Following on Gaby’s  blog post from earlier today, here are a few thoughts from me also. Don’t forget to check back tomorrow as Matthew will be reflecting on his visit to this year’s FOTB.

But I’ll continue for now.

I attended FOTB last Monday. Despite the early hour and the strong winds, the Brighton Dome was filled with people, gathered there to listen to the entertaining keynote session led by Adobe team who were going through a few changes they’ve started to implement or are currently working on.

After a quick break and quick cuppa coffee (thank you FOTB!!!), it was time for the first talk:

“From Zero to App in 60 seconds”

Greg Rewis @derez

This was the session I was most looking forward to. I was keen to hear what kind of tips and knowledge Greg, the evangelist of Adobe’s HTML5, CSS and Javascript, would share with the audience. As you already figured, the talk itself didn’t last for 60 seconds, but almost a whole hour. And this hour simply flew by as Greg most definitely is a great and entertaining speaker who knows how to engage with audiences and challenge them at the same time. And, of course, there is no doubt about his development skills as he showed us how he can rock’n’roll with Dreamweaver to create applications for difference devices, giving them the look and feel of a ‘native’ app. So, what’s the key thing to take away from this talk? Well, the simple fact many brands still tend to forget as they are rushing to create apps and sites for different technological platforms: “Experiences on different devices should NOT be the same”.

“Multi-Platform Web Video Delivery”

Rich Shupe @richshupe

Yet again, another session I was very much looking forward to. Although I’ve been excited about digital (of all forms) for several years, I haven’t always paid much attention to the challenges the industry has been facing in terms of developing for various devices. Yes, I’m aware of the basics (iOS doesn’t support Flash), but it’s only now, that I’ve started to work within the Technical team here at Cogs, that I’ve really become intrigued about the opportunities and obstacles the industry is facing. So, listening to Rich explain and exhibit how it’s possible to use spreadsheets to create well-functioning video content for iPad, was definitely an eye-opener. Surely, I didn’t understand all of the heavy-techy side of the talk, i.e.  the coding, but it definitely helped me to broaden my knowledge of video delivery for various devices and gain a better understanding of the technologies available for that.

In summary, attending FOTB was, without a doubt, very useful in terms of understanding what’s happening within the industry, what are the latest technologies and ways to develop high quality products across the whole range of devices available for today’s consumer.

And to finish off my short note here, I’d like to go back to the conversation I had with one of our flash developers prior to attending the event. He asked me whether we are attending the event to headhunt or is there another reason. I explained that headhunting most definitely wasn’t going to be Cogs’ initiative for attending. And it wasn’t. As we all met up in the office after the 3-day event, the only thing that our people really talked about was how insightful it had been.

We met old and new faces, but conversations we had with current and future candidates didn’t start with “so, do you want a job” but were about the talks just heard, things learnt. At the end of the day, it’s our job to know what’s the happening on the marketplace, what’s new and –  ultimately – what should candidates and agencies be aware of when facing today and looking above the horizons towards the future.

Reporter:

Dianne Hummal, Researcher for the Technical Team

Tweeting as @diannehummal about latest jobs, exciting industry news, networking events and happenings and other things spotted on the way.

• Categories
• Creative and Brand Design