A 'Smashing' night with ACCU Oxford: Beyond the Code

On Wednesday evening I had the pleasure of speaking to ACCU Oxford about ‘Beyond the Code: Designing Services That Stand the Test of Time’. I haven’t been to Oxford since 2012 when the ACCU Conference was held there, before it was moved to Bristol the following year. Oxford was as I remembered it and remained pretty much where I had left it.

ACCU Oxford takes place in a lovely little pub called St Aldates Tavern, in a room upstairs called the blue room. It was a really nice space, up and away from the main pub with its own bar, tables and a large TV on the wall. However, it appears the TV may have shown someone’s team losing and that someone decided to take it out on the TV. A large part of the screen didn’t work, but there was enough to get the gist of my slides across to my audience.

The audience was great! Laughed in all the right places, asked lots of questions, and completely ripped my logging examples to shreds. ‘Beyond the code…’ is intended for the ACCU conference, so is 90 minutes long. Although it seems to work at the ACCU Conference, it is a long time to concentrate, but they all stayed with me right to the end.

This is the only meetup I’ve come away from damaged. I somehow managed to rub the skin off my left elbow, apparently from leaning on the rough table while I was speaking.

The questions and chat continued for a while after the last slide and I managed to sell three books. All in all, a very enjoyable and successful evening. I hope ACCU Oxford will have me back!

Comments

It's great to be back at the ACCU Conference 2025!

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