One of the most sincere and thoughtful conferences I've experienced.
Wrap-Up and Coverage for Berlin 2019
Well, what a ride! Berlin’s sixth edition is over and all my fear before running it, about the new venue, having no setup day and so on … not needed. But let’s start from the beginning.
After 5 years of hosting the Berlin edition of beyond tellerrand in the Admiralspalast’s Studio, I had to find a new venue. I checked 34 different venues in Berlin and finally ended at the Festsaal Kreuzberg (long story, please ask me, if you are interested). My gut told me, that it would be the right place to run it. But you will only know, if you do it. But my thoughts were ”Will people like the new venue?”, ”It is three times more expensive, will I make enough money to pay the bills?”, “Will I be able to create the atmosphere, the event is known for?” and so on. We also did not have an extra setup day before the event, which means we had to set up on the first event day very early in the morning.
Luckily all this worked out, which brought a few tears to my eyes, when I watched the opening titles, so that Jeremy had to give me a hug, making it possible to enter the stage for the opening welcome.
I myself and at least everybody I spoke to and who gave me feedback had two fantastic days with a very diverse mix of topics. It is such a warm and good feeling to see, that it is a little island to relax and get together to watch some great talks and exchange with nice people. Thanks so much to everybody for creating this together with me!
This blog post will be a long one and is meant to be the central archive and collection of everybody related to the 2019 Berlin show: blog posts, photos, drawings, sketchnotes, videos, talk coverage with slides and videos and more. Everything I get will be included here and I update the post as long, as someone sends me content for it. If you have taken photos, written anything, took notes or whatever is related to this: please let me know. Thanks!
Some Stats and Facts
I already recognised in Düsseldorf this year, that more and more people use Instagram instead of Twitter for their photos and little messages during an event. That impression got even stronger with Berlin’s edition. We had 1769 tweets and about 220 Instagram posts. Interesting to see that people on Twitter were more active on the first and on Instagram on the second day. May the content was more visual on the second day? 🤔
I tracked the text “btconf”, “#btconf” and “#btconf2019”, as those are usually the most used. I hope I did not miss any. Lovely to see the bump before the two event days. That is when my excitement usually reaches its maximum. People traveling to the event and posting about it. So nice. Of course during the show many people write about it, which you can see at the two spikes of day 1 and day 2. You can also clearly see the lunch break on both days ;). On Saturday and Sunday after the event many people still were posting nice things about the event, which I did not capture in this graph.
The Wifi this year was ok, but not as good as in the past. Even though we had a faster line. That was, because my friends from Wifi-Jack weren’t allowed to touch the hardware in the venue, I think. They always do a really goo job on balancing everything and having an eye on the traffic. Already talking to the venue to have them on board for the next Berlin show.
This time in Berlin I had the honour to welcome people from 24 different countries. From A–Z those were: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Benin, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Denmark, Estland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Republic of Macedonia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom and United States. I never would have thought that at any point people from so many different countries would travel to a party I invite to ;)
14 absolutely wonderful volunteers were helping for beyond tellerrand Berlin 2019. Most of them are coming back for many, many years already and the names of those who helped running the event this time are: Andreas, Andreas, Andy, Gustav, Jana, Lulu, Mpumi, Patrick, Simon, Smilla, Steinn Einar and Tom with Tanja (my lovely wife) and Guido leading the team. Absolutely fantastic to have such a stunning team. Thanks a lot!
Photos
This year Norman Posselt and Florian Ziegler were the only two, officially taking photos at the event. I hope to get a few shots from attendees as well, but I haven’t seen many people with a camera. Anything I got or found until now is listed here.
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Florian Ziegler joined again and took his lovely black and white shots showing the event from a different angle. Not only shots of the speakers or the attendees, but some intimate shots from behind the scenes as well. What I like is, that you rarely spot him taking his photos, which makes it easy to feel comfortable.
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Norman Posselt and Stefan Nitzsche took photos during our Saturday letterpress workshop at p98a. A great set to bring back the memories of the day, printing at the wonderful space of Erik Spiekermann and Jan Gassel.
Norman also took portraits of all the speakers again. I still have to finish the gallery to publish those from Düsseldorf, but Bastian Allgeier has created a gallery already which I can use to set up a gallery with and for the fantastic portraits by Norman.
If you search for btconf on Instagram you also find a lot of photos. Sadly I am too stupid to sort them chronological (is there a way?).
For me it is totally important to have photos of many people. They not only help to bring back memories, but also show the different view on the event, that each photographer has. I love seeing people interact, laugh, have fun, and exchange. If you took any photos, please let me know and I will happily add them.
Videos and Other Material
You generally find all videos, also from the past 9 years, in our Vimeo or YouTube channels.
Furthermore I always create a playlist on YouTube and a showcase on Vimeo for each event, where you only see videos related or released at this event.
If you prefer a comprehensive archive with not just the videos, but also slides and transcription, then check the Berlin 2019 archive. But here is everything detail also:
- Charlotte Dann with Taking the Web off the Screen
- Cassie Evans with Interactive Web Animation with SVG
- Anna Ginsburg with Spinning Aubergines, Talking Genitals and the Oldest Women in the World
- Aaron Gustafson with Conversational Semantics
- Mike Hill with The Story of You
- Jeremy Keith with The Layers of the Web
- Seb Lester with Peace, Hellfire & Unicorns
- Jason Pamental with Dynamic Typography with Variable Fonts
- Burton Rast with On Finding Purpose
- Natalya Shelburne with CSS at the Intersection
- Sharon Steed with Engaging Empathy
- Wilfrid Wood with Headbuilder
Everything that is missing above and that I am allowed to publish will be added as soon as available. If a YouTube video is not yet available, please use the Vimeo link, as I scheduled YouTube to release one video each day until 28 November.
Makuyuni – We Are Building a School
Something that makes my heart smile is: we are building a school together! With the help of everybody at beyond tellerrand Berlin 2019 we made it happen. We collected €7500 to build a complete classroom with Makuyuni. This is amazing and shows how fantastic our community is.
I am absolutely proud that Jan and Andi managed to collect the whole money for a classroom and we are able to help them bringing education to a part of the world, where that is not as given as in our area. Some of the attendees event went and donated more than once, when seeing that our goal still wasn’t hit. You are absolutely amazing! Thank you!
We’ll keep you posted about the project, about what is created with your/our money and how the process is moving forward. I will also sit down with them to write about this in a little extra blog post. Right now them as well as I are still overwhelmed that we were able to reach our target. ❤️
Blog Posts & Other Coverage
It means a lot to me, when people sit down and write about what they experienced. I know that this takes time and time seems to be rare these days. For me, as the one organising the event, it is fantastic that they tell other people about it and maybe motivate the one or other person to also drop in.
Thanks so much to everybody who has written something about beyond tellerrand Berlin 2019:
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Suzan Vestner-Ludwig, who – next to being an attendee many times – has been a volunteer once, has written down her thoughts on the first Berlin edition in our new home. Thanks a lot Suzan for taking the time for this!
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Oscar, also a returning attendee, expressed in his blog post that he had a fantastic time. But Oscar had his problems with the conclusion of one specific talk and explains why. Thanks for expressing your concerns and reasons in that way.
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Eva-Lotta Lamm has spoken at my events already and we share a lot of memories when it comes to events, business and friendship. This time she has created a couple of sketchnotes to memorise the talks she attended. Next to this she has written short recap telling us, that she ”[…]enjoyed most, was meeting lots of old friends, making new acquaintances, having long funny, serious, interesting, open and inspiring conversations, being hugged and hugging people from the heart, sharing a drink and laughs. I'm happy and lucky to be part of this community.[…]”. That is wonderful. Thanks a lot for your sketchnotes and in general for being part of my beyond tellerrand journey!
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In this article Stephanie Stimac finds some lovely words for my little event as well as how I run it (thank you!), but she also was part of the evening break program. The Web We Want aims to bring people at events together to present their needs and ideas to the audience. An interesting approach that – in my eyes – gets not enough attention at events. Stephanie has written about the idea of it and how it went.
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For the third time Bitgrip from Berlin came to the event. This time with a total of 31 people, which amazed me. It was nice that they came to me during the event to say hello and make a photo with all of them and me in it. Next to this they hosted and sponsored the Kirby Workshop this year. Now Kai Dahlke sat down and has written a (German) blog post with a general summary about their time at beyond tellerrand and a short note their favourite talks. Danke sehr vor summarising your thoughts and experience!
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Nadine Roßa came and did some of her amazing sketchnotes. Have a look yourself … and thanks Nadine ;)
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Mario Köster sent me a link to his blog post summarising his favourite talk and drawing a short conclusion about what makes beyond tellerrand special for him. Thanks for the kind words, Mario!
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Tish Pickover came from Cape Town, South Africa and attended the sixth beyond tellerrand in Berlin. She has not been there before and has written a very detailed and lovely recap of her first #btconf. Thanks you for your kind words and I am happy the trip was worthwhile!
That’s it for now. But I am sure I have to add the one or other bit here over the next couple of days and weeks. Come back and check out if anything was added (I make a note on the bottom of the post about it).
Opening Titles, Event-Theme and Assets
Rob Draper, who also spoke at this years Düsseldorf edition and created the design for the t-shirts of Düsseldorf, was kind enough to say yes once more to create some of his wonderful work for the Berlin show. This time he agreed to create the opening titles and other assets based on what we started in Düsseldorf. He’d use a brush and golden paint to draw all the speaker names which made some fine Opening Titles together with the song Tobi created for the film.
I addition Rob scanned the painted speaker names, so that I was able to use them on A1 movie posters and on stage at the conference wall to announce the next speaker. Next to this, he created other assets, like the big “Welcome” in the same painted style, so that I have been able to use everything in the same style and theme. Thank you so much for doing this Rob. You know this always means a lot to me!
And now enjoy the Opening Titles of Berlin 2019:
T-Shirt Design and Other Assets
Bkopf once more created a stunning and fitting design for the t-shirts of the 2019 Berlin show. When I say ”once more” you might ask, which the other one was. He also did the t-shirt design for our very first gig in Munich back in 2018. This one was different and that is great.
Thanks Daniel, for creating this unique t-shirt for beyond tellerrand again.
Audio Design
Well and then there is Tobi. Going wild on stage, creating his sound for beyond tellerrand since 2013. Tobi Lessnow (aka Baldower) exclusively created a theme song for beyond tellerrand Berlin 2019 titled ”Intervention”. As usual, he sampled the speakers and created tracks for each of the speakers right after their talks. This idea still works, amazes people and fits perfectly to the idea of beyond tellerrand. Thanks Tobi, for being a friend and helping to create an atmosphere, the event is known for.
Live Captions
Like in Düsseldorf already, Andrew, sitting in Scotland, did a crazy job and live captioned all talks again. A direct audio connection sent the audio of all talks to him and he live captioned every word was spoken on stage. Thank you, Andrew! And as many in the room agreed to: we have to get you over at some point, to show us your magic live. ;)
The Documentary aka “This Is What I Want To Do”
Stefan Nitzsche and Andreas Brüggemann are following me with camera and microphone for roughly a year now. They released a first trailer during the 2019 Düsseldorf event. Back then they weren’t sure about a title and simply work-titled it ”beyond tellerrand – A Documentary”. Now, six month and many takes and interviews later, the have a second trailer and a title for the whole project as well, which is …
This Is What I Want To Do
I can’t judge really, as this film is about beyond tellerrand and me, but I quite like the title. 😊
But now, watch the second trailer and tell me – no better: tell them via email – or comment below the video itself – how you liked it.
Phhhheww … this is it so far. I still have to work on this wrap-up a little bit, but this is what I found and got so far. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch, if you have something or found something. Happy to add it directly. This should be a living archive of what happened in Berlin 2019 at beyond tellerrand and what made me – and hopefully many of you – happy. I am not tired to repeat myself about what a wonderful audience you have been. Thanks for joining me and the team on our adventure!
The next stop of beyond tellerrand is Düsseldorf 2020. Tickets are on sale and a little more than 1/3 is gone already. Don’t wait too long and join us for the 10th show in the city where it started.
Thank you one last time for an incredible and wonderful time in Berlin with a lot of enjoyable memories. I hope to see you soon again!
Update 22 November 2019: added blog posts by Mario Köster and Tish Pickover
Update 24 November 2019: added photos of Steffen Mumm to Makuyuni paragraph
Update 29 November 2019: started to add audio-only versions of talks, added slides of talks, where I have them
Update 2 December 2019: added Slides of Charlotte Dann, added audio-only version of the talk by Aaron Gustafson
Update 5 December 2019: added audio-only version (podcast) of the talk by Cassie Evans
Update 18 December 2019: added the first transcript to Jeremy’s info, more coming soon
Update 6 January 2020: added transcripts for Cassie Evans, Aaron Gustafson, and Wilfrid Wood. And after that also the one by Natalya Shelburne – Happy New Year!
Update 7 January 2020: added the link to the new photo gallery with portraits by Norman Posselt
Update 8 January 2020: added transcript for Charlotte Dann’s talk
Update 20 January 2020: added transcript and audio-only version for for Sharon Steed
Update 21 January 2020: added audio-only version of the talk be Mike Hill and transcript of his talk
Update 22 January 2020: added audio-only version of the talk by Jasonm Pamental
Update 23 January 2020: added audio version of the talk by Natalya Shelburne
Update 28 January 2020: added audio-only version of the talk by Charlotte Dann