Where in the World Is Stephen P. Anderson?

In Las Vegas, at the IA Summit to be precise. While I don’t normally write ‘personal’ posts, I figured a catch up was in order, given my lengthy absence. That, and while poetpainter has been rather dormant lately, plenty of exciting things have been going on behind the scenes, both at home and work.

@Home
First off, the newest addition to our family is doing great. He is now almost three months old, beautiful, healthy, and looking more like me than the other boys do, if that’s possible. And yes for those counting, that makes four boys. Four boys and all the fun that goes along with having a big family, which is partly why things have been so quiet here.

@SxSW:
A couple weeks ago I made the yearly trek to SxSW Interactive. And thanks to Erica O’Grady, was privileged to participate in a ‘User Experience and Accessibility’ panel at the first ever BarCamp/Refresh World Meetup. I was honored to be speaking alongside Derek Featherstone, John Moore, Bryan Veloso, Chris Bernard, Kelsey Ruger, and Sharron Rush (Knowbility). Kudos to Erica and all the many hardworking individuals who put that together. For those not in attendance, you can watch this 5 minute video on YouTube, with more footage of the actual presentations forthcoming. For those who were in attendance, I made a statement about Usability and Accessibility that was contradicted by the much more knowledgeable Derek and Sharon. However, it turned out we are on the same page. And some inspiring discussions followed after the panel. I’ll share some of that at a later date.

Fellow Sabre co-conspirators Travis and Jeremy posted some shots on Flickr (Jeremy’s photos and Travis’ photos) and with sufficient time, I’ll get my photos up soon…

So, what’s kept me so busy? Apart from the obvious, I’ve spent the last several months working on another little project…

@IA Summit
I’m excited to announce that I will be presenting at the IA Summit 2007, with both a poster presentation as well as a regular 45 minute session. I’ll post about those specific topics in the next few days. For now, here are the descriptions:

• The conversation gets interesting: Creating the adaptive interface

• Getting from Tasks to Experiences: What’s Next in Interface Design

@PoetPainter
Comments are now back on. I had turned these off due to the overwhelming amount of comment spam I was getting. Also, for those of you getting constant updates every time a new comment was added… no more— I put an end to that. I’ve also got a redesign in the works, but like everything else that’ll be much later in the year. Unless someone wants to help me with the CSS and TextPattern setup. Anyone? Anyone?

@Sabre
Okay, I’m loving my job. Aside from the core day to day challenges that make this job rewarding, Sabre offers many ‘perks’ that make this an exciting place to work. In one week we brought in Scott McCloud to speak, hosted DemoCamp Dallas, and watched The Incredibles over lunch. And while not every week offers those kinds of extras, these events are a strong positive comment on the Sabre culture, as well as the influence of some very talented individuals. Speaking of which, we’re hiring. If you’d like to join our small team of highly talented individuals, we’ve got a few openings.

During the normal day to day, I’ve been busy laying down some of the foundations for our group. This includes lots of material around ‘guidelines’, ‘design research’, and other assorted topics, much of which I’ll sharing very soon (as soon as I recover from the last several months!).

And that’s where I’m at!