UXnet and the World Usability Day

Posted on 28/10/2006 by admin

As many of you probably know I am the UXnet ambassador for Milan, which actually means it’s my job to create connections between companies and the UX community, UX professionals and UX associations and son on.

In this continuing effort I decided to volunteer for the organization of the UPA World Usability Day at a global level becoming one of the UXnet provided Regional Liasons.

Since there’re just two of us in EU I’ve had the chance to get in touch with a whole lot of UX people from a lot of countries: UK, Spain, Belgium, Poland, France, and the list might continue… it’s been a WONDERFUL experience.

UXnet also recently welcomed Michele Visciola as ambassador for Turin and Rome. Michele also happens to be the President of the Italian UPA chapter and the organizer of the Italian WUD event in Milan (here’s the program and a list of speakers in English).

I think there shouldn’t be a better chance to talk about UXnet; yours truly has been invited for a short (short short short ) talk about our community. See you there.

Smart and smarter

Posted on 15/10/2006 by admin

“I’m smart enough to know people smarter than me.”

DUEPUNTPOZERO live blogging

Posted on 05/10/2006 by admin

10.30
Here I am at the Web 2.0 conference in a wonderful castle near turin. Leeander just finished his introduction on the Web 2.0 phenomenon and I’m now listening to the series of talk related to Semantic Web.

11.00
The first talk is by Andrea Marchesini, kinda basic stuff or – better to say – introductory concepts to the semantic web. The audience is very business related (even if I can recognize some geeks among it) so this is probably the reason for the basic content of the talk.

11.15
Valentina Pressutti starts her talk with a Semantic application example based on Mediawiki where some German folks developed a semantic notation plugin.
Her example is based on an semantic based intelligent system that can perform suggestions based on the best user to perform the desired action.
Her VERY interesting talk then introduced the NEON project (CNR) which studies how to create and collaboratively maintain an onthology so to suggest the user the notaqtion to be used.

17.00
I was on the stage till now and – btw – the wi-fi connection had some creepy problems that made it mostly unreliable for most of the time (Murphy’s law in action my dear).
The topics were really cuttin’ edge and I enjoied most of them unfortunately I was only able to take notes on my mind manager, so that you won’t find them blogged but just on the mind map (note: Italian only, sorry).

23.05
Finally some relax on my coach. Some post-portem thoughts on the conference:

The place was great: a medieval castle with modern art installments all around and a breathless natural scenasio all around
The organization was great: wi-fi (when working ) open to all, a lot of microphones, seats for all, and a great control room that managed both the videos and audios.
The speaker choice was great: I’d say that nearly 85% of the speakers really got my attention. (just to give you some more parameters: in the average conference this percentage barely reaches 50%)
The catering was great: good Piedmont products well cooked and served directly to your dish with a nice choice of cheeses and wine.