Keith Instone
I am the local ambassador for Toledo, OH, USA (read my personal blog for the Toledo user experience community). I am also on the UXnet board and enter in a lot of content on this site for many other locales.
Website: http://instone.org/
Thursday, April 17th, 2008
On Wednesday, April 2, we held a local user experience networking meeting in Ann Arbor. We invited leaders of local professional chapters related to user experience, university representatives, and anyone else who was interested in spending the evening meeting new people who are interested in UX. After letting everyone meet each other individually, we had dinner and then went around the room, learning about what each person was involved in. (See some photos.) The attendees:
- Anthony Viviano, Detroit UXnet local ambassador
- Bob Hale, Columbus UXnet local ambassador
- Carol Smith, UPA board member
- Connie Lippert, Refresh Detroit
- Constantinos Coursaris, Michigan State - Department of Telecommunication, Information Studies, and Media
- Dan Cooney, Ann Arbor UXnet local ambassador
- Dave Mitropoulos-Rundus, UPA & IUE
- Erin Moulton, STC/SM
- Jason Withrow, Washtenaw Community College
- Jenny Jacob, Hanson, Inc., Toledo
- John Rivard, MOCHI
- Josh Holmes, GANG, AACS (Ann Arbor Computer Society), AADD
- Keith Instone, Toledo UXnet local ambassador
- Lavie Golenberg, Human Factors Student, Wayne State College of Engineering
- Lisa Mullinaux, Bay area
- Mark Newman, U of M - SI & MOCHI
- Maureen Hanratty, U of M - SI, HCI Student, SOCHI
- Michael Beasley, Michigan UPA
- Mike Osswald, Hanson, Inc., Toledo
- Ross Johnson, Refresh Detroit
- Shane Sevo, SemaFX (SIGGRAPH), Creative Energy Alliance, Joomla Detroit,
There were several opportunities for cooperation and collaboration mentioned, such as organizing World Usability Day, joint HCI researcher/practitioner speaker series, monthly meeting information sharing, game design talks, and so on. As opportunities arise, we will leverage the contacts made at this meeting.
We asked several people if they wanted a mailing list or online group to stay in touch, and almost everyone said they were already on too many lists. We think instead it is better to leverage the existing lists, groups, social networks and so on. For example, the UXnet group on Facebook is something to join.
We think while we are using the existing tools to stay in touch and look for opportunities to work together, we should start planning our next meeting of local leaders with a passion for user experience. There are several representatives from local groups that could not make it this time, there are new groups of people to invite (such as advertising professionals or managers of local user experience teams), there is more brainstorming and planning we can do for specific UX projects, and there are other areas of the region we can reach out to.
As UXnet local ambassadors, we think that the biggest value we can add to the local user experience community is to focus on organizing these face-to-face networking events, and then let others take it from there on how they want to cooperate and collaborate.
We look forward to organizing more user experience networking events in the future.
Anthony, Dan, Keith
Posted in Ann Arbor, MI, USA | Detroit, MI, USA | News | Toledo, OH, USA
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Saturday, April 5th, 2008
BGSU graphic design alumni Gina Gerken and Cathy Fromet from Studio Graphique, a Cleveland-based brand development consultancy and environmental graphic design firm, will be presenting at the next AIGA Toledo event. They are idea people who take a creative approach and turn it into practical and creative solutions. They are a passionate team of designers moved by color, form and function.
Studio Graphique has developed a proprietary method for working with clients: “Design with Direction is the foundation from which effective visual communications can be achieved. It gives our solutions uniqueness, purpose and meaning… in essence, it makes them work.”
Sponsored by the School of Art, the Division of Graphic Design and AIGA Toledo.
See AIGA Toledo for more information.
Posted in Calendar | Cleveland, OH, USA | Local meeting | Toledo, OH, USA
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Saturday, March 29th, 2008
UX Cocktail Hours Amsterdam is a group for User Experience practitioners in and around Amsterdam who would like to attend (one or more) UX Cocktail Hours in the neighborhood. The goal of the cocktail hours is to get together informally, share news and ideas through short presentations, meet other UX practitioners, chat about work, the weather, “koetjes en kalfjes” (chit-chat), and have a drink (or two). Most Cocktail Hours these days are held at the offices of a local UX department and the drinks and some snacks are usually sponsored.
If you feel your work is related to User Experience, but your business card says Information Architect, Interaction Designer, User Interface Engineer, Concept Designer, Usability Consultant, or similar, you’re welcome too.
The owner of this list is Peter Boersma.
Posted in Amsterdam, Netherlands
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Tuesday, March 25th, 2008
CHI*Atlanta, the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA), and the Atlanta Chapter of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES) invite you to an evening of networking with the Computer-Human Interaction (CHI) - Atlanta Chapter. This will be a great opportunity for our chapters to get acquainted and talk shop in a pleasant atmosphere. We reserved space at Eclipse di luna, which offers a varied tapas menu and a lovely patio should we have some warm weather.
See CHI*Atlanta for more information.
Posted in ACM SIGCHI | Atlanta, GA, USA | Calendar | HFES | IDSA | Social
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Saturday, March 15th, 2008
| April 2, 2008 |
| 5:00 pm | to | 8:00 pm |
Leaders from Southeast Michigan / Northwest Ohio professional chapters interested in user experience will be meeting to network, share best practices and discuss cooperation and collaboration opportunities. Held in conjunction with the Internet user experience conference, the meeting will set the stage for more regional UXnet activities in the future.
Some of the local groups invited to participate include:
Representatives from area universities and colleges are also being invited. In fact, anyone interested in participating in the meeting and furthering UXnet’s mission is welcome to join us. Contact us if you are interested.
Organized by UXnet local ambassadors Keith Instone (Toledo), Dan Cooney (Ann Arbor) and Anthony Viviano (Detroit).
Posted in Ann Arbor, MI, USA | Calendar | Detroit, MI, USA | Planning meeting | Toledo, OH, USA
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Sunday, March 9th, 2008
| March 21, 2008 |
| 5:30 pm | to | 11:00 pm |
Come and celebrate Adaptive Path’s 7th Anniversary! Beer, wine and — of course — the Taco Truck. All are welcome but you’ll need to RSVP if you want to drink and eat those delicious tacos for free. See upcoming.org for more information.
Posted in AP | Calendar | San Francisco (Bay area), CA, USA | Social
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Sunday, March 9th, 2008
| March 18, 2008 |
| 5:30 pm | to | 8:00 pm |
The next DFW-UPA meeting is “User Centered Design” by LB Herbert of JC Penney. This will also be a great opportunity to network and to reconnect with fellow usability professionals in the area.
User-centered design (UCD) is an approach to design that grounds the process in information about the people who will use the product. UCD processes focus on users through the planning, design and development of a product.
Posted in Calendar | Dallas / Ft. Worth, TX, USA | Local meeting | UPA
Tags: dfw upa
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Tuesday, March 4th, 2008
“Integrating analytics and content management to improve the user experience.” At the heart of any web initiative is content. Effectively integrating web analytics and content management can mean the difference between creating a gateway or a barrier to your brand, to your customers, and ultimately, to your bottom line. Marketers play a critical role in delivering these capabilities - and more often, evaluating content tools and technologies that can enable more satisfied, and profitable customers and web visitors.
A new complimentary 1to1 Webinar: “Marketing Trends: Connecting Content to the Customer” tackles the challenges and opportunities of using content and analytics to enhance customer relationships. Join Brett Zucker, CTO, Bridgeline Software, special guest Steven Powers, Senior Analyst, Forrester Research and Ginger Conlon, Editor-in-Chief, 1to1 Media as they examine:
- Current trends and technologies to help companies deliver compelling, persuasive content.
- How Web analytics can be tied directly into customer strategies and metrics such as retention, acquisition, experience, and loyalty strategies.
- How to get started: Using available technology as an enabler to content management, enhanced usability and e-commerce measurement and analysis.
Registrants will receive a free Forrester white paper: “The Trends Driving Web Content Management.”
Register for this online seminar (for March 20, 2008, 1:00 pm EDT USA).
Posted in Calendar | Online
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Saturday, March 1st, 2008
| March 13, 2008 |
| 5:30 pm | to | 7:00 pm |
Reconnect with your fellow design community in a fun, easy-going forum. Don’t miss out on our special giveways!
Thursday, March 13, 5:30 - 7:00pm, The Blarney, 601 Monroe Street, Toledo, Ohio. This will help kick off The Blarney’s St. Patricks Day 2008 party.
An AIGA Toledo event.
Posted in AIGA | Calendar | Social | Toledo, OH, USA
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Saturday, March 1st, 2008
Volunteer to serve on the board or on one of the planning committees of NEOUPA, the Northeast Ohio chapter of the Usability Professionals’ Association. The Vice President and Secretary positions on the board are currently open and we also need people to serve on the Events, Membership, and Website planning committees. If you are interested in any of these roles, please come to Red Robin (just off 271 between Harvard and Chagrin) on Monday, March 10 at 6:30pm to learn more about how you can help.
Posted in Calendar | Cleveland, OH, USA | Planning meeting | UPA
Tags: neoupa
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