After a relatively quiet start, caused in part by a missing projector, the speeches began. First up was Graham Knox from Stormhoek who spoke briefly about “shifting the power” in a company’s relationship with its customers.
Following Graham’s interesting case study, Phil from UserExperience took the stand and provided a captivating talk on improving “user experience” (believe it or not :p). While he was walking us through a very interesting and informative presentation I was reminded of a particularly interesting part of my undergrad degree where we studied HCI (human computer interaction). HCI is the equivalent to UX (user experience) but for the BSc. brain that needs strict rules and absolutes. In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I had planned to do my honours in the subject but then Quirk came along and I put it off as a “UCT IOU”.
Throughout Phil’s presentation I saw major similarities between UX and HCI – which in effect are the same discipline tackled from different angles. Both disciplines take a great deal of time and fine-tuning but in terms of overall project management these processes usually decrease the net time spend – which is good for any company. More to the point, the end product is considerably more robust and user friendly – a basic win-win all-round. Thanks Phil for the wonderfully reminiscent talk (well, for me anyway).
Randolf Jorberg was next and free styled a little around Affiliate Marketing and the rich opportunities that the South African online environment offers. He even managed to put a small plea forward for staff for his latest venture.
All in all the night was great fun and full of very interesting (and often intoxicated) chats. Thanks again to Dave, and I look forward to the next event.
Also, special thanks to Meg and Jess from Deerpark for keeping the drinks flowing once everybody else had left.
Hmm... damn i missed it again!!!
but that is no restriction for the december 27 dinner.
how was da food tho ? if there was? lol
Posted by Yasser on 2007/10/29