Tobi Lessnow, my long-time friend, partner in crime and lover mental support after beyond tellerrand did it. So …

Ladies and gentlemen, here it is! The long awaited album by Baldower is here.

I don’t bloody care if you like his music or not, but you gonna click this link, visit Bandcamp and buy his damn album. The whole album! NOW!

In a recent blog post Brendan Dawes stated, that he switched off all his notifications. On phone and desktop. He says …

It started with me killing dead all notifications, not just on my phone but on my desktop too. I now live in a state of ignorant bliss, free from knowing if somebody from just liked a tweet or my latest stupid Instagram post. If I decide to fire up either of these that's my decision. With notifications it's the other way round — your phone is controlling you — telling you what to do with your time.

… and I totally agree to the statement that phones – or mobile devices in general – are controlling us more and more. I see this day by day, watching my kids during their days.

I for myself, though, try to simply don’t let this happen. Maybe it would be easier to switch off my notifications as well, but then I see it as part of my job as doing support for beyond tellerrand and being reachable for customers. I am in a totally different role here though, surely. What I learned though, over the years, is to not react to any damn notification anymore. I learned to ignore or overlook them and reply to questions quick, but when I find the time.

How are you thinking about this? What is your way of dealing with more and more distractive noise around you? Would be interesting to hear this (replies recently only work via Twitter and webmention or email of course).

Here is Brendan’s full blog post.

Part of Kai Brach’s introduction text to his latest edition of the newsletter Dense Discovery states this:

I still believe that, if done well, sponsorships offer benefits that go beyond easy-to-measure performance metrics. While anyone can buy more visits, sponsorships are forged with a mutual understanding that both parties can benefit from each other’s reputation. Conferences, community events, open-source software, and a plethora of creative endeavours (many of which inspire critical thought) only exist because of the generous support by organisations that believe in the value of affiliation. Let’s hope that spirit outlives our obsession with the measurable.

I can’t say more, but I totally agree to this!

I must have missed that Medium limits the free to read stories now. Or what is this about?

Heydon Pickering has released another episode of his Making Future Interfaces videos, I was talking about earlier. This time: Inline SVG. Another one I watch with a big smile on my face – superb, Heydon.

Or watch on YouTube: Making Future Interfaces: Inline SVG

Sebastian Greger mentioned my beyond tellerrand events in a nice list of events for 2019 – thanks a lot!

I was lying down with fever and a cold, which I have already felt coming in Nottingham. Friday evening I crashed and crawled out of bed yesterday. Email, to do’s and work is piling up, but if I wont write this personal review of the event now – which I’d like to as I like Geri Coady and Simon Collison (aka Colly) – I will never do it.

When I attend an event, I always wear two hats: the hat of an attendee and the other hat of someone who organises and runs events myself. Some of the details I sometimes see are not what usually attendees see on a first view. And also often I have to remind myself, that I might have seen speakers multiple times already, where some of the delegates just attend their very first event. A very important factor – if not most important for me personally – is, if I leave the event with an overall good impression. Not just the talks where good. Not just the organisation was well done. Not just the atmosphere was friendly and welcoming. But: all this together has been a great package.

For those who don’t like to read longer texts: New Adventures had all this above and more!

The Fear of Not Selling Out – and How This Does Not Matter for New Adventures

I have been at all four New Adventures conferences. From 2011 to 2013 and now in 2019. It took Geri and Simon a long time and really a lot of thoughts (and guts!) before they decided to bring New Adventures back to life. Not only are a lot of events suffering from not selling tickets as quick as they used to, but bringing an event back after six years, an event with a very hight reputation … chances are high you can only loose. People who were at the old edition might compare the event with the good old time, where new attendees who heard “how great the old edition of this event were” are coming with such a high expectation already. So the pressure surely is high.

I have had a couple of conversations with Colly and early after announcing the event and and starting to sell tickets, he had the feeling as if tickets would not sell as they used to in former years. Colly is a person, I think like me, who has a good gut feeling about things like this and therefore he made sure to be prepared to go an extra mile to draw attention to this new event. Yes, a new event, as six years in internet time mean that there might be a lot of people who might have still played with Lego or Playmobil back when the first year happened. People who used to come might have gotten children, moved away for job reasons and to on.

In short: how do you advertise and sell tickets to a group of people that mixes of past delegates and (hopefully) new people who like to come?

I certainly know the fear of not selling out. Even if I am fortuned enough to sell out for the past 8 years, I never, as I often say, take it for granted that the next show is going to sell out again. I always fear Will I sell enough tickets to pay the bills at least? I can only imagine, all the things that Simon and Geri planned to do for the attendees and how they have to re-think their ideas and plans every now and then, when they hit the next level to being able to pay something they wanted to do for the people at the event.

Because of the headline you might wonder: was it sold out or not?

No, it was not. And where I wish it would have been, to get both organisers the money they deserve, for the event itself it was of no interest. I have been at events, where empty seats create a strange atmosphere. Where it feels as if the room is empty and the certain spark of enthusiasm and love does not jump over from the stage to the audience, but in Nottingham? No. It did not matter at all, that a few seats were empty. But it felt wonderfully warm and the atmosphere was positive and great!

The Opportunity to Curate a Full Day of Topics

I won’t write about every single presentation and other people have done a great job here already (here, here and here for example), but I wanted to quickly say, that Simon had a good mix of well respected and known speakers and new faces on stage. When I have seen the first round of announced speakers in the beginning I was a bit sceptical, but I was wrong. Topics and presentation quality were excellent and did not disappoint at all. Most of the talks had a great message, pushing everybody into a positive future, but making us aware, that we have a job, where we are responsible for what we design and create, but also that we are builders and creators of things, which means, that we have the option, the tools and – hell yes – the obligation to change things!

So well done with choosing some very important and motivational topics for this day!

The Fun of Being the Host

One part that I hugely enjoy also is, to be the host of an event. As much stress and work as it is, it pays so much back, to have the opportunity to welcome people from all around the world and create a welcoming and friendly space and atmosphere for them.

Also here, I can only say that Geri and Simon made a fantastic job. All the fringe events around the main event, the care and – of course – their friendly personality have shined through.

Not in a Million Years Aka Maybe

So, was that a one-off show or will New Adventures return? If you ask the attendees, I bet there is an overwhelming majority of those who directly say yes, bring it back.

When I asked Simon on an evening before the event he said …

Not in a million years!

… which over the time of the event and until after the event turned into a subtle Maybe. Let’s see how we feel afterwards and if people would come back.

All delegates gave feedback to the question, if they would return next year. But those things have to be taken carefully of course. Everybody at the event is on an emotional high and surely tends to say yes. An event’s organiser now has to evaluate the answers and come up with an interpretation on which she/he can base a decision to run or not run another edition next year. One year is a lot of time and many things can change, which might lead to a different answer than the one given on the piece of paper, when Simon asked.

But if you ask me, New Adventures should be back. We need more events like this, who inspire and motivate. Where the people behind the event care. And New Adventures just hit a time to come back, where running events is not the easiest thing you can do and times are a bit difficult (for too many reasons to write about this right here).

Next to this, I have had a fantastic time and I met so many people I know since years, plus I had the chance – and used it – to meet many new people and chat about a lot of different topics. Wonderful.

So yes, Geri and Simon, bring back the show next year. I love kicking off the year in Nottingham. At New Adventures!