IWMW blogs

Mike Nolan from Edge Hill University summarises his parallel session: “Mobile Apps vs. Mobile Web” in this quick video interview with Kirsty Pitkin…

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Joss Winn, Technology Officer at University of Lincoln, discusses his parallel session “WordPress Beyond Blogging” with Billy Fallows…

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Who are you?
Yvonne Aburrow

Where do you work and what do you do?
Web Developer at University of Bath Web Services, working on content, usability, information architecture and accessibility. http://blogs.bath.ac.uk/webservices/the-team/ may be of help here.

What are your main areas of interest?
Usability, information architecture and accessibility.

Are you working on anything exciting?
A Graduations website for the University.

Have you been to IWMW before?
No.

What has been the best bit about IWMW so far?
I really enjoyed Ranjit’s talk, which really challenged us to get real and start talking about the hard realities we need to embrace – which I think we all need at the moment.

What will you take away from the event?
I liked what Paul Boag was saying about sprints – and we are already doing this within my team. However, I think his point about removing out of date content was very good and I think we perhaps haven’t felt as empowered to do this before, so I was inspired by that.

What would be the impact on your institution if there were no IWMW?
This is my first year, so it is difficult for me to tell personally, but I have found it a very energising event, so I think without it we would all continue to do the “same old same old”.

Alex Dutton presenting on Molly

Where do you work and what do you do?
I work within the Information Services team at the Oxford University
Computing Services. I’m mostly a Python/Django mobile web developer,
but dabble in data modelling and wrangling, and Java-based web services.

What are your main areas of interest?
I enjoy taking inelegant data sources and implementing a more user-friendly interface over the top. Indeed; this is one of the key ideas behind Mobile Oxford (http://m.ox.ac.uk/), our mobile-friendly information portal for staff and students of the University.

I’m also greatly interested in the semantic web and linked data, and am encouraged by how these concepts are being used by governments and other institutions to publish data efficiently.

Are you working on anything exciting?
We’ve recently open-sourced Mobile Oxford as the Molly Project (http://mollyproject.org/), and would love other institutions to get involved and join the community.

On the semantic web theme, I’m also involved in an initiative to open up some of the University’s data as open linked data at http://data.ox.ac.uk/. It’s still a work in progress, but watch this space!

Have you been to IWMW before?
First time, I’m afraid. Though I must admit to watching the webcast of some colleagues talking last year (http://iwmw.ukoln.ac.uk/iwmw2009/sessions/mcknight/).

What has been the best bit of IWMW so far?
I’ve particularly enjoyed the most technical aspects of the talks – especially Patrick Lauke’s talk about HTML 5 and Opera. I also really appreciated Chris Sexton’s talk and her figures for how much some sites have cost to develop!

What will you take away from attending IWMW?
I’ve already had some ideas from people about improving our services. In particularly, the event has made me realise that we really need to think hard about our unique selling points for Mobile Oxford, which I presented this morning in the plenary about the mobile web. There is still another day to go, and I’m hoping I am going to be able to find and get assimilated into a linked data community, as I know there are some people here. That would be really useful for me personally and professionally.

Rich Kirk, Head of Online Marketing at Chameleon Net, discusses issues from his parallel session with Billy Fallows in this video interview…

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Owen Stephens summarises his parallel session: Flash Mash in this short video interview with Kirsty Pitkin…

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Relly Annett-Baker, Content Strategist at Headscape, discusses her parallel session on content strategy with Billy Fallow in this video interview…

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Peter Barnes of the University of Reading summarises his parallel session: “A Little Project Management Can Save A Lot Of Fan Cleaning” in this short video interview with Kirsty Pitkin…

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Joanna Blackburn of the University of Salford summarises her parallel session: ‘Follow Us On Twitter’…’Join Our Facebook Group’, in this short interview with Kirsty Pitkin….

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