Mike Industries

I have nothing to do with the upcoming Web Directions North Conference in Vancouver, BC, but I thought I’d give it a plug anyway. I’ve been trying to convince Dave to throw this thing in the summertime when it’s warm and gorgeous in Vansterdam, but since it’s a wintertime event, it doubles handily as a ski trip to Whistler. If you’ve never been to the Vancouver/Whistler area of the world, you should consider going to this event. Why? Great speakers!

• Cameron Adams — Super nice guy, and one of the best javascripters in the world. Also, he’s the only guy I’ve ever met who looks Asian and sounds Australian. That is because he is both!
• John Allsopp — Legendary in his ability to appear non-geeky whilst discussing the geekiest of subjects.
• Daniel Burka — Designer of Digg, purveyor of fine Web 2.0 style.
• Andy Clarke — The sixth Beatle.
• Anil Dash — Thinks he’s never met me, but actually has.
• Kimberly Elam — Hooray for females at web conferences! Kimberly is a great author and designer.
• Brian Fling — Mobile design expert from BlueFlavor, and friend of the Vine.
• Derek Featherstone — Legendary for his ability to hold a beer glass to his lips using only facial suction.
• Tara Hunt — Hooray for even more females at web conferences!
• Brian Oberkirch — I met Brian once in New York. He knows his social media.
• Dave Shea — Did some sort of Zen Garden thing once.
• Jonathan Snook — Canada’s native son scripting expert.
• Josh Williams — The Billy Bob Thornton of the web design/dev world (he knows what I mean… it’s a huge compliment).
• Jeffrey Zeldman — The all-knowing, all-powerful, all-humble one. He is our yoda.

A trip to Web Directions North is also a great excuse to renew your passport, if it has expired. Off to go do that right now…