Macworld 2011 Expo: Industry Forum

This is my 6th straight Macworld Expo. When I started working for Apple back in 2004 I was immediately immersed in the Cult that is Mac…

I  haven't looked back since.

This year I've achieved some significant forward momentum with HicksNewMedia and thus was invited to attend the Macworld 2011 Industry Forum.

Debuting this year, the Industry Forum is an exclusive event that brings together developers, industry-watchers, media, analysts, volume product buyers and other influencers for a day of discussions about the dynamics that shape the third-party Apple-products marketplace.

On the schedule for presentation and discussion opportunities at the Industry Forum are:

Dr. Bill Wiecking, MIS, Hawaii Preparatory Academy: Sustainable Apple: Thinking About Forever
Sustainability has been called “thinking about forever”. Dr. Bill Wiecking, Director of the Energy Lab at HPA in Hawaii talked and described how Apple technology enabled the operation of the first school to seek the Living Building Challenge, a visionary approach to sustainable design, building and operation.

Harry McCracken, Editor, Technologizer – Thoughts on Mobile

In the four years since Steve Jobs announced the iPhone at Macworld, mobile technology has evolved at an unprecedented pace. But things aren't going to slow down a bit over the next few years. Technologizer Editor Harry McCracken tackled subjects such as the next phase in the battle between iOS and Android; the fates of other existing and upcoming mobile operating systems; the most important upcoming technology developments; and whether the mobile Web will displace apps over time.

Bill Atkinson, member of the original Macintosh team at Apple Computer; Photographer; App Developer for “Bill Atkinson PhotoCard“: Trends in Human-Computer Interface

Bill Atkinson spoke on a wide range of user interfaces from punched cards, the Teletype, video terminals, the Apple II and IBM PC, the Lisa and Mac point-and-click graphical user interface, color CRT displays, color LCD displays, early touch screens, modern capacitive multi-touch sensors and virtual keyboards.
In the future, with natural language understanding technology, the human-computer interface will become more of a two-way interactive conversation, with a transceiver in the ear, projected displays and video cameras that see what we see and recognize our pointing and other gestures. We will have virtual reality overlays and annotations superimposed on the real world and will interact by pointing and talking. The center of the conversational user interface will become the personal assistant avatar.

Jason Snell, Vice President & Editorial Director, Mac Publishing, LLC – How Apple Does “It”

Every rumor about a new Apple product causes half of the Apple community (and almost everyone in the media) to go insane temporarily. But while Apple likes to keep its product development a secret, it's not a company that works in mysterious ways. Macworld's Jason Snell has been covering the company for more than 15 years. He understands how Apple does what it does, and why, and what the rules for understanding Apple are.

Art Garcia, Senior Mobile Portfolio Marketing Lead, HP – Mobility & Printing – What You Need to Know
Art spoke about the latest market and technology trends driving the emergence of mobile printing solutions. The fact that customers want to print from anywhere they are with their mobile device. With the HP technology, the offering from Apple, and now the recently announced solution from Google – I wonder if this segment of the industry will become too fragmented and there won't be a “standard” for all mobile devices to talk to all printers. Then again, do we want/need that standard?

Colin Crawford, CEO, Media7 – What You Need to Know: Tablet Publishing Models
The iPad offers magazine publishers an opportunity to go far beyond e-editions and digital replicas to deliver a rich media experience – this session will look at some of the innovations from major publishers, the revenue streams that are delivering results and some of the advances and improvements likely over the year ahead.

John Gruber, Writer/Publisher, Daring Fireball – Apple and the Open Web: A Love Story
The conventional wisdom is that Apple is a “closed” company – and that Apple's proprietary platforms, iOS and Mac OS X, are in opposition to the wide open web platform. This view of the company is incorrect. Apple is a tremendous supporter of the open web, not merely in word but in action. This is not out of altruism, but out of its own self interests.

Side Note: Enjoy the following official/un-official Daring Fireball theme song created by YouTube publisher extraordinaire, Jonathan Mann.

Nick Floro, CEO, Sealworks Interactive Studios: The New Creative Professional: Essential Skills, Tools and Technology
Take advantage of the right side of your brain! What skills and tools are available to be more creative, how to inspire creativity in others and what technology can remove creative obstacles. iApps covered during Nick's session: Sketchy, iMockUps, Chalk, Pulse, Twitter,Skitch, LittleSnapper, iAudioNotes,… – Nick flew threw a ton of apps but those are the picks I'd also recommend you checking out. I'll update this post when I get access to his slides.

John Welch, Head of IT, The Zimmerman Agency: Apple and the Enterprise
There’s a lot of talk about iOS devices and the enterprise: do they belong in a business, can they work well with business systems, can they be managed well? The answer to all of those questions is yes, but you can’t try to make an iPhone or an iPad into a Blackberry or a Tablet PC. They are different devices, with their own challenges. Fortunately, those challenges are surmountable for business and business IT, it just takes a bit of research and time.

Mike Lawrence, Executive Director, Computer-Using Educators (CUE) – Apple's Role in Ubiquitous Learning
The age of the computer lab and classroom computer has passed, as students are increasingly carrying their computing devices in their hands, pockets and backpacks. The freedom, flexibility and power that these developments usher in are transformative for the student, the school and beyond. The outmoded textbook is on its last legs as flexbooks, digital textbooks, and downloaded and interactive curricula increasingly replacing them. Where they were once shunned, like ball point pens and calculators before them, iPhones and other smartphones are being welcomed at schools instead of banned. Online delivery of curriculum is growing at an extraordinary rate, leading many to question the future of brick and mortar schools. Apple has been a leader in many of these transformations and continues to push the envelope with mobile learning, digital curriculum and challenge based learning initiatives. These changes and the wave of powerful instruction that will follow will fundamentally change the nature of society in the next twenty years. Follow CUE on Twitter.

Alex Lindsay, CFO, Pixel Corps: The Here and Now, There and Tomorrow of Digital Video
Video production and distribution has never been so important, or as complicated as it is today. Film, TV and Web are beginning their long predicted convergence just as new technologies, such as 3D threaten to add yet another wrinkle to this already confused tapestry of formats and devices. This would be challenging enough if the market had not become one of the single most critical outlets for companies of all sizes. Never has the ability to use video to make your case, train your customers or support your staff been more important.

[images via Steve Rhodes]

Related articles

• Macworld Industry Forum: Jason Snell on how Apple does it (tuaw.com)
• Macworld Industry Forum: Bill Atkinson on Interface Design (tuaw.com)