Notes

Autumn Walk

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A forest in autumn with brown leaves on the ground and coloured leaves on the trees. A dog is visible small in the middle of the photo.

Skate Aid Night 2023

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Skate Aid Night 2023 just happened on Saturday. I went again and it is great to see how many people supported Skate Aid again to make kids strong through skateboarding and giving them a purpose. This time my daughter Luca joined me, which made me really happy. ☺️

Skate Aid and beyond tellerrand are partners for many years now and part of the ticket money always directly goes to Skate Aid to support their projects.

To My Mother

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To my mother who’d have birthday today!

A squared photo on which you see my hand holding a negroni – a red drink containing equal parts of gin, sweet vermouth and Campari

Back from ffconf – Any Why We Need Events like This

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ffconf is an event in Brighton founded and organised by Remy Sharp and his wife Julie Sharp. I know both for a long time and we share a lot of common things when it comes to running events. We run events, because we love running those and bringing people together for which we curate a set of speakers for a certain amount of time. In their case for one day at beginning of November. Julie and Remy, as well as I, come out of a very tough time for event organisers that don’t take their budgets out of a companies yearly marketing budget. We rely on people buying tickets and partnerships with companies who like what we do, who see a sense in sponsoring as they might have a benefit and who keep our events alive with their money.

What makes events like ffconf so important for me is not only the personal curation and with this often much more interesting talks, but also the personal connection people have with those events and the kind of people you meet and are able to exchange with.

Last week Friday, at ffconf, I had so many lovely conversations before, during and after the event that are fantastic input, motivation and thoughts that are different to mine and give me other perspectives. For me personally that is so much value and I hope that events like ffconf stay for a long, long time. What you can do to make sure that this is the case? Well, if you attend events like ffconf, Patterns Day, or mine, beyond tellerrand you can:

  • Get your tickets early – organisers need to plan and work with the incoming money
  • Check their sponsorship prospectus – often times sponsorship starts at a lower cost than you think and even the smallest packages help big times
  • Tell other people about it – there is no big marketing budget, so you, spreading the word, means the world

Especially the last part is an investment in the future of these events.

Thanks a lot to Julie, Remy and their team for this years joyful event and in my case also to Andy Davies, who made it possible that I could be part.

On my Way to Brighton

Before 2019 I visited Brighton every year for 13 years. Often more than just once a year. Events happening in Brighton are only a few these days. One of them is ffconf and I am looking forward to it!

⇾ Let’s Reinvent the Wheel – Vasilis van Gemert

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Vasilis van Gemert has been one of the speakers last week at border:none. He has written about the gist of his talk, with which he was closing the event. He closes his write-up with the following paragraph …

In ten years I would love to do another talk at the next border:none conference. And I would love to do a very happy talk then. About the incredible tools that we’ve been using in the previous ten years that truly let you design all layers of the web: the visible, the invisible, the UX layers. I want to talk about all the people with disabilities who’ve joined our design teams and started designing for truly accessible UX. And I would love to show all the incredibly beautiful and fantastic websites you’ve all been making on our wonderfully weird web. Please make it so. I don’t want to switch to a different industry.

That is a great wish and idea. I support this and am looking forward to his talk in October 2033!

⇾ Visit: Let’s Reinvent the Wheel – Vasilis van Gemert

⇾ border:none 2023 – Tom Arnold

Tom Arnold, who was attending border:none 10 years ago also, has written a nice recap of his experience last week at border:none in Nuremberg. Thank you Tom!

⇾ Visit: border:none 2023 – Tom Arnold

⇾ border:none 2023 – Jeremy Keith

Jeremy Keith, one of the speakers at last weeks border:none, has written about the event Joschi and I organised. Thanks for that and thanks for being part of this little adventure.

At the end of the event there was some joking about returning in 2033. I love the idea of a conference that happens once every ten years. Count me in!

Well … see you in 2033! ;)

⇾ Visit: border:none 2023 – Jeremy Keith

⇾ No Borders – Matthias Ott

Matthias Ott has written about our boder:none Event on his blog. Thanks a lot. Joschi and I had a great time running it!

⇾ Visit: No Borders – Matthias Ott

Photos from border:none 2023

Last week Joschi Kuphal and I rand another edition of border:none, after we ran the very first edition in 2023. It was great fun, a really pleasure and absolutely wonderful. When I say “it”, I mean everything! Organising it with Joschi (and the team from tollwerk), listening to the mostly unexpected and very personal talks by all the speakers and chatting to and exchanging with the attendees. Thanks a lot for those days!

The Orpheum, theatre for border:none, shot from balcony and showing stage and the beautiful lamps
The Orpheum, venue of border:none – photos by Florian Ziegler

Florian Ziegler, who also always is part of beyond tellerrand, took some wonderful photos of the event.

This way, if you want to see impressions of how and what those two days in Nuremberg were