About Webstock
Web·stock [wëb–stok]
– noun, origin: 2006
Webstock is a range of web-related events with the aim of improving how websites are built through inspiration, education, insightful analysis and practical application. It features industry leaders and kick-ass speakers talking on topics such as accessibility, web standards, usability and other best practices.
Recordings of all past events are made available in the interests of knowledge-sharing and good web citizenship.
With WIPA, Webstock is the co-producer of FullCodePress, the geek olympics.
Webstock is the brainchild of six charming web professionals known as the Webstock team who've taken it upon themselves to promote raising the standard of websites in their own backyard (and abroad), and have a jolly good time while they're doing it. They are:
Mike Brown
Mike still falls in love with the web on a regular basis. In his optimistic moments he thinks it really has changed the world in good ways. He hopes Webstock is part of that change.
Mike is a co-founder and Director of Wellington web company Signify, where he works as a consultant.
He thinks web 2.0 is a conspiracy, that Bob Dylan really is a genius and that knowledge is a much more pragmatic concept that you might think.
Debbie Sidelinger
Deb built her first website in 1996, back in the day when personal sites used to be "online journals" rather than blogs. She has been online ever since in various guises.
She used to be a librarian in a former life, but now seems to attend a lot of meetings about developing sites.
When not doing things web, either for work or pleasure, you can find her out taking pictures, flickr'ing, doing laundry and answering the several hundred questions a day that her 8 and 5 year old sons ask of her.
Natasha Hall
Advocate of users at Trade Me. Instigator of activities and shenanigans at Webstock.
Mother to Charlie Bird, special-lady-friend to Ben.
Lover of jazz, film, Led Zeppelin, usable interweb sites and Miss Marple.
Bloody mary aficionado.
Ben Lampard
Ben's hobbies include casting his critical eye over other peoples websites; admiring his lovely girlfriend; Webstock; Linux and other Free software; creating lists; and fussing over Charlie Bird the Boston Terrier.
He dislikes table based layouts (who doesn't?); watching TV; bad movies; writing his own bio as though someone else wrote it; the oxford comma; and people who don't care about standards.
Miraz Jordan
Miraz is a freelance writer with a passion for Macs, the Internet, sci-fi, plain language, and sunny Wellington days.
She started teaching people about the Internet even before the Web hit Wellington, back in the very early 90s. Her latest book is Connect your Community, informing community groups about setting up websites. In 2006 she co-authored WordPress 2: Visual QuickStart Guide with Maria Langer.
Miraz writes about topics such as the Internet, Macs, and WordPress in many places, including her blog TiKouka and the Groupings blog. Occasionally she speaks on National Radio.
She is currently working on Webguide 2.0, a website for community groups about using Internet and other current technologies. She is ably hindered in these endeavours by 3 cats and two very cute puppies.
Siggy Magnusson
Sigurd has been living and breathing the internet since 1995 when the Wellington City Council provided the region's only internet service; then entirely text-based and only 2400 baud. Add a grandma who taught him C before he got to high school, and the rest all makes sense.
In 2000, he co-founded SilverStripe with two friends, which has since made hundreds of websites and web-applications. Sig's focus is now on building up the community around their open source platform for building websites, SilverStripe CMS.
Aside from his beautiful partner and daughter, Siggy loves adventure: snowboarding, turning up in a foreign city, reading books in the sun, and being conned into dancing Salsa for the Cuba Street carnival.
