Year round learning for product, design and engineering professionals

Well established hierarchies and single page apps

“How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked. “Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually, then suddenly.” Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises Ezra Klein, the early blogger turned New York Times pundit and podcaster recently described the time we are living in now as ‘exponential time‘. He’s particularly referring to the experience in particular of the early weeks and months of Covid, […]

Our first speakers for Code, returning to Melbourne in June

Today we’re also announcing the first half dozen of what will be nearly 30 speakers in total, experts who’ll help ensure you and your team are at the top of your game. Now double the content with two big tracks!The always popular front end development focussed Code returns with not one but two tracks. Front of […]

A very significant day for the Web

The launch of the iPhone was in some ways the high water mark of the Web. Apple’s long rumoured phone was launched as 3 devices in one “a mobile phone, a widescreen iPod with touch controls and an Internet communications device”. There were no native apps, the way Apple expected developers to build apps for […]

Speak at one of our events in 2023!

Off the back of a truly fantastic return to in-person events with Web Directions Summit late last year, we’re well into planning even more for 2023! And here’s your chance to be involved as a speaker across several events and the whole front end landscape. The Return of Code On June 8th and 9th Code […]

A 2022 Wrap part 2

Late last year, in the first part of this wrap up of technology in 2022, I looked at the fall of Twitter and rise of Mastodon? This week, to round out 2022 and kick off 2023, let’s focus on a second significant transformation taking place now that it feels will resonate for some time to […]

A 2022 wrap part 1

A dictum of Lenin’s we’ve all probably seen too many times the last few years “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen” seems particularly apt for technology in late 2022 for two unrelated reasons, that will likely reverberate for a long time to come. To round out 2022, today […]

The AI Spring

In my teens I read the classics of science fiction copiously–Clarke, Heinlein, Asimov, Le Guin. Among the many tropes (space travel, galactic empires, to a lesser extent time travel) common to those stories was what we now term Artificial Intelligence–though while that term initially applied quite narrowly (more for less things that might pass the […]

Code Leaders ’22 Program

We’ve just announced the full schedule for Code Leaders ’22, and if you’re an engineering leader or manager (experienced or aspiring) then we’d love you to consider attending

Spotlight on Accessibility at Summit ’22

Right from the very beginning, Web Directions conferences have featured any sessions on accessibility. And we’ve even started a whole online conference, AAA, focussed on the topic. So, of course, accessibility features significantly on the Web Directions Summit program, and not just on the developer focussed tracks–after all, accessibility isn’t simply an engineering challenge to […]

A colossal program for Web Directions Summit

The last conference we ran, in early November 2019, is now 1083 days ago. That’s a long time by any measure. When we started planning to return to in-person events, we decided that we wouldn’t do that by half measures. We wanted to make this event Thebes it could possibly be. And a big big […]

What Do You Know, Sydney 22–the Wrap

Last night we held our first in-person event in 1070 days. The elements did not conspire to make it any easier for us–absolutely torrential rain (in the city of Sydney itself nearly 10cm over a 24 hour period) with flooding stopping some trains on the rail network (stranding two of our speakers)–but nevertheless a healthy […]

Our keynote speaker and creative director for Summit ’22, Yiying Lu

🤩 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 […]

lessons on more inclusive conferences

ID24 2022 This is my script for my recent presentation at ID24, the long running accessibility and inclusive design focussed conference. I spoke on some of the lessons we’ve learned over the last 3 years or so developing our online conferences, and how these might also help make our in-person conferences more accessible and inclusive […]

The What Do You Know Sydney ’22 Lineup

What Do You Know, our long running, and long on hiatus, free, fun evening of fast focussed presentations returns October 6th. And we’ve got a great diverse lineup of speakers for you. Each presentation is just 5 minutes, and speakers talk about one thing they know well. We put on some food and a drink […]

Front end engineering at Web Directions Summit

From the very beginning, Web Directions events have at their heart been about developing for the Web. For years before we ran our first conference, that’s what I did–not only building many sites, but writing books, articles, online courses, software for developers–and we’ve continued to focus on the technologies and practices of building great web […]

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Web Directions South is the must-attend event of the year for anyone serious about web development

Phil Whitehouse General Manager, DT Sydney