I am excited to announce that I will be speaking at Portland’s WebVisions Conference 2009. After missing the event last year to a scheduling conflict, I am honored to be able to not only attend, but present as well. I have quite a bit of time to present, so I am already writing my speech. If it is not a 100% completely useful speech, then at the very least it will contain some interesting images.

An Introduction to Cyborg Anthropology in One Hour and Fifteen Minutes

I’ll be presenting An Introduction to Cyborg Anthropology on Friday, May 22 2009 - 1:15 pm to 2:30 pm

How we interact with machines and technology in many ways defines who we are. Cyborg Anthropology is a lens with which to understand what’s happening to us in a world mediated by dynamic objects, processes, and change.

An entire set of new social roles have developed around the use of technology. Erving Goffman’s “The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life” relates directly to this. In this world, the concepts of physics are even more prevalent. The shape of space makes people move, and flow of people shapes space. A profile is another extension of connection and etiquette that can be optimized or used poorly.

The speech will cover the effects of space/time compression on the co-creation of value in online systems. Information architecture and interface design will be discussed.

Webvision Speakers

I’m extremely honored to be a part of the Webvisions lineup, which includes the following incredible people and speakers.

Keynote Speakers

Mark Frauenfelder – Boingboing.net

Mark Frauenfelder is the editor-in-chief of MAKE magazine and the founder of the Boingboing.net, what Technorati calls the world’s most popular blog. A former editor at Wired, Mark has written for numerous publications and is the author of four books, including The Computer, an illustrated history of computers and Rule the Web, a guide to online tricks and tips. His next book, The World in Your Hands, will be published in 2009.  more

Jared Spool – User Interface Engineering

If you’ve ever seen Jared speak about usability, you know that he’s probably the most effective, knowledgeable communicator on the subject today. What you probably don’t know is that he has guided the research agenda and built User Interface Engineering (UIE) into the largest research organization of its kind in the world. He’s been working in the field of usability and design since 1978, before the term “usability” was ever associated with computers.   more

Peat Bakke

Peat Bakke is a web developer and world traveller with a keen interest in how the Internet is shaping the global economy. He presented at Ignite Portland II on finding beauty in abandoned places.  more

Leah Buley – Adaptive Path

Leah Buley is an Experience Designer for Adaptive Path. She speaks and writes about methods for making user experience design more successful inside of business organizations.  more

DL Byron – Textura Design

An author, entrepreneur, inventor, and a designer, Byron consults with Textura Design’s clients about blogging and social media. He publishes Bike Hugger, a blog about bike culture and will ride his bike all over Portland while in town.
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Amber Case – Hazelnut Tech Talk

Amber Case is a Cyborg Anthropologist who studies new media and the relationship between humans and computers.  more

Dawn Foster

Dawn provides consulting services for building online communities through social media technologies including forums, blogs, wikis, podcasts, and more. She is the author of the Fast Wonder Blog and is working on a book about community.  more

Vanessa Fox – Nine by Blue.com

Vanessa Fox, called a “cyberspace visionary” by Seattle Business Monthly, is an expert in understanding customer acquisition from organic search.    more

Justin Garrity – WebTrends

Justin is the new User Experience director at WebTrends. His mandate is to focus on user centered design, refined data visualization, and narrative context driven workflow.  more

Jason Grigsby – Cloud Four

Jason Grigsby was one of the project leads on the Obama iPhone Application and helped design the user inferface for the Wall Street Journal’s Blackberry application. He founded and organizes Mobile Portland, a local mobile development user group.    more

Molly Holzschlag – Molly.com

Molly works to define and create effective organizational standards and best practices for thousands of developers and designers working the Web via 35 books, countless articles, conference workshops, sessions and keynotes and a consulting practice.  more

Kevin Hoyt – Adobe, Inc.

Kevin Hoyt is a platform evangelist with Adobe Systems, Inc. Passionate about engaging user experiences as he is, you’ll most often find him meeting with customers, speaking at conferences, or just enjoying the chance to share ideas and brainstorm.  more

John Keith – Cloud Four

John Keith is Co-Founder and President of Cloud Four. He has been a professional software developer for 25 years, fully half of which have been spent developing web-based software and services.  more

Raymond King – About Us

Ray has worked at four startups and enjoys the technical and business challenges that go along with birthing totally new ideas.   more

Eric T. Peterson – Web Analytics Demystified

Eric has worked in web analytics since the late 1990’s in a variety of roles including practitioner, consultant, and analyst for several market-leading companies. He is the author of three best-selling books on the subject, Web Analytics Demystified, Web Site Measurement Hacks, and The Big Book of Key Performance Indicators, as well as one of the most popular web analytics bloggers at www.webanalyticsdemystified.com.   more

David Recordon

David Recordon is Open Platforms Tech Lead for Six Apart, the largest independent blogging company in the world. Recordon has played a pivotal role in the development and popularization of key social media technologies such as OpenID.  more

Christopher Schmitt – Heat Visions

An award-winning Web designer who has been working with the Web since 1993, Christopher is the founder of Heat Vision, a new media publishing and design firm.  more

Bill Scott – Netflix

Bill is the Director of User Interface Engineering at Netflix where he guides the UI Engineering team’s efforts to continue Netflix’s excellence in user experience, improve client performance and refactor the presentation tier to use the latest best practices for both the DHTML layer as well as the Java tier layer.  more

Tyler Sticka

Tyler Sticka is a designer, artist, speaker and educator specializing in identity-driven new media. His clients include small businesses, marketing agencies, open source developers and larger names such as Nike, Synnex and Providence Health.  more

Armin Vit – UnderConsideration

Born and raised in Mexico City, Armin is a graphic designer and writer now living in Brooklyn, New York. He has written for AIGA’s VOICE, Emigre, Eye, Creative Review, HOW, and STEP magazines, among others.  more

Dave Yewman – Elevator Speech.com

A former newspaper reporter and columnist, Dave has conducted media and presentation training sessions for thousands of executives at numerous companies, including Adidas, Craigslist, Digg, eHarmony, K-Swiss, Microsoft, Avenue A Razorfish, Reebok, and Vignette.  more

About Amber Case

Amber Case explores data visualization, search engine optimization, and how marketing works in the online ecosystem. She’s spoken at various conferences including MIT’s Futures of Entertainment, Inverge, Ignite Portland, and Ignite Boulder. She graduated from Lewis & Clark College in May 2008 with a degree in Sociology/Anthropology and wrote her thesis on cell phones and the effect of technology on cultural constructions of space and privacy. She writes for Discovery Channel’s Nerdabout.com. You can follow her on Twitter @caseorganic.