My First Keynote...

I've had months to prepare for this occasion and it arrives first thing in the morning. I've been asked to deliver the keynote address at the 2009 BYTE Conference, being held February 27th in Minnedosa, Manitoba. Just over 400 participants from across Manitoba in attendance. As nervous as I am about the prospects of delivering my first keynote address, I think I'm as ready as I'll ever be :-)

For archival purposes, I've used SlideShare to create a slidecast of my keynote address. Here it is:

BYTE 2009 Keynote

View more presentations from Andy Mckiel. (tags: keynote 2009)

I've also created a wiki for the 2009 BYTE Conference, to share and archive resources from the many sessions that are offered at this year's BYTE Conference. Check out the BYTE Resource Wiki...

I'd gladly welcome any and all feedback, so please don't hesitate to post your comments ;-)

Please feel free to share this resource as you see fit...
Thanks in advance,
Andy

Building a Better Block

Image: 'La tour Block Buddies' - http://www.flickr.com/photos/49462908@N00/141488559

As kids, how many of us spent an eternity building teetering towers with blocks? How many of us learned to combine letters to form sounds and words with these same blocks? Blocks are one of those universal 'toys' that provide a solid foundation for learning by allowing all children to manipulate and create.

And now, thanks to technology, a whole new generation of building blocks have emerged that will up the ante. In the following TED Talks video, David Merrill, an MIT grad student, demonstrates the capabilities of 'Siftables'. I wish I could have gotten my hands on some of these when I was a kid. Actually, I'd really love to get my hands on some of these as an adult, so that I could share them with my kids :-)

Check out Siftables, and imagine the possibilities...

Twitter 'follower' Mosaics

Image: 'Poster #2 - Test Run' - www.flickr.com/photos/94832693@N00/7966141

It's been far too long since I posted here. I've been running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to tie up too many loose ends. Combine this with preparing a whole bunch of sessions and the keynote address for the upcoming BYTE Conference, and it leaves me with little time to post on my blog.

And then there's Twitter. Over the last month, my Twitter network has doubled in size and I'm finding that the nature of my blog reading has changed. I rely less heavily on my RSS aggregator and pay more attention to the trends and discussions that are surfacing in my Twitter feed instead. I still read the same blogs, and discover new blogs, but I hear about and read the latest posts long before I read about them in my blog reader.

I love this Twitter Follower Mosaic tool that I first discovered in a recent post on Rodd Lucier's blog. I found many new people to follow, and have been privy to many great discussions by building off of other people's Twitter networks.

Click on any avatars in the following mosaic to find a few more people to follow in your own Twitter network :-)

Get your twitter mosaic here.