Coverage and Wrap-Up for Düsseldorf 2017

Image of the whole theatre and the audience
The Capitol Theater with the lovely Düsseldorf 2017 audience. Photo by Martin Kraft.

Wow wow wow … I am sitting at the workshops in the office of our long-time friends trivago, during beyond tellerrand’s Düsseldorf edition 2017, while writing the first lines of this blog post and spent the morning reading tweets and feedback – this is May 17th. I am absolutely overwhelmed by the heart warming things you say about the event an me. Thanks a lot. That is very kind, nice and motivating.

In this blog post, I collect everything that I find or get and that might be valuable for those who have been there or could not make it. To not miss what you have written, created or found, you can please send me an email. That includes blog posts, photos, sketchnotes and so forth. I update this event as long as I find new stuff, which means, that you should track the updates.

A Few Facts – btconf in Numbers

As usual in this part of the blog post, I like to provide some more or less useful stats, which I also update, as soon, as I get more details about the event.

For a couple of years I use ConfWall, created by Remy Sharp, for beyond tellerrand. While #btconf was trending in the top 20 for three days, we generated 2472 tweets during the event.

Graphic of the wifi statistics at beyond tellerrand in Düsseldorf
A glimpse into the wifi stats – click for full details and image

As Hrvoje Tomić has written in his blog post (only small correction: 500 people, not 400+), the wifi worked well and my friends from Wifi Jack (aka EtherTec) worked silently in the background again to make this happen. Luc and Patrik sat backstage, avoiding the day light, and gave their best to work on a reliable connection. Not super fast, but more than enough to stay connected to the outside world. Though my personal opinion is, that we do not need a wifi at events, as it is much nicer to focus on the here and now and chat to people, it is really lovely to have a working wifi. Especially for people from foreign countries. The attendees boosted an astonishing 8.64 GB of traffic to Twitter – I mean, that’s 140 characters text only! A bit of work has been done as well, as you can see that file transfer and Dropbox are also roughly about 3.3 GB. In total we ended up at around 140 GB, which is not too bad, but I have seen higher usage already. Which speaks for the quality of the talks, I think.

Speaking about foreign countries, we had people from 17 different countries at #btconf in Düsseldorf. Amongst those countries a few have been from as far as Singapore, USA and Canada, but also lovely to see people from Macedonia and Croatia or most of our other neighbour countries. 12 volunteers from 3 different countries have been onsite and did hell of a job to run everything super smoothly. Thanks a lot once more at this point to Guido, Tanja, Jelko, Jana, Theresa, Lisa, Sandra, Eliza, Jessica, Gustav, Patrick and Celine.

Photo with a few of the volunteers at the event
Just great to have a reliable and great team in the back onsite – thanks. Photo by Martin Kraft.

Photos

As I said in the beginning, I think many more sources to blog posts and photos are going to follow. Here is what I found and what was sent to me already.

I have seen many more people with cameras at the event and hope, I will get more photos soon. If you made some, please let me know.

Blog Posts

I am quite early with my wrap-up post and therefore not as many blog posts as usual have been published yet, but blog posts by delegates or event partners and speakers are essential for an event like this. One part is to provide feedback through the post, which is great. Equally important is, that you spread the word about events like mine, where we don’t have a huge budget for advertisement. You won’t imagine how much this helps to keep beyond tellerrand alive. Therefore thanks a lot to all of you, who sit down to work and write a blog post with your summary or impression of the event. Right below, you find everything I got notice of so far.

  • Hrvoje of netgen has written a very nice summary of both days with a short note on all the talks and a bit of general information. He starts his write-up with ”Be creative, no creativity is a waste,” said Chris Heilmann on the first day of beyond tellerrand conference in Dusseldorf. Well, at this gathering of all kinds of creative people from digital industry, it sounded like home.” and ends with ”A great conference to attend!”. How lovely is that? Thank you, Hrvoje!
  • Ricardo of Votum summarises their favourite talks of this year in Düsseldorf in a nice and complete German write-up. He said “Wer sich nur über Standard-Webtechnologien informieren wollte oder lediglich schöne Designs erwartet hat, wurde auf der Beyond Tellerrand enttäuscht – denn den Besucher*innen wurde einiges mehr geboten.”, which translates to something like ”Those who expected standard information about web technologies or only beautiful designs only, would have been disappointed – as much more was offered for the attendees.” – cheers Ricardo!
  • Katharina from Oygo has been in Berlin already and checked out, how Düsseldorf is compared to Berlin. She summarised her favourite talks in this German blog post as well as she gave some general insights about the event. She wraps up with ”Auch dieses Mal waren die zwei Tage voller spannender Vorträge Gold wert.”, which means ”Also this time the two days full of exciting talks were worth gold.”. She mentioned that the goodies in Berlin were better though and I have to admit, I think the same. Usually over the seven years the partners always were really into trying to find something meaningful and/or useful for the attendees. I have to have a better eye on this again next time.
  • Andreas Sander writes, that he has been at beyond tellerrand three years ago the last time. I would have made a bet that it was not that long ago. Crazy. He has written a very personal blog post in his blog, not only summarising the talks, but also tells us a bit about who he met and what his experiences around the talks have been. I myself am very happy to read what he writes in his special thanks towards the end, as the things he says are those who fuel my engine to keep going with beyond tellerrand. But not only this. When he says ”Marc is not this kind of organizer doing everything in background and not showing up during the conf. He is always present, talking to everybody.”, he brings it to the core in terms of how I see my own way of running this event. I want to speak to everybody. I want the speakers to be approachable (as far as they like to) and won’t hide them in a backstage room. That is why we’re here, isn’t it? To share and experience, exchange ideas, inspire each other, chat, laugh and just enjoy the time at the event. Right? – So, thanks a lot Andreas.
  • My friend Chris Heilmann has posted his Slides and a few things around his talk as well as a write-up of his talk in a longer blog post – a good read. Next to always giving good talks and being reliable on this, it is nice to have Chris around at beyond tellerrand. Just as a person and because he is who he is.
  • Jeremy Keith has written about the IndieWebCamp days before beyond tellerrand in his blog
  • Amber Wilson has summarised her first conference experience in a short blog post. Joschi Kuphal and I created a small travel assistance fund to support people who love to attend the IndieWebWeek or/and beyond tellerrand. Amber was supported and I love to see how much fun she had.
  • On May 24 Calum Ryan published a blog post about his trip to Germany where he attended the IndieWebCamp in Düsseldorf, beyond tellerrand and took the train to Nürnberg with the IndieWeb people to also be part of Nürnberg's IndieWebCamp and Jeremy'y workshop. A nice little diary of what happened.
  • Juliane has taken a lot of great photos (see above) and wrapped up a full week of events for her with a short post, listing all photos again and showing what the juice of attending an event is.
  • Sandra and Kevin from Cybay New Media have been in Düsseldorf and have written about their impressions of beyond tellerrand in this German blog post.
  • Florenz Heldermann, someone who is attending beyond tellerrand for a couple of years now, has written a detailed German review and used the transcriptions to also get quotes out of talks. I like a lot that he also doesn't only focus on the content side of things, but on the interpersonal aspects of an event like this. Thanks Florenz.
  • Arnaud Poffe from Belgium has written this French review of the event. A few sentences about his favourite talks, some words about the atmosphere and why he liked it, spiced with a few photos. Thank you Arnaud!
  • Marco Hengstenberg was late to the blog post game, but hell, he wrote a super long, very nice and complete blog post in English and German. Wow. Thanks a lot Marco for your lovely write-up.
  • When you think, that maybe no other new blog post will drop in, you get another so lovely written blog post. Anastasiia Kozina has written about her experience and opens with a sentence, that I simply love: “You thought you knew everything about design & development and then you visited the Beyond Tellerrand conference and the world around you flipped.” – that's lovely, isn't it? Thanks a lot, Anastasiia, for the time you spent to write this article. I know how much work it is to think about all this and write it down.
  • I completely missed a German article published on May 19th already, which was spread by Foss & Haas on Instagram. They attendeed beyond tellerrand for the first time and recap what they learned and how they liked it. Luckily, they seem to have liked it and had some very nice words for the event. Thanks.
  • Matthias Ott has been at my little event a couple of times and has written a late conclusion of his experience and about three talks that are “three basic ideas on how you could depart from the beaten track”, plus he also has got some very lovely comments about my show … thank you, Matthias.

Videos, Transcriptions and Sketchnotes

The pages of past events automatically turn into an archive with all videos, links to the btconf Vimeo and YouTube pages and other coverage I have and get. Obviously this archive is the best and most compressed source to get the content of the event. Next to videos, sketchnotes, slides and songs (if Tobi produces them), you’ll also find the transcription to the corresponding talk on these pages as soon as they are finished.

All talks I am allowed to put online, were online right on the day when they were given. Great work by Brian, who is responsible for recording the videos. Here is what’s online so far. The link on the talk titles is leading to the beyond tellerrand archive with all coverage links as well.

At this point I want to thank Eva-Lotta Lamm again. She created amazing Sketchnotes during the event and I listed all of them below the links to the videos.

Most of the speakers nowadays say, that their slides without the talk often don’t make sense to be published standalone. Most of the times I agree, as the connection to what was said is missing. But as far as slides are provided, I am going to list them on the archive pages. But please notice, that all slides are included in the video of the talk using a split screen technology as well. Makes the most of sense in my personal opinion like this.

Next to the videos of the talks, there are other videos published. Sometimes interviews or reports from the event, but also content that was produced for or at the event. Like this:

In Berlin we started a series called Lunch-Time Sessions with our lovely partners from Microsoft and Shopify. In Düsseldorf we did the same and here are the videos:

Photo with people queueing for the Lunch-Time Session snacks
Lunch-Time Session – feeding time. Photo by Martin Kraft.

T-Shirts

Shirt design by Yuko Shimizu. On this photo you can see the volunteers color version.

This time I asked one of the actual speakers to design the shirts for the Düsseldorf edition. I am very happy and delighted, that Yuko Shimizu said yes and sat down, used ink and paper and has drawn a wonderful shirt design. As usual my mate Holger from Illhill printed the shirt and we went with a 3-color choice for each of the versions: white, yellow and a light blue on a navy blue shirt for the attendees and white, orange and blue on a diva blue shirt for the team/staff (links leading to our shop with left-over shirts).

When Yuko said yes, it was nice to see how the design evolved. We decided to set the actual periscope logo as the base and she sent three rough sketches of ideas. We agreed on one, fine-tuned the idea and then she started sketching the actual design. Yuko then teased us with details of the final artwork (which I love, as I like to keep the design stuff secret until attendees actually arrive at the event, but teasing is lovely). When I got the final piece, I was super happy. I had to tease people a bit more when Holger and I proof printed the final color decision on my beyond tellerrand Instagram account. I myself am absolutely pleased with the outcome and I have seen, that many people already have worn the t-shirt on the second day of the event – so it seems they liked it as well.

Thanks once more, Yuko!

Opening Titles and (most of the) Event Theme

Sebastian Lange, who created opening titles for many beyond tellerrand events already (and I always love them), was back after a short break to create some fantastic opening titles for Düsseldorf again. This year we managed to start quite early to stick our heads together and brainstorm a few ideas. I had a different idea in mind, which we did not throw away, but finally we went with his idea to set cute animals in strange perspectives to their environment any play with this. Sebastian did a fantastic job and I love the vibe and playfulness of the titles.

When I went to the venue to check a few things, I recognised that they had new poster frames in the windows where I planned to create some window stickers for. But instead of being sad, that I could not mount stickers onto the windows I thought wonderful: I gonna create a movie poster (thanks to Manuel for the photos) for each of the talks and speakers, using the theme of Sebastian’s titles and see if the attendees will recognise this while they pass them (we did not tell them about this). Worked out lovely and they had much fun discovering all the little details throughout the event.

But enough happiness and playing around. Check the opening titles:

Audio und Podcasts

Sketchnotes in Music – that is how Tobi once described his idea, when he called me and came up with what he does since 4 years now. Many people record him during the show. Dancing, singing, freaking out on stage (thought of putting him in a cage under the ceiling). I love having Tobi around, being special, being part of the atmosphere and making the event more colourful than it is already. I wish, I would have the budget to get all songs of the events produced always, but somehow it also is nice to have, what he does, for the moment. Everything he released from past years is online here. Everything he is going to release will also be there and in our archive (and here of course). Oh and btw: I headlined this paragraph Audio on purpose as Tobi creates more than just Music.

Tobi Lessnow danying while making music for beyond tellerrand
Tobi Lessnow aka Baldower in full action. Photo by Andreas Dantz.

A few of the attendees also use the chance to make interviews or record a podcast, which I really like and support. The German Working Draft podcast recorded their revision 301 and interviewed Jens Oliver Meiert. Well worth listening to. I know that Stefan Baumgartner interviewed Phil Hawksworth for a podcast, but up to now I have no idea where he is going to publish it – I’ll update this. Furthermore Vasilis van Gemert interviewed Espen Brunborg for his podcast The Good. The Bad. The Interesting.

Marc Thiele on stage with a slide saying “you!”
Thank “You!”. Photo by Andreas Dantz.

As said before: as soon as I get new coverage, I will add it to this blog post and keep a log of what changed and when it changed below this post, so that you directly see what is new. Thanks again for everybody who made the event in Düsseldorf what it was. I had a very good and lovely time.

Update 24 May 2017: added a Flickr set of #btconf photos by Juliane Schütz and a blog post about the IndieWebCamp by Jeremy Keith

Update 25 May 2017: added the transcription for talks of Chris Heilmann and Sharon Steed

Update 27 May 2017: added a blog post by Amber Wilson and by Calum Ryan

Update 28 May 2017: added the transcription for Jina’s talk

Update 29 May 2017: added the transcriptions for the talks of Nadieh and Phil and a podcast of Vasilis van Gemert

Update 8 June 2017: added a short wrap-up post by Juliane Schütz, a blog post by Sandra Klöppner and all transcriptions to the videos of the talks

Update 16 June 2017: two more blog posts added – one by Florenz Heldermann and one by Arnaud Poffe

Update 28 June 2017: added a blog post by Marco Hengstenberg

Update 3 July 2017: Added a new blog post by Anastasiia Kozina

Update 10 July 2017: Added a new blog post by Matthias Ott and one I missed by Foss & Haas

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Advanced Typography and Letterpress – two workshops in Berlin
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