Webstock's moments of delight

There aren’t many conferences that close with a man dressed as a clown discussing the meaning of life, but then Webstock doesn’t want to be just another conference. Megan Whelan went along to find out what it's all about.

As a journalist, one gets used to judging conferences based on the food supplied. Conferences are often terribly dry, but saved by the lavish spread attendees pounce on in the breaks. Hotel banquets usually afford a reporter a sandwich they can gulp down while attempting to corner speakers into explaining something in their talk. Free coffee is how you get journalists to stay awake during your PowerPoint presentation.

With its craft beer, organic coffee and artisan ice-cream, Webstock feels all very Wellington. It’s the hipster IT conference, one attendee told me, as I lamented the lack of photo-worthy t-shirts. With the amount of dark-framed glasses and plaid filling Wellington’s St James Theatre, that sounds about right.

This year's Webstock opened with one of the team behind the conference, Mike Brown, reminding the audience that it has been a tough couple of years on the internet. It turns out that this thing that people trust – the internet – is broken, and has been from the start, he said.

“People have lost their innocence ... It makes you want to burn shit down. Finding joy in the midst of things falling apart is a form of protest in its own right,” Brown said. Those themes would continue for two days; the web has been taken over, the tools the internet is built on need to be broken to be fixed, and find the fun where you can.

Author Scott Berkun, after working for the company behind the blogging tool and content management system Wordpress (which powers about 20 per cent of the internet), told Webstock to throw out email, conventions like working 9-5 and corporate dress codes. In a quest for meaning in work, he advised looking at organisational policies like teams and the phrase “it’s how we’ve always done it”. He asked the question “why do most people hate working” and advocated working remotely and having an open vacation policy. Which probably doesn't work if you happen to work in a factory. 

Another speaker, Jen Beckman, spoke of the loss of the innocence of the internet. She asked why the internet’s culture has become all about who’s making the most money, and not who is making the “best thing”. “Everybody has a superpower that can be used for good,” she said.

At times the relentless optimism and focus on “creativity” and “meaning” felt a little like being hit over the head by a motivational poster. One that, in the nature of the internet, features a kitten.

Artist Jessica Hagy took famous New Zealanders’ words and used them to explain the internet. “Are you trapped in a room with nothing but your virginity and an internet connection? The internet can help you,” she told the audience. The internet – and therefore history – is now being written in various kinds of ways, she said. “It’s not the format, it’s the story,” she said, referring to the way a six word story can sum up a whole life. 

Webstock seems most geared to the internet startup – the “quit your job and make something cool” brigade. The talks are short on hard details and how-tos, leaving those for the sold-out pre-conference workshops. But some tech is on stage, with talks on “micro-interactions” and user experience. Designer Josh Clark lamented the gap between devices, saying 67 per cent of people start shopping on one device and continue on another, for example. He suggested developers should spend time making that as seamless- and as pleasant – as possible. Like so:

Another theme was not allowing data – and the spectre of “big data” – to take over decision making. Writer and researcher Erika Hall pointed out that if data-driven decision making were as effective as some people believe, then online advertising would be much more fantastic and effective than it currently is. People drive the queries, she said, and the data is only as good as those questions. Aarron Walter, the director of User Experience at Mailchimp spoke about wisdom as a rare and valuable commodity. He said that from data comes information, from that knowledge, and then wisdom – data is the bottom of the pyramid, not the top.

South African musician Spoek Mathambo talked about the internet’s importance for music, and how it has allowed musicians autonomy and independence. He said that while Spotify, iTunes and other sharing sites afford people in developed countries access to new music, two-thirds of South Africa’s adult population have never accessed the internet. And while labels struggle with how to monetise music sites and stop piracy, few people in the country have access to credit cards. 

Mathambo said it's human nature to want to share and communicate the things we love - file sharing is part of that. And he said, the music industry is myopic. In pursuing profit, it ignores the cultural aspects of sharing music, including the music that has grown directly out of street-level piracy. “Is piracy really killing the music industry,” he asked, “or have the methods of distribution changed?”

Webstock isn’t a design conference. It isn’t about computers, or teaching people how to build a better website. One attendee called it “mind-altering”: a “spa for the mind”. Another told me it’s about “inspiration”, saying she goes away from Webstock every year with a head full of ideas. Another said she spends six months looking forward to the conference, and the next six figuring out how to use the ideas she gleaned from it. And one, after attending for the first time tells me she has already started putting those ideas in place at work – saying it's not just about inspiration. It's hard to say what it is about: two days of thirty minute talks bleed together. I remember theremins and cat videos and wondering if email is my enemy or my friend. But maybe Webstock isn't about answering the questions it poses. 

Summing up the conference, author, musican, entrepreneur and clown, Derek Sivers asked the audience “what is life?”. Maybe there doesn’t need to be meaning, he said. “If you burn toast, someone will find a picture of Elvis in it.”