Web Directions Year round learning for product, design and engineering professionals

Today I am incredibly excited (and just a little bit terrified) to be announcing the program for a brand new Web Directions conference–Next. 

In a nutshell

Next is a single day, single track conference that asks the question: what’s next in the Web and technology? Next will help transform the ways you think about developing digital products and services, and introduce new ideas and opportunities that emerging technologies and practices present. While Next is a brand new conference, at its core are the ideas, programming and experience folks have loved about our events since their inception.

What is it about?

Drawing on experts in economics, game theory, design, finance, data science, social psychology, behavioural economics and more, Next will reignite your thinking about the challenges you’re facing right now–from business models, to better user interaction, the (real, non hyped) place of AI, to the challenges of online disinformation and creating safer, healthier online spaces.

Next is part of a week of conferences, workshops and more running in Sydney November 25–29, including our Developer Summit, and workshops across the week. 

Who is it for?

Next is for people like you–the people shaping what the Web and digital products look like–within your organisation, and beyond. You might be in product management, a design professional, in research, or engineering, content or marketing. But if you concern yourself with where your organisation, your career, and even the Web and technology broadly are headed, then we’ve put together the conference for you.

When and where?

Next is a single day, Friday November 29th. It’s a single track. We appreciate that people are time poor and budgets are tight, so we have you covered. For our very good friends like you, Next costs just $695, or just $295 for a streaming ticket.

And it’s taking place in the Frank Gehry architected Dr Chau Chak Wing Building at UTS, an extraordinary space befitting the program.

Who’s Speaking?

We’ve worked hard to create something genuinely original for you. To challenge your thinking and assumptions we’ve lined up a truly incredible array of speakers–from renowned economist Nicholas Gruen, who helped re-shape Australia’s industrial policy in the Hawke/Keating era, to writer Maria Farrell, whose viral “Rewilding the Internet” argues the internet has become an extractive and fragile monoculture, but that we can revitalise it using lessons learned by ecologists.

There’s much more–long time Web Directions favourite, design luminary Josh Clark will consider how generative AI offers us a chance to build systems that bend to human needs, instead of the reverse (Josh will also deliver a whole day workshop November 28th diving much more deeply into these ideas). 

Steve Baty and Martin Tomitsch introduce the idea of Life Centred Design, a rethinking of the human centred philosophy central to design for decades.

Joan Westenberg argues that we still need fiction in an era of information overload, while Alex Lakatos will brief us on the Interledger protocol, a W3C standard that’s like HTTP for money, and consider the kinds of new business models and opportunities it presents.

I could go on, I want to go on, there’s still so much more. But I’ll simply stop and point you to the program.

Why come?

If you think what comes next can be better, and want to help make it so, for your organisation, your career, and more broadly, then give us just one single day and we’ll help you reset your thinking about what’s possible and your role in it.

I genuinely hope you can join us for what will be an incredible day (or two if you add on Josh Clark’s workshop, or three for those keen on our Dev Summit in addition to Next.)

We are really excited to explore what’s Next, and hope to do that with you in Sydney November 29th!