Amster dam exspensive

Last day! I have to say as insightful and interesting these seminars have been, I've had enough. I'm all learned out and pot less. Damn this place is expensive. Think its why its called Amsterdam, nothing to do with all the water its so Dam expensive - deliberate spelling mistake for all you sticklers out there.

My final day involved Thinking by design, that wasn't what I did that's what it was called. I am gonna keep this one short cause my battery is dying and I have packed my plug converter things!

Picture the scene, I'm sitting in a back packers hostel at the bar. Thinkpad on my lap, music is pumping out some sort of drum and bass from the extremely loud music system they have hear and I'm surrounded by people who look like they need a good bath. Christian would love it!! I can hear him now, "er could you turn that down I can't concentrate and please don't smoke that cigarete next to me, oh its not a cigarette!"

There where three tutors for today - I also packed my notes so can't remember their names but I can tell you they all worked in very senior positions positions in their web design team. There was a very charming lady who looked like she would fit in on the set of desperate housewives and then a lady who looked like she would fit in as part of a little Britain sketch. Wont say which one but the words 'dust' spring to mind! Lastly was a Latin American chap, lacked a little charisma but very knowledgeable.

We looked at lots of case studies from work that they had done at Ebay and they work in a similar fashion to us, similar team set up, just bigger. They shared learning's on stuff they have experienced and where happy to offer their best practices. We looked at what they called their 'patterns' which were basically templates for every possible web page that would need designing/building and again offered tips on how to build sites efficiently and in a costly manner. Some of the tips where genius, others we already do.

We looked at how their site had evolved over the years and explained the rationale for why things happened. They also gave tips for how to get stakeholder buy in. One tip which did make me smile was using fear as a method to convince stakeholders. Not wave a gun in their face but explain what competitors do and how we need to be ahead of them as opposed to being reactive and falling behind. I still liked the idea of waving a gun at them! Down to 37% battery, move on Rob.

To surmise a good day - picked up lots of tips from a world leading organisation in online purchasing. Not everyday you get that insight.

Now off to the airport, looking forward to getting home and having some sort of normality back in my life. Who am I kidding, we have bloody loads of festive frolics booked for December! Hoping for a safe journey home with little delays, never flown on my own, this should be interesting. Passport, money, ticket, one out of three aint bad I guess!