Upcoming Talks and Events

November just started and it’s shaping up to be quite a busy month already.

The Silverlight Jumpstart course I mentioned previously on my blog kicks off its second round this week at the Westbury.  The course is full for both in-person attendees and LiveMeeting attendees, however if you’re interested in a future session, please e-mail me at martharo@microsoft.com.

On Tuesday, November 3rd, the IxDA (Interaction Design Association) is hosting DEFUSE Design for Use at the Sugar Club.  DEFUSE is an evening of Pecha Kucha talks with 13 excellent speakers lined up to talk about various aspects of Interaction Design.  To register for this free event or to find out more, go to http://www.defuse.ixd.ie/.

Are you a web developer or designer near Shannon?  On Wednesday November 4th, I’ll be at the Midwest Region Microsoft Technology User Group in Shannon talking about “SketchFlow: Building Web and Desktop Applications from Concept to Production.” For more information and to register for this free event, go to http://mtug.ie/. 

Belfast is quite the place to be this week with a lot of activity around the Build Conference.  The conference lineup looks absolutely fantastic!  While the majority of the conference is happening on Thursday November 5th at the Waterfront Studio, other events including a screening of Objectified, several workshops and lectures and a BarCamp are happening this week too.  For more information on any of the Build events, see their schedule here: http://buildconference.com/schedule/  Tickets for the conference & workshops can be booked at http://buildconference.eventbrite.com/.

Thursday November 12th is World Usability Day, and to celebrate, the usability experts at iQ Content are launching their gorgeous, brand new studio.  You should check out their blog, as it has some lovely pictures of the sparkling new studio, which can be booked for usability tests, focus groups or market research.  And of course they’re having a party to launch the whole thing.  You can find out more information on their blog and RSVP – I hear PowerPoint Karaoke may be involved.

Meetforreal events have been really taking off in Dublin and Galway.  On November 18th, find out what would happen if we knew where all of our stuff came from.  At 18:30 in the Science Gallery in Dublin, Fred Pearce (environmental consultant of New Scientist magazine) will tell his tale of discovering the truth about where stuff comes from which took him around the world seven times.  Register for this event and learn more about meetforreal here: http://www.meetforeal.com/index.do 

Cork is also a busy city in November, as BarCamp Cork returns for its third year.  19 people have signed up to give talks so far on Saturday November 14th at the Cork International Airport Hotel around a wide variety of topics, so it will be a very fun day.  To register to attend and/or speak at this free event, go to http://www.barcampcork.com

With everyone heading down to Cork anyway, we grabbed the opportunity to have the second ever Cork Girl Geeks Dinner the evening before.  Sabrina Dent and Ciara Crossan have organized a fab evening at the Gourmet Burger Bistro in Cork from 8pm on Friday November 13th.  Register to attend at http://www.irelandgirlgeekdinners.com/.

Last but not least, if you’re into video games, you do not want to miss Video Games Live at the National Concert Hall on Sunday November 29th.  Video Games Live is the largest video game concert in the world.  What is a video game concert?  It’s a concert featuring music from your favourite video games, including Mario, Zelda, Halo, Final Fantasy and much, much more.  There are still some balcony seats available – book now at http://www.nch.ie/Box-Office/Performances/Video-Games-Live-(1).aspx.

Sign up today for the events that interest you so that you’re not disappointed.  See you there.

Cross posted from Martha’s Blog.