Meet-Up #4 is being held on September 25 2008 at The Yard in The Old Brewery Quarter in Cardiff city centre. The evening begins at 6:30pm and runs through until 9pm and we’re going to be upstairs, above the main bar.

We are very exciting to announce that our speakers for the evening are Carl Harris, Website Manager for the BCS (British Computer Society) and Mike Ellis.  Mike is a Solutions Architect at Eduserv, organizer of BathCamp (http://bathcamp08.eventbrite.com/), obsessive blogger (http://electronicmuseum.org.uk/), ex Head of Web for the Science Museum, serial web-app creator, digital musician, and a few other things too!

You can register for the event at http://cardiffwebscene4.eventbrite.com/, it’s FREE and don’t forget, entrance isn’t restricted to invitees or registered visitors, so if you know someone who might be interested in joining us, please bring them along!

And as if that wasn’t exciting enough, Cardiff Web Scene has a new logo AND a new website.  Hop along and have a look and let us know what you think!

*** Claire

We were really pleased to see both familiar and new faces, mingling and chatting about the latest happenings in the web and the industry. We were even happier to hear that some of you made some great connections and even potentially got some new work from the event!

We were very lucky to be joined by Matthew Cashmore, Senior Research Producer for the BBC who invited everyone to Mashed at Alexandra Palace on 21 June (and also provided some free BBC goodies … We love you Matt!). For those of you who were unable to come to the meet-up but still want to take advantage of the free Cardiff to London (and return) ‘Mashed’ bus, you may still be able to sign up for your place online.

You can also keep up to date with the latest ‘Mashed’ and backstage news at Matthew’s Backstage blog.

Unfortunately our second speaker, Tim Holmes from Cardiff University wasn’t able to attend the meet-up, but we’re hoping he’ll join us to talk about journalism and writing for the web and one of the next events.

So that’s it for another couple of months, if you’ve got any questions or comments about the last or the next meet-up, or would like to speak at the next one, please let us know. We’re already thinking about Meet-Up number 4 which we’re planning for September and maybe even a festive meet-up in December.

If you want to keep up-to-date with our plans and progress you can join the Facebook group , sign up to the mailing list or watch this space…

*** Claire

It’s still at 10 Feet Tall in Cardiff city centre (a few doors down from the newly roofless O’Neills), starting at 6:30pm and it’s free entry before 8:30. Unfortunately Tim Holmes from Cardiff University has had to drop out but Matthew Cashmore from the BBC is still coming to talk about Mashed and Backstage and rumour has it, will be bringing some goodies along with him. We’re also going to be taking signups for the FREE Cardiff to London Mashed bus.

The night will be rounding off with music from Ridinghood and Suitcase. There is usually an entry fee of £3 per person to see the bands, however, if you’re coming to the meet up and you arrive before 8:30pm you can see the bands for free.

You can register for the event online or just turn up!

We look forward to seeing you later, please pop over and say ‘Hi’ and introduce yourselves and if you have any comments or feedback from the night or if you would be interested in speaking at the next Meet-Up (which will be in September… watch this space) please let us know.

*** Claire

Organising the next event has given us a warm fuzzy feeling that we’re doing something nice and good for the web industry and we hope that everyone who comes along will feel the same. As I’ve mentioned before, networking events and recognition for those that work in the web are few and far between however, thankfully ‘Geek Meet-Ups’ seem to be springing up all over the world from Oxford to Leeds to Boston.

Hopefully it will give the industry the bit of a boost that it needs, for example the BBC Innovation Lab that we recently attended follows a similar pattern to the last two web scene meet-ups in that the male to female ratio was about 15 – 1, and I bet Mashed will be the same. Why are women in the web in such a minority?

Is it to do with reputation? I’m not sure that terms such as ‘Geeks’ and ‘Nerds’ have helped promote the industry in the best light. Perhaps schools teaching ‘IT’ should get kids involved in the web a bit more and show them the funky stuff you can do with Flash and AJAX as well as the Word and Excel basics that are drilled into them on a daily basis. And not just the web, but games development, 3D graphics and simulation too.

Let’s all do our bit to show what a stimulating, fun and sexy industry the web is to work in – it can only be a good thing. It’ll help with recruitment and job prospects, more recognition and cooler events, bigger and better improvements in technology, and your mum and dad won’t keep asking ’so what is it exactly that you do?’.

The future is not just bright, it’s luminous!

*** Claire

The next event is scheduled for Wednesday June 4^th at 10 Feet Tall in Cardiff. 10 Feet Tall can be found on Church Street, not too far from the Hayes, and we’re going to be on the top floor.

We’re going to kick things off at 6:30 pm. It’s free entry and we’re still looking for a couple of people to volunteer to talk about interesting things, so please get in touch if you’d like to be one of our speakers.

On top of the usual format, the night will round off with live music from Ridinghood and Suitcase. Entry to see the bands would usually be £3 per person but if you come along to the Meet-Up then you can stay on and watch the bands for free!

As if this weren’t exciting enough… in my last post I mentioned about the BBC Mashed event at Alexandra Palace on 21 June. We’re putting together a bus for anyone who wants to attend, so if there is anyone in the South Wales area who is interested in going to this, let us know and we’ll provide your transport free of charge (courtesy of the BBC). You can find out more information about the event through the Facebook group and we’ll also be talking about it at the next meet-up so if you’ve got any questions feel free to come and speak to Dan or myself.

We look forward to seeing you at 10 Feet Tall on Wednesday 4 June.

*** Claire

We’re really excited that we’re getting to work with the BBC, especially as we’ve got a chance to get involved with Mashed which is a really cool innovation day that the BBC are running at Alexandra Palace on 21 June.  We think that events like Mashed are a really great way to not only do cool stuff but also to meet other people within the web industry.

Last week was incredibly hard, but was made slightly easier by knowing some of the other companies there and at a time when social networking sites such as Facebook and Linked-In are more popular than ever, let’s make the effort to properly network, not just though our computers!

I know this is easier said than done, having worked in the design industry for eight years I was impressed by the number and range of local events that were held for designers and marketers, there is the Bi-lingual Design Awards, Cardiff Design Festival, regional CIM meet-ups to name a few… but since I moved into the web, local events are few and far between, and recognition for Welsh companies working in the web is virtually non-existent. When was the last time somebody gave an award for the best code, best management of a project or best user journey? Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great that designers get the recognition that they deserve, but how about a nod in the direction of those who are involved behind the scenes as well?

Now that that section of the rant is over I’m going to end on a positive note. So that we can do our bit for people who are involved in the web in South Wales, we have just organised the next Cardiff Web-Scene Meet-up for the evening of Wednesday June 4. For those that haven’t been before it’s a very casual get together, not just for developers, but for anyone who is involved or has an interest in the web.

For the last meet-up we changed the format slightly and had a couple of 5 minute speakers (these were Mark Boulton who talked about Typography and Dan Zambonini – Box UK’s Technical Director as well as being my fellow lab rat and blog writer who talked about 19 interesting things that he’d discovered recently). This seemed to go down quite well so we’d like to do the same again and we’re looking for volunteers! If you’ve got something interesting that you’d like to talk about, please get in touch.

The venue is to be confirmed, but you can join the Facebook group to stay up to date or look out for the next blog post, but keep the date free and hopefully we’ll see you on Wednesday June 4.

*** Claire