This was a really well-run event, and I was impressed over and over by the forward-thinking attendees. I really enjoyed talks by Doug Belshaw and the team of Lesley Gourlay & Martin Oliver. I learned about using ePortfolios, creating mobile apps with students, using wikis and virtual worlds and many other innovative teaching techniques.

I’ve shared my slides below as I’ve gotten a few requests for them. My thanks to the ILTA committee for inviting me and for putting together such an interesting and energetic conference. I’m looking forward to using a lot of these techniques in my teaching strategies.

Designing Engaging and Enjoyable Long-Form Reading Experiences – guest article for Smashing Magazine

This article incorporates a lot of concepts that have been driving me crazy about digital content lately, some of which I’ve mentioned in this blog. Bad advertisements, disrespecting the reader, poorly chosen typography and lack of whitespace are just some of the concerns I cover here. If you’re spending time writing for the web, why not make sure it’s visible in a format that is inviting to the reader? Check out this article for ways to show your site or app’s visitors that you’re glad they’re there.

The Top 10 Ways to Create Digital Magazines – guest article for .net magazine

I wrote this post for .net magazine, one of my favourite magazines both in print and in digital, on some of the available methods and frameworks for creating digital magazines. I focused on systems which don’t export to just one platform as I don’t believe that’s a sustainable model for most publishers today. Instead I covered things like Laker Compendium (which we use for Idea magazine) and Treesaver that prioritize great web experiences over proprietary formats.

“Deep, Dark Secrets of Rupert Murdoch” – talk at Dublin’s #BeerMob event

At  the first (but hopefully not the last!) Dublin #BeerMob, we talked about topics of interest to those who are developing sites or apps for mobile. And there was beer. I talked about Rupert Murdoch of all people, and the secrets behind The Daily. I covered why this isn’t a sustainable method or one anyone should copy and what designers and developers should focus on instead for their users. Slides are below:

“Beware the Shiny” – talk at Refresh Dublin on March 15th

I spoke at Refresh Dublin this month on the topic of being cautious of trying to learn too many things all at once. Sounds like a strange topic from someone who lectures in web development! But I see a lot of students spin and spin, not building a foundation as they jump from one shiny framework to the next. We all want to learn new things and keep our skills competitive, but it’s important to do so in a sustainable manner. Below are my slides from the talk:

Guest podcast on the Small Business Show

I had the opportunity to speak with Conn and Kehlan this week on the Small Business Show podcast about current news items in the Irish world of SMEs.

http://www.focusmeireland.com/small-business-show-35-with-martha-rotter-of-idea-magazine

Guest podcast on the Technology.ie podcast with Stewart Curry

Stewart Curry and I chatted recently with Conn and Michele on the Technology.ie podcast, giving a behind-the-scenes view of Idea magazine and Woop.ie.

http://technology.ie/martha-rotter-and-stewart-curry-from-idea-magazine-tech-heroes-podcast-2/

Guest posts for Information Week during Mobile World Congress

Speaking of shiny things, I had the opportunity to attend Mobile World Congress and work with the Information Week team. Mobile World Congress is something I’ve wanted to attend for a long time, so it was great to get to help out such an excellent team. Below are some of the articles I contributed:

Samsung Galaxy Beam Turns Heads: MWC 2012

SecureVoice Encrypts Mobile VoIP Communications

Emporia Telecom: Mobile Phones for Elderly Users

9 Coolest Smartphones at Mobile World Congress

Coyote Systems Driver Info App Expands Across Europe

MWC 2012: Smartphone Apps, Gadgets for Cars

HTC One Smartphone Debut at MWC 2012

ON Voicefeed Aims to Modernize Mobile Voicemail

MWC 2012: Waterproof Your Smartphones, Tablets

During the last section of the workshop we created our own, short, digital magazine called The CS Forum Times, which  is now here: https://martharotter.com/csforum/ts/index.html.  The magazine content is recent articles and blog posts from speakers and organizers of CS Forum 2011 and was created in Treesaver.  There are materials at https://martharotter.com/csforum for those who would like a small boilerplate to start with.

The next blog post I do will be a short intro on how I built The CS Forum Times using Treesaver and will include some of the demos I did in the workshop with altering image sizes, so if you take a look at the starting point and want to know more, that blog post tomorrow will be a good overview.  If you’re interested in learning how to do more with Treesaver, http://treesaverjs.com/ & http://groups.google.com/group/treesaverjs?pli=1 are excellent places to start.

CS Forum has excellent speakers including Karen McGrane, Gerry McGovern, Kristina Halvorson, Erin Kissane.  They’ll be covering everything from the value of content, techniques and tools, user experience design, business models, videos and much more. If you look closely you may even recognize some local speakers including Des Traynor, Cory-Ann Joseph, and myself.

WORKSHOP DETAILS:

My workshop, Designing Narrative Content, is designed to help people answer the question of “How can I make sure that everything I’m doing helps to reach the widest audience possible with my content, technology and overall strategy?”  It’s a hands-on workshop, so attendees will actually walk away with their own publishing strategy and even a sample publication online and live!

In order to build and lay everything out, we’ll use a new technology called Treesaver to dynamically produce our content and allow people to view it everywhere.  But don’t be scared if you think you’re not a developer, we’re not focusing on the dev part, we’re just focusing on the content.  You won’t have to know how to create HTML from scratch.  If you are familiar with HTML & CSS, then you’ll be able to customize your experience a good bit more but it won’t be necessary.

If you are working with narrative content, long-form content, any form of digital publishing (including magazines, newspapers, eBooks), this workshop will save you a lot of time and money in understanding how to design more content with small teams and small budgets.

If you’re interested in the workshop and want to know more about it, please feel free to e-mail me for more information or contact me on Twitter.  If there is something you’d like to see added to the workshop, now would be a great time to let me know while I still have time to alter the presentation and exercises.

INTERVIEW:

Randall Snare interviewed me recently about my workshop and views on the field as well as what Indian palm readers predict for my very near future.  You can read that interview here for a bit more insight: http://blog.csforum.eu/articles/narrative-content-martha-rotter-preview.

See you in London in September!  If you haven’t registered for the conference, the workshops or the excellent barbecue and wine reception, you can still do that here: http://2011.csforum.eu/register.