September 17th 2008 | Jens C Brynildsen

Upcoming conferences

Heads up - there is a different conference in town

Putting on the worlds first major conference both on and about the web is no small task. Doing it online using Flash and driving it with Beta software can be an even bigger challenge. We talk to conference "head" Aral Balkan about the challenges setting it up, the ideas behind and what we can expect at the event.

<head> is a first of it's kind web conference. What makes it special?

<head> is an experiment in creating a new type of web conference that's environmentally friendly. Instead of flying speakers and attendees from all around the world to a single spot on the Earth, everyone stays where they are and presents and interacts without leaving their local communities.

Wasn't the conference called Singularity? Why did you change the name?

It was. Unfortunately, at the end of August we got a letter from a company informing us that they had registered Singularity as a trademark in the trademark class that includes, among other uses, the organization of conferences. They didn't seem to want to talk to us about it, instead preferring to have a legal conversation between our lawyers and I decided that we just didn't have the time or budget to get into that with two month's to go. It was actually a very difficult decision to make, but a grueling three-day redesign later, we were back up and running as <head>.

How did the idea for the conference come about?

Mostly, it came about because I don't like to travel as much as I do. I speak at about a dozen conferences a year and have to fly almost a many times, if not more, and mostly transatlantic flights at that. I'm very aware of my carbon footprint and I wanted to explore whether an alternative wasn't possible. We are in the industry of creating virtual things, we have the technology, why not try a virtual web conference? That was the initial idea, in any case, it has evolved a bit since then.

You are building the <head> site on Google App Engine, a brand new beta technology from Google. Isn't it dangerous to bet your project on a Beta?

Yes, it is! As with all things, though, you have to weigh up the risks with the potential rewards. Building the site on Google App Engine meant that we didn't have to create yet another user management system for ourselves, anyone with a Google account can log in to the <head> web site. They should call that feature Instant Community.

Google App Engine is not just a new technology but a new way of building web sites and applications. The traditional method goes something like this:

Build amazing web app
Deploy amazing web app
Have 1,000,000 hit your amazing web app at once and see your amazing web app go up in flames under the load
Spend days, weeks, months optimizing your amazing web app, clustering your servers and sharding your databases

In traditional development, #4 is the hard bit. Frameworks like Ruby on Rails can get you up to Step 2 very quickly but you may find yourself screwed at Step 3. Twitter is a very public example of this, although they are not your regular web app, either. It took them a long time to get from Step 3 to Step 4.

To further underscore the point, when I was at SXSW this year, I attended panels where I heard the same story from the people behind nearly every successful web site out there -- Digg, Flickr, StumbleUpon, etc. Scaling a popular application is hard work and requires specialized expertise.

With Google App Engine, the process is turned on its head. If you can get your application running well for just one person -- more than likely you, the developer/tester, then you can be pretty sure that it will run that way for a million people. The process becomes:

Build amazing web app and run up against scaling issues while building the app. Fix, rinse, repeat.
Deploy amazing web app
Have 1,000,000 hit your amazing web app and grab a beer.

So you may find yourself having to do things differently and spending more time in Step 1 but you do away with the painful Step 4 altogether.

If this sounds like premature optimization, it's because in some ways, it is. And yet, to call it that would be to do Google App Engine a very big disservice because it is far more than that. It's a new way of building web applications and you will have to throw away your preconceptions, and in some cases, years of internalized best practices (normalization, for example, is not your friend on Google App Engine).

I guess we can follow your strides on insideRIA?

That was the idea at the outset. I have to say that I've been rubbish at keeping a journal on there -- things have just been really hectic. Now that I have my account set up so I don't have to go through an editor, I should be able to post more often to my blog there. In short: I will try harder! :)

The event itself will be run using Adobe Flash Media Interactive Server and a setup provided by Influxis run using Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro, hosted at Adobe. Can you tell a bit about how this will work in real life?

Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro is a really solid Flex-based app from Adobe for holding virtual meetings, and conferences. We previously used it to great success for holding the Open Source Flash conferences. Adobe are generously hosting us on their own cluster.

What will you do if there's technical issues when the conference starts? Do you trust Adobe/Influxis to solve anything that may pop up?

In my experience with Connect, there may be slight sniggles but I've never seen a presentation fail on it. Even if there is an unavoidable Internet issue, we are recording everything and we will just re-record the session in question and release it afterwards.

The social aspects of a conference is maybe just as important as the speakers. How will you go about solving this?

Social interactions are at least as important to the conference experience, if not more so, than the sessions. As someone who speaks at and attends at least a dozen conferences every year, I find that the best sessions inspire me and spark conversations but that those conversations are then best realized in the hallways and social gatherings. Our biggest challenge in organizing <head> is to find virtual ways of encouraging and facilitating the social experience.

Thankfully, the web is no stranger to social communication. We are taking advantage of the full spectrum of available channels, both via the social aspects we are planning on introducing on the site and through existing channels like Twitter, mailing lists, social video networks like Qik, and a social hub in Second Life that is currently under construction. And, of course, the local conference hubs provide a more traditional, real-world opportunity to meet people and network.

A classic problem at conferences is conflicting session scheduling, but you've solved that?

Thankfully we have John Dalziel, whom you will no doubt know well at Flash Magazine, on board as our resident digital horologist and we're working on the scheduling with him. John's passion is horology so I feel confident that we're up to the unique challenges that this conference's scheduling presents. And, having looked into it quite a bit, it does appear that the majority of our speakers, as well as our attendees, are based in the US and the UK so that makes the scheduling easier.

The speaker lineup is quite impressive! How did you get hold of all those speakers?

It is, isn't it (you can't see the proud gleam in my eye but I'm smiling right now!) :) I'm truly humbled when I look through the speakers list. All I can say is that I'm very lucky to have made some great friendships in the decade or so that I've been in the industry and I'm moved that so many of them have supported me in this endeavor.

You have a strong Flash background, but the speaker topics cover more or less the entire web?

That's true. This is not a Flash conference, it's a web conference that doesn't ignore Flash. Flash has grown up. We don't have to justify its existence anymore. We're part of the web world. It was about time that a conference acknowledged that. <head> does!

<head> has a solid environmental side to it as well?

It does! We're preventing thousands upon thousands of tons of carbon emissions from ever reaching the environment by not having speakers and attendees fly to attend the conference. When you think about the number of conferences there are globally every year and the number of flights that they result in, it's a horrifying number. I can only hope that more people experiment with virtual conferences and that this will cut down on the huge environmental impact that conferences are having today.

Best of luck Aral! What's the important dates to remember?

Thanks, Jens! The important dates are October 24-26, 2008, when the conference takes place. Also keep an eye on the conference web site for announcements as there will be a lot happening between now and the end of October.

About Jens C Brynildsen

Jens has been working with Flash since version 3 came out. Since then, he's been an active member of the Flash community. He's created more than a hundred Flash games (thus the name of his blog) but he also creates web/standalone applications, does workshops and other consulting. He loves playing with new technology and he is convinced that the moment you stop learning you die (creatively speaking). Jens is also the Editor of this website.

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