But, hey, it was fun. And I got to meet some very nice, smart folks including those that were on the panel with me: Norm Orstad from Slantwise, Mike Bollinger from Livefront and Margeret Andrews from Vita.mn.

Alas, given that it *was* a Spring Saturday–albeit a wet one–prior commitments prevented me from sticking around past the noon hour. However, I did manage to sneak into the ‘Why Drupal?’ session presented by the very articulate and knowledgeable Allie Micka. (I came away with the opinion of “wow, that is cool, but, of course, really complex”). I also managed to get to the Refresh TwinCities session hosted by Thomas Knoll. I’ll need to ponder that latter session a bit before presenting a full opinion of it, but, on the surface, it seems like a great idea for a broader web organization that is going to struggle against the competition from all of the existing niche web community/orgs around town.

In the end, I remembered that the web still is a lot of fun. I had lost a bit of that excitement these past few years sitting in my admittedly cushy, yet rather bland gig. I’ll definitely be going to the next Minnebar…no matter how nice that weekend might be weather-wise. ;0)

Currently we have a few topics regarding design/web standards. In fact, we have five and counting! I will be discussing the “Pros and Cons of CSS frameworks“. I would like to see more presentations or topics about design. Below I have a wish list of topics that someone could present or lead a discussion;

• Web typography
• How designers and developer see things
• To blog about design or not?
• Wire-framing techniques
• Design process
• Web-app design vs E-commerce design
  
• Newbies guide to web design standards community
• Your ideas??
  

The pulse is strong here in the Twin Cities and you can help make it stronger. Bring what you have learned from your own web standards research or find out what you should know. Everyone has something to give and share. If you have any thoughts or questions leave a comment below or please contact me, Norm Orstad at norman@orstad.com.

(photo: Steve Borsch)

Even as the attendance grows a hundred people at a time, Ben, Dan Grigsby, and Luke Francl continue create stronger and more engaging unconferences. Thanks guys.

(photo: Luke Francl)

(photo: Cody Hanson)

I’d also like to thank everyone that participated in the Designing for Use session. While 50 minutes was just enough to get warmed up, I think we had a pretty good conversation. Christopher Warren wrote up notes. That’s what unconferences are all about. Thank you.

“Hopefully my mumblings about users ignoring information in HUDs…and the need to push as much information as possible into the world …itself were useful to someone.” – Josh Lee

“The best session I attended was Garrick’s on Designing for Use. *That* session was pretty much an open session to discuss problems people were having and try to find solutions. More sessions like that one would have been great.” – J Wynia

Tim Elliott braved the room noise with his mic’d iPod in an attempt to capture some of the sessions.

Elsewhere: Leslie Brook Suzukamo explains Ruby on Rails for the St. Paul Pioneer Press

The much anticipated sequel to last year’s MinneBar will be held in St. Paul’s Railroader Building.

Congrats to Dan, Ben, Luke, and all the sponsors they lined up….oh, and us.

RSVP at http://barcamp.org/MinneBar

I spent half Saturday afternoon at MinneBar, Minnesota’s organized by Ben Edwards and attended by well, most of the cool people in town.

Completely worth it. Great conversations – in and out of the formal(?) sessions.

Special kudos to Ruby.MN for a successful live RoR – Web 2.0 app from scratch – demo.