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

🤩 It has been 3 years since the last time I spoke in front of 1000+ live audiences in person at Adobe MAX in 2019. I am excited to be back in my hometown Sydney Australia as the opening keynote speaker for Web Directions Summit, a beloved conference by the Australian Web Community.

Since this was also the first in-person event since its 2019 Summit, the conference co-founder John Allsopp and I wanted to create something special. We brainstormed via the cloud in the last two months – realized that traditionally most keynote speakers have little influence on the branding & design of the conference they speak, and wanted to present something new! Since my keynote topic is “Bridging The World Through Cross-cultural Creativity & Innovation,” and I have been using bridges as a metaphor to illustrate each of my case studies, why not have the iconic Sydney Harbour Bridge to be the theme art of this conference? It’s visually, geographically & conceptually integrated as a holistic presentation. 

I am also excited to be the new official Creative Director for this Summit and created the theme artwork below, which integrates with my opening keynote’s topic: “Bridging The World Through Cross-cultural Creativity & Innovation,” a talk that combines my 10 years of experience in the Art, Technology, and Business world. 

I use bridges as a metaphor to illustrate each of my case studies, and share my experiences that make you cry — and laugh:

• Bridging Function & Fun: my story about being the artist of the “Twitter Fail Whale,” a Web 2.0 icon seen by millions; and my cross-cultural redefinition and a new mindset about “Fail,” which guide you to look beyond the conventional meaning of failure, then create something new
• Bridging Tech & Art: my creative journey of creating the Dumpling 🥟 Boba Tea🧋emojis used by billions of people
• Bridging East & West: my creative process behind the localization campaign for a global company Disney in its new market, Shanghai China, which successfully recruited 100,000 new employees
• Bridging Business & Culture: my design process by using creative building blocks — color, typography, and iconography that helped make localized identities for a global VC firm in India & Korea that transcend linguistic barriers
• Bridging Work & Life: My effort during the pandemic helping working professionals alleviate stresses and illuminating purposeful and community-driven activity from evolving remote work circumstances

The Web Directions Summit has six major business education tracks across front-end engineering, design, product, content strategy, career development, and react ecosystem, with amazing speakers such as Dan Hill from Melbourne School of Design, Lucinda Burtt from Meta, and Vitaly Friedman from Smashing Magazine.

See you in Sydney in December 😎⛱🇦🇺