beyond tellerrand news https://beyondtellerrand.com/blog Kirby Mon, 09 Dec 2019 10:40:00 +0100 The latest news and updates about beyond tellerrand conferences We’re Building a School Together https://beyondtellerrand.com/blog/we-are-building-a-school Mon, 09 Dec 2019 10:40:00 +0100 Last year, 2018, at the Berlin edition of beyond tellerrand, Andy, one of the volunteers came to me and wanted to tell me about his new project. He told me that he started something special with his friend Jan. I sadly was a busy with running my event, so that I asked him to get back to me later to chat about what they are doing.

A slogan of Makuyuni.org stating “Education is a human right”
Education is a human right – the slogan of Makuyuni e. V.

He luckily did come back to me and explained, that they met this wonderful person in Tanzania called Lalahe and his project with which Lalahe was trying to build a school for the Maasai children. Their biggest problem is the long distance to a city with a school and that they are not easily able to reach the next city. So, what is the solution to this, if you can’t get to a school? Build one in your own village!

A collage of photos showing the built process of the first classroom and happy children in the middle picture
Acting instead of talking – first classrooms were ready in only a few months

Lalahe infected Jan with his spirit and Jan did the same with Andy. Now Andy did the same with me and I directly fell in love with their pro-active way of doing this. Not asking a lot of questions, not being German and thinking about all the bureaucratic problems to solve, but just go and raise money for materials and workers to build a primary school. So in Düsseldorf I took Andy on stage with me and he was able to introduce Makuyuni to the 500 people in the audience. I said, I will put my profit of all the workshops in Düsseldorf into the hat to fund as much as we can in Düsseldorf and we managed to raise enough money to build the roof and pay for the windows of the school.

After this I asked Andy, how much it would be to pay for a full classroom and he said, that about €7500 would be enough to get one room fully done. I said, no I promised, that we’d raise enough money at the next Berlin edition to fund another room completely. And what can I say: we, all together, did it!

A collage of photos showing Andy on the left, Jan on the right and their booth and stage presence in the middle
We made it! Andy [left] and Jan [right] ran a booth to tell people about their project. Photos by Steffen Mumm.

Jan and Andy ran a small booth at Berlin’s 2019 edition of beyond tellerrand and told people about their passion project. We organised a screen to show on stage, telling the people at how much money we were and some of the attendees event went more than one time to donate money to the Makuyuni project, speakers donated their honorarium for this and finally we were able to get the money we needed.

I love that our industry/community is like this. I am proud that I wasn’t wrong, when I promised Andy that the people at beyond tellerrand would be the right ones to address. I mean yes, there are still a lot of things broken and wrong, but I tend to see the positive aspects and try to fix the broken parts with believing in and emphasising the positive. And to see, that we managed this, to give children in one part of the world the chance to get eduction – which is immensely important – makes me happy, proud and is wonderful.

I will keep supporting Jan, Andy and Lalahe with beyond tellerrand as I think what does not seem much for some people means the world to others.

Thank you so much!

]]> Audio-Only Versions of the Talks https://beyondtellerrand.com/blog/audio-only-version-of-the-talks Thu, 28 Nov 2019 13:35:00 +0100 I have been in Vienna recently and attended an event, where a couple of friends were speaking. On the last morning before I left, I had a conversation about event related stuff with Jeremy Keith and Remy Sharp and asked whether they think, I should release an audio-only version next to the videos as well. Jeremy (or both, I think) said ”Of course”. Well, and why not? The data is existing and the work not all too much.

And here we are: Stefan Nitzsche is kind enough to improve the sound quality and from now on you’ll find an audio player embedded under the video on each of the speaker pages, where I am allowed to publish the talk recordings. Next to it, you find a direct link to the audio-only version in the coverage column below the speaker photo.

It looks like this:

Subscribe (RSS) to the podcast called “All the People” to get notified of new talks (and hopefully more soon).

]]> Wrap-Up and Coverage for Berlin 2019 https://beyondtellerrand.com/blog/wrap-up-and-coverage-for-berlin-2019 Thu, 21 Nov 2019 19:55:00 +0100 Well, what a ride! Berlin’s sixth edition is over and all my fear before running it, about the new venue, having no setup day and so on … not needed. But let’s start from the beginning.

After 5 years of hosting the Berlin edition of beyond tellerrand in the Admiralspalast’s Studio, I had to find a new venue. I checked 34 different venues in Berlin and finally ended at the Festsaal Kreuzberg (long story, please ask me, if you are interested). My gut told me, that it would be the right place to run it. But you will only know, if you do it. But my thoughts were ”Will people like the new venue?”, ”It is three times more expensive, will I make enough money to pay the bills?”, “Will I be able to create the atmosphere, the event is known for?” and so on. We also did not have an extra setup day before the event, which means we had to set up on the first event day very early in the morning.

Photo showing the Festsaal Kreuzberg from the outside.
Festsaal Kreuzberg from the oustide. Photo: Florian Ziegler.

Luckily all this worked out, which brought a few tears to my eyes, when I watched the opening titles, so that Jeremy had to give me a hug, making it possible to enter the stage for the opening welcome.

I myself and at least everybody I spoke to and who gave me feedback had two fantastic days with a very diverse mix of topics. It is such a warm and good feeling to see, that it is a little island to relax and get together to watch some great talks and exchange with nice people. Thanks so much to everybody for creating this together with me!

This blog post will be a long one and is meant to be the central archive and collection of everybody related to the 2019 Berlin show: blog posts, photos, drawings, sketchnotes, videos, talk coverage with slides and videos and more. Everything I get will be included here and I update the post as long, as someone sends me content for it. If you have taken photos, written anything, took notes or whatever is related to this: please let me know. Thanks!

Photo showing the audience in Berlin.
Cozy room with a total of 500 people in the house. Photo: Florian Ziegler.

Some Stats and Facts

Image with a graph showing Twitter vs Instagram activity.
Twitter vs. Instagram

I already recognised in Düsseldorf this year, that more and more people use Instagram instead of Twitter for their photos and little messages during an event. That impression got even stronger with Berlin’s edition. We had 1769 tweets and about 220 Instagram posts. Interesting to see that people on Twitter were more active on the first and on Instagram on the second day. May the content was more visual on the second day? 🤔

Image with a graph showing social media activity during the event.
Social Media activity during the event

I tracked the text “btconf”, “#btconf” and “#btconf2019”, as those are usually the most used. I hope I did not miss any. Lovely to see the bump before the two event days. That is when my excitement usually reaches its maximum. People traveling to the event and posting about it. So nice. Of course during the show many people write about it, which you can see at the two spikes of day 1 and day 2. You can also clearly see the lunch break on both days ;). On Saturday and Sunday after the event many people still were posting nice things about the event, which I did not capture in this graph.

The Wifi this year was ok, but not as good as in the past. Even though we had a faster line. That was, because my friends from Wifi-Jack weren’t allowed to touch the hardware in the venue, I think. They always do a really goo job on balancing everything and having an eye on the traffic. Already talking to the venue to have them on board for the next Berlin show.

This time in Berlin I had the honour to welcome people from 24 different countries. From A–Z those were: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Benin, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Denmark, Estland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Republic of Macedonia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom and United States. I never would have thought that at any point people from so many different countries would travel to a party I invite to ;)

Photo with all volunteers on stage an me thanking them.
Thanks to the lovely volunteers. Photo: Florian Ziegler.

14 absolutely wonderful volunteers were helping for beyond tellerrand Berlin 2019. Most of them are coming back for many, many years already and the names of those who helped running the event this time are: Andreas, Andreas, Andy, Gustav, Jana, Lulu, Mpumi, Patrick, Simon, Smilla, Steinn Einar and Tom with Tanja (my lovely wife) and Guido leading the team. Absolutely fantastic to have such a stunning team. Thanks a lot!

Photos

This year Norman Posselt and Florian Ziegler were the only two, officially taking photos at the event. I hope to get a few shots from attendees as well, but I haven’t seen many people with a camera. Anything I got or found until now is listed here.

Norman also took portraits of all the speakers again. I still have to finish the gallery to publish those from Düsseldorf, but Bastian Allgeier has created a gallery already which I can use to set up a gallery with and for the fantastic portraits by Norman.

A photo of Norman in an action pose to shoot a photo of Jeremy Keith
Action shot of Norman while taking a photo of Jeremy Keith. Photo: Florian Ziegler.

If you search for btconf on Instagram you also find a lot of photos. Sadly I am too stupid to sort them chronological (is there a way?).

For me it is totally important to have photos of many people. They not only help to bring back memories, but also show the different view on the event, that each photographer has. I love seeing people interact, laugh, have fun, and exchange. If you took any photos, please let me know and I will happily add them.

Videos and Other Material

You generally find all videos, also from the past 9 years, in our Vimeo or YouTube channels.

Furthermore I always create a playlist on YouTube and a showcase on Vimeo for each event, where you only see videos related or released at this event.

If you prefer a comprehensive archive with not just the videos, but also slides and transcription, then check the Berlin 2019 archive. But here is everything detail also:

Everything that is missing above and that I am allowed to publish will be added as soon as available. If a YouTube video is not yet available, please use the Vimeo link, as I scheduled YouTube to release one video each day until 28 November.

Makuyuni – We Are Building a School

Something that makes my heart smile is: we are building a school together! With the help of everybody at beyond tellerrand Berlin 2019 we made it happen. We collected €7500 to build a complete classroom with Makuyuni. This is amazing and shows how fantastic our community is.

A collage of four photos showing Andi on the right, Jan on the left and both on stage in the middle. They are the founders of Makuyuni.org.
We made it! €7500 to build a school in Tansania. Photos by Steffen Mumm.

I am absolutely proud that Jan and Andi managed to collect the whole money for a classroom and we are able to help them bringing education to a part of the world, where that is not as given as in our area. Some of the attendees event went and donated more than once, when seeing that our goal still wasn’t hit. You are absolutely amazing! Thank you!

We’ll keep you posted about the project, about what is created with your/our money and how the process is moving forward. I will also sit down with them to write about this in a little extra blog post. Right now them as well as I are still overwhelmed that we were able to reach our target. ❤️

Blog Posts & Other Coverage

It mean a lot to me, when people sit down and write about what they experienced. I know that this takes time and time seems to be rare these days. For me, as the one organising the event, it is fantastic that they tell other people about it and maybe motivate the one or other person to also drop in.

Photo shows attendees during the break in the exhibition
During the break in the exhibition … Photo by Florian Ziegler.

Thanks so much to everybody who has written something about beyond tellerrand Berlin 2019:

  • Suzan Vestner-Ludwig, who – next to being an attendee many times – has been a volunteer once, has written down her thoughts on the first Berlin edition in our new home. Thanks a lot Suzan for taking the time for this!

  • Oscar, also a returning attendee, expressed in his blog post that he had a fantastic time. But Oscar had his problems with the conclusion of one specific talk and explains why. Thanks for expressing your concerns and reasons in that way.

  • Eva-Lotta Lamm has spoken at my events already and we share a lot of memories when it comes to events, business and friendship. This time she has created a couple of sketchnotes to memorise the talks she attended. Next to this she has written short recap telling us, that she ”[…]enjoyed most, was meeting lots of old friends, making new acquaintances, having long funny, serious, interesting, open and inspiring conversations, being hugged and hugging people from the heart, sharing a drink and laughs. I'm happy and lucky to be part of this community.[…]”. That is wonderful. Thanks a lot for your sketchnotes and in general for being part of my beyond tellerrand journey!

A drawing by Eva-Lotta Lamm summarising the talk of Anna Ginnsburg
Sketchnotes by Eva-Lotta Lamm

  • In this article Stephanie Stimac finds some lovely words for my little event as well as how I run it (thank you!), but she also was part of the evening break program. The Web We Want aims to bring people at events together to present their needs and ideas to the audience. An interesting approach that – in my eyes – gets not enough attention at events. Stephanie has written about the idea of it and how it went.

  • For the third time Bitgrip from Berlin came to the event. This time with a total of 31 people, which amazed me. It was nice that they came to me during the event to say hello and make a photo with all of them and me in it. Next to this they hosted and sponsored the Kirby Workshop this year. Now Kai Dahlke sat down and has written a (German) blog post with a general summary about their time at beyond tellerrand and a short note their favourite talks. Danke sehr vor summarising your thoughts and experience!

  • Nadine Roßa came and did some of her amazing sketchnotes. Have a look yourself … and thanks Nadine ;)

A drawing summarising the Engaging Empathy talk by Sharon Steed
Sketchnotes by Nadine Roßa

  • Mario Köster sent me a link to his blog post summarising his favourite talk and drawing a short conclusion about what makes beyond tellerrand special for him. Thanks for the kind words, Mario!

  • Tish Pickover came from Cape Town, South Africa and attended the sixth beyond tellerrand in Berlin. She has not been there before and has written a very detailed and lovely recap of her first #btconf. Thanks you for your kind words and I am happy the trip was worthwhile!

That’s it for now. But I am sure I have to add the one or other bit here over the next couple of days and weeks. Come back and check out if anything was added (I make a note on the bottom of the post about it).

Opening Titles, Event-Theme and Assets

A collage of four photos showing the artwork by rob draper in several situations. On stage and in the entrance area on posters
Rob created the Opening Titles based on which we designed several other assets for the event like A1 Movie Posters. Photos by Florian Ziegler.

Rob Draper, who also spoke at this years Düsseldorf edition and created the design for the t-shirts of Düsseldorf, was kind enough to say yes once more to create some of his wonderful work for the Berlin show. This time he agreed to create the opening titles and other assets based on what we started in Düsseldorf. He’d use a brush and golden paint to draw all the speaker names which made some fine Opening Titles together with the song Tobi created for the film.

I addition Rob scanned the painted speaker names, so that I was able to use them on A1 movie posters and on stage at the conference wall to announce the next speaker. Next to this, he created other assets, like the big “Welcome” in the same painted style, so that I have been able to use everything in the same style and theme. Thank you so much for doing this Rob. You know this always means a lot to me!

And now enjoy the Opening Titles of Berlin 2019:

T-Shirt Design and other Assets

Bkopf once more created a stunning and fitting design for the t-shirts of the 2019 Berlin show. When I say ”once more” you might ask, which the other one was. He also did the t-shirt design for our very first gig in Munich back in 2018. This one was different and that is great.

Two photos next to each other in a collage. The one left showing the t-shirt design of this event. Right are some of the assets of the design used on the name badges.
A lovely, unique design that Bkopf created again. Photos: Florian Ziegler.

Thanks Daniel, for creating this unique t-shirt for beyond tellerrand again.

Audio Design

A photo of Tobi Lessnow in action, creating his sound for the event
Going wild – Tobi Lessnow aka Baldower. Photo: Florian Ziegler.

Well and then there is Tobi. Going wild on stage, creating his sound for beyond tellerrand since 2013. Tobi Lessnow (aka Baldower) exclusively created a theme song for beyond tellerrand Berlin 2019 titled ”Intervention”. As usual, he sampled the speakers and created tracks for each of the speakers right after their talks. This idea still works, amazes people and fits perfectly to the idea of beyond tellerrand. Thanks Tobi, for being a friend and helping to create an atmosphere, the event is known for.

Live Captions

Like in Düsseldorf already, Andrew, sitting in Scotland, did a crazy job and live captioned all talks again. A direct audio connection sent the audio of all talks to him and he live captioned every word was spoken on stage. Thank you, Andrew! And as many in the room agreed to: we have to get you over at some point, to show us your magic live. ;)

Side Events Before and After

(TBD … First I need to chat with Joschi to interview him about how it went and if someone captured a few nice shots. Then I need to chat with Philipp from SAE and a few attendees about the Warm-Up. Thanks for you patience and for coming back.)

The Documentary aka “This Is What I Want To Do”

Stefan Nitzsche and Andreas Brüggemann are following me with camera and microphone for roughly a year now. They released a first trailer during the 2019 Düsseldorf event. Back then they weren’t sure about a title and simply work-titled it ”beyond tellerrand – A Documentary”. Now, six month and many takes and interviews later, the have a second trailer and a title for the whole project as well, which is …

This Is What I Want To Do

I can’t judge really, as this film is about beyond tellerrand and me, but I quite like the title. 😊

But now, watch the second trailer and tell me – no better: tell them via email – or comment below the video itself – how you liked it.

Phhhheww … this is it so far. I still have to work on this wrap-up a little bit, but this is what I found and got so far. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch, if you have something or found something. Happy to add it directly. This should be a living archive of what happened in Berlin 2019 at beyond tellerrand and what made me – and hopefully many of you – happy. I am not tired to repeat myself about what a wonderful audience you have been. Thanks for joining me and the team on our adventure!

The next stop of beyond tellerrand is Düsseldorf 2020. Tickets are on sale and a little more than 1/3 is gone already. Don’t wait too long and join us for the 10th show in the city where it started.

Thank you one last time for an incredible and wonderful time in Berlin with a lot of enjoyable memories. I hope to see you soon again!

Update 22 November 2019: added blog posts by Mario Köster and Tish Pickover

Update 24 November 2019: added photos of Steffen Mumm to Makuyuni paragraph

Update 29 November 2019: started to add audio-only versions of talks, added slides of talks, where I have them

Update 02 December 2019: added Slides of Charlotte Dann, added audio-only version of the talk by Aaron Gustafson

Update 05 December 2019: added audio-only version (podcast) of the talk by Cassie Evans

]]> Tomorrow, Monday, 30 September 2019, Tickets for Düsseldorf Go on Sale https://beyondtellerrand.com/blog/tomorrow-monday-30-september-2019-tickets-for-dusseldorf-go-on-sale Sun, 29 Sep 2019 19:40:00 +0200 About ten years ago, I started to think about going full time into event organising. I had the idea of an event with a colourful and exciting mix, addressing web-, technology-, and design-interested people equally.

Photo showing Marc Thiele on stage in front of the audience in Düsseldorf
beyond tellerrand in Düsseldorf for the 10th time in 2020 – photo by Florian Ziegler

Now, in 2019, I am about to kick off tickets sales for the tenth event. Well, this is not exactly the tenth anniversary, I know, but it is the tenth time I organise and run this event.

I won’t release any of the speakers that are planned for the event, but you really have to trust me once more: it is going to be a fantastic event again! I have planned a lot and hope that we’ll be able to celebrate the tenth edition in the way it should be. I am still focusing on the content and planning of Berlin’s 2019 edition as this is a completely new venue and I am facing a lot of challenges a kind-of first time event in a city is facing. But this should not stop you from getting your Early Bird ticket for €199 tomorrow. I was asked two years ago, if that all is faked as tickets sell so quick, but promised: it is not.

So, set your alarms for 10am tomorrow morning to get your ticket for Düsseldorf.

Get your Düsseldorf Ticket ›
]]> Help: Partner and a Location for Our Berlin Warm-up https://beyondtellerrand.com/blog/we-need-a-partner-and-a-location-for-our-berlin-warm-up Wed, 04 Sep 2019 13:00:00 +0200 Like last year in Berlin, 70 days before the sixth edition is taking place, we are looking for a beyond tellerrand Warm-Up Partner, who likes to host and sponsor our Pre-Conference Warm-Up. The Warm-Up is an important part of the whole event experience and the evening, where you and we welcome everybody to Berlin and set the right mood and vibe for the following days.

A collection of shots from several warm-ups in Düsseldorf, Munich and Berlin.

If you are interested in hosting between 120 and 200 excited and interesting people from all over the world for an evening in Berlin on November 13th, then please don't hesitate to get in touch with me and I explain how this could look like in detail. But as you would be the host, any idea from your end is welcome either. Whether you'd like to host a couple of talks, or only have people socialising (or both) – completely happy to brainstorm and discuss anything that you have in mind.

If you yourself are not able to host and support the Warm-Up, maybe you know of an agency or company in Berlin, that would like to support the web and design community in this way and invite around 120–200 interesting people to their house. So, please spread the word. Any help is appreciated.

]]> beyond tellerrand 2020 – Dates and Cities (updated) https://beyondtellerrand.com/blog/beyond-tellerrand-2020 Mon, 15 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0200 2018 and 2019 have been tough years in some way. From the outside it all looks great: sold out events, a great time and everybody seems to be happy. But behind the scenes I knew that the venue I was using for Berlin was closing and I also wanted to find a new venue for Munich.

So, in 2018, when the first Munich edition took place in January, I got such wonderful feedback afterwards and people kept asking, if beyond tellerrand comes back to Munich, that I thought yes, I want to come back to Munich. Even though my Mum died two weeks before the event and that certainly overshadowed my experience in Munich, I loved the idea of bringing beyond tellerrand to the south of Germany as well as to the other two established locations in Berlin and Düsseldorf.

Right after my 5th edition in Berlin I got the very sad notice, that the venue I was using would be closed by April 2019 and the owner of the venue would build offices into the former theatre. How sad to see this, but also how sad for beyond tellerrand to loose this place, that – after some prejudices from my end in the beginning – turned into our home for Berlin.

When I got notice of this tragedy in Berlin, I directly knew “There will be no Munich edition in 2019. I need to focus on finding a new home for Berlin.”. Plus, I knew that running an event in a new home would mean running a completely new event more or less. Dealing with new people, who don’t know your event. Dealing with a new room layout. Dealing with completely new circumstances in general. And don’t forget: it is just me planning this show.

I had issues with finding a new venue for Berlin for several reasons: size, budget (dooooh Berlin gets expensive these days), room layout and so on, but I found something where I thought it would be special (even though I had a bit of a strange feeling in my guts). Sadly (or maybe luckily?) I lost this venue again, because of someone who was not liking the concept maybe. So I kept on searching.

I have written and called 34 venues in Berlin and visited most of them, which did not qualify because of size, location within Berlin or any other disqualifying, obvious reason. Some of them where just way over my budget. But then, with a late last visit to Berlin, I found out new Berlin home and thought, let’s nail this down for 2020 …

2020

This means, that I made the same effort in Munich, just that there are not as many locations as in Berlin. Some of the best venues are also already taken by friends and people I know, running events. But it was worth the time, money and effort to travel to Berlin and Munich to secure these dates and venues. So, if you like, please mark those dates for the events as well as for the start of ticket sales in you calendar. Join me on a – once again – new adventure, organising three cities in one year to bring beyond tellerrand to many places. And if you can’t make it, maybe you want to tell your friends about it. But let’s get to the dates and cities:

beyond tellerrand Düsseldorf 2020

Düsseldorf is going to be special as it marks the tenth event in Düsseldorf. I love to say it is the tenth birthday, but technically it is not, a the first event took place in year 0. But you know, I started organising the year 0 in year -1 … soooo somehow it is ten years, right?

However you want to call it, here are the dates for Düsseldorf’s number 10 in 2020:

  • April 27–28 for the main conference, with side events and workshops around those dates
  • Tickets are sold from September 30, 10am on

You might wonder why it is taking place in April? The reason is a big trade fair in Düsseldorf around the two weeks of my usual dates which makes the hotel prices extremely expensive.

beyond tellerrand Berlin 2020

Berlin’s seventh edition, the second in our new home, is taking place in August this time. Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg have summer holidays (time off school for the kids) until September 7 (Bavaria) and 12 (Baden-Württemberg). Oktoberfest starts September 19. That made the actual slot I wanted to pick for Munich very tiny. Hotels during Oktoberfest are super expensive as well and so I decided to move Berlin to September in 2020 and have Munich taking place in November. In short this means Berlin is takin place on:

  • August 25 and 26 for the main conference and workshops and side events around this (letter press workshop usually the day after)
  • Ticket sales start on January 20th, 10am

beyond tellerrand Munich 2020

Back in Munich. And when I checked our new home in Munich, the Muffatwerk, I felt it could be a good place for us. Pretty central in Munich, not too shiny and modern, but cozy and maybe we are able to make this a place to return to to celebrate creativity and a time to be inspired in Munich. This is what I have planned for Munich:

  • On November 2 and 3, the core conference is taking place. As usual with the workshops and possible side events around this.
  • You are able to get tickets on April 1st at 10am.

And that’s it. I know this information could have been brought to you in a quicker, not so text-heavy way. But you know: I am excited and I want you to be excited as well. Maybe those background stories also give you some insights that get you excited together with me.

I simply hope to see you in one (or all!!) of those cities in 2020. Or earlier in Berlin when we find out if we like the new home for Berlin. ;)

Greetings from Corsica and stay tuned …

]]> Mozilla Developer Roadshow 2019 https://beyondtellerrand.com/blog/mozilla-developer-roadshow Wed, 12 Jun 2019 00:00:00 +0200 Beginning of this year Mozilla, long-time friends and supporters of beyond tellerrand, asked me, if I’d be able to help connecting them to the communities in south Germany and Austria to help organising three stops in those areas for the Mozilla Developer Roadshow.

Illustration showing a woman using a VR headset navigating on a bending screen

Here is what Mozilla writes about the roadshow:

Join us for a meetup-style, Mozilla-focused event series for people who build the Web. Hear from expert speakers highlighting the latest and best in Mozilla and Firefox technologies.

You’ll get four talks from speakers touring with us and one additional talk from someone of the local community. Topics circle around technologies, standards, tools and research topics for the Open Web. These are for example:

  • Rust & WebAssembly
  • CSS Grid & Layout
  • Developer Tools
  • Mozilla and Firefox
  • Web Compatibility
  • Web Security
  • WebVR

The Roadshow is a meetup-style event series for people who build the web. It is a free event and Mozilla is inviting us to a lovely evening with topics around Mozilla and Firefox technologies, plus a local community person speaking.

Come on and join us for these four stops in Fürth (directly next to Nuremberg), Munich, Linz and Vienna! Space is limited, but we are looking forward to seeing as many people as possible to mingle, exchange and inspire each other to grow the curiosity for the Web.

One huge favour I’d like to ask for, though: it’s a free event, yes, but please make sure, that if you register, you are able to show up. Free events often tend to have a very high no-show rate and it is such a pity to having to throw away food and drinks with so many people not showing up.

What Is Happening During This Day?

As described above, four talks will be delivered from people traveling with us and Ali Spivak is opening the evening with a short introduction. It’s are a mix of Mozilla employees and Mozilla Tech Speakers, which I had the honour last year in Paris to coach as well, plus local community people presenting. Speakers and presentations are (local community speakers following):

Ali Spivak

Photo showing Ali Spivak, Director Developer Relations Mozilla
Ali Spivak is the Director of Developer Relations at Mozilla, and oversees Mozilla’s developer documentation, content, events, and community participation. She has managed MDN for 5+ years, chairs the MDN Product Advisory Board and believes in an interoperable, cross platform web. Prior to Mozilla, she managed web production at Cisco, Edmunds.com, and numerous startups. Ali is going to give a quick overview of what Mozilla is working on – from new Firefox releases to WASM and much more!

Dan Callahan – WebAssembly in the Browser and Beyond

Photo showing Dan Callahan
Dan Callahan is a Developer Advocate at Mozilla, where he works to ensure that the future of the Web is driven by the needs of real-world developers. Dan is passionate about emerging technologies such as Rust and WebAssembly that are transforming the Web into a more capable, resilient, and interactive medium. Dan is an internationally recognized speaker, including delivering recent keynotes at PyCon and Linux.conf.au. Prior to joining Developer Relations, Dan led the Mozilla Persona project, an attempt at creating a new standard for decentralized authentication on the Web.

In his talk, Dan is speaking about WebAssembly in the Browser and Beyond. WebAssembly began as an experiment in bringing other languages to the browser, marking a radical shift in the fundamental programming model of the Web. It's not done. Today, WebAssembly is poised to reshape everything from Node.js modules to containers, and even edge computing. But how is technology from the client side relevant to those domains?

Packed with live demos and real-world examples, this session draws from WebAssembly's past to predict its future. Come find out where we'll be in 2020, and beyond!

Hui Jing Check – Understanding Modern CSS Layouts With Firefox Devtools

Photo showing Hui Jing Chen
Hui Jing has spoken at beyond tellerrand last year and I am super happy to having the chance to meet her again. Chen Hui Jing is a self-taught designer and developer living in Singapore, with an inordinate love for CSS, as evidenced by her blog, that is mostly about CSS, and her tweets, which are largely about typography and the web. She used to play basketball full-time and launched her web career during downtime between training sessions. Hui Jing is currently a Developer Advocate for Nexmo, focusing on growing developer engagement around the APAC region.

In her presentation, she is going to evaluate how we often think of DevTools for debugging purposes. But over the past couple of years, Firefox DevTools have become more than that. The newer layout properties like Flexbox and Grid introduce behaviours that might seem confusing at first, but Firefox DevTools provides features that can help us better understand how the browser interprets the CSS values we assign.

Fabien Benetou – XR in the Browser, How Mozilla Is Pushing the Boundaries of Reality

Photo showing Fabien Benetou
Some of you might have met Fabien Benetou last months at beyond tellerrand in Düsseldorf, where he gave an Evening Break Session as well as demoed _XR_ in the browser. Fabien is a WebXR developer consulting for the European Parliament, the UNICEF Innovation Fund and more. He is building prototypes at the limit of what is feasible in virtual and augmented reality on the web. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't but every step is a learning process.

Fabien is going to show us, why virtual reality and augmented reality are among the most exciting fields. The use cases often look like sci-fi concepts brought to real life. Yet, under all this excitement and technological challenges emerge common primitives. Those primitives will be present in every VR and AR experience you will build. This talk will explore what are those primitives and which Mozilla tools you can use to push the boundaries of reality.

Diane Hosfelt – Engineering for Privacy in Mixed Reality

Photo showing Diane Hosfelt
Diane Hosfelt is the security lead for the Mixed Reality team at Mozilla Research and works closely with the Rust Project to improve security with formal methods and unsafe code guidelines. In her free time, she enjoys the great indoors with her cats, Batman and Watson.

In her talk, she is taking a look onto privacy in mixed reality, as devices always use on cameras and sensors to overlay virtual elements on the physical world for example. Privacy is an existential question for this technology. This talk will provide an overview on Mozilla’s approach to building an immersive web browser and a social VR platform that empowers users.

Stefan Baumgartner – Blazing Fast Websites (Linz only)

Photo showing Stefan Baumgartner
Stefan Baumgartner is a web developer/web lover based in Linz, Austria, currently employed at Dynatrace. Stefan writes, speaks and organises events on software development and web technologies.

Browsers are only as fast as the websites we deliver. But what does it take to make a blazingly fast website? Let's find out! We access a painstakingly slow website, pop up the network tab and start investigating. How does the network handle requests? And what role does HTTP/2 play? What information hides in HTTP headers that we can use to our advantage? In this session, we do a live performance audit and debugging session with Firefox dev tools. We dissect every request made and improve our sites and apps piece by piece. In the end, you will be able to boost your website's speed with confidence.

Max Böck – The CSS Mindset: Fireside chat with HJ Chen and Max Böck (Vienna only)

Photo showing Max Böck
Max Böck is a front-end web developer and designer based in Vienna, Austria. Max has been building stuff on the web for the last 12 years, working with clients across various countries and industries. His focus is on creating engaging, accessible & performant interfaces for humans.

Why is CSS such a frustrating language for many developers? Aside from knowing the technical features of the language, there is a certain mental model that helps in solving problems with CSS. Usually experienced through trial-and-error, there are those “aha!” moments when things finally start to click.

In this Q&A session, Hui Jing and Max will discuss what it means to "think in CSS" and how to develop the mindset necessary to write efficient, resilient and maintainable code..

Cities, Dates and Tickets

We picked two cities in the south of Germany and two in Austria to meet you for a lovely evening. Those four stops are:

Fürth (Nuremberg) – August 26, 2019 – Silbury

Silbury is giving us a home for the first stop on August 26th during this roadshow. Located in Fürth, directly next to Nuremberg, they offer us their lovely office space to hang out and spend a fantastic evening all together.

Register for the first stop ›

See, where Silbury is located.

Munich – August 27, 2019 – Microsoft

After giving us a home for our workshops and Pre-Conference Warm-Up in 2018, Microsoft is inviting all of us back to be part of the Munich stop of the roadshow on August 27th.

Register for the second stop ›

Find your way to Microsoft

Linz – August 28, 2019 – Storyblok @ Tabakfabrik

Linz is our third stop, but the first one in Austria. The local community supported us in finding a venue for August 28th and we are hosting the event at Storyblok at the Tabakfabrik in Linz.

Register for the third stop ›

See, where you find Storyblok in the Tabakfabrik in Linz

Vienna – August 29, 2019 – SAE Vienna

With the help of the local community in Vienna, we were able to plan our final stop in Vienna’s SAE for August 29th.

Register for the final stop ›

This is where you find the SAE Vienna

Thanks!

Huge thanks to the local communities and the generous hosts in each city! When I started to help organising and planning this roadshow, I got in touch with people from each area, that I knew and everybody directly was up for it and on fire to make this happen.

For Nuremberg, the first stop ion the list, I got in touch with my good old mate Joschi Kuphal and he connected me with one of the people from Silbury in Fürth, where we host the first stop. Local events and community support was and is given by tollwerk, CoderDojo Nürnberg and the Nürnberg Digital Festival up to now. The first stop is going to be hosted at Silbury

Even though we only were planning with Nuremberg or Munich in the beginning, we decided to do both stops, just because the local support was so instant and great, that we had to do it. Uliana Andriieshyna is the person of the local community in Munich, who suggested locations and helped bringing this stop to live. Local communities in Munich are Munich Frontend Developers, Munich Frontend Conference and Refresh Munich. Microsoft Deutschland is so kind to give us a wonderful home for stop number two.

For Linz I obviously contacted Stefan Baumgartner and Dominik Angerer, wo helped finding the Tabakfabrik, where the Linz stop is going to happen. Thy were super easy and efficient to work with and helped getting this third stop up on the feed. Local events and/or communities involved so far are ScriptConf, Stahlstadt.js.

Vienna is our final destination and Manuel Matuzovic is the one in Vienna, who helped finding a venue and giving local support. He suggested the SAE in Vienna which now is our home for the last stop of this roadshow. With local meetups and communities like WebClerks, ViennaJS and React Vienna, there are some great local meetups and communities in Vienna.

Massive thanks to everybody above!

All sessions will be recorded, but obviously the real benefit of attending is meeting people in real life to exchange, meet old friends and make new friends! I will also be joining for all four stops and am very much looking forward to this.

See you there!

]]> beyond tellerrand – A Documentary https://beyondtellerrand.com/blog/beyond-tellerrand-a-documentary Mon, 21 May 2018 00:00:00 +0200 Earlier this year Stefan Nitzsche came to me with the idea of creating a documentary about beyond tellerrand and the way I run it. I liked the idea and the sound of it, but I am not a huge fan of seeing me on photos or video, even though you get used to looking shit on media over the years. But he definitely caught my attention and we decided to have a first meeting to discuss the basics of the film.

I know Stefan for quite a while and trust him fully. One early morning we met for breakfast somewhere in the nowhere together with his friend Andreas Brüggemann, who, together with Stefan, would shoot the movie. If you have ever been involved in creating such a film, no matter how short, you know, that you need loads of material to choose from and create a final film from in the end. So we discussed the general voice and tone of the film, the core idea behind it and I was ready to give it a go.

Stefan and Andreas visited me a couple of times and followed my day with their cameras and a microphone. They captured the earlier days, before running my ninth edition of beyond tellerrand, the days close to the event, where my full focus is completely on this event to get everything up and running and they filmed at the show in Düsseldorf.

As said, I don’t like to see and hear myself in a film, but I think they created a lovely trailer of what is coming up in late 2020, the tenth year of running beyond tellerrand. Thanks to both, Stefan and Andreas, for making it comfortable and easy to speak about things and to be recorded while working in an intimate environment.

So, here is the trailer of ”beyond tellerrand – A Documentary” …

]]> Wrap-Up and Coverage for Düsseldorf 2019 https://beyondtellerrand.com/blog/wrap-up-dusseldorf-2019 Sun, 20 May 2018 00:00:00 +0200 Where do I start? I mean, I run this event for nearly ten years now. Every time you think ”That’s it. It can’t get any better” and then you end the show and read, listen to and see all this wonderful and nice feedback. Wow, just incredible and fills me with a very warm and lovely feeling. Surely I am feeling exhausted. Empty. Tired. But the positive energy predominates. Energy that comes from people saying that they met many new friends, had exciting conversations and that my little event might have changed their life, or, at least, how they look at their day to day jobs and how they work.

When I started beyond tellerrand, I never would have thought, that my event would have an impact for anyone. Honestly. I wanted to create a friendly and inspiring event, where people would feel welcome and spend two days with nice people. Two days, where they maybe could escape the daily routines and hectic. Two days, where phones and/or laptops mostly stay in their pockets and bags. Well, and now? I honestly feel like in a dream somehow. Thank you so, so much!

With this wrap-up post, I want to give anyone who has been at the event a chance to look at everything that happened again as well as having a source for those who could not be there to watch all the videos, see blog posts by other people from the event and have a look at the many photos that had been taken. As usual I am going to update this blog post with new material as long as I find it or as long as people send stuff to me. If you have or find anything related to this event, that is not listed already, please let me know. Thanks.

A photo showing me on stage, kicking-off the event in front of 520 people
Kicking off the 2019 edition of beyond tellerrand. Photo: Juliane Schütz.

Stats and Facts

What I have recognised this year is, that many more people started using Instagram to document and talk about the event. Even though 2389 tweets had been made with the hashtag #btconf on Twitter, I had the feeling that more and more people use Instagram.

Interesting also: we had less people using the wifi than ever before. Maybe also because people were following the talks more intensively.

This year we had people from 24 26 countries in the house. Those countries, from A–Z, were: Argentina, Austria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Gambia, Germany, Greece, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Netherlands, Nigeria, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and United States. Wow.

Photo showing me, thanking all volunteers at the end of the show.
Thanks to the volunteer-team. Photo: Andreas Dantz.

14 wonderful volunteers were amongst those people. The core team is coming back for many, many years already and the names of those who helped running the event are: Alex, Andreas, Andy, Bartek, Daniela, Ewa, Jana, Jessica, Lisa, Patrick, Sven, Tom with Tanja (my lovely wife) and Guido leading the team. Absolutely fantastic to have such a stunning team. Thanks a lot!

Side Events Before and After

On Saturday 11th and Sunday 12th, we already and as usual for the last five years met for the IndieWebCamp in Düsseldorf. Tantek and I organised this IWC and it once more was hosted by our friends at sipgate.

A photo showing the opening session at the Indie Web Camp in Düsseldorf with speakers and attendees.
Indie Web Camp no. 5 in Düsseldorf at sipgate. Photo: Juliane Schütz.

For the very first time our friends at Wacom hosted our Pre-Conference Warm-Up. All 200 tickets were taken and Wacom did an amazingly wonderful job of creating a friendly environment for us to meet and greet at the evening before beyond tellerrand. Wacom gave us a home and too care of us with drink, snacks and a DJ. Thank you so much!

We furthermore had four sessions between the regular schedule: a Breakfast Session with Liam Griffin for Shopify, one Lunch-Time Session by Christoph Reinartz for trivago, another Lunch-Time Session with Chris Heilmann and the Working Draft Podcast for Microsoft, and an Evening-Break Session with Fabien Benetou for Mozilla. Thanks everybody for the session!

Joschi Kuphal organised another Accessibility Club around beyond tellerrand. The first one in Düsseldorf and smaller than his conference in Berlin, but with around 70 attendees a well attended one with presentations and bar camp like sessions during the whole day.

Photos

This year Norman Posselt, Florian Ziegler, Juliane Schütz and Andreas Dantz officially took photos at the event, but other people shot some amazing photos as well. Anything I got or found so far is listed below.

If you search for btconf on Instagram you also find a lot of photos. Sadly I am too stupid to sort them chronological (is there a way?).

This image shows a series of portrait photos of Mike Hill taken by Norman Posselt.
As first example of the wonderful speaker portraits you see Mike Hill’s pictures. Photos: Norman Posselt.

Next to this Norman Posselt took portraits of each speaker after their talks. They are not available yet, but as soon as they are, I am going to link to them.

It is hugely important to have photos of many people. They not only help to bring back memories, but also show the different view on the event, that each photographer has. I love seeing people interact, laugh, have fun, and exchange. If you took any photos, please let me know and I will happily add them.

Videos & Transcriptions

We have got a Vimeo and a YouTube channel to host all our talks. Depending on what you like more, you can use the one or other. If you want a comprehensive link with not just the videos, bit also slides and transcription, then check the Düsseldorf 2019 archive. But here is everything detail also:

Everything that is missing above and that I am allowed to publish, like videos or transcriptions, will be added as soon as available.

Blog Posts & Other Coverage

Photo showing attendees outside in the sunshine during the event break
Once more the weather was wonderfully sunny. Photo by Florian Ziegler.

All the people listed below made the effort to sit down and write something about beyond tellerrand. This means so much to me. Not only as it is quite some work and needs time to do this, but also as it is fantastic that they tell other people about the event. Thanks so much to everybody who has written something about beyond tellerrand Düsseldorf 2019:

Thank you Marc for doing this. Little did I know nine years ago how many friendships I would find through this event and how much I become reliant of this space where I feel part of a tribe, of not being alone in this constant struggle between (creative) longing and (economic) necessities and resisting the call of the centre of the comfort zone.

  • Bianca Kastl, also one of the long-time attendees, has written a German and English summary with personal note about beyond tellerrand Düsseldorf 2019. She also writes the following, which makes me truly happy:

I left Düsseldorf with my head full of thoughts, inspiration, conversations and fun with some old friends, met interesting new people and had a very good time there.

  • My good friend Brendan Dawes has written a short article about the opening titles and assets, which he created for this event (see below). Thanks Bren!

  • Zach Leatherman has written a short note on his talk including links to the video of his talk as well as his slides. Thank you, Zach.

  • In this post by René Mäkeler you hear someone complaining about the chairs – well, if that is all, fantastic ;) Nah, honestly, René did a good job in summarising his favourite talks and has been there for the last three years. Looking forward to welcoming you back, René.

  • Niklas Barning has written down his thoughts in a German blog post. He has wrapped those thoughts up in two points about constrains and commercialising. Thanks Niklas.

  • This is a Dutch post by Kaj Rietberg. It wraps-up the favourite talks for Kaj, who has been at beyond tellerrand for the first time. Thank you, Kaj.

  • Charlie Owen has taken live notes during the talks. She herself gave an amazing opening talk as well. Thanks, dear Charlie.

  • Holger Bartel has written down his thoughts on last week’s edition of beyond tellerrand in Düsseldorf. He has attended the last 8 years in Düsseldorf. Thank you, Holger!

  • Rob Draper, one of the speakers this year and responsible for the t-shirt design and many of this year’s assets look and feel, has written a blog post about his experience at the show. It means a lot, that he says this about the event and the audience:

So pulling it all together, can completely see now why the event was so popular, Marcs passion is everywhere and its not hard to see why the event is so popular, I now feel like one of that family and I'll definitely be back.

btconf2019 in Düsseldorf was the most inspirational event in my personal career.

  • Christian Huber has posted a very complete and detailed write-up on his blog. He also included the two Lunch-Time Sessions by trivago and Microsoft, the Breakfast Session by Shopify and the Evening Session by Mozilla. Not to forget that he also mentioned the Warm-Up at Wacom. Thanks a lot, Christian. Also for the warm words about beyond tellerrand!

  • Out friends from sum.cumo, who also have been part of the partner family this year in Düsseldorf, have written about their experience of beyond tellerrand in Düsseldorf 2019. They have summarised all talks in short notes in German and in English. Thanks!

  • Jeremy Keith has been to quite a few of my events now. It always is a great pleasure to have him on board. Speaking, attending and/or helping with Side Events like the IndieWebCamp. He has written about his impressions of las week’s beyond tellerrand and I happy – and a bit proud – that he says this about beyond tellerrand (thank you Jeremy!):

Marc somehow manages to curate a line-up that’s equal parts creativity and code; design and development. It shouldn’t work, but it does. I love the fact that he had a legend of the industry like David Carson on the same stage as first-time speaker like Dorobot …and the crowd loved ‘em equally!

T-Shirts, Event-Theme and Assets

Three photos showing the stage. One of them with me and a big “thanks” that Rob created, one with Rob speaking and one with the t-shirt design stating “Stay Curious”
Rob created some great assets to work with and this year’s t-shirt design. Photos by Andreas Dantz.

The wonderful Rob Draper, also a speaker of this edition, has agreed to create the t-shirt design for Düsseldorf 2019. When I asked him, it was an instant Yes! and I got so many great drafts more or less immediately.

Inspired by a talk of David Delgado who has given the evening talk at this edition, I have chosen a phrase that Rob then put into a lovely design. “Stay Curious” was what we had chosen and I really, really love the t-shirt. Thanks so much Rob!

Opening Titles

Screenshot of this year’s opening titles showing a wave and the name of the event in big letters
Beautiful titles by Brendan Dawes.

As stated earlier my friend Brendan Dawes created this year’s opening titles for Düsseldorf. He contacted me a while ago and asked, if anyone already would be doing the titles. I said no and he started thinking about it. Brendan created interference patterns with the help of Houdini and created a beautiful piece of work to open the event with. He has written a short post about what he used and what the idea behind the movie is.

Next to the titles, he created 15 A1 posters for the speakers and the event which covered the whole entrance area. He sent a set of rendered files as well for me to create all the assets for the event in a similar look and feel, like the price panels at the bars, animations for the exhibition, the slides for the stage and much more.

Thanks a lot for this, Brendan. Simply beautiful.

Audio Design

A set of three photos montaged into one with Tobi while playing live music
Energised Tobi Lessnow aka Baldower. FFoto by Juliane Schütz.

In 2013 Tobi Lessnow (aka Baldower) came to me with the idea of doing Audio Sketchnotes and he still is doing them and is part of the event as much as the speakers are. Tobi exclusively created another title song named ”We Are The Electronic Community” for the show and brought many new tracks. He sampled the speakers and created tracks for each of the speakers right after their talks. Great idea, still working perfectly for beyond tellerrand and – most importantly – with Tobi. Thanks you, Tobi, for being part of the family!

Live Captions

Andrew, sitting in Scotland, did an amazing job and live captioned all 13 talks. A direct audio connection sent the audio of all talks to him and he live captioned every word or the event that was spoken on stage. Thank you, Andrew!

A Documentary

Stefan Nitzsche and Andreas Brüggemann started to work on a documentary about beyond tellerrand a couple of months ago. This was the first of three cities we are going to cover (next to Munich and Berlin) and where we recorded material onsite the event. The outcome was a first trailer for the documentary, as announced here also. Of course I’d be happy, also in the name of Stefan and Andreas, if you spread it, if you like it.

Next to all the things that I have written, I am delighted that the Lord Mayor of Düsseldorf, Thomas Geisel, visited us on Monday to welcome the audience to Düsseldorf and show his appreciation. Thanks you!

Two photos of Lord Mayor Thomas Geisel
A visit of Lord Mayor Thomas Geisel, welcoming the attendees to Düsseldorf.

This is all that I have and found up to now. Please help me and send anything you know of, what you find or what you have written or created about and since beyond tellerrand in Düsseldorf. This is a living archive of what happened in Düsseldorf at beyond tellerrand and what made me – and hopefully many of you – happy. Thanks a lot!

The next stop of beyond tellerrand is Berlin. Usually tickets would be on sale, but I still need to clarify a venue first. Feel free to join my newsletter to stay up to date.

Thank you once more for an unbelievable and wonderful time in Düsseldorf with a lot of memorable experiences and conversations. I hope to see you soon again!

Update 21 May 2019: added a blog posts by Holger Bartel, Rob Draper and Johannes Dachsel, added the trailer of the documentary

Update 22 May 2019: added two blog posts by Marc Haunschild and one by Christian Huber

Update 23 May 2019: added two countries I forgot, added a blog post by sum.cumo

Update 24 May 2019: added a blog post by Jeremy Keith

Update 06 June 2019: added a blog post in French by Hashtag Social Media

Update 07 June 2019: added a Frehcn blog post by Glenn Carroy, Clélia Boursin-Bellot and Hélène Trouvé

Update 14 June 2019: added Vimeo and YouTube links to Heydon and Shirley

Update 19 June 2019: added blog posts by Brendan Dawes and Matthias Beitl

Update 7 August 2019: added a blog post by Axel and Stefan of Comspace

]]> Conference Buddy https://beyondtellerrand.com/blog/conference-buddy Thu, 09 May 2019 00:00:00 +0200 When I started our Slack Channel it was – amongst other things – meant to also be for those of you, who come to beyond tellerrand on their own, but maybe want to meet people online before the event to kind of know someone already.

Mirjam Bäuerlein had the exact same issue, when she thought about attending events. She wanted to go, but thought she’d need a conference buddy, she thought, to feel more comfortable and not alone.

I totally understand this, and sometimes feel the same when I enter an event with a lot of people and am on my own. In the example of beyond tellerrand you are with 500 other attendees and as much as the familiarity of beyond tellerrand is nice and people often mention this, the danger is, that people who are returning attendees know each other and maybe, without wanting this, create a clique-feeling which makes it difficult for new, single attendees to enter these circles. I highly encourage people in my emails upfront as well as from stage to be open, meet new people and make new friends. I tell them to introduce new people they know to their group and to follow the Pacman Rule But it still is not easy for someone who is on their own.

An image showing the Conference Buddy logo

Mirjam now though, that she wanted to help and create a platform called Conference Buddy, where you are able to break the ice online before you even are at the event. Wonderful approach and of course I simply wanted to tell you about this. Maybe you are one of the people who do need a ConfBuddy, who likes to meet new people, but not. She describes Conference Buddy as follows:

Conference Buddy is for everyone who wants to attend a tech conference but is afraid to go alone. It's for everyone at tech events who is not comfortable being on their own all the time. It’s for all you first-timers, Introverts, socially awkwards, timid and shy people out there who are just like me!

Even though beyond tellerrand is not a pure tech conference in it’s core, it still is an event. But I think what Mirjam thought of does not only count for tech conferences anyway. So check out ConfBuddy and maybe you’ll find it use- and helpful.

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