is spat into freeway traffic. On the freeway the acceleration continues. Our ground-hugging position and the wind streaming across our heads accentuates the feeling of speed.

I should be scared but I can’t help smiling instead. We’re travelling fast but not recklessly.

We leave the freeway to rejoin the world of traffic lights. Surprisingly, Tantek doesn’t gun the engine when the lights turn green. Instead he approaches each red light at a steady moderate pace. Every time we’re just about to arrive at an intersection, the light turns from red to green.

“These lights are timed for about about 25 or 26 miles per hour,” he explains.

“Spotting the patterns?” I ask.

“Given enough data, you can’t help seeing patterns.”

As he’s talking, he thumbs the reassuringly familiar interface of his Blackberry again. There’s one missed call. Of course he has to return it straight away. My nervousness returns as he simultaneously navigates the streets and the conversation. The phone call lasts just long enough to come to the agreement that some more people should join us.

Leaving the car to cool down in Tantek’s garage, we make our way on foot down Haight Street. We’re the last ones to reach the bar, a sedate and classy oasis in the middle of an area best described as “funky”.

We should start talking shop with our fellow microformateers—that’s why we came to this secluded spot. But now that we’re here, I’m starting to realise how tired I am.

Keith buys me a beer from the local microbrewery. I opt for an amber ale while he plumps for an IPA. After the first sips, we compare tasting notes and once again speculate about a beer-oriented version of Cork’d.

It’s my last night in San Francisco and this mellow gathering seems an appropriate way to end my trip. The conversation is suitably geeky. We exchange war stories from the trenches of Information Architecture. We discuss the value of play and I relay an idea I’ve got for Hack Day. A laptop emerges only once.

Tantek offers to get the next drink in but I’m just too exhausted. I’ve got a ten hour flight back to England ahead of me the next day. As much as I’ve enjoyed my time in San Francisco, I’m really looking forward to getting back home.

It’s time for me to head back to my hotel room, upload some photos to Flickr and get some sleep.

This time I’m taking a cab.

San Francisco is my kind of place. I can see why one might leave one’s heart here.

Spitting in the face of superstition, I flew over on Friday the thirteenth. I made my way to the swish studio of Kelly Goto who kindly offered to put me up for my first night in a new town.

Before resting my weary head, we went out to an Indian café so that Kelly could plan her upcoming panel with Emily Chang, Chris Messina and Richard MacManus. Before long, my name was added to the list so now it looks like I’m going to be on another panel; Monday morning’s discussion of The New Hybrid Designer. Should be fun.

Kelly’s place is close to the Mission district so once Saturday morning’s rain cleared up, I started walking around the neighbourhood, stopping for a coffee at that den of hipsterness, Ritual Coffee Roasters—“RitRo” to those in the know. Inevitably, I met someone I knew… but someone I had never met: Matt ‘Blackbelt’ Jones. Upon exiting RitRo I bumped into some more Brits in exile—Paul and Amy (with young Tom) Hammond.

This pattern of just bumping into people has continued ever since. Today I met Eris and later Simon this way. I was wandering around Union Square when I recognised someone from the Future of Web Apps conference in London in February. He also recognised me. We then initiated the “I know you but…” ritual:

Both parties pause and cock their heads slightly to one side. Each one points at the other quizzically. The pointed fingers now begin to wag as if trying to shake the names out of them. At this point both heads are turned almost completely to the side (while still maintaining eye contact) until the movement ends with a “tsk”. By now it is clear that neither can recall the name of the other and so the pointed fingers can be safely morphed into extended hands ready for shaking as each reminds the other of their name—followed by “Right, right…”

This situation is far less awkward than that embarrassing moment when you meet someone who can recall your name perfectly well while you’re still floundering in an attempt to put their face into context. I’m okay with faces; I’m lousy with names. I wasn’t always this bad. I think the first brain cells to go are the ones associated with putting names to people.

I’ll put this theory to test at the Web 2.0 Expo. It looks like most of the geek world is going to be there. I’m starting to get nervous about my presentation on Tuesday. I guess I was expecting something cosier.

Strangely, while the space inside the conference centre seems huge and overwhelming, San Francisco itself feels remarkably condensed, like one big neighbourhood. Just about everything is in walking distance from everything else and there’s decent public transport in case of inclement weather. Like I said, my kind of place.

I’ve got some more travelling ahead of me. I’ll be getting the bus to Heathrow tomorrow to get on the long flight to San Francisco. That’s the setting for the Web 2.0 Expo next week, at which I’ll be speaking on The Beauty in Standards and Accessibility.

I’ve been to the States quite a few times but this will be my first time visiting San Francisco. It’s somewhere I’ve always wanted to visit so I’m glad that I’m finally getting my foggy due.

The conference proper doesn’t kick off until Monday so I’ll have a weekend to explore the city (and frantically finish preparing my slides). Denizens of San Francisco, if you fancy meeting up and showing a tourist around, grab my contact details. I’ve also got my Twitter account set up to send direct messages to my mobile phone so that’s a quick and easy way to get in touch. Yahoo-ites, Apple-ates, Technoratini and other geeks who want to meet up for beer, coffee, sushi or all three, don’t be shy.

Non-residents of Shaky Town, I will no doubt be taking plenty of pictorial evidence and given the Bay Area’s famed WiFi coverage, I expect I’ll be doing plenty of uploading to Flickr.