Indie Web Camp UK took place here in Brighton right after this year’s dConstruct. I was organising dConstruct. I was also organising Indie Web Camp. This was a problem.
It was a problem because I’m no good at multi-tasking, and I focused all my energy on dConstruct (it more or less dominated my time for the past few months). That meant that something had to give and that something was the organising of Indie Web Camp.
The event itself went perfectly smoothly. All the basics were there: a great venue, a solid internet connection, and a plan of action. But because I was so focused on dConstruct, I didn’t put any time into trying to get the word out about Indie Web Camp. Worse, I didn’t put any time into making sure that a diverse range of people knew about the event.
So in the end, Indie Web Camp UK 2014 was quite a homogenous gathering. That’s a real shame, and it’s my fault. My excuse is that I was busy with all things dConstruct, but that’s just that; an excuse. On the plus side, the effort I put into making dConstruct a diverse event paid off, but I’ll know better in future than to try to organise two back-to-back events. I need to learn to delegate and ask for help.
But I don’t want to cast Indie Web Camp in a totally negative light (I just want to acknowledge how it could have been better). It was actually pretty great. As with previous events, it was remarkably productive. The format of one day of talks, followed by one day of hacking is spot on.
I hadn’t planned to originally, but I spent the second day getting adactio.com switched over to https. Just a couple of weeks ago I wrote:
I’m looking forward to switching my website over to
https://but I’m not going to do it until the potential pain level drops.
Well, I’m afraid that potential pain level has not dropped. In fact, I can confirm that get TLS working is massive pain in the behind. But on the first day of Indie Web Camp, Tim Retout led a session on security and offered up his expertise for day two. I took full advantage of his generous offer.
With Tim’s help, I was able to get adactio.com all set. If I hadn’t had his help, it probably would’ve taken me days …or I simply would’ve given up. I took plenty of notes so I could document the process. I’ll write it up soon, but alas, it will only be useful to people with the same kind of hosting set up as I have.
By the end of Indie Web Camp, thanks to Tim’s patient assistance, quite a few people has switched on TSL for their sites. The https page on the Indie Web Camp wiki is turning into quite a handy resource.
There was lots of progress in other areas too, particularly with webactions. Some of that progress relates to what I’ve been saying about Web Components. More on that later…
Throw in some Transmat action, location-based hacks, and communication tools; all-in-all a very productive weekend.