As while back after #eyeofestival, some folks decided to start a new “Artist & Coders” group. Well, after month or two, the 1st meeting is finally happening this week in Boston.

Welcome, EyeO Recap + Show & Tell
Thursday, August 11, 2011, 7:00 PM
Bocoup Loft

For the first meet up we will do some introductions and have a quick recap and presentation of a few cool projects from the EyeO Festival for those who missed it and those who want to reminisce.

We will then have a show & tell time for anyone working on projects they want to share (keeping our fingers crossed that our MakerBot 3D printer will have arrived and be there to demo).

We’ll have access to a projector and screen so bring anything else you might want to share.

We can then explore some ideas for future presentations and meet ups.

Bocoup Loft is hosting the event and is a fantastic space that’s a quick walk across the bridge from the South Station T stop.

I hope to be at this 1st meeting. I’ll be speaking about my recent R&D with several interactive tools & technologies. I’ll also share some makerbot experiences if people are interested.

I recently found out about this event from a colleague:

It is no secret that one of the fastest growing technologies, smartphones and apps, fit in our pockets, everywhere with us, and keep us constantly connected.

That’s why eCoast, a division of the Greater Portsmouth Chamber and a dynamic network of high-tech businesses and professionals, is announcing the 2011 eCoast Mobile Summit presented by TechWorld.

This educational seminar will be held on July 14 from 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. at the Sheraton Portsmouth Harborside Hotel, and followed by the popular “eCruise” aboard the Isles of Shoals M/V Thomas Laighton from 5:30 – 9:00 p.m.

New Hampshire’s eCoast is on the leading edge of the Mobile smartphone revolution.

That’s why eCoast Mobile Summit will focus on this fast growing segment with an impressive array of speakers, topics and panels.

The summit will be divided into two distinct tracks one covering the technical aspects of software development and engineering with the other covering critical marketing and business topics.

The July event will take place at the Sheraton Portsmouth Harborside Hotel and features a full day of speakers, exhibits, and networking. Kicking off the event with his keynote will be best-selling author Chuck Martin.

Mr. Martin’s latest book “The Third Screen, Marketing to Your Customer in a World Gone Mobile”, which has just reached store shelves, will be provided to each attendee, and Chuck will be available during the day to personalize each copy.

I’ll be there, either as a speaker or attendee.

Hope to see others there as well!

This past Wednesday (May 25th, 2011), I had the unique pleasure of attending my first ever UPA Boston event; the annual UPA Boston conference.

I think most people were calling it “mini-UPA”, but I’m not exactly sure if that was entirely correct, after seeing more than 400-500 people attending. It wasn’t exactly what I would call “mini”, by my standards.

oh, and for those that don’t know what UPA is? Here you go:

“The Usability Professionals Association’s Boston Chapter (UPA Boston) is a 501c6 nonprofit organization and is the local arm of a national organization.

UPA Boston provides a forum for usability practitioners to share techniques and experiences.

The UPA attracts a variety of people: newcomers to our field and experienced practitioners, as well as the distinguished professionals who have been defining and shaping the field of usability for decades.

The UPA also provides supportive information to senior executives, managers, team leads, and those who are usability advocates within their organizations.”

I decided it was finally high time to make it to a UPA event.

Being this was only a one day event, and it was local to Boston area … it made sense to see what was actually said at these types of events. By “these types of events”, I mean events that “user experience” experts attend. Design crowd, folks. Pretty much the people I don’t normally get too see too much at the … admittedly … developer focused events I go to.

Day 1/1
I had planned on driving in, but decided against it last minute, as I discovered that 95 traffic was going to be horrible going up to Cambridge.

Instead, I hopped on the 8am community rail into South Station. I took the Red Line from South Station to Kendall Square stop.

UPA had a scheduled Bus system running from Kendall to the Hyatt Regency Cambridge, which made it super easy to get there (instead of pulling out the mobile device to do the 20 minute walk).

Once at the venue, it was already started.

I actually missed a lot of the intro keynote type material, but I managed to pick up my badge and a workbook they had of compiled presentation material.

From there, I head into some sessions. Really, I hadn’t done my research or laid out a schedule of the sessions I wanted to see at UPA. It was all last minute … picks based on the material I saw in the workbook.

Being that I had no idea who the speakers were, I think I got an interesting mix of professionals and their talks at the conference. Here are some of the talks I attended, and my thoughts about the material (that I can recall).

Can “Smart Home” Technology Change the Future of How Older Adults Live?
This presentation wasn’t exactly my 1st choice (it was standing room only in some of the others), but it was interesting to hear about how technology is impacting the older generations, and particularly the elderly.

Several case studies of home automation were discussed. Frankly the presentation was a little rough around the edges, but it brought up some good points.

I wish the overall topic had been broader. “Smart Homes”, or “Future Technologies for the Elderly”.

To me, “Can “Smart Home” Technology Change the Future of How Older Adults Live? was just too narrow a focus to really answer the question. Maybe that was a good thing?

Rock! Paper! iPad! Comparing UX Tools on the iPad to Traditional Methods
This is what I expected it to be. A dude on stage talking about his experiences with UX Tools.

I like the audience polling aspect to the session, and the results definitely showed how hyped tablet form factor is for certain use cases when using it as a design tool. Well, at least right now, that is (yes, sometimes paper is better, and yes, sometimes a laptop IS BETTER!).

I did caught some new tools I hadn’t used before, so I’m going to take some time over the next month to download and give them a whirl. Most of the tools mentioned were already part of my workflow, though.

4 Mobile Apps, 2 Dev Teams, & 1 Enterprise Mobile Solution
Well, being the owner of a mobile and device development company, this presentation was certainly my cup of tea; even if the takeaways were limited for me.

The content wasn’t exactly exciting, but the story behind it was entertaining to hear from a enterprise company learning to cope with the needs of a fledgling mobile project … i.e. the challenges of fragmentation, etc.

Lunch (aka “Chow Time”)
Had a brief lunch with some folks and @graiz (Greg Raiz). I don’t think we covered anything particularly ground breaking in our chats, but it was fun, nevertheless … especially the “being outdoors on a sunny day”, part.

After lunch, everyone headed back to afternoon sessions.

Mobile App Design for Behavior Change
I thought this was one of my favorite sessions of the event I got to see. It’s hard to explain without going into all the behavioral research that was cited in the presentation, but it’s really cool to see some of the concepts applied to mobile apps.

The Nuts and Bolts of Running a Single Person Consultancy
As the owner of a consultancy, I wanted to see if I was missing out on any advise from fellow independents at the session.

A lot of points rung true, and there were a few new points I picked up. I put them down into Evernote, and here they are (as best I recorded them):

• Ask for Help.
• Bill by day or hour.
• Be helpful.
• Be clear about what you do.
• Be versatile.
• Be clear about deliveries and dates.
• Be easy to work with.
• Don’t get tied into too many clients.
• Don’t take small jobs. 10 hours, etc.
• Don’t respond to RFP’s.
• Learn new stuff.
• Keep your linked-in profile up to date. No portfolio. Showing live work is better.

Wrap up

Unfortunately, I had to head back before the conference was over.

I would have liked to hear more about the “Video Wall”, as well as stayed for the evening social event. Alas, it did not happen.

Perhaps I’ll get to another UPA event in the future. It’s always good for developers to get out and meet up with designers outside of the normal realms of work relationships. There is a lot to learn from both sides.

I hope to give a presentation at this group in the future. I didn’t really spot too many developer oriented talks at UPA. I hope that’s not intentional.

The cross communication between people in groups is essential, and I hate to see the obvious “digital divide” between “designers” and “developers” that inevitably happens. It’s high time this went away, IMO.

Things like UPA help that happen, through education and knowledge transfer.

Anyways … just some ramblings in a blog post from a Mobile and Device developer’s perspective.

There’s an upcoming Mobile Devices and Platforms seminar hosted at Microsoft NERD this week.

It’s basically a “who to target” seminar for those looking to start creating apps for mobile.

It’s a paid event, but based on the speakers, you’ll get direct info from the OEMS and other folks involved with ecosystems.

I think the only caveat is that it starts at around 8am.

$40-$80 for an hour and a half about ecosystems seems reasonable if you’re are new to mobile, or just want the low-down on what each player is doing today and insight into what they may do tomorrow.

Here’s more info, in case you may want to attend here in Boston:

Mobile Devices and Platforms Seminar – March 16, 2011

Mobile Thought Leaders Share Development Strategies on Handsets and Platforms
With choice comes decision. With three major platforms, app developers and mobile service providers have a number of considerations as they decide which developer they should release with, support and build future products on.

Join this outstanding panel of mobile handset and platform providers and hear directly from them on the benefits to working with their platform and handsets. Also hear from a current developer on their experiences and lessons learned on developing for each of the platforms. Discussion to include:

• Which platform should you develop for first?
• What kind of support can you expect from the platform providers?
• Are all markets equal? Is bigger better??
• What are the pros and cons of each platform?
• Lessons learned while developing
• How does the handset impact how users interact with your app or services?
• What does the future hold? Where are the biggest opportunities moving forward?

Don’t miss this opportunity to ask your questions and hear firsthand what the platform providers have in store for future releases. Demos to follow panel discussion.

Moderator:
John Tremblay, Practice Lead, Mobile Integrity

Speakers:
Damien Balsan, Director, Head of NFC Business Development Americas, Nokia
Kenneth Daniels, Director of Strategic Alliances, Samsung
Anthony Kinney, Mobile Evangelist for Windows 7, Microsoft
T.L. Neff, EVP and Product Management and Client Services, Pyxis Mobile
Alex Willis, Director, Business Mobility & Professional Services, RIM

Event Details:
March 16, 2011
Registration: 7:30am – 8:00am
Panel: 8:00am – 9:30 am
Microsoft NERD Center
One Memorial Drive
Cambridge, MA 02142

Update:
@jwilker tweeted he has used “stuffbak” which is a service. I like the DIY approach since it has minimal overhead and is easy for the user to understand (i.e. dial a phone #, or send an email), but this is another option available to those reading this post.

There’s no denying there’s no shortage of mobile or other device platforms to develop on these days, but as a mobile developer, having a lot devices, also means keeping track of them (unfortunately).

Recovering them if you should ever lose one outside the office can be quite an painful ordeal … and for those that travel a lot, and like to use physical devices to demo their content it’s kind of nightmare (i.e. calling up the airport, the hotel, the conference organizers, etc) it can happen easily by simply leaving your phone in your hotel room (case “#235″).

Sure there are high tech methods to track devices (i.e. phones) with “Find my Lost Device” type services, but these require setup, and are really meant for theft, not lost & found activities. What’s more is that these methods are also meant for personal daily devices, and not necessarily development devices you use for demoing or testing apps, etc (these devices may not be fully configured, lack a SIM, or otherwise be considered a “dev device”). Thus, it’s best to make this as painless as possible for those who may *find* your device to get it back to you unscathed.

Common methods include setting up “Lost and Found” splash screens on some devices, as well as programming your “lost & found” phone number/email into the device that allows a finder to track you down … yet a third method is to add simple stickers either inside the battery case, or one the exterior of a device.

This is a passive, as opposed to active approach to a bad situation. It’s also an approach that gets the return to sender ball rolling immediately, which you may not be able to do if you’re stuck on a plane at 30k ft and you notice you’ve “misplaced a device”. This also works well for dev devices, because it doesn’t require anything in software, which may get wiped with updates and/or reformats (it *is* a dev device after all).

If most people see this sticker, most people are going to try to get it back to you as best they can.

Here’s how I have been doing it for the last year or two on some example devices:

Inside the battery over is not a bad place. The user will see it the first time they open, if they are putting in a SIM or removing something (like memory)

Outside stickers usually work best as transparent ones, which make it harder for the casual holder to read your contact info (a potential “security risk”)

On the inside beneath the battery (harder for user to find, but they will eventually, especially when they are thinking about activating it!)

You can add whatever contact info you feel comfortable sharing. A device might be lost, or it might actually be stolen. Obviously the minimum info required
to get it back to you if it’s lost is best … so things like an email address, phone #, and maybe even your first name are good enough.

If the device is important enough you can also put a small reward offering on the sticker. You might even offer a huge reward if it’s a proto/unreleased OEM device that shouldn’t be out of the office in the 1st place (case in point token “iPhone 4 bar dude guy”).

If you’re wondering where to get the stickers … well, I’d try staples, or perhaps an online place that prints custom mailing address labels, like vistaprint.

Anyways this is a tip to help you recover your lost device … if it’s stolen, well, maybe you’ll get lucky … or maybe it’s time to try to load up that “Track a Device” service for your personal device, and possibly do a remote data wipe. =)

Losing a device can be a distressing event, because it may mean you lost money, time & effort (loading apps, or storing work), lost private contact info and configurations, or a pain because it was communications device you need when you get off a plane. Taking the time for a sticker is a minor price to pay for not trying to maximize your chances of getting it back if it’s ever lost.

If you’ve lost one recently, I feel for you … Good Luck on your recovery, just don’t grieve too long on your technological loss. There are no shortage of upgrades these days to choose from!