Morning walk.

Since Sebastiaan Andeweg announced not to have any time anymore to maintain the Kirby webmentions plugin he created, I am happy to have seen, that Sebastian Greger is working on a Sendmentions plugin as well as a webmention enabled commenting system. Time to upgrade to Kirby 3 anyways ;)

⇾ Visit: This Looks Like a Promising Webmentions Plugin for Kirby 3

A few days ago I met with Ole and Louisa from The Dorf for a nice conversation about my little beyond tellerrand event in and in front of the Capitol Theater. Thanks to both of them for the lovely chat. And man, I know how to look good on photos! 😂

Full story here

I also use the ATEM Television Studio HD for my stage setup. I always am thinking about how to enhance it to also being able to record the whole show. I guess I have to speak to Aaron Parecki and see how he setups up his stuff. Not sure, if I’d manage to use my gear on stage and simultaneously record an event, but let’s find out.

Anyways, Aaron recorded a lovely little video of how he is setting up at an event with many useful insights. A bit of information overload for me, to be honest, but lovely to watch (I guess I have to re-watch, as soon as I am done with beyond tellerrand in Düsseldorf). Nice addition to this is the explanation of his workflow, cutting the videos onsite to more or less directly publish them on YouTube (or Vimeo).

In addition to this video, I’d love to see the following information:

• A list of the gear that is used (maybe with a price overview as well)
• A schematic setup plan

Maybe Aaron already has prepared something like this and I only have to search on his website ;)

When I arrived back home from San Francisco, I read that my friend John decided to end his event. I chatted to him followed social media and wanted to write something here, on my blog.

Well, it is like always, finding excuses not to do something, but honestly, only a bit more than two weeks and my own show – where John owns a big part of – takes place. I just feel, I can’t lose more time to write it and I always say how important friendship is and people are. Therefore I just hope I hold all the deadlines and manage to get everything done in time. John, this is for you.

I have been out tonight and on my way back I thought about many ways of starting to write about my friend ending what his passion always was. How to find the right way to express what it means to me. What it might mean to him. Like me, John ran the whole show on his own support by many wonderful people like Andy, Chris, and, of course, his wife Jo.

Those of you, who know me and my event and have attended one, know that I always also thank John at the end of the show. Reason to do so is, that he is my trash can like I am his. We have ideas, we have opinions and we ask each other, what the other one thinks about it. We agree, we disagree and we have saved each other many times from doing the wrong thing.

Over the last two or three years those moments haven’t been as regular as they used to. I have seen my good friend struggling. Trying to read, trying to understand what was happening. Actually ever since he simply renamed his event from Flash On The Beach to Reasons To. I understand why Brendan Dawes writes:

[…] and whilst it was successful I never felt it had the same vibe for me personally […]

For me the key here is personally. So many people I met at Flash On The Beach had a real personal connection to this event. Therefore this event became something were they met, where they knew, that everybody else would be there.

For a certain reason exactly his got lost when John changed the name of the event. Identification. People loved the event, but John gave his very best to reming people that, if they won’t tell anybody about the event if they liked it, no one would. This is what we live of: people doing the marketing we don’t have the money for. Plus many other factors in addition … (John, we had so many nights chatting about exactly this – I enjoyed any minute of it)

Now, I would easily fill your day with great, wonderful, personal stories about John’s event, but I guess you understand how much I loved it anyways. I have been there every damn year. I loved meeting the people I know and meeting people I had never seen before. Broken leg or not. But I also have seen my friend worrying.

As much as I am sad about the end of Reasons To I am looking forward to what John maybe enjoys doing next. I don’t think he is done with events, but he is taking a well deserved break to maybe come back with what he loves: gathering a wonderful and inspiring group of people to inspire and motivate us.

Thanks so much, John, for 12 exceptional years in Brighton, New York and London.

A couple of months ago I was watching a documentary in which the conductor Hossein Pishkar appeared. At one point he said …

Ich zweifle ständig und andauernd an mir. Selbstzweifel. Immer wieder. Nur beim Machen, da darf man keine haben!

… which translates into something like …

I keep doubting myself constantly. Self-doubt. Again and again. Only when acting, you must not have any!

I think if you decide to act and to do/make something you have to forget this constant self-doubt. It would block you and you can question yourself afterwards again (which you will). In the moment, just go with it. Give 100% and be confident.

This is a tool that shows you how ADA compliant your colours are in relation to each other. By adding your brand’s colours one by one, you can generate a chart to see how they can be used together for accessibility, see, where they don’t work, and find similar colours that work better.

⇾ Visit: Accessible Brand Colors

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!