As previously mentioned, I attended the 2-day Cre8 Conference at the Coronado Springs Resort in Disney World earlier this month. The focus really was on the joy and wonderment of modern-day PDFs (good times) but they also had a web track, which offered a mix of sessions on Flash, Dreamweaver, Photoshop and Illustrator as well as a hands-on track sponsored by Apple, where we got to play with the iLife applications and some of the video and sound editing apps. With few exceptions the session leaders were very good, and overall I thought it was one of the better conferences I’ve attended.
While the track sessions were more practical and useful, the keynotes definitely provided the entertainment. First up was a guy from Disney who talked about the “Organizational Creativity at Disney”. If you look at Disney from a branding perspective it’s pretty incredible. A little fun fact I learned… during the Q&A someone asked how they dealt with unappeasable customers. The answer: smile and say “Have a magical day!”
Next was Mr. Al Gore, who introduced himself as the former future president of the United States. He arrived late after an unscheduled stop to ride rollercoasters, and spoke for at least an hour and a half, giving his “An Inconvenient Truth” slideshow with a few extra comments, and quite a bit more humor. It had nothing to do with the conference, but was an excellent presentation that I think everyone benefited from. Except perhaps the red-neck republican guy from North Carolina sitting next to me who kept clenching his fists and told me global warming was a bunch of bs. Have a magical day buddy.
The second day Marissa Mayer, a VP from Google, spoke. She’s 31, very down to earth, and talked about the culture at Google and the numerous projects they’re working on now. Google requires their engineers to spend 20 percent of their time working on personal technology projects of their own choosing. Google News and Orkut are both examples of projects that grew from this working model and she estimates half their new launches are a result of “20 percent time”. Which I found fascinating. Somehow I don’t think it would fly at the UW though.
Before, between and after sessions, we were filled with food and drink and of course, the magic of Disney. Warm temperatures and sunny skies aside, the location really did contribute to the creative aspect of the conference. And the social hours were fun… after all, it’s not every day that Mickey Mouse shows up at happy hour. As it turns out though, the fun was just getting started…
