Remote Conferences are Cool

Published 10 May 2024

Yesterday I got to (partially) attend the International Symposium on Making Web Sites Real Good. It's been a long time since I attended a conference-type event. I used to try to go to at least one a year early in my career, but eventually I burnt out a bit on work and wanted to focus on the rest of my life. Then the pandemic happened. Now the barrier to going to an in-person conference for work-related stuff is even higher.

But I follow the Eleventy account on Mastodon, and when the announcement popped up in my feed, the name immediately caught my attention: ‌International Symposium on Making Web Sites Real Good. I like the vibe of that name, it doesn't take itself too seriously. It was free, probably relevant to my interests, and remote, so I figured why not give it a shot? Turns out that was the right call!

I only caught a few talks since I didn't take off work, but just that taste was enough to kick me out of a rut I didn't know I'd been in. Miriam Suzanne got me thinking about what it really means to build for the web. Paul Everitt blew my mind with how you can transform and expand an Eleventy project. And Henry Desroches has me thinking about webmentions and publishing on my own site again. For as long as I can remember I've wanted to implement webmentions and actually post here (somewhat) regularly, because I like personal websites and all things IndieWeb. I've just never dedicated the time to setting it all up. Now I have a stronger itch to do it, and a concrete path to start from!

So yeah, turns out, attending a streamed event online and lurking in the chat, probably the most minimal conference experience ever, can still be really invigorating and valuable. There's a lot more that could be said here about the importance of accessibility, as the pandemic has really broadened by opinion and understanding of the concept, but that's a topic for another day. (Huge shoutout to the 11ty organizers for providing live captioning though!)

In the meantime, I'm inspired enough to be actually writing a bit here, and in the spirit of Weblog Posting Month, will try to commit to one post a week this month. Bold, I know. I've been watching other folks participate and thinking that I love the spirit but know myself and my life well enough to know that every day is not going to work out well for me. Four though? Four is achievable, and this conference was enough of a kick in the butt to actually start, just in time.