Monday, 7AM

It's early. Another sunny day in San Francisco. Perusing Monday's schedule over some coffee...

So I was just talking with someone last night (a young-ish vis design guy) and he was just lamenting how the job market is increasingly looking for "designers", but what they really mean is "developers with some design experience", and not "designers with a bit of developer experience" - he firmly fell in the latter camp. Didn't sound good to me - I mean design is design and dev is dev. Granted, it's awesome if you excel at both, but in my experience I've met only a very, very few that excel at both equally. And for a design position I feel like Design should come first (duh). Anyway, as I was saying, check out the first session in the DUX track:

"The New Hybrid Designer"
Web design may still be in its infancy compared to other design fields, but the changes have often occurred in leaps and bounds -- whether it's the adoption of a new technology or a social shift. Modern web design requires the coding savviness of a developer coupled with the aesthetics and user awareness of a designer. What does this New Creative look like? What skills has she picked up that are essential for competing in today's changing job market, and how does she stay current on the latest trends? This panel will explore how the advent of the social and participatory Web has changed the role of the designer, and provide insight into what you need to know today to design for tomorrow's Web.

... That's a firm maybe. There is this as well:

"Media 2.0: How Web 2.0 is Transforming Traditional Media"

... Very appropriate.

Wow, these are pretty quick sessions, under an hour (otherwise I'd session hop). And then the day ends with a series of Keynotes including Bezos, execs from Digg, Six Apart, Adobe, etc... should be good!

I'll keep you posted (literally), from the session floor...