Pixar's Dr Michael B Johnson at Webstock. Photo / Mark Webster
After the morning break at Webstock on the second day of the main conference, Microsoft staffer Scott Hanselman (he's Principal Community Architect for Web Platform and Tools) talked about developing software, most often on the Microsoft stack.
I don't know what that means - he did present from a PC, the first I've seen on stage. Although he also admitted he had an iPhone, which he said has "completely changed the way that I poop."
I'm not sure if that's praise, exactly.
His talk was called "It's not what you read, it's what you ignore.' The main thrust seemed to be how much time you can lose with some technologies, like compulsively checking your twitter feed.
Despite dispensing obvious advice like 'ration the times you check email', Hanselman was an amusing and engrossing speaker.
By the way, one of the attendees I met who wasn't with an entire department from a ministry (of which there were several) was Peter Wells from MacTalk in Australia. We talked about Apple's announcement this day that the next OS X was due soon - Mountain Lion. Macworld has an overview.
No, it's not called Cougar.
MacTalk claims it's "Australia's "number one Apple community" and most likely it is, based in Melbourne. Peter had been here at Webstock last year; 2011's was more Apple-centric than usual.
This Webstock, less so, but there are still some gems for us Apple fans.
For example, Wilson Miner, a designer and web developer from San Francisco, currently head of design for Rdio, a social music service. He worked as an interactive designer for Apple in 2006, where he was part of the first comprehensive redesign of apple.com in over 10 years.
Miner spoke slowly, and started out with what sounded like painful memories of his parents and upbringing. But he was leading from his father's fascination with cars into how tools work for us, and also how some (ie cars) have changed our environments and the way we live.
Miner added a thoughtful and reflective note to the proceedings which was a little unexpected, but appreciated for that.
Miner wondered what most people's time-to-screen was, on awakening. "Five seconds? Five minutes? ... all the little gaps in our lives are being filled with screens."
After this reflexive and meaningful presentation, I dived into the side-room Illot Theatre to see another interview subject, Jennifer Hische, talk about type.
She was funny, snappy, informative, and everyone loved her - the room was packed.
Trained as a filmmaker, Adam Lisagor started his company Sandwich Video somewhat by accident in late 2010 to address a need for compelling video in the tech industry. A fairly droll presenter, unlike his video work, Lisagor talked mostly about the ad industry.
I wanted to interview the next guy, Dr Michael B Johnson, but apparently there were Non Disclosure Agreements involved. He leads the Moving Pictures Group at Pixar Animation Studios.
Johnson has been at Pixar since 1993, and has written tools for all of Pixar"s feature films (and many of their shorts), including storyboarding, pre-viz, layout, animation, modelling, lighting, rendering, and editorial too.
That's a 19-year resumé in the company's 26-year history. (Pixar was spun off from Lucas Film in 1986.)
Johnson showed clips on the proviso nobody would film them. As he only talks twice a year or so and he's not selling anything, just spreading knowledge, I hope and expect his request was respected.
It was really cool listening to how the creative story process at Pixar worked, watching a storyboard animation for a scene from The Incredibles, then seeing the resolution in the scene from the actual movie, which had changed. There's a maxim constantly at work at Pixar: put the idea up there so we can change it.
Also, "We're totally cool with being a cartoon company, but we also, first and foremost, consider ourselves film makers." Pixar looks at the world of film and draws from it. These cinematic reflections resonate in Pixar's animations. This was illustrated with a clip from Toy Story 3; film buffs can look out for actual homages to older movies.
The audience was rapt with this guy.
Jenn Lim and Tony Hsieh talked about delivering happiness. This is happiness as a business model and how it's created happy customers, happy employees and happy vendors. This kinda stuff sounds frightening to me: happiness as corporate doctrine? Of course, these guys are Californians; they wrote the book Delivering Happiness, and it became a bestseller, with unexpected and positive consequences away from the business environment.
So it's actually a Californian fairy story: Lim and Hsieh sell happiness, and do well out of it. At least there's no medication involved.
Lim started pre-med, realised it wasn't for her, but did get a degree, then a good job (as an internet consultant), and then got laid off, and went through that process (surprise!) of reexamining their core values. Tony, on the other hand, sold his business Link Exchange to Microsoft for $265 million.
And he says he sold it because it didn't make him happy ... I know - sob! Right? Hsieh now runs an online sales company called Zappos. He bought it.
Sorry if I sound cynical. OK, not really. Now Amazon owns Zappos, but he's still there and the company retained its identity. I got the impression Hsieh is happy about these things, and from selling happiness in books. Gawd.
One imagines that if you have millions in your pocket, you can afford to buy a company and then experiment with happiness profiles. His prospective employees are audited for 'culture fit', and existing employees can be fired for not fitting any more. Gawd. Megalomania alert. "Commitable Core Values" indeed.
Derek Handley wrapped this year's Webstock with a presentation called 'Doing Good and Well'; Webstock always tries to end on a happy-feely note.
His shtick is that while business and technology drive the human race forward and have proven powerful forces for getting things done, they can also screw things up royally. He's a Kiwi, and I've never heard of him, but someone has: the entrepreneur and speaker. was named the Ernst & Young Young Entrepreneur of the Year in New Zealand in 2009, named one of the 40 Most Influential People in New Zealand Telecommunications in 2005 and 2006 and awarded the 2006 Price Waterhouse Young Achievement of the Year.
OK, and he's telling us about poverty. He's also one of those new breeds who transposes his r; that always gets my back up. 'Prerson' instead of 'person', and 'preformance'. Gah! But I missed the end of his talk as I had a plane to catch. People were listening attentively so let's give him the benefit of the doubt and say it was an excellent closure.
As a whole, Webstock was its usual dramatic mix of excellent speakers only loosely bound, in some instances, by the 'internet' brief, and that's all to the good. I thought there were more women there than in previous years and if so, good - but a friend didn't think so. So now I'm not sure. Great stuff.
Bowen Pan says NZ's tech sector is 'unrecognisable for the better' after 13 years away.
