Icelab

Why haven’t you been to a Webstock yet? I attended for the first time this February and it was a truly amazing conference. World-class speakers, a grand venue, and an event run with untold amounts of care.

Webstock encouraged me to think about (or rethink) many things. Foremost, about thinking in the long term. Matt Haughey shared lessons learnt in running MetaFilter for over a decade. Wilson Miner poignantly reminded us that what we’re building in the internet will have the same longevity as today’s roads. Jeremy Keith encouraged us to preserve our cultural history for the future. Erin Kissane beautifully presented that we should think deeply about our work as craft, even when building big systems. And Jenn Lim and Tony Hsieh from Zappos reminded me about the importance of a core value behind all our work (in their case, happiness!).

This is not to mention a host of excellent, mind-opening talks from outside our industry: author Lauren Beukes, Gabriella Coleman on the Anonymous movement, and Michael Johnson about building tools for Pixar.

These were just some of the highlights. You’ll want to keep your eye on the Webstock site for the release of these talks as videos.

The trip to New Zealand was also a great opportunity for Icelab folks to reunite from their various corners of the world (Canberra, Melbourne, and the Philippines). We explored beautiful Wellington and sampled much of its fine food and drink. Of course, this included a lot of coffee. Here’s our official coffee nerd photo of the trip (taken at the fantastic Lamason Brew Bar):

Maybe we’ll see you next year?