Maybe you wonder why I had been a bit silent over the last days and weeks. Or at least more silent than you are used to from me. Reason for this was the death of my second brother and a few days ago the death of my beloved 16 year old dog. I took this and a lot of questions I was asking myself as a reason for writing this blog post after I was thinking a lot about, if I should or should not, as I usually do not want to post family related things on the Web. But I see a reason for this and think that maybe I can help some of you avoiding possible mistakes or find a small piece of help.

This post also might be a bit more personal than you expect, but I somehow feel like I have to write it. When I started to write it on December 21st, 2015, I did not actually know, if I would ever publish it. And still today, on January 12th 19th, I am not sure. If you read this right now, I did.

The last 5 to 6 years had been some of the best years I ever had. Not only my private life with my wonderful family is just pure joy – as it always has been – but also business wise it was great. I started beyond tellerrand in 2011 and it turned into my full time business. The best thing at this job: I love organising, planning and running it.

Then, two and a half year ago in August, all of a sudden one of my brothers died. It hit us all without any notice and my brother has not been ill before this, so that you can say you would have expected it. I remember, I had a broken leg and we were on the way to the funeral of our grandma, when my mum called me and told me they found my brother dead. I never thought that my brain would not be able to process anything – this was the first time. I simply did not understand this. Later, when I realised what happened, I was asking myself a lot of questions.

Why didn’t I visit him in the last time?

Why didn’t I call him lately?

Should I have checked if he is ok more often?

… and so on.

I call these questions the “Why didn’t I” questions. Of course you will always ask yourself some of these questions, even if you did everything from an outside view, that was possible, but – maybe – if you use your chance todo something instead of saying “I should call my brother again these days.” or “I did not speak to my friend for a while, I should visit him to have a coffee somewhen.”, you’ll at least not argue too much with yourself.

I used the death of my first brother as a chance to try and find my dad (who is not the dad of my two brothers) again whom I have seen last about 25 years ago, just to speak to him and to find out if he is still alive. I managed to find him, only to hear that he does not want to have contact, which I accepted, but I was glad, I did not miss out the chance to find him before this chance does not exist anymore. And I made very clear that he still is able to get in touch with me, even though he said he does not want me to contact him (the background story of all this is way too complex and irrelevant to mention and explain it right here)

Then, last December right before Christmas, my second brother died. This time we knew that this would be coming as he was fighting cancer for 10 years already. Even though it was hard and very sad, I was so pleased that I had the chance to peacefully say good bye to him before he went. It still is sad and still not understandable, but thenw it was not as unexpected as with the death of my first brother and therefore somehow no as painful – at least for me. He died at home with his family being with him, just as he wished to.

I, again, used this chance to contact my dad, to let him know that also my other brother is going to die and I simply would not forgive myself, if I did not try my best to see if we could not meet one day. He got back to me and agreed, that we should sooner or later and that I was right.

So, what I want to say with telling you this story is not, that you all should be sorry for me now. It is really sad, but really only I want to state, that you should really use the chances you have to do what you are thinking about. Do not only think that you should visit one of your friends again. Simply do it! Do not only think about calling your friend one day, get your f***ing mobile out of your pocket and call now! It never has been easier to stay in touch with someone than these days. And I promise, that you won’t forgive yourself if you hear that your friend got hit by a bus just two days after you thought you should call or visit her/him again.

To finish, I want to add how important it also is to try to find something positive, even in the worst situation. That this helps – at least me – to see things in a much better light.

When I watched one of the episodes of Sean McCabe, called “Make Your Competitors Irrelevant”, I felt that I went through a lot of these questions as well before. Since ages I want to start a podcast, but I was asking myself a few questions over and over again:

• Should I do it in German or English, as German is my native language and I might not be able to sometimes really express what I wanted to?
• Should I do it under my beyond tellerrand brand or should I use something else (I was planning to run it under twumble, which I have registered and trademarked since years)?

For the first question I find enough pro and contra and I think in the end it is connected to the second question.

To answer the second questions a lot of things come into play. Do I want it to be connected with my brand? Does the content I produce fit to the brand I created with the other things I am doing under the brand? Many arguments of Sean are valid, if you want to strengthen your brand.

I also like what Sean says about competitors and community.

Community is the gathering of people with similar interest. It’s the partnering up of people who do similar things. You can’t ever have that, if everyone you see is a competitor to you.

Very true in my opinion. Thanks, Sean.

In August last year Brad Frost announced that he is writing a book about atomic design. Obviously I directly preordered the book as I am sure it will be a great and useful read. Oh, if you don’t know what it is about: creating and also maintaining interface design systems. Today, about 30 minutes ago, an update about the progress landet in my inbox and I’m more and more excited while reading it. He explained the planned and written content for chapter three as well as for chapter four.

The third chapter is all about pattern library tools, where the important detail for me is, that it actually is not only or mainly about the tools you can use, but more about how the tools are used. The fourth chapter is giving you information about the workflow of working with and – what I think is great – selling the idea of design systems.

Brad also announced that there will be a fifth chapter, originally planned to be part of the fourth chapter, which deals with maintenance of design systems.

So I was happily and excited reading the updates. As you can see.

More information about the Atomic Design Book.

Looking forward to hold my copy of Offscreen issue 13 in my hands. Did you already subscribe?

⇾ Visit: Offscreen Issue 13

(twitter: @nicewebtype text: Tim Brown) and (twitter: @Aetherpoint text: Andrew Johnson) started to create a useful collection of tools and services for working with type including a nice type glossary.

⇾ Visit: Typography Supply

John Davey, who runs Reasons to be Creative in Brighton for many years, also runs a one-day event in London for three years already. Reasons:London is a great opportunity to see a few fantastic talks for small money and the right way to start into the weekend.

Six speakers, one day and an affordable ticket price from £79. Even, if you come and leave on the same day that can work easily. Even from Germany (or other parts of Europe). Flights to London are cheap and the event starts at noon and ends at 7pm – though I’d always recommend you to stay for some after event drinks.

The venue is the beautiful LSO St Luke’s in London, an old 18th century church, which holds a maximum of 450 people, if the upper level balcony is used.

I will be there on February 19th and would be happy to meet you as well. Check who is speaking and what the topics are on the website and get yourself a ticket. See you there.

Got this lovely present from a bunch of wonderful #btconf attendees. They made a nice photo in Düsseldorf, signed it all, framed it and today I got it though they already finished it in May (plus the gin). Thank you all. You can't imagine how much this means to me. This is wonderful. Especially these days.

Thanks to (twitter: @maddesigns), (twitter: @derSchepp), (twitter: @helloanselm), (twitter: @ddprrt), (twitter: @derPepo), (twitter: @MadeMyDay), (twitter: @FabianBeiner), (twitter: @czillgens), (twitter: @rodneyrehm), (twitter: @jkphl), (twitter: @drublic), (twitter: @foobartel), (twitter: @tobiastom), (twitter: @bkastl), (twitter: @fernmuendlich), (twitter: @closingtag), (twitter: @fhemberger), (twitter: @trilodge), (twitter: @asciidisco), (twitter: @tcaspers), and (twitter: @dantz) (order of signing).

Update: I’m going to close the survey and the raffle tomorrow around midnight. So you have the whole day to fill in your information and take part in the book raffle. I will then evaluate the feedback and publish the results. Thanks to everybody who took part in the survey!

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This morning Joschi asked an interesting question on Twitter.

Pls help me w/ this one: What's the average lead time you need / prefer for planning your conference visits? Thanks!

I find it interesting not only because I’m running my own event, but because I think I can’t really answer this question myself like a usual attendee. I’m attending so many events, that sometimes I decide to go to an event just the day before it takes place. Sometimes I need more time as I want to make sure to really have the time to attend as usually other – maybe family related things – might come in the way. Or someone books me to take photos at her/his event and I need to be there to make some extra shots from the setup, workshops or side events for example. Surely I plan everything for beyond tellerrand really early and also for SmashingConf, as I am a board member and part of the team, but especially events I have never been to with cities and countries I never been to, I try to make some extra time.

Sometimes it does not work out to have extra days before and/or after an event. As said, I am away quite a lot on many events and my family is happy for every day, that I stay at home, of course. Then I prefer to arrive a day prior the event to not miss anything on the first day and I like to leave a day after the event not too early to at least being able to take part in some of the networking opportunities that most events give after the event is over.

To get a more detailed impression, I created a survey that helps to understand how others plan their trips and event journeys. It would be really helpful, if you take part in it. All results will be publicly available.

I think especially (twitter: @jkphl text: Joschi) and (twitter: @briansuda text: Brian Suda), who are planning an exciting event in Iceland, are interested in the outcome of the survey (I guess this was also the reason for Joschi to ask), but of course I will publish all the results.

This way to the survey.

Thanks for taking part in the survey!

Update: forgot to mention that you can win one copy of the Smashing Book #5 or one of the new edition of Andy's Hardboiled Web Design Book, if you take part and want to win. Good luck and thanks to Smashing Magazine for giving the books.

I guess with these lovely notebooks planning of the next events is done already. Thanks (twitter: @justinavery)

What a fantastic present. Thanks so much for the lovely gift and the card, (twitter: @brad_frost) – you rock!