We know. We’ve been a little radio silent on the blog-front, but not without good reason. We’ve been locked in the lab working on our first CURTIS Digital product, and it’s finally ready for the world to see. We are proud to present SpeakerStack to you today.

SpeakerStack is a revolutionary new platform that is aiming to create a seamless experience for conference presenters and show organizers. Both speakers and show organizers know that managing content for a presentation can be difficult. Presentations have a tendency to be media-rich, which while exciting for the audience, makes content delivery a hassle for speakers.  Large file sizes eliminate email as an option, and FTP and Dropbox can be inefficient. The simple task of sending a presentation to a show organizer has a tendency to turn into a monumental undertaking.

Managing content isn’t any easier for the show organizers, who are already responsible for planning every minute detail surrounding an event. They’re also required to review and approve presentations and confirm that their formats function with the available conference equipment (which they often don’t-technical difficulties are cited as one of the most common complaints among professional speakers). Presentations aside, organizers also have to pull together speaker bios, profile pictures, and session handouts. This might not sound like a big deal for a single speaker, but think of an event like SXSW-hundreds of different speakers held presentations of the course of the festival, and it was someone’s job to make sure that all they had all the necessary content for each and every session. There didn’t used to be a system delegated to housing and organizing this kind of information-until now.

SpeakerStack is a new kind of virtual space where speakers can upload their own content or connect to common repositories like Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, Skydrive, etc. and add their materials to their SpeakerStack profile. This puts their collateral in an online location where it’s ready to go, all the time. They can also add a bio, their headshots, and pull in additional information from social networking sites. Show organizers using the SpeakerStack portal, mobile app, or website can connect via API to obtain this information dynamically. This prevents Speakers from having to resend their information for each conference that they attend.

Here is a picture of what a speaker profile looks like. Notice that their upcoming events and session handouts can be easily found via the timeline.

Show organizers can upload a spreadsheet of speakers at their event into the system, and SpeakerStack will search to see if any of the speakers already exist inside of Speakerstack. If they do, it will pull together all of the information available on the speaker’s page. Show organizers can monitor their progress, view documents, approve presentations, and export everything they need. SpeakerStack can also be integrated with existing show management software via APIs, allowing organizers to gain access to all data in real time.

Interested in signing up? Head on over to http://speakerstack.com/, and be sure to keep an eye out for upcoming products from CURTIS Digital Labs.

Most of the systems we develop here are CURTIS Digital now have a input pattern around Twitter handle inputs, e.g., @quotientaustin or @social_quotient .

I want to introduce/reinforce a pattern for developing large applications with jQuery. I did not invent any of this, but I find that the resources that describe this technique are few and far-between.- so I’m taking a shot at it.

Maximize the number of users who can access your content.

History of Progressive Enhancement
Throughout the history of web development, web designers have focused on giving computer users the greatest possible experience that they could receive on the most sophisticated browsers.

Most technology products are designed to be used by a person, making the analysis of user experience (UX) an important factor in their design and development. UX is more than just designing a good user interface, a stylish and eye-pleasing design, usability testing, bug fixing, or customer satisfaction.