Wow, it’s been a looong time since we’ve blogged. But let’s not get hung up on that. We’re back (for now) and that’s all that matters (again, for now).

Just want to give you info on our May 24, 2011 meeting. We’re insanely excited about it. We’re slicing and dicing our typical format this time around. Instead of the usual hourish-long presentations, we’ll do things lightning style.

What does that mean?

6 presenters, each presenting for ~10 minutes. Sounds sweet, eh? We think it will be.

We have a great roster of speakers who’ve volunteered their time:

• Cory Allen, creative director at IDL Solutions and freelance designer for Cory Allen Design. He’ll speak on the UX considerations that have been made while designing Zap Four.
• Lyman Casey, co-founder and partner of Centralis, a User Experience research and design company based in the Chicago area. He’ll discuss the values of remote and local user testing.
• Kris Gosser, Swiss Army Knife at Harqen.com. He’ll talk about audio UX.
• Daria Kempka, Web/Interactive producer at Marquette and producer of DrawCamp. She’ll walk us through some favorite sketching and knowledge games used by the Marquette’s Office of Marketing and Communication.
• Jessica Krowiorz, User Experience Designer at Direct Supply. She’ll give a demo of LiveScribble Echo Pen and describe how she uses it within her UX practice.
• Stephanie Sansoucie, Senior User Experience Architect & Consultant  at Ascendant Technology. She’ll present a short case study involving the transition of a web portal experience to a mobile platform for a Fortune 500 pharmaceutical group.

The event takes place Tuesday, May 24^th at 5^th Ward Pub (814 South 2nd Street in Milwaukee, WI). It starts at 6:30pm.

You can RSVP on our Facebook page.

We look forward to seeing you!

- @michaelseidel & @yellowledbedder

On Thursday, September 2nd at 6:30pm-ish, we’re teaming up with the folks at Burnhearts to screen the 2009 documentary Objectified.

RSVP for the event.

While this movie isn’t specifically about UX, there is a hell of a lot of tie-in and an amazing amount of insight to be gained.

Here’s how the Objectified site describes the movie:

Objectified is a feature-length documentary about our complex relationship with manufactured objects and, by extension, the people who design them. It’s a look at the creativity at work behind everything from toothbrushes to tech gadgets. It’s about the designers who re-examine, re-evaluate and re-invent our manufactured environment on a daily basis. It’s about personal expression, identity, consumerism, and sustainability.

Through vérité footage and in-depth conversations, the film documents the creative processes of some of the world’s most influential product designers, and looks at how the things they make impact our lives. What can we learn about who we are, and who we want to be, from the objects with which we surround ourselves?

Another great meeting in the history books! Thanks again to Mike Rhode & Cindi Thomas for doing a really engaging presentation on sketching for UX.

Here’s a round-up of artifacts:

• @deziner & @rohdesign | slides from the event [view]
• @tomhenrich | notes from event [view]
• @michaelseidel | photos of the event [view]

If you have additional stuff to add to the list, let us know!

Really belated, but we wanted to make sure that we posted a list of artifacts from our July 14 meeting on UX for mobile. For posterity. Know what  I’m sayin’?

• @adny | Andy Wright’s slides [view]
• @mmassie | Mike Massie’s slides [view]
• @tomhenrich | note from event [view]
• @michaelseidel | photos of the event [view]

We’re still reeling from how wonderfully our inaugural meeting went last week. Gretchen and Margot did an awesome one-two punch to beat some excitement into Milwaukee about what content strategy is and how to begin selling/evangelizing it.

If you missed the meeting or just want to spend some time revisiting it, here are a few links for you to get frisky with.

• @gforce414 (Gretchen Thomas) | presentation slides on Slideshare
• @thebestsophist (Bernard Yu)| reflections on the event
• @tomhenrich| reflections on the event
• @lightburn | photos from the event
• @michaelseidel | photos from the event
• Twitter #mkeux & #mke_ux hashtags

If you have any thoughts or images you’d like to share, let us know!

Thanks to everyone who attended. Hope to see you again in July! Details to follow.

Well, we’re exactly three weeks out from our inaugural mkeUX, and damned if we aren’t excited!

There has been some really good momentum and excitement within the Milwaukee tech community about the group. (Our Facebook group is up to 43 members & we have 41 Twitter followers!) We’re stoked to see how that translates into a live, in-person meeting.

Here’s the thing
We want mkeUX to be as participatory as possible. Take our first presentation with Margot Blumstein & Gretchen Thomas, for example. It’s about Content Strategy.

CS is getting quite a lot of buzz in the broader tech world, but it doesn’t seem like something that crops up much in Milwaukee.

Is it something you’re familiar with?

• If not, what do you want to know about it?
• If yes, what seems like its benefits or shortcomings?
• Have you employed a good CS within your organization? How’d it go?

We want everyone to feel like they can take the podium and get everything off their chest. We don’t want the meeting to break up just because the speakers have said their part. If it means convening at a bar or coffee shop to talk about it more post-meeting, that’s awesome. Perfect.

If you have some thoughts or questions prior to the meeting, leave a comment here. We’d love to get the conversation going in advance.

It’s a mystery
Exactly how everything will play out is a big question mark at this point. If you have any suggestions on what has or hasn’t worked with other groups you’ve participated in, let us know! We want to learn from what’s happened before – this will help us make OUR meetings as good and valuable as possible for everyone.

LAY IT ON US! We want to hear your thoughts. On everything. For serious.