I think the last industry conference I went to was SIGGRAPH in 1997. It was about the same time that I was learning the magic of <tables> and 1-pixel gifs. So I’ve been to a conference or two in the distant past, but in recent years I’ve hermited myself away in my own little corner of the internet and done my own thing fairly successfully. When I read that Web Directions North was coming to my hometown of Vancouver I was excited but also trepidacious. None of my local web friends were going and I’m not active in the online design community so I’d basically be flying solo. Some of the listed session topics interested me, but I learn by doing… I wasn’t sure how much I would absorb by sitting in an audience being spoken to. Would I get my $1200 worth?

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