Target Demographic:
Small interactive audience that is a mix of Graphic and Interactive Designers as well as User Experience Developers and Architects as well as students and others interested in the field of User eXperience design and implementation. Our audience needs material and topics focused on at least both major groups in a given meeting. Preferred formats are lead round table discussion by the speaker and or other member to help facility discussion for the guest speaker.
Time limitations and presentation length: Ideally a presentation of 20 to 40 minutes and discussion are ideal but the organization is flexible if we know up front. Normally we need to wrap up about 1.5 hours after starting time and we tend to start 15 minutes into the hour to allow for stragglers.
Demographic Assumptions: It is safe to assume that all members of the audience are internet suave as well as familiar at a cursory level with Adobe and Microsoft design and development packages.
Kool-Aid: our group has a tradition of being technology agnostic. We recognize that many of the speakers are biased and we understand that. In good fun we have a tradition of pouring a glass of Kool-Aid for anyone that is getting a bit too emotionally tied to one companies Kool-Aid. This is a friendly way we use to let people know to look at the technology or topic matter as objectively as possible without the ‘Kool-Aid’ of one company or the other.
Topic Selection: Topics that work best for the group including anything related to Designers and Developers as long as the bulk of the information applies to both parties or is helpful in understanding designers and developers with regarding to building better User eXperiences.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Perhaps someone or two people from the same company could give a talk on developing for Touch UIs (Win7, iPhone, Surface)and give some basic principles and best practices and maybe gotchas.
They wouldn’t need to show any confidential work, just general techniques and things they’ve learned along the way.
This might draw attendees from the general public, if they know about the meeting.
Thanks for taking the time to discuss this, I feel strongly about it and love learning more on this topic. If possible, as you gain expertise, would you mind updating your blog with more information? It is extremely helpful for me.