I met and listened to lots of new and and interesting people at the annual IBF conference this week.

“The user arrives running”, and so did Ted Nelson, as Martin Leith put it, the “ht” in html.

Ted shared with us his sideways view on the world.

When asked to describe a computer we describe ourselves, limited by our own imagination. And how were we ever going to get a paperless office by imitating paper?

Still discovering the elusive interface via xanadu, transliterature and zig-zag. HyperTed.

Good luck to Louise Ferguson with ORG (via pledgebank), and great to meet another East Dulwich blogger 🙂

It’s the first time I’ve met Gerry McGovern and heard him speak and he does a great turn.

His key message was as intranet professiosnals we need to be the leaders of what we do because it’s not going to come from anywhere else.

Gerry’s take on the user arriving running is imagining your content on a motorway sign and someone driving 70 miles an hour needs to be able to understand it.

He talked about three ages of intranets: first it’s all about infrastructure, then it’s all about architecture, and then it’s all (hopefully) about content… I asked him afterwards “If the screen with your slideshow on had been extended up and right what would have appeared next?” His answer was “Collaboration.”

Thanks to Martyn Perks for pointing me towards the Design Council’s experience design events

The uber-usable Steve Krug, author of the book Don’t Make Me Think and coiner of the phrase “It’s not rocket surgery” to describe what he does, said “Internet sites have advanced by imitation”.

Which made me think.