{"id":865,"date":"2014-05-06T08:00:23","date_gmt":"2014-05-06T12:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/novicenolonger.com\/?p=865"},"modified":"2014-05-09T22:15:54","modified_gmt":"2014-05-10T02:15:54","slug":"win-a-free-ticket-to-the-modev-ux-conference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/novicenolonger.com\/win-a-free-ticket-to-the-modev-ux-conference\/","title":{"rendered":"Win a free ticket to the MoDev UX conference!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"MoDev<\/p>\n

One lucky reader will win a free ticket<\/strong> to the MoDev UX conference<\/a> in Washington, DC this month! That’s a $799 value, and all you need to do is tell me why you want to go \u2014 I’ve got a form at the bottom of this post. But first,\u00a0I want to tell you why I’m<\/em> going and why you should want to go, too.<\/p>\n

Why are conferences important?<\/h2>\n

Once of the first books I bought when I decided to quit my job at The Verge<\/em> and start freelancing and working on this website full-time was\u00a0Deduct It!: Lower Your Small Business Taxes<\/em><\/a> by\u00a0Stephen Fishman.\u00a0Up until that point, my knowledge of the United States tax system was practically nonexistent, and I got the book to make sure that my first small business venture got off on the right foot.<\/p>\n

But reading Deduct It!<\/em>\u00a0had unexpected consequences beyond simply understanding the law:\u00a0each new chapter gave me a ton of new ideas for growing my business.<\/p>\n

I was expecting a book about tax law\u00a0to be extremely boring, but it read more like an instruction manual for kicking ass in small business.\u00a0By learning the laws pertaining to certain types of purchases and income, I discovered new assets to buy and revenue streams I never even considered.<\/p>\n

They say that the best way to learn a new language is\u00a0through total immersion. That’s exactly what happens at conferences. And speaking this new language is the best way to think differently about your own projects and problems.<\/p>\n

Why should I learn UX?<\/h2>\n

A computer science degree doesn’t teach\u00a0how to code \u2014 it teaches how to think<\/em>. Students still need to independently study\u00a0individual programming languages, but the computer science background makes learning new languages much easier.\u00a0When you already understand the concept of a linked list<\/a> or an array<\/a>, it’s easier to learn how to write\u00a0them in Ruby, Java, Objective-C, or any other programming language.<\/p>\n

Similarly, user experience\u00a0teaches a different way to think about problems. Learning a new method for structuring a website or app will reveal user problems you never even realized existed.<\/p>\n

Novice…no longer!<\/h2>\n

I define a\u00a0novice as\u00a0a person who doesn’t know enough about a topic to even ask the right questions. I was a novice when I decided to make my first iPhone app<\/a>, and remained a novice for\u00a0much longer<\/em> than was necessary due to my stubborn desire to learn how to code all by myself and never ask for help.<\/p>\n

But I’ve learned that it doesn’t actually take very long to exit the novice stage. The best way to do it is to find someone who knows more than you and make them talk about the topic of interest. Listening to the way these “experts” talk, and the specific points\u00a0they make, is truly the real fast lane out of novice-dom.<\/p>\n

Alright, so gimme my ticket<\/h2>\n

Ah yes, the free ticket to the MoDev UX conference<\/strong>!<\/p>\n

The people who run the MoDev conference have been kind enough to give me two tickets \u2014 one for myself and\u00a0another to give to one lucky reader. You’ll have access to all the workshops and the entire conference\u00a0for the full two days. That’s a $799 value.<\/p>\n

All you need to do is fill out the form below.<\/strong> You have until midnight on Thursday, May 8th. I’ll be contacting the winner on Saturday,\u00a0May 10th.<\/p>\n

Good luck, and I hope to see you there!<\/p>\n

Contest entry is now closed.<\/h1>\n\n
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One lucky reader will win a free ticket to the MoDev UX conference in Washington, DC this month! That’s a $799 value, and all you need to do is tell me why you want to go \u2014 I’ve got a form at the bottom of this post. But first,\u00a0I want to tell you why I’m […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[180],"tags":[4,109,182,111,101,45,107,30,86,92,73,74,75,72],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p46r0N-dX","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novicenolonger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/novicenolonger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/novicenolonger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novicenolonger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novicenolonger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=865"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/novicenolonger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":907,"href":"https:\/\/novicenolonger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865\/revisions\/907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novicenolonger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novicenolonger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novicenolonger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}