18 days to ThingsCon

Over on the @ThingsCon twitter account I just sent out a tweet:

T minus 18 days to go! Sign up today at http://thingscon.com

Eighteen days to the event. And even though there are still (always) tons of loose ends, we’re now down to the polish. The program kicks ass, the speaker lineup is truly humbling, the team is well organized.

It is so much easier this year. Almost indescribably so. Last year, same time, I was heavily involved in not one but three events that would all go down almost back to back: NEXT, which I curate; UIKonf, which I co-chaired that year; and on top of that, ThingsCon, which we had just launched that year on short notice ]and completely bootstrapped.

Last year, between all the conversations, the spreadsheets, the emails, all about similar topics (speaker travel, logistics, location details, etc.), spread thin between three different conferences (and hence, contexts) it got so confusing, and I so tired, that I put up a long hand-written list inside our apartment door: A day-by-day list of which conference is on today, at which location, and where would I have to go when leaving the house. It was insane. It’s the constant, fast context-switching that gets to you. It’s exhilarating, but it makes you feel slightly insane.

This year is, by comparison, a walk in the park. I’m still involved in three conferences (ThingsCon, NEXT, Interaction16), but they’re spread out more or less evenly over a year.

So this time, I can (kinda) lean back and enjoy the show, and maybe even chat a bit with participants, speakers, partners and journalists. Which is a lot of fun, and a good part of why I’m doing this. Besides, y’know, working on meaningful things, as my fellow ThingsCon organizer Simon said so well.

So anyway, I hope to meet you at ThingsCon. If you come by, make sure to say hi, I’d love to chat with you.

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