More Zapped

I’m happy to announce that New York filmmakers Tessa Blake and Ian Williams will be speaking at The Zap Your PRAM Conference in October.

Ian and Tessa were here on Prince Edward Island in August, on their honeymoon. Catherine and I took them to dinner at Shaddy’s Shwarma Palace, and we had a great time. They’re a welcome addition to the conference.

One important note about the conference: although we’re using the shorthand of “technology and design” to describe the conference, we’ve all felt that’s sort of a misnomer. Yes, we organizers are all, in a way, “technologists” and designers. And so that’s our starting point. But we also read books and write weblogs and watch films and mow our lawns (well, I actually don’t mow my lawn, but that’s another story…).

Which is to say that we’re not going to be talking, at least not in a long, boring, formal way, about geeky topics like “installing Windows 95 on a dual boot partition system” or “fun with RAM, ROM and RJ-45s”. We mean to talk about the tools we use, the world we live in, about new media and old media, about good design and bad design, about how systems work (and why they don’t), and about where to buy good chocolate. We’ll talk audio art, digital film, and streaming text. We’ll talk about six degrees of separation, and how you represent them on a screen. We’ll talk about weblogs and politics. And weblogs and private lives. And weblogs and travel.

So if you fear attending a geekfest, don’t. Read the [growing every day] list of people coming, read their blogs, and if you find them interesting, come and interact face to face.

We’ll have good food, a great location, and lots of good things to talk about.

If I’ve convinced you, email me and I’ll get you an invite.