IIDC Conference Write-Up

I think that the conference went very well. I was part of the registration team and we had no problems at all on the day of the event. We had four people at the registration table to guarantee that no person would have to wait in a line to register. We had some people show up that did not register but we had enough open seats that all we had to do was write their name down and let them in.

I enjoyed listening to each of the speakers. I liked how Josh added humor into his talk and didn't keep it extremely serious. However, I would have liked to hear him talk more about projects that he really enjoyed instead of ones that he did not like - and work that he wasn't proud of.

I really liked how Justin responded when asked the question, "What trait should designers have other than the ability to design?" Justin responded by saying, "Be able to articulate why you are different and why you are the better person for the job." This answer is a great answer and I feel can really help me in the future when going on job interviews.

Aaron's speech was a little boring to me at times because he was talking a lot about coding terms - which I wasn't really familiar with. However, I really liked how he talked about how he becomes inspired and his process of finding inspiration. I thought his cardboard bed was fascinating.

The one thing that really stuck with me from Bobby's talk was the story of the plumber. It cost $200 to tighten a nut - $5 to actually tighten it - $195 to know which nut to tighten. He told us that he wants all of us to be the $200 nut tightener. I thought that was a really great analogy. That almost everybody can design something - but it takes knowledge to know how to design it correctly. I also really liked Bobby's panel answer when he said to never take/decline your first job because of the money. At that point, you don't know what you will want, so don't decline a job because you feel you aren't getting paid enough - at least it's a job.