Being Blonde

This isn’t so much a shirt as a motto.

But whose motto?

Surely not.

It is.

It can’t be.

It is you know.

It’s the man who’s made this category his own.

He’s so vain.

Iiiiiiiit’s Nick!

We managed to make it to the Highland Fling this year.

No, nothing to do with cabers, it’s an annual web developers conference held in Edinburgh.

Yes, I know this was almost two weeks ago but thanks to some distractions and a bout of The Dreaded Lurgi I’ve been unable to write a post about this till now.

This year’s conference was titled “The Browser and Beyond” and had an eye to the future of what the web will mean in three, five, ten years time. It covered topics from mobile browsing through real time updates to desktop applications built using Adobe AIR.

Alan has put in place a superb presentation format too. Breaking from the usual mold of post-presentation question/answer sessions, instead the speakers landed on what looked much like a therapist’s couch to be interrogated by Paul Boag. Ammunition/questions supplied by the audience over the mediums of twitter, email and paper aeroplane.

Some very enjoyable presentations made it an entertaining day as well as informative but I think the day was summed up best by the very first speaker (Mark Norman Francis of Yahoo! Europe). “The web is change”.

He’s right - looking at the history of the internet from the olden days of ARPA net through to modern times makes you realise just how much has changed in such a short period of time. The internet is only 39 years old and it’s far from set in its ways. Google (which I refer to as “the other half of my brain” at times) has only been around 12 years. Web standards HTML with CSS has only really taken off in the past 6 years, and it’s still not everywhere. Just compare the “99% bad” Flash animations of 2000 with today’s accessible, powerful application framework.

Some people might think that once they’ve got an application or a website all of a sudden that’s the internet problem “solved”.

If it were only that easy… People are finding new ways to interact all the time (and old ways are falling by the wayside - just check how popular email isn’t with the younger generation), social networking is the big thing at the moment but there will be something new next year or the year after next (it might still be social but it’ll be different). It might be something sparked by ubiquitous wireless access. It might be something completely out of the blue.

I don’t think the browser will be going anywhere soon but change (as always) is in the air. Who knows we might be fighting off Pterodactyls in our Zeppelins before the decade is out (cheers for that Simon).

In the words of Corporal Hicks: Stay frosty and alert.

Here’s looking forward to next year’s conference.

I spent two days at Turnberry last week for the annual A G Barr management conference. This covered a review of the past twelve months and plans for the year ahead. It’s a good opportunity to catch up with what’s happening on brands other than IRN-BRU and Strathmore and to mingle with Barr people from beyond the marketing department.

This year the conference also included interesting presentations from Sir Matthew Pinsent on winning (something he’s done a lot of in his time) and The Prince’s Trust as well as after dinner entertainment by The Proclaimers - un-be-liev-able.

When you work in finance you form a bond with money. You look after it, it looks after you. But, as spoonman might have hinted at, I like things to be clean. And money ain’t clean. Let’s face it when was the last time that you had a fiver with a bit of backbone to it. They’re all limp and pathetic and, frankly, very well soiled. Last week I tried to put one in a pay and display machine to pay for my ticket and the machine spat it out. I wasn’t surprised, I wouldn’t eat it either.

Fortunately with BACS and CHAPS and all that there’s not a lot of cash running through my well manicured fingers. But there’s always a downside isn’t there. Expenses. Specifically, receipts.

I think everyone who claims expenses makes sure their receipts have been strained through a tramp’s underpants before they staple them to their claim. And I’m supposed to thumb through them all to check the amounts and the VAT and all that.

I’m contemplating a number of solutions - photocopies only, scanned in receipts, even laminated receipts. All good but pretty expensive.

So, I’m doing it CSI style and buying a box of latex gloves.

The spares will come in handy should anyone over claim for anything.