beyond tellerrand was a delightful experience both as a speaker and as an attendee. Marc’s attention to all aspects of the conference was a high-quality production from the moment we landed in Düsseldorf! Forever thankful to have been invited, I encourage everyone to try to attend!
Where do I start? I mean, I run this event for nearly ten years now. Every time you think ”That’s it. It can’t get any better” and then you end the show and read, listen to and see all this wonderful and nice feedback. Wow, just incredible and fills me with a very warm and lovely feeling. Surely I am feeling exhausted. Empty. Tired. But the positive energy predominates. Energy that comes from people saying that they met many new friends, had exciting conversations and that my little event might have changed their life, or, at least, how they look at their day to day jobs and how they work.
When I started beyond tellerrand, I never would have thought, that my event would have an impact for anyone. Honestly. I wanted to create a friendly and inspiring event, where people would feel welcome and spend two days with nice people. Two days, where they maybe could escape the daily routines and hectic. Two days, where phones and/or laptops mostly stay in their pockets and bags. Well, and now? I honestly feel like in a dream somehow. Thank you so, so much!
With this wrap-up post, I want to give anyone who has been at the event a chance to look at everything that happened again as well as having a source for those who could not be there to watch all the videos, see blog posts by other people from the event and have a look at the many photos that had been taken. As usual I am going to update this blog post with new material as long as I find it or as long as people send stuff to me. If you have or find anything related to this event, that is not listed already, please let me know. Thanks.
What I have recognised this year is, that many more people started using Instagram to document and talk about the event. Even though 2389 tweets had been made with the hashtag #btconf on Twitter, I had the feeling that more and more people use Instagram.
Interesting also: we had less people using the wifi than ever before. Maybe also because people were following the talks more intensively.
This year we had people from 24 26 countries in the house. Those countries, from A–Z, were: Argentina, Austria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Gambia, Germany, Greece, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Netherlands, Nigeria, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and United States. Wow.
14 wonderful volunteers were amongst those people. The core team is coming back for many, many years already and the names of those who helped running the event are: Alex, Andreas, Andy, Bartek, Daniela, Ewa, Jana, Jessica, Lisa, Patrick, Sven, Tom with Tanja (my lovely wife) and Guido leading the team. Absolutely fantastic to have such a stunning team. Thanks a lot!
On Saturday 11th and Sunday 12th, we already and as usual for the last five years met for the IndieWebCamp in Düsseldorf. Tantek and I organised this IWC and it once more was hosted by our friends at sipgate.
For the very first time our friends at Wacom hosted our Pre-Conference Warm-Up. All 200 tickets were taken and Wacom did an amazingly wonderful job of creating a friendly environment for us to meet and greet at the evening before beyond tellerrand. Wacom gave us a home and too care of us with drink, snacks and a DJ. Thank you so much!
We furthermore had four sessions between the regular schedule: a Breakfast Session with Liam Griffin for Shopify, one Lunch-Time Session by Christoph Reinartz for trivago, another Lunch-Time Session with Chris Heilmann and the Working Draft Podcast for Microsoft, and an Evening-Break Session with Fabien Benetou for Mozilla. Thanks everybody for the session!
Joschi Kuphal organised another Accessibility Club around beyond tellerrand. The first one in Düsseldorf and smaller than his conference in Berlin, but with around 70 attendees a well attended one with presentations and bar camp like sessions during the whole day.
This year Norman Posselt, Florian Ziegler, Juliane Schütz and Andreas Dantz officially took photos at the event, but other people shot some amazing photos as well. Anything I got or found so far is listed below.
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?).
Next to this Norman Posselt took portraits of each speaker after their talks. They are not available yet, but as soon as they are, I am going to link to them. A first version of the beyond tellerrand photo gallery is now ready and you can find the portrait right there
It is hugely 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.
We have got a Vimeo and a YouTube channel to host all our talks. Depending on what you like more, you can use the one or other. If you want a comprehensive link with not just the videos, bit also slides and transcription, then check the Düsseldorf 2019 archive. But here is everything detail also:
Everything that is missing above and that I am allowed to publish, like videos or transcriptions, will be added as soon as available.
All the people listed below made the effort to sit down and write something about beyond tellerrand. This means so much to me. Not only as it is quite some work and needs time to do this, but also as it is fantastic that they tell other people about the event. Thanks so much to everybody who has written something about beyond tellerrand Düsseldorf 2019:
Robert Katzki has written his personal view on this year’s edition. He summarises his favourite talks spiced up with a few photos. Thanks Robert!
Not a write-up, but Tobias Tom has written a little piece on “Digital Loneliness” when he was waiting for his flight back from Düsseldorf. And he is right, when his call to action after beyond tellerrand is ”Let’s fill the internet with life” ;)
Francesco Schwarz has created a very detailed summary of talks and things around the main schedule. Including Warm-Up, the guest appearance of Lord Mayor of Düsseldorf Thomas Geisel and Lunch-Time Sessions. Thank you!
In this article, Justin Avery started to write his personal wrap-up post. He also mentions his post-event feeling, which I use to call post-conference-blues ;) Thanks Justing for the write-up. Looking forward to seeing the full article.
Daniela Valero organised a CfP Global Diversity Day earlier this year on which I had to pleasure to lead everyone through the day and give a short presentation. Now she wanted to be part of the volunteer team in Düsseldorf and has written about her experience, attending and helping at the event. Part of her write-up is a detailed summary of the ”Ask me anything” session with Microsoft about the future of the Edge browser. Thanks for your help and the article, Daniela!
Also not really a write-up, but as a conclusion of having been at this year’s beyond tellerrand, Bastian Allgeier has brought his personal blog back to life. Yay for that!
Tom Arnold has written a few things about 2019’s btconf. First of he has picked Tantek’s talk called ”Take Back Your Web” to use this as call to action. Then he mentions Mike’s talk (thanks for your kind words, Tom). Last but not least he summarised the whole event including other talks in a post as well. I reckon Tom has no idea what it means to me, when he writes the following, but thanks so, so much for this, Tom!
Thank you Marc for doing this. Little did I know nine years ago how many friendships I would find through this event and how much I become reliant of this space where I feel part of a tribe, of not being alone in this constant struggle between (creative) longing and (economic) necessities and resisting the call of the centre of the comfort zone.
I left Düsseldorf with my head full of thoughts, inspiration, conversations and fun with some old friends, met interesting new people and had a very good time there.
My good friend Brendan Dawes has written a short article about the opening titles and assets, which he created for this event (see below). Thanks Bren!
Zach Leatherman has written a short note on his talk including links to the video of his talk as well as his slides. Thank you, Zach.
In this post by René Mäkeler you hear someone complaining about the chairs – well, if that is all, fantastic ;) Nah, honestly, René did a good job in summarising his favourite talks and has been there for the last three years. Looking forward to welcoming you back, René.
Niklas Barning has written down his thoughts in a German blog post. He has wrapped those thoughts up in two points about constrains and commercialising. Thanks Niklas.
This is a Dutch post by Kaj Rietberg. It wraps-up the favourite talks for Kaj, who has been at beyond tellerrand for the first time. Thank you, Kaj.
Charlie Owen has taken live notes during the talks. She herself gave an amazing opening talk as well. Thanks, dear Charlie.
Holger Bartel has written down his thoughts on last week’s edition of beyond tellerrand in Düsseldorf. He has attended the last 8 years in Düsseldorf. Thank you, Holger!
Rob Draper, one of the speakers this year and responsible for the t-shirt design and many of this year’s assets look and feel, has written a blog post about his experience at the show. It means a lot, that he says this about the event and the audience:
So pulling it all together, can completely see now why the event was so popular, Marcs passion is everywhere and its not hard to see why the event is so popular, I now feel like one of that family and I'll definitely be back.
Johannes Dachsel has summarised their impressions from atmosphere and talks in this German blog post.
Here we have Marcus Haunschild writing about his days at beyond tellerrand in Düsseldorf. One version is published on SelfHTML in German and another one in English on his own blog. Thanks so much for writing two blog posts about my event. And WOW from my end for saying
btconf2019 in Düsseldorf was the most inspirational event in my personal career.
Christian Huber has posted a very complete and detailed write-up on his blog. He also included the two Lunch-Time Sessions by trivago and Microsoft, the Breakfast Session by Shopify and the Evening Session by Mozilla. Not to forget that he also mentioned the Warm-Up at Wacom. Thanks a lot, Christian. Also for the warm words about beyond tellerrand!
Out friends from sum.cumo, who also have been part of the partner family this year in Düsseldorf, have written about their experience of beyond tellerrand in Düsseldorf 2019. They have summarised all talks in short notes in German and in English. Thanks!
Jeremy Keith has been to quite a few of my events now. It always is a great pleasure to have him on board. Speaking, attending and/or helping with Side Events like the IndieWebCamp. He has written about his impressions of las week’s beyond tellerrand and I happy – and a bit proud – that he says this about beyond tellerrand (thank you Jeremy!):
Marc somehow manages to curate a line-up that’s equal parts creativity and code; design and development. It shouldn’t work, but it does. I love the fact that he had a legend of the industry like David Carson on the same stage as first-time speaker like Dorobot …and the crowd loved ‘em equally!
Hashtag Social Media has posted a lovely and complete blog post about beyond tellerrand in Düsseldorf in French. Thank you!
Another well written and French blog post has been created by Glenn Carroy, Clélia Boursin-Bellot and Hélène Trouvé. They summarise their 2019 Düsseldorf experience in this details write-up. Thanks so much!
An article in a printed Magazine of the Film und Medien Stiftung NRW. This article includes a short wrap up of some of the talks at beyond tellerrand Düsseldorf 2019 as well as some insights about how and why I run this event. Thanks for this.
It was the first time for Matthias Beitl to attend beyond tellerrand and he has written me a lovely email with nice feedback and pointed to his blog post about the 2019 Düsseldorf show at cssence. He has written about his favourite talks, but also about the Break Sessions of trivago, Microsoft and Mozilla. Nice to hear, that they are relevant to people. Thanks for the time to write this, Matthias!
Brendan Dawes, who created the titles and a graphical theme for the 2019 Düsseldorf event (see below), has written about the idea and the process of the creation of the titles.
Stefan Rolfs and Alex Salder have written a late blog post in German about their experience at their second beyond tellerrand show. Thanks for your kind words and the effort of writing this!
The wonderful Rob Draper, also a speaker of this edition, has agreed to create the t-shirt design for Düsseldorf 2019. When I asked him, it was an instant Yes! and I got so many great drafts more or less immediately.
Inspired by a talk of David Delgado who has given the evening talk at this edition, I have chosen a phrase that Rob then put into a lovely design. “Stay Curious” was what we had chosen and I really, really love the t-shirt. Thanks so much Rob!
As stated earlier my friend Brendan Dawes created this year’s opening titles for Düsseldorf. He contacted me a while ago and asked, if anyone already would be doing the titles. I said no and he started thinking about it. Brendan created interference patterns with the help of Houdini and created a beautiful piece of work to open the event with. He has written a short post about what he used and what the idea behind the movie is.
Next to the titles, he created 15 A1 posters for the speakers and the event which covered the whole entrance area. He sent a set of rendered files as well for me to create all the assets for the event in a similar look and feel, like the price panels at the bars, animations for the exhibition, the slides for the stage and much more.
Thanks a lot for this, Brendan. Simply beautiful.
In 2013 Tobi Lessnow (aka Baldower) came to me with the idea of doing Audio Sketchnotes and he still is doing them and is part of the event as much as the speakers are. Tobi exclusively created another title song named ”We Are The Electronic Community” for the show and brought many new tracks. He sampled the speakers and created tracks for each of the speakers right after their talks. Great idea, still working perfectly for beyond tellerrand and – most importantly – with Tobi. Thanks you, Tobi, for being part of the family!
Andrew, sitting in Scotland, did an amazing job and live captioned all 13 talks. A direct audio connection sent the audio of all talks to him and he live captioned every word or the event that was spoken on stage. Thank you, Andrew!
Stefan Nitzsche and Andreas Brüggemann started to work on a documentary about beyond tellerrand a couple of months ago. This was the first of three cities we are going to cover (next to Munich and Berlin) and where we recorded material onsite the event. The outcome was a first trailer for the documentary, as announced here also. Of course I’d be happy, also in the name of Stefan and Andreas, if you spread it, if you like it.
Next to all the things that I have written, I am delighted that the Lord Mayor of Düsseldorf, Thomas Geisel, visited us on Monday to welcome the audience to Düsseldorf and show his appreciation. Thanks you!
This is all that I have and found up to now. Please help me and send anything you know of, what you find or what you have written or created about and since beyond tellerrand in Düsseldorf. This is a living archive of what happened in Düsseldorf at beyond tellerrand and what made me – and hopefully many of you – happy. Thanks a lot!
The next stop of beyond tellerrand is Berlin. Usually tickets would be on sale, but I still need to clarify a venue first. Feel free to join my newsletter to stay up to date.
Thank you once more for an unbelievable and wonderful time in Düsseldorf with a lot of memorable experiences and conversations. I hope to see you soon again!
Update 21 May 2019: added a blog posts by Holger Bartel, Rob Draper and Johannes Dachsel, added the trailer of the documentary
Update 22 May 2019: added two blog posts by Marc Haunschild and one by Christian Huber
Update 23 May 2019: added two countries I forgot, added a blog post by sum.cumo
Update 24 May 2019: added a blog post by Jeremy Keith
Update 06 June 2019: added a blog post in French by Hashtag Social Media
Update 07 June 2019: added a Frehcn blog post by Glenn Carroy, Clélia Boursin-Bellot and Hélène Trouvé
Update 14 June 2019: added Vimeo and YouTube links to Heydon and Shirley
Update 19 June 2019: added blog posts by Brendan Dawes and Matthias Beitl
Update 7 August 2019: added a blog post by Axel and Stefan of Comspace
Update 7 January 2020: added the link to the new photo gallery with portraits by Norman Posselt