Much of the content was familiar to me, but it is always fun to hear someone else’s take on it. There were a couple of presentations that stood out from the rest for me. In particular, two towards the end of the day. One was on content strategies, which is always a favorite topic of mine, and the other was on syndicated content, which I had never thought about very deeply, but is a fascinating topic.

My presentation was on the education of the next generation of web designers. I think we are at a really interesting time in our industry where the beginning stages are coming to a close and students who have actually majored in the field are now entering the work force. It will be very interesting to see how that affects the field and I think that those of us who have helped shape the field so far should be thinking about how we can continue to do so as it matures.

Having spent a lot of time working with WordPress, it is exciting to see some other options and see how other tools can handle dynamic content. Webvanta hold a lot of promise. It is a hosted CMS, so it is a bit different from the open source CMS options out there. Check out the Webvanta website.

Also, it is a good idea to point out that they have a design contest starting up. Build something in Webvanta (for free) before the end of the year, and you could win a nice MacBook Pro, or an iPod Touch. You can follow them on Twitter for more info.

Also this is the first site I have made where I collaborated with students from Art Institute in Sacramento, where I am currently teaching. Major kudos go to Kate Poole and John Slingerland who worked with me on this site. Kate came up with the initial design and John did some of the conversion of xhtml into the wordpress theme.

Please find out more about Kim by visiting her site.

It was a pleasure to be able to work with Joe on his site, which has a very nice simple and elegant design. Please visit the Strategy Capabilities site here.

The Kalexo Teamwork software combines task management, file sharing, text chatting, voice chatting, screen sharing and tons more. I have been helping them with bits and pieces for the last few years, kind of on the periphery, but I am really impressed with how useful and cutting edge the software is. I strongly recommend you check them out.

Joe’s web site is managed through WordPress, like many of the others I have worked on. He will be adding and updating content himself as he sees fit. It is still in its infancy at the time of this writing, but I have confidence that Joe will make it shine over time. Visit ChannelQi.com!

Robin specializes in photographing bands and is wonderful to work with. If you are in the Sacramento area and need some photography work done, I highly recommend contacting her.

Robin’s photography can be found at blueluxphotos.com

The website features nice use of Lightbox 2 by Lokesh Dhakar. The coding for the website is nice clean xhtml. It was a pleasure to make and Addie is great to work with. If you need a photographer, be sure to give her a call.