Tyler Sticka

I’m speaking at CyborgCamp Portland this October

CyborgCamp (a brainchild of my favorite cyborg anthropologist) is coming to Portland again this October, and I’m a featured speaker! Given the event’s international scope and amazing past speakers (including Ward Cunningham and Bill DeRouchey), I’m truly honored (and just a little terrified).

For those unfamiliar with the event, CyborgCamp is an unconference exploring the future of humans and computers. It started here in Portland in 2008, but has since extended to Seattle and Brasil as well. I designed the circuit-stalk logo, and was a happy attendee at the inaugural event.

I’ll be speaking about the man/machine conflict in popular culture mirroring a similar dichotomy in real life, especially design. It’ll be a fun discussion with plenty of references to Terminator 2, the first Tubeway Army album and those retired Mac versus PC ads.

The event is at WebTrends on Saturday, October 2, from 9am to 6pm. Tickets are just $10 if you buy before September 24, which is an amazing deal considering you’ll also get breakfast and coffee. For more info, check out the CyborgCamp Portland home page or follow @cyborgcamp on Twitter.

TweetPlus Wins WebVisionary Award

I was surprised and happy this past Thursday to take home an adorable little robot trophy from the WebVisionary Awards for my Twitter/Google Feed API mashup, TweetPlus.

I’m humbled to have been selected by such an amazing panel of judges (including Armin Vit and Brad Smith) in a competition dominated largely by accomplished companies like ISITE, Pop Art, eROI, Fashion Buddha and many more. It’s an honor to have even been nominated.

My succinct acceptance speech went something like this:

Since I created TweetPlus by myself, I have no co-conspirators to thank. So instead, I’d like to thank every other web nerd out there who creates apps just for the fun of it.

Thanks to everyone who offered words of encouragement and praise. Maybe now I’ll have to think about a TweetPlus update with OPML support for mass subscribing. What do you think?

TweetPlus Nominated for WebVisionary Award

I’m thrilled that TweetPlus (my other Twitter app) is a finalist in the “Mashup” category of the 2010  WebVisionary Awards.

Sometimes, 140 characters just isn’t enough. TweetPlus uses the nifty Twitter and Google Feed APIs to show you where people you follow are blogging.

A companion to the excellent WebVisions conference, the WebVisionary Awards Show is open to attendees and non-attendees alike. Join me this coming Thursday at the Someday Lounge for food, drink, PowerPoint karaoke and to witness the fate of TweetPlus.

WordPress-Powered Portfolios: The Movie

If you didn’t grab a ticket to WordCamp in time, missed the live stream and/or found my presentation slides seriously lacking in the audio department, you’re in luck! The video of WordPress-Powered Portfolios has been published to WordPress.tv, or you can watch it below.

A technical problem resulted in the footage starting a few minutes into my presentation. All you missed was an introduction of who I am, and of my background as a cartoonist.

I apologize for having to look down at my notes so often; I didn’t expect to be holding the microphone! Other than that, enjoy.

Graphic Storytelling in Old Media

I have no idea how this eluded me the past four months. Christopher Knaus (@gniP_gnoP on Twitter) devoted a portion of his notebook to swiftly sketching nifty visual notes of various WebVisions presentations.

Although Chris “found it hard to do visual notes for a presentation about cartoons,” I thought he did an excellent job capturing some of the key messages of my Graphic Storytelling presentation. Enjoy!

WordPress-Powered Portfolios: Slides & Snippets

I really dig WordPress, but not nearly as much as I enjoy spending time with my fellow geeks and colleagues in Portland’s bustling and vibrant open source and web community. It was a pleasure presenting this afternoon!

My presentation was meant to solve the problem of simply and easily associating imagery with pages and/or posts in order to build a killer portfolio theme. I hope designers, artists and hobbyists will use these tips as a springboard for pushing what we can do with this constantly-evolving platform.

Thanks to all in attendance! Here are the goods.

See the presentation and dig some PHP

WordPress-Powered Portfolios this Saturday

Wow, time flies! I last wrote about WordCamp Portland back in June, and already the event is upon us. This coming Saturday, I’ll be closing the first day of the sold-out shindig at WebTrends with my presentation, WordPress-Powered Portfolios. (Don’t panic, they’re streaming it.)

My presentation won’t revolve around the visual design of portfolio sites for two important reasons:

1. The principals of compelling interaction design are not exclusive to the WordPress platform.
2. I’m still way too new at this to represent myself as any sort of authority on the art of portfolio design.

What you will learn is whether or not WordPress is the right platform for your online presence and, if so, the surprisingly simple snippets of PHP you’ll need to get there.

As excited as I am to present, I’m even more excited to see the other wonderful speakers, including WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg.

I was surprised and delighted to hear that the premier sponsor of the event is Microsoft. I acknowledge their generous support by drafting and publishing this post in their intuitive Windows Live Writer application.

See? WordPress brings people together.

Register for WordCamp Portland 2009

Registration for WordCamp Portland 2009 is now open! Any designer, developer or blogger will want to attend. The WordPress goodness happens September 19th through the 20th at WebTrends, and the ticket price is a bargain:

Tickets are $20 per person which includes access to the event, lunch on both days, snacks/refreshments, a T-shirt, some swag, and the ability to meet a couple hundred really great people including some really great speakers

In addition to my presentation on how to build a killer WordPress-powered portfolio, there will be armfuls of wonderful sessions from the likes of Micah Baldwin, Jason Grigsby, Cami Kaos and Dr. Normal, Will Norris, Scott Porad, Garron Selliken and Duane Storey.

As both a speaker and attendee, I urge you to relinquish a single Andrew Jackson for two full days of open source wonderment.

For more information, visit WordCamp Portland or @wcpdx on Twitter.

I’ll see you there!

Icons and Comics on Strange Love Live

If you missed viewing my Strange Love Live appearance when it was actually live, you can now view it on Blip.TV, in iTunes, or right here:

I had a blast being on the show! Thanks again to Cami Kaos and Dr. Normal for being such gracious hosts. I’ll be sure to post my comics essay (as promised) in the coming weeks.

Icon designers I should have mentioned (but didn’t for some reason) include Susan Kare, the Iconfactory, John Hicks and Adam Betts.

Some of the comics I talked about (not all of which are safe for youngsters) were Amulet, Sonic the Hedgehog, Bone, Groo, Usagi Yojimbo, Cerebus, Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns. For a larger list of keen comics to check out, see my WebVisions follow-up.

If you’re hungry for more comic book, indie rock and tech geekery and don’t mind the occasional expletive, older audiences can check out the less structured Afterhours episode (with appearances by Peter Wooley).