It’s January 31st. I stop my car in front of a Japanese shop in the area of Düsseldorf’s central station. It is a grey day and the person I am picking up is my friend Vitaly Friedman. He took the train from Berlin to Düsseldorf to meet me there. From Düsseldorf we drove over to Belgium to explore and check a few venues for a possible new adventure. When entering my car Vitaly says:

Ahh. Marc, that feels like in the old days, when we were checking venues for our very first event in Freiburg. Do you remember?

Indeed it had a similar feeling. The event business is on some kind of re-start. Especially when I hear from web related events, a lot of them struggle to sell tickets these days and not because their line-up is bad or their marketing. Many reasons exist – too many to go into details here – why this is the case and those who don’t stop running their events wonder what they could do to get the word out and sell tickets. And selling tickets, plus getting financial support by companies who team up with events like mine, is crucial for those events to survive, as they are mostly community based or community driven events. Maybe even only by a very small team or single person.

But back to where we were … so Vitaly and I ended up in my car for 3 hours chatting about all things events and Smashing Magazine. About the difficulties mentioned above, but also about the curiosity and excitement of running those events. We both share this passion to bring people together on those days and create something that is valuable and wonderful. Time was flying and we arrived in Antwerp, where we wanted to check two possible venues.

The first venue we arrived at was the Bourla Schouwburg. Two very nice people welcomed us and showed us the venue. What a lovely, old theatre. Vitaly and I directly loved it and were giggling about ideas we had for different areas in the venue, imagining where what could happen during the days of the event and felt that this one had the right atmosphere and spirit.

Our next stop was the Zuiderpershuis. Again a very lovely person welcomed us and showed us around. This one is not a real theatre, but more like an event venue. Very nice and authentic also and we could directly see the kind of events that would take place here. Festivals that would be containing of more hands-on experiences than talks. Smaller workshops, shorter presentations and hands-on in depth sessions. But for what we were thinking of there would be too much we would need to get done and many details missing and to be added, so that we decided not to go with this one.

For our next stop we had to drive roughly another hour to arrive in the wonderful city of Gent, after we had some tasty fries iN Antwerp. I have never been in Gent before, but the city centre is just amazing. So were the two people waiting for us, when we arrived at the NTGent. An what a lovely venue was waiting for us again. Similar to the Bourla in Antwerp it has wonderful balconies and both of us, Vitaly and I, were directly in love with the theatre, the opportunities the rooms next to the theatre offered us and the wonderful view from the balcony of one of the rooms at the theatre.

We left this theatre impressed, but with a sour taste in our mouths. A sour taste not because all those venues were nice, but because we did not know which one would be best of our two favourites.

On our 3-hours ride back to Düsseldorf we spoke a lot about pro and con of Bourla vs NTGent, we left voice messages for Charis, Amanda and the rest of the Smashing Team to describe those benefits and possible negative bits.

In the end we did not decide against the NTGent as a venue, but for Antwerp as the city. It is better known, better reachable from most places and offers more of what we need, in the summary, compared to Gent and the NTGent.

Well and now? Now we are on to a new adventure in Belgium. Today we announced Smashing Conference Antwerp, a conference focusing on Design and UX topics. Early birds tickets are online (48 left by the time writing these lines!) and we are all extremely looking forward to exploring the options we have in Antwerp. New lessons learned at a new city in a new venue and you can be part of this and help us to make this a memorable experience for everybody coming!

See you at October 9–11 in Antwerp for a new Smashing Conference and thanks for reading this little memorable story about how Vitaly and I visited the venues in Belgium!

For a longer time my friends of Storyblok and I are working on the idea of bringing free meetup-like community events to you. What was cooking for a while finally is starting now with our first two stops in Brighton and Leeds, in the UK.

“Oh come on Marc! Advertising events of a company that you sell us as community events. Not interested in getting promotional talks about a headless CMS…”

This or similar is maybe what you think, when hearing about a roadshow like this. But …

1. … you don’t know Storyblok then and
2. … you don’t seem to know me either.

Storyblok is doing so many things for the web community, that it feels needless for me to actually write this, but: they don’t need this and love the Web.

I myself would never sell my soul or attendees to anything I don’t believe in and think it would be great fun. Plus: did you have a look at the people joining us? I think that speaks for itself, doesn’t it?

Stories on the Road – The Kick-Off

Therefore I am super happy to let you know that this is a start of a journey for 2023, where we visit a couple of cities in Europe with various speakers from the community to create inspiring evening events for you, where you can meet other people that work for, in, on and with the Web.

For the first stops in the UK, we are super happy to be joined by Cassie Evans, Jeremy Keith, Arisa Fukuzaki, Harry Roberts, James Hall (who also kindly offered their offices to be our venue for the Leeds stop) and Phil Hawksworth.

Keep an eye on the beyond tellerrand website or on the Storyblok website for updates on the planned stops. Whatever fits your needs better.

The Value of Attending Events Like This

I feel like repeating myself here, but for me events have a value far beyond seeing the talks. In my 24 years of being freelancer/self-employed I took most of what I am today from attending events. New projects, ideas, energy, new contacts, even new long-time friends! I believe there is so much that this provides, but I guess you heard this from me already, right? ;)

Well, I am very much looking forward to get back on the road and meet you!

In general we all live roughly 4000 weeks on this planet. I have used up most of mine – 2531, to be exact – already and reading this makes me think of course.

Concerning that I already used up so many weeks, I am in a certain time of my life and the website states:

That’s likely a majority of the weeks you’ll see. The psychologist Erik Erikson suggests that at this phase of life you focus on the virtue of care. Spend your weeks “making your mark” by intentionally nurturing things that will outlast you, raising children, mentoring others, becoming involved in your community and organizations, and creating positive change that benefits others.

Well, I can state that I, at least in my opinion, already am doing this. I have three wonderful children, something I call my job, I have a true passion for – even though it is in a tough situation at the moment with what the pandemic caused – and I think with this, I also am making a mark, I am mentoring others and am creating positive change that benefits others.

I feel ok now.

I read this on a website by Lee Byron, which is a tribute to the book “Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals” by Oliver Burkeman, in case you also want to read it.

I recently watched a YouTube video on the channel of “Kurzgesagt” which addresses a similar topic. You can watch it (English or German) below.

English version: What are you doing with your life? The Tail End.

German version: Was machst du mit deinem Leben? Eine Perspektive.

I am not posting this to demotivate anyone or tell them that more than half of their life is over 🤣 … no, I mean it in a more positive way and to get motivated to use the time you have in a way that makes sense to you (and maybe even to others like your beloved ones).

Links:

• Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals” by Oliver Burkeman (Amazon affiliate link)
• Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals” by Oliver Burkeman (Thalia)
• Four Thousand Weeks – website as a tribute to the book above
• YouTube video “What are you doing with your life? The Tail End.” (English version)
• YouTube video “Was machst du mit deinem Leben? Eine Perspektive.” (German version)

When Danny Gregory spoke at my beyond tellerrand event in Berlin in 2016, he was telling me about his idea to start Sketchbook Skool. Lovely to see it growing and lovely to se their videos.

This one is about why you should “Love your sketchbook lettering”.

You changed your mind? You lettering can show how your mind has changed.

⇾ Visit: Sketchbook Skool – Love Your Sketchbook Lettering

Today the Kickstarter for Marcin’s book “Shift Happens: A Book about Keyboards” started and I was looking forward to it. And even though I swore to myself never again to back anything on that shitty platform, I did. Mostly, because I know Marcin, but surely not to give any more to Kickstarter.

Back in 2012 I invited Marcin to come and speak at one of my events for the first time. I had seen him speaking and was blown away by the passion he had for what he was doing. Ever since we stayed in touch and in 2018 I invited him back to beyond tellerrand in Berlin, where he gave his talk “The Abridged History Of Having Fun \/\/ith Keyboards”. Not only was it a great talk, but he also chatted to me before the event to [ask me to get a few old typewriters, as he wanted to prepare a few games for the attendees in the exhibition space](https://newsletter.shifthappens.site/archive/to-walk-among-keyboard-magicians/. And if you think, that this was enough: No, of course not. He also remote controlled the presentation with his shoes!! (He has written about it on Revue, but that platform closed. But I’ll ask him if he published it somewhere else and add it.) Here is the article about his talk and all the things about the shoes and around the talk.

Anyways, he started the Kickstarter for the book today and I backed. While writing these lines, it just hit the $200.000 mark. Wow. Congrats Marcin and I hope it gets even more!

If you like to find out, why someone wants to write a book about keyboards from 2017 to 2022, then you can read about this on Marcin’s website to the book

You can also subscribe to his newsletter, if you are not already.

Those who follow me on Instagram might have seen pictures and I already also told you about the Wonderwalls Exhibition in Düsseldorf. This week it is the last chance to visit the exhibition – and you should do so.

After this week the exhibition of Selim Varol, who was a guest in my German Podcast neu•gierig, is closing its doors. I have been there a couple of times and it always takes me back into my childhood and youth.

I myself am taking my kids to Wonderwalls in the NRW Forum Düsseldorf today (sadly my oldest daughter isn’t here today) and visit it one last time, before it comes to an end on Saturday. If you go, maybe you are lucky and Selim is doing one of his tours, which makes it even more special.

Information about Wonderwalls

When I joined Mastodon in 2018, I liked the concept and am always excited and curious to try new things. But like others described already, it somehow did not feel right. Maybe I wasn’t ready for the concept, maybe I was comparing it too much with Twitter – I don’t know. In the end it was something it did not bother to communicate through too much.

A couple of months ago, yes I think Musk has played a role here, Twitter, which somehow lost more and more attraction for me anyways, but the reason why would bee another blog post, Mastodon gained traction again and people started registering and – which is the more important part – using it. it felt different, but still I was asking myself a lot of questions and was sceptical. I tried different apps, Mastodon in the browser, but I wasn’t getting the “Yes, let’s go with it” moment. I did not feel it ;) I was using Mastodon, reading what other people said and also posting myself.

A couple of days ago, when I opened Tweetbot, I got an authentication error message telling me, I need to log in again. On my phone and my Mac. I checked the web if something was not working with in general, but Twitter seemed to be up and running. Just the apps I was using weren’t working anymore. It turned out that Twitterrific users had the same problem and actually any 3rd party app using the Twitter API. No one had information and an update on the Twitterrific blog stated:

Updated January 17th, 2023: We still have not received any clear communication as to why Twitter deactivated Twitterrific on January 13th. We have been respectful of their API rules, as published, for the past 16 years. We have no knowledge that these rules have changed recently or what those changes might be.

On the same day, Twitter stated, that they were intentionally blocking 3rd party apps like Echofon, Tweetbot and Twitterrific and wrote that Twitter is “enforcing its long-standing API rules” and that this “may result in some apps not working” on Twitter … well … that’s it with any 3rd party app.

Tapbots reacted and quickly used their knowledge (and party of the code base?) for their new app Ivory, which is an app for Mastodon and which was released in an early state yesterday (for anyone who wants to read a review about that version, here is a nice and complete one by Federico Viticci on MacStories)

Now, why am I writing all this and started with my feeling and experience of using Mastodon? Actually I can quote a Mastodon post of Marco Arment from yesterday, as it exactly expresses how I felt and how I feel about the release of Ivory:

Before @ivory, Mastodon felt like a Twitter clone that I wasn’t really “getting”, bouncing between apps and not finding any that fit me.
With Ivory, Mastodon became not only a drop-in replacement for Twitter for me, but an upgrade that’s actually so much better than Twitter that I don’t think about it at all anymore.

Language connects us. Language connects one heart and mind to another mind and heart. Through space and time. Language transports meaning between minds, sense between bodies, it can make us understand each other and ourselves. It can make us feel what others feel. Language is a bridge.

⇾ Visit: The End of Writing

Tweetbot was the app of my choice for Twitter for most of the time since I started using Twitter in March 2007. I think it always was a reason that I still use Twitter nowadays, as I was able to see a chronological timeline and could filter the content the way I wanted it. Event though some features of Twitter have not been allowed on 3rd-party apps, I preferred using Tweetbot over the Twitter website or any official app that ever existed.

Now, like Twitterrific, Tweetbot was announced dead by Tapbots:

We’ve invested over 10 years building Tweetbot for Twitter and it was shut down in a blink of an eye. We are very sorry to all of our customers who chose Tweetbot as their way to interact with Twitter’s service and we thank you so much for the many years of support and feedback.

It might just be an app, but I find this very sad, as with this I can’t see myself using Twitter as before anymore. Maybe it is time to move on, like many others did already. And maybe the loss of those 3rd party apps only shortens my time of still being kind-of active on Twitter.

Let’s not look back, but forward and be excited by what is coming. Like using Mastodon instead and Tapbots Ivory – even though I can’t tell you anything about it yet as I never had a chance to get on the early access program.

See you there …