It’s been a really long time since I’ve done a NY Tech Meetup roundup, but Tuesday night’s event was so great that I thought it would be worth posting my tweets here. I know it’s not much, but it’s all I’ve got.

Tim Soo's Invisible Instruments

The presenters were:

• RadBox
• Tout
• SocialWorkout
• Tim Soo‘s Invisible Instruments
• Aviary
• Crisp Media
• Dinevore
• Ohours.org
• CrowdTap
• Chart.io
• Clothia
• SecondMarket

My Twitter notes:

• I’m in the Twilight Zone — walked into #NYTM and bumped into my former boss from Tribal @brianraganUX along with old friends from Liquidnet
• Props goes out to @tpuzak @nickcody @khalua & Matt (not on Twitter?) former coworkers from Liquidnet in the house at #nytm! First-timers!
• Radbox seems to be a Shelby competitor. @reecepacheco @JoeYevoli you guys here? #nytm
• Woot! @tawheed on the stage showing off his email template webapp Tout. Pretty sweet, I could definitely use this! #nytm
• Ho. Ly. Shit! This month’s #nytm hack-of-the month is da bomb! Tim Soo a.k.a. @tasooey’s invisible instruments
• The rockin’ @aviary is on the stage announcing their new in-browser editing tool and API. Hey @msg, where’s the hat? #nytm
• Wondering if everyone in the audience knows that it’s 2011. #nytm
• I’m a woman and even I don’t want to know what a PlaytexSport is. #nytm
• If I were playing buzzword bingo, I’d be winning right now. #nytm
• I’ve seen a lot of ridiculous uses of AR, but Clothia.com — virtually trying on clothes — is prob the best implementation I’ve seen! #nytm
• Yep, this is one of the best #nytm we’ve had in a long time. Nice work @innonate @brandondiamond!
• SecondMarket is pretty damn sweet. Registered broker/dealer that lets you trade alternative (web/tech) investments. Who does your UX? #nytm

If you want to read more about what people thought of last night’s event, check out the #nytm Twitter stream.

• NY Tech Meetup — January 2009
• NY Tech Meetup — February 2009
• I’m running for the Board of Directors of the NY Tech Meetup
• NY Tech Meetup — February 2010
• Meet me at NYC’s Internet Week 2010

Internet Week 2010, starting today and ending on Sunday, is a wide array of events all around NYC raising the profile of our ever-growing tech industry.

I’ve been generally underwhelmed by the daytime offerings, but will be out and about each night.

Where you can find me (and if you see me, say hello!):

Monday, June 7

Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh’s DELIVERING HAPPINESS book launch
The Hudson Hotel

Tuesday, June 8

NY Tech Meetup
NYU Skirball Center

Wednesday, June 9

TechSet
The Social Bar

Rackspace Revolution Party
230 Fifth

Thursday, June 10

Obliterati
Sweet & Vicious

Friday, June 11

Next New Networks’ Summer Friday Drinkup
The Frying Pan

Anything else?

If there are other events you think I should be attending, please let me know in the comments! I’m not enough of a socialite to know what’s what.

P.S. You can always see where I’m hanging out by checking out my Google Calendar under SIGHTINGS in the right sidebar of this blog.

• Whitney and Internet Week New York
• Internet Week NY Wrap-Up (in photos)
• City Trails: May 18-22
• Find me at Web 2.0 Expo NY this week
• City Trails: May 25-29

Like I mentioned in my post on UX London, I also had the pleasure of being on a UK UPA panel with Dave Gray, Jeff Patton, and Stephen Anderson titled UX Clinic. We spent about two hours answering the audience’s questions — some previously submitted and some on the fly. It was a blast.

Eva-Lotta Lamm (a.k.a. @evalottchen) created these amazing sketchnotes of the event, and I just had to share them.

Thanks to Eva (for making me look so cute!) and to all of the UK UPA folks for a great night!

• SxSW: Our panel “From Freelance to Agency: Start Small, Stay Small”
• The first Whit Hour was a success
• My Creating a Culture of UX workshop at UX London
• 10 Most Common Misconceptions About User Experience Design — the presentation
• Twitter as group therapy

This month’s NY Tech Meetup was titled Rally for the Future. With almost 700 people in attendance at FIT’s Haft Auditorium, NYTM veered off its typical format of 7 presenters for 5 minutes each. Instead a wide variety of people gave impassioned arguments about how to bring New York to the forefront of the technology revolution. Some were compelling, others were unconvincing, and a couple were just plain strange.

Read my Twitter notes from the event below:

• NYTM is about to begin. Quite a lineup tonight! Can’t wait to see @tonybgoode on stage :)
• But the cell service at FIT still sucks
• Long rant by @heif telling us we don’t all need to be fixated on bringing 20th century problems into the 21st century. Some truth here
• It doesn’t help NY tech’s reputation when @heif constantly talks about how we need a “rebirth.” We aren’t dead. Look around
• Up now is the founder of Sustainable South Bronx. She’s talking about the factors that contribute to growth in at-risk areas.
• Up now is Transportation Alternative. He says we’ve become an urban society. Be healthy, work on sustainable technologies, walk places
• Now up is Ben from SeeClickFix. Report non-emergencies around cities by tagging them on Google Maps. It’s being used globally
• SeeClickFix has an incognito employee at the Department of Transportation who is anonymously using the site to fix problems around NYC
• Two dudes from U Mass Amherst are rallying us to scream FREEDOM and encouraging us fight to protect our freedoms.
• Now up is my dear friend @tonybgoode of @nwc! Wooohooo!
• - @tonybgoode telling us that in 10 years we’re all going to be working wherever we want. Laundromats, parks, daycare centers. Freedom
• Learn how to make the new working world a reality with @tonybgoode at http://bit.ly/nwcfuture conversation continues 2/12 @nwc
• Now up is @clayshirky on how the Twitterverse has gotten bland since it’s gone mainstream. I think I was talking about this last month
• - @clayshirky says that I’m the center of the universe. I knew it!
• Your diet affects your weight but your friends’ diets affect your weight too. Health is a social construct, not personal like we think
• Friend of friend networks may be the wrong scale. Studies show that we are affected by the 3rd circle (friends of friends of friends)
• This 3rd circle is the urban scale, or what @clayshirky likes to call the Serendipity layer. He thinks there’s unexplored value there
• “Narcissism has never been a bad business model.” — @clayshirky
• Mission statement for @NYTM is: “To support the NY tech community for its people and the world.” — Andrew Rasiej
• Andrew Rasiej says NYC is the best city in the world, but we need to do more to prove it. We’re stuck in the 20th century
• Guy from the MTA just up talking about how they”re putting out their data for “licensors” to make use of. Why not free? asks @orian
• Jacqueline of AcumenFund @jnovogratz is up now. She’s focused on using tech to bring dignity, not just wealth, to ppl around the world
• “The answers to the world’s problems aren’t that difficult. They’re fundamental to what it means to be human.” — @jnovogratz
• Now up is @aym The Alliance for Youth Movements. Using tech and social media to fight back against violence
• Editor of Tech Section of Huffington Post is up now talking about the future of media. “Media is put out before it’s thought out.”
• Rachel Stern of Ground Report is up now talking about the “new rules” of the new news economy. Real-time, never-ending cycle
• Citizen journalism in practice: 1st photo of US Airways flight landing on Hudson River was taken & posted to Twitter by non-journalist
• Jay Parkinson, pediatrician, is talking about the future of healthcare. Lots of numbers going up on the screen that I can’t capture
• - @lessin says we can no longer focus on small scope problems. “Real” problems have global scope and expand faster than we can control
• Reverend Billy and Church of Life After Shopping are parading down the aisles! #nytm http://tweetphoto.com/10278364

• NY Tech Meetup — March 2011
• NY Tech Meetup — February 2009
• I’m running for the Board of Directors of the NY Tech Meetup
• NY Tech Meetup — January 2009
• New to New York?

Last night, Dawn Barber and Meetup.com CEO and co-founder Scott Heiferman hosted a special edition of NY Tech Meetup at Meetup HQ.

NY Tech Meetup: European Edition gave 11 startups from all over Europe the chance to wow us tough New Yorkers with 3-minute demos of their webapps. The companies are all 2009 winners of Saul Klein‘s Seedcamp, a sort of Y Combinator for Europe.

The 11 European companies that presented were: Advertag, Codility, Erply, Brainient, Kukunu, Kwaga, Patients Know Best, Joobili, Platogo, ShoutEm, and Wondergraphs.

Here are my Twitter notes from the event:

• @heif is introing NY Tech Meetup: European Edition. We’re on the 3rd floor of Meetup HQ. Everything here is red & white! (no surprise)
• Saul of @SeedCamp is talking about how it was inspired by the Y-Combinator model. He’s brought 12 European companies with him tonight
• Up first is Advertag, a classifieds listing based on tags. http://harrogate.advertag.com
• @Codility, originally from Poland, now in London. They help you find the right developers based on short programming tests
• @Erply, from Estonia, is a commercial retail inventory software solution for retail and distribution businesses http://erply.net
• Brainient, from London & Romania, helps video publishers make more money w their content using interactive elements–like Klickable.tv
• Kukunu founder: “I have a Belgian ID, a London residence, and a French accent.” Freaking cool travel planning webapp http://kukunu.com
• Kukunu lets you ask your Twitter followers for travel tips and then pulls in the replies to help make hotel/activity recommendations!
• Kwaga, from Paris, helps you deal w email overload. Adds button into Gmail interface to turn emails into to-dos. Like GTD w learning
• Patientsknowbest.com in Cambridge, UK is a message center b/w patients and their doctors/nurses. *Really* needs a new homepage though
• It’s hot as hell in here. Matches the red walls I’m surrounded by and red couch I’m sitting on
• Joobili, from Hungary, is a travel site with a new spin. You tell them when you’re available, they inspire you where to go
• Joobili presents the events/festivals that are going on around the world, and based on those encourages you to travel to that location
• Joobili is a great concept, but they gotta get rid of the loaders between every page. Incredibly annoying and not necessary
• Joobili: I have *lots* of ideas for you. Contact me here or at whitney@whitneyhess.com
• Kwaga is more interesting than it seems at first glance. Minimal user interaction, but uses semantic analysis to understand email use
• Veggie Snake, a game by Platogo in Vienna, is a Facebook game that encourages interactions with your friends (sharing scores, etc)
• Platogo by extension is a platform for help developers bring their games into Facebook and integrate with social features
• @ShoutEm from Croatia is a tool to create mobile social networks for any niche community. Founder describes as “Ning meets Foursquare”
• @Wondergraphs from Belgium lets you create graphs & “visually explore your data.” Share with others, export, reuse graphs for new data
• @wondergraphs lets you import Excel spreadsheets, Google spreadsheets, text files, or link to relational databases
• @wondergraphs uses Flex (cc @orian)
• GREAT show of European startups tonight. @SeedCamp did a stellar job of finding innovative companies solving real problems. Bravo!

• NY Tech Meetup — February 2009
• NY Tech Meetup — June 2008
• NY Tech Meetup — January 2009
• I’m running for the Board of Directors of the NY Tech Meetup
• NY Tech Meetup – March 2008

My new friend Dave Dawson recently graduated college and moved from Cambridge to NYC. While I was timid and intimidated when I first entered the working world, Dave is quite the opposite –– he is eager to put himself out there, meet lots of new people, and see what the city has to offer.

Over lunch last week he asked me what events he should be attending; like many people I know, he’s had a hard time finding NYC-specific mailing lists for design and UX organizations, and isn’t really sure where to look.

When I first got the spark to start socializing in the field (much later than Dave, might I add), I had a tough time distinguishing the worthwhile events from the worthless ones — and unfortunately wasted my time at a few duds along the way.

It only just occurred to me that I’ve never collected a list of the events my close friends and I regularly attend. So here it is finally, for Dave and for all the folks new to New York (or ready to try something new). May you find pleasure, inspiration, and camaraderie.

And of course if you see me across the room, come over and say hi!

UX & Design

UX Book Club NYC

• Facebook group

Interaction Design Association (IxDA) – NYC Chapter

• Official website (national only)
• Twitter @ixda_NYC
• To join the NY chapter mailing list, email nyc-local@ixda.org

VizThinkNYC

• Official website
• Twitter @vizthinkNYC

School of Visual Arts – MFA in Interaction Design

• Events website
• Mailing list sign-up (bottom right of page)
• Twitter @svaixd

Content Strategy NYC

• Meetup page

Usability Professionals Association – NY Chapter

• Official website
• Twitter @nycupa

Agile Experience Design NYC

• Meetup page
• Twitter @agile_ux (national)

AIGA/NY

• Official website
• Twitter @AIGANY

Art Directors Club

• Official website
• Twitter @Adcglobal

Creative Mornings

• Official website
• Twitter @creativemorning

General Tech

NY Tech Meetup

• Official website
• Meetup page
• Twitter @nytm

TechDrinks

• Meetup page

DigitalDUMBO

• Facebook page
• Twitter @DigitalDUMBO

Ignite NYC

• Official website
• Twitter @ignitenyc

nextNY

• Google group

Brooklyn Future Meetup

• Meetup page
• Twitter @Y30

Entrepreneurship & Self-Employment

Ultralight Startups

• Official website
• Mailing list sign-up

Entrepreneurs Roundtable

• About page
• Google group

Clickable’s Interesting Café

• Official website
• Twitter @clickable

Jelly NYC (Friday coworking)

• Official website
• Twitter @JellyNYC

Niche Interests

Arts, Culture and Technology Meetup

• Meetup page

Fashion 2.0 Meetup

• Meetup page

New York Web Standards Meetup

• Meetup page

TONS of other tech events are listed on Gary’s Guide and nextNY.

Thanks so everyone who contributed to this list! You know who you are.

• Whitney and Internet Week New York
• Meet me at NYC’s Internet Week 2010
• Where’s Whit
• Meetup
• NY Tech Meetup: The European Edition

Many thanks go to Allen Stern of CenterNetworks for covering my DIY UX presentation in the InformationWeek blog. He was in attendance when I gave the talk to about 25 people at the NYC Customer Development Process Meetup last week.

Read his article: DIY Usability For Startups

I will be giving the presentation again at An Event Apart Chicago on October 12, and may have the opportunity to deliver it before then.

Allen’s videos of the event

• See you at An Event Apart Chicago
• Designing for Startups in Smashing Magazine
• I’ll be speaking at An Event Apart 2009
• My Interaction 09 recap on Boxes and Arrows
• I’m Speaking at Pittsburgh Web Design Day

On August 13, the venerable Todd Zaki Warfel of Messagefirst gave a great talk on prototyping (on which he is the premier speaker) at the monthly IxDA NYC event. His energy and engaging style really got the crowd pumped up. We even did a group exercise towards the end of the evening. My Twitter notes are below.

• @zakiwarfel‘s Prototyping for UX Practitioners: Best Practices, Methods and Tools starts now!
• “Prototyping is a process.” Don’t focus on the actual prototype, it’s just an outcome of the process. – @zakiwarfel
• Sketching and testing are the integral parts of prototyping to focus on. The prototype is a vehicle to do those activities
• Prototyping in UX is the equivalent of design studio in architecture / industrial design. Gives people an opp to critique your work
• 6-8-5 method used @zakiwarfel‘s company MessageFirst = 6-8 sketches in 5 minutes. Limit the time you take. Generate lots of ideas
• When sketching, initially aim for quantity not quality. After you’ve done this for a few cycles, you’ll end up with 2-3 great ideas
• When setting this up, don’t tell participants they’re only getting 5 min ahead of time cuz they’ll panic. Tell them right before
• Include clients in the sketching process. They’ll love it. In 6 hrs you can crank out 3 weeks of work. But it’s exhausting
• Involve clients in process early & they’re less likely to fight about details later. Involve dev & they’ll feel greater ownership
• When @zakiwarfel runs these design studios with clients, ppl in the room have said “no one has ever asked my opinion before”
• Q: How to deal w corp culture issues? Politics? Hierarchy? Get dirt on everyone in the room before you start. Then design the team
• Knowing strengths and weakness of everyone on the team lets you better moderate the design studio & will be more successful session
• Bring in items for inspiration. Encourage teams to steal from each other (at the end of the day you’re all on the same team).
• 1) Sketch out your ideas. 2) Pitch idea to room in 3 min. 3) Room gets 2 min to critique: 2-3 strengths, 1-2 improvements to make
• 4) Bring it to life. Prototype the best idea(s), on paper or digitally, and present to client. Then iterate, iterate, iterate
• After a few iterations, use the prototype to test with users. Iterate more. Review with client again. Rinse. Repeat.
• Reasons to prototype: the concrete is easier to discuss/understand than the abstract; prototypes are cheap(er), generate more ideas
• Experiencing the ideas in a more emotional way (by actually bringing them to life) will change the way the team works together
• More reasons to prototype: gauge tech feasibility; work through design; sell an idea… lots of benefits
• 8 guiding principles to prototyping: 1) Know your audience & intent. Helps to determine goals, fidelity, toolset, functionality
• 2) Plan a little. Prototype the rest. Get something in people’s hands quickly. The feedback is what’s important. Just do it
• 3) Set expectations. What will be in the prototype & what won’t. Don’t surprise the client. If you do, they’ll focus on wrong stuff
• 4) You CAN sketch. Everyone can, a 4y/o can. Don’t be afraid to draw on the page. You’re just getting the basic ideas down, not art
• Sketches are rough and dirty. They just need to be enough to communicate a concept to the team. It can be throwaway (most are)
• 5) It’s not the Mona Lisa. Doesn’t have to be perfect or high-fidelity. Don’t spend too much time. Meant to be unfinished
• 6) If you can’t make it, fake it. Whole point is that it’s supposed to be unfinished. Do whatever it takes to get the point across
• 7) Prototype only what you need. You don’t have to build the whole system from the onset. Only focus on what you need to test
• 8) Reduce risk. Prototype early and often. Small increments in the prototype, smaller investment. Don’t go too far down the road
• What’s the best prototyping tool? The one that fits your needs. It might be pen and paper, PowerPoint, Flash, HTML, OmniGraffle etc
• Some people even prototype in Excel. Why the hell would you do that? Well, it’s already on your computer. Use what you know
• Some good tools to use for your given situation: http://mypict.me/l450
• Paper prototyping pros: free (nearly); fast; easy; tangible; you can do it anywhere (at the diner); no tech req’d; collaborative
• Paper prototyping techniques: handlebars (folded paper for on/off components), accordion (e.g., to show self-healing)…
• @zakiwarfel is demonstrating how to simulate sliders with paper: http://mypict.me/l4md
• @zakiwarfel is now telling us to prototype an iPhone app to display photos and play videos. Need to show gestures, scroll & zoom
• Uh oh. Now I can’t stop playing w/ paper. I’m not keeping up with the preso. @zakiwarefel talking about Flash/HTML prototyping pros
• Check out @zakiwarfel at @UIE‘s User Interface 14 http://www.uie.com/events/uiconf/2009/

• Whit Hour – Week 2
• Whit Hour – Week 6
• Whit Hour – Week 14
• Whit Hour – Week 21
• Whit Hour – Week 5

It’s hard to believe that it’s already been a year since I quit my full-time job to give independent consulting a try. In a nutshell, it was the best decision I’ve ever made.

I plan on writing a longer post to wrap up the year, but in the meantime I wanted to invite you all to come help me celebrate the anniversary of my independence (August 25, 2008 was my first Monday of self-employment). While I realize many of you don’t live in NYC, I hope those of you in the area can find it in your hearts to join me. I credit much of my success to this blog and most of all your readership and feedback. I’d love to be able to thank you in person with a clink of our beer glasses.

Tuesday, August 25, 6:30pm until I pass out
Stanton Public (outdoor space and killer beer selection)
17 Stanton Street between Bowery and Chrystie St

Subway:
F/V to 2nd Ave
J/M/Z to Bowery
6 to Spring St
R/W Prince St

Feel free to bring friends and lovers. I can’t wait to see you there!

• Whit Hour – Week 16
• Whit Hour – Week 3
• Holy crap…I gave the closing plenary at IA Summit 2010
• Independently employed? What’s your retirement plan?
• Internet Week NY Wrap-Up (in photos)

I’m very excited to be attending DelveUI on August 5-6 in NYC, and even more excited that I get to give away a 15% discount on the $595 registration fee to the first 15 people to comment on this post.

Delve:UI – A 2-Day Masterclass on Designing User Interfaces

August 5-6, 2009 (Wed-Thurs), 8am-6:30pm
13 Speakers. 1 Topic. 2 Days. 150 Attendees.

Interactive designers, web designers, interface designers are all invited to a one-of-a-kind (web) design micro-conference. Held in Brooklyn, NYC at the Pfizer Auditorium on the NYU Poly Campus, DelveUI is a two-day series of workshops and presentations to help you learn the ins and outs of creating beautiful, strong and useful web interfaces with a killer lineup of masters in the craft.

• Day 1 starts with a keynote by Lou Rosenfeld on Marrying User Experience with Site Analytics to create a stronger brand experience.
• A 2-hour CSS masterclass given by Jina Bolton, co-author of The Art & Science of CSS and Jeff Croft, author of Pro CSS Techniques
• Learn the fine art of visual web design and how it impacts User Experience from Andrew Maier founder of Uxbooth.com, in a Photoshop Masterclass workshop and…
• A one-to-many interview on interfaced design and process with Jason Santa Maria being interviewed by Liz Danzico and taking advance questions by YOU the audience
• Day 2 starts with a workshop on using interaction design patterns by Theresa Neil, co-author of Designing Web Interfaces
• An introduction to interaction design frameworks and how they unleash Interface design creativity with Robert Hoekman, Jr. (author of Designing the Moment and Designing the Obvious)
• Hear others giving best practice workshops on web prototyping with Todd Zaki Warfel, Flash design with Jamie Kosoy of Big Spaceship, and Anders Ramsay will speak on Interface design using Agile methods and more…

DELVE:UI will be limited to only 150 attendees to ensure the micro-conference format and to encourage audience interaction with the speakers.

Want one of Pleasure and Pain’s 15% discounts on registration? Say so in the comments on this post. I am strictly limited to 15 people, so be sure to speak up quickly.

Can’t wait to see you there!

• Video of Dan Saffer’s talk “Tap is the New Click” at IxDA NYC
• IDEA2008: Cross-disciplinary Design Conference, Chicago, IL, October 7-8
• MFA in Interaction Design at the School of Visual Arts in NYC
• Catching Up on Pleasure and Pain
• My Rejected Submission to Interaction11: What Lessons Can We Learn From Soap Operas For Designing Experiences