If you have history with The Nerdery Overnight Website Challenge, consider yourself welcome at the first-ever Web Challenge After-Party – a festive reflection on the past and future of our annual nerdathon. It also occurs to us that we’ve never had you at our place – and we really should.

All comers can:

• Tour every nook and nearly every cranny of The Nerdery
• Enjoy happy hour discounts (free, be our guest)
• Marvel at an ongoing montage of before/after websites
• Get up-close views of Nerdery Nerds frolicking in their natural habitat

We’ll also have a panel discussion/open mic to share feedback on overnight lessons learned. Got something to say? Tell us what that might be so we can slot you in accordingly.

Nerds, come tell your technology success stories, and share the lessons your team learned. What worked that weekend? Everything working still? Pro tips, please.

Nonprofits, tell us how your website has moved the needle – actually, forget needles, how has it actually made a difference in terms of building community, fundraising, communicating with your constituents, delivering services and everything else.

So come one, come all. Actually, if all of you come we’re totally screwed and the fire marshal will shut us down. But definitely come, yes, you, if you long to revisit your sleepless past or reconnect with fellow insomniacs.

What to wear: An Overnight Website Challenge t-shirt, please. Represent.

RSVP: http://webchallengereunion.eventbrite.com/

Ambassanerds

Mark

VP of Marketing

Jamey Erickson of Seventh Sin will be by to talk about the "ISON - Rockets to Space" project that he, Nerdery Nerd John Heimkes and their buddy Andy Kvamme are hoping to fund. Their goal is to encourage public support of space exploration and to actually launch a rocket to an altitude of 100,000km and into space.

For more information, check out http://ison.sevnthsin.com/

RSVP: http://isonrocket.eventbrite.com/

Ambassanerds

John

Front-end Developer

Jamey Erickson of Seventh Sin will be by to talk about the "ISON - Rockets to Space" project that he, Nerdery Nerd John Heimkes and their buddy Andy Kvamme are hoping to fund. Their goal is to encourage public support of space exploration and to actually launch a rocket to an altitude of 100,000km and into space.

For more information, check out http://ison.sevnthsin.com/

RSVP: http://isonrocket.eventbrite.com/

Ambassanerds

John

Front-end Developer

Go singing with your coworkers. Are you too nervous to sing? Liquid courage available at the bar.

Schedule: Weekly on Wednesday

RSVP: Just show up!

Ambassanerds

Gillian

Director of Strategic Information Systems

MSP WordPress welcomes users, developers, and enthusiasts of all levels.

Schedule: Monthly on the fourth Thursday

RSVP: http://mspwordpress.com

Ambassanerds

Gillian

Director of Strategic Information Systems

Join our Nerd Hunter for an introductory tour that doubles as an informational interview for curious, could-be applicants. See The Nerdery during normal working hours, then stay for BottleCap Talk, our Friday happy hour/show-and-tell.

RSVP: http://nerdery.com/tour_applications/new

Ambassanerds

Tom

Chief Strategy Officer

David

Branch Manager

Umbraco is a content management system that has been around a while, but until recently hasn't gained a lot of traction in the .NET community. Having now been taken on recently by giant companies such as Microsoft, and Fox News, high-volume traffic publications such as Wired, and brands like Heinz, Vogue, and now The Nerdery's own PurinaONE.com project, it's proven itself to be a big competitor in the .NET CMS Market as a fully featured free and open source CMS.

In this presentation, you'll learn the fundamentals of using Umbraco, an overview of its features, and we'll delve into doing some basic template development in Umbraco. We'll also briefly compare Umbraco's WebForms version 4 to its newer MVC sibling, the shiny version 5.

RSVP: http://umbracocms.eventbrite.com/

Ambassanerds

Ken

Principal Software Engineer

Go singing with your coworkers. Are you too nervous to sing? Liquid courage available at the bar.

Schedule: Weekly on Wednesday

RSVP: Just show up!

Ambassanerds

Gillian

Director of Strategic Information Systems

Augmented reality has made some bold promises to change our world. While movies and fiction have captured the public’s imagination, the [unaugmented] reality is that augmented reality experiences have varied widely. Using augmented reality as an example, we’ll discuss how to safely ride the roller coaster of hype that accompanies the launch of exciting new technologies like augmented reality and how to gracefully transition a technology from flash-in-the pan to commercially-viable, real-world tool. By understanding the hype around augmented reality, we can learn to evaluate emerging technologies and plan our projects for the best chance of succeeding in the long-term. As some early adopters have used it, augmented reality bites. But it doesn't have to. To make good business sense of interactive ideas, emerging technologies should pass the practical sniff test; fail it and you risk producing a mere gimmick, but passing it can yield genuinely useful technology.

RSVP: http://bigdesignevents.com/sessions/augmented-reality-utility-beats-hype/

Ambassanerds

Mike

Software Engineer

Join our Nerd Hunter for an introductory tour that doubles as an informational interview for curious, could-be applicants. See The Nerdery during normal working hours, then stay for BottleCap Talk, our Friday happy hour/show-and-tell.

RSVP: http://nerdery.com/tour_applications/new

Ambassanerds

Tom

Chief Strategy Officer

David

Nerd Hunter

Hello World: UX is a detailed look at the process, documentation and tools involved within the User Experience field. Each Hello World lecture will focus on one part of the process of a UX project, we’ll hear from leaders in the industry, followed by a round table discussion.

Fred Beecher – Lead User Experience Consultant at Evantage Consulting
Zach Naylor – Senior User Experience Designer at The Nerdery
Ryan Loomis – User Experience Architect at Clockwork Active Media Systems
Nicole Netland – User Experience Strategist at Best Buy

RSVP: http://www.aigaminnesota.org/events/hello-world-ux/

Ambassanerds

Mike

Director of User Experience

Go singing with your coworkers. Are you too nervous to sing? Liquid courage available at the bar.

Schedule: Weekly on Wednesday

RSVP: Just show up!

Ambassanerds

Gillian

Director of Strategic Information Systems

The Minnesota PHP User Group is a community for people to network, share knowledge, and learn about PHP, the various frameworks and open source technologies.

Schedule: Monthly on the first Thursday

Where: The Nerdery, 9555 James Ave S. Suite 245 Bloomington, MN 55431

RSVP: http://mnphp.org

Ambassanerds

Kris

Nerd Hunter

Join our Nerd Hunter for an introductory tour that doubles as an informational interview for curious, could-be applicants. See The Nerdery during normal working hours, then stay for BottleCap Talk, our Friday happy hour/show-and-tell.

RSVP: http://nerdery.com/tour_applications/new

Ambassanerds

Tom

Chief Strategy Officer

David

Branch Manager

There’s a vast difference between designing an experience that doesn’t suck and one that drives engagement. We’re good at eliminating frustration. It’s easy to observe whether your customers are unhappy, and then just not do that. But users’ expectations are higher.

Some companies are creating great experiences. From the outside, it looks effortless. But you know it’s not. The user part of you says, Wow, now this is really nice, I get it, in fact, I don’t want to live without it. The designer part of you says, Holy crap, how’d they do that — it’s really hard!

In this session, we’ll look at a nifty framework for thinking about and talking about what I call three levels of happy design. Based on research from behavioral economics, hedonics, positive psychology, the importance of adult play, emotion in design, and a whole bunch of other stuff better saved for the talk.

Ambassanerds

Zack

Senior User Experience Designer

The IGDA is the largest non-profit membership organization serving individuals who create video games. We bring together developers at conferences, in local chapters and in special interest groups to improve their lives and craft.

Schedule: Monthly on the second Wednesday

RSVP: http://www.igdatc.org

Ambassanerds

David

Nerd Hunter