Luckily, I myself – as far as I know – never suffered any (mental) health problems since I started working. On the Web and before. But I know quite a number of people who did or do and sometimes I'm really astonished and surprised that this person really has or had to deal with mental health issues. It's hard to imagine what kind of issues someone has to deal with and how they actually become noticeable. I am pretty sure, that sometimes, people having problems even don't know they really have. For those examples I know of, the variety of where it led to ranges from “just” being tired and having to take a break up to the point that someone nearly killed him-/herself.

Next week, starting on October 3rd 2016, this year's Geek Mental Help Week is taking place. It is a week-long series of blog posts and articles, of conversations and podcasts, and also events, like the MK Geek Mental Help Night, all across the Web. Topics are covering mental health issues, but also how to help people who suffer.

And even if you are not affected, you are able to help and drive attention to the topic. Follow @geekmentalhelp and visit the Website to stay tuned. Oh, and spread the word, please … thanks.

Jürgen Siebert posted this link on Twitter this morning. An interesting read about the shift to create or re-brand logos without using text anymore.

⇾ Visit: The Age of the Wordless Logo

Today I updated my Tweetbot desktop app on Mac to version 2.4.2. This update supports the lately introduced update to Twitter, which allows to post tweets without URLs or images counted into the 140 characters of Twitter.

After updating, the images of my accounts in the sidebar were all broken. I asked Tapbots on Twitter, but before they were able to answer, Matthias Haak replied to me with the solution, which is to remove the images in the cache via terminal with the following line:

Code block

rm -rf ~/Library/Containers/com.tapbots.TweetbotMac/Data/Library/Caches

I hope this also helps you. ;)

I had the honour of speaking at From the Front, an event for designers and developers, which was held yearly in Bologna, a beautiful town in Italy. I enjoyed every minute of it and had the rare chance to bring my wife and my youngest daughter with me as my other two kids had been aways with their school.

I gave a talk in Bristol earlier this year, which went pretty well and was about the “The Human Side of Event Organisation”. I am not speaking very often, therefore I was quite nervous. Especially as my talk contained some very personal stuff to underline the core idea I had with it. But from the feedback I got after the talk and in the bar later as well as what I read on Twitter, people seem to have liked it.

More importantly, and the actual reason for writing this post, I wanted to thank the people behind the event. Marco, Rocco, Emanuala, Franceso and everybody who’s name I did not mention (so sorry!). I know how hard it is to put up such an event and to have an eye for the details and take care of the people you invite to come – the attendees and the speakers. I am very sad that – hopefully only for now – From the Front came to an end with this year’s edition. We need events like this, where people care about things. Thanks to all of you and hopefully see you soon!

As I promised yesterday, here is my set of photos from Smashing Conference 2016 in Freiburg. After ten years of running Smashing Magazine, it was time to throw some cake and cupcakes, not to forget the very addictive chocolate fountain.

I hope you enjoy this set of impressions.

Links:

• Photos from SmashingConf Freiburg 2016

Back from a two-week trip via Cologne, Brighton, Freiburg and Bologna. Now I finally found time to select a few photos which you can find on Flickr. I had a great time at all events and my talk in Bologna went pretty well, I think.

Before I upload the Smashing Conference Freiburg photos, here are the shots from Reasons To in Brighton. I hope they summarise what a great time I had at the tenth event, formerly known as Flash on the Beach.

Links:

• Photos of Reasons To 2016

I am back from Cologne and Brighton having a short stop in Krefeld, before leaving for Freiburg and Bologna.

I used this time to select a few impressions from NightlyBuild 2016 and upload them for you.

Enjoy! Those from Reasons to will follow.

In about 3 hours I am going to leave for the third edition of NightlyBuild. I’m looking forward to meet a lot of people there. I haven’t seen Bruce for a while and, man, it must be ages ago since I’ve had dinner with Stephen in Amsterdam, which was the last time I’ve seen him.

I gonna take my camera with me to capture the vibe and moment at the event and you can later see what you have missed, when you visit my Flickr account.

If you attend yourself: see you there!

At the end of June, Marco Cedaro asked me, if I'd like to come and speak at From The Front in Bologna, Italy. I knew that this talk would take place during a time that is hectic already and not only because beyond tellerrand // BERLIN is close, but also because I attend quite a few events in September. But I always wanted to attend From The Front anyways and never made it. So I used this chance to be part of this event, even though I am now speaking and not only attending.

I planned to write my talk early, but it proved again, that I need this certain kind of pressure to get productive and therefore I just started working on the presentation beginning of this week. As I start to travel on Friday from Cologne to Brighton to Freiburg to Bologne, there is not much time left other than this week to finish it.

Marco said:

The conference topic is related to change and for us it would be really interesting for you to share your experience in organising tech events.

I gave a talk, where I spoke about insights of running my beyond tellerrand events at ConfConf, but felt like this would be too much detail for the talk in Bologna. Therefore I called my presentation “Change” and try to focus on the “why” and the motivation of running the events. It – of course – has something to do with the community we work in/for/with. But it also was my wish to change something in my life, when I started thinking of running the event.

This is the description of the talk:

Change

Have you ever felt this strange feeling in your gut that tells you that a job offer you got is one you should better not accept? Or when you had a job interview, that you thought, you’d be quite happy when you are out of it again? Maybe also if you are in a position, where you feel good in general, but from time to time you think about changing something. Maybe because small things in your daily business start to annoy you, maybe, because you always wanted to do a certain thing … maybe it is time to change something an follow your inner voice.

This talk is about a personal story and how it led to somethings that I highly enjoy doing. Every day. But is also is about the importance of community and meeting people in real life.

If you want to join me on this little journey, grab a ticket and come to Bologna.

Great things need support. Support my friend Kai Brach and his Offscreen Magazine with their rebranding: http://rebranding.offscreenmag.com

⇾ Visit: Support the Rebranding of Offscreen