These are the next events I’ll be attending before the end of 2011 (a few more might pop in).

Will you attend any of them? If so, and if we haven’t met yet, drop me an email or tweet and let’s meet!

October 2011

November 2011

• 10 November
• London, UK

I can’t add much to what’s been said in the last hours about Steve Job’s passing (like Steven Levy’s article on Wired or Walt Mossberg’s “The Steve Jobs I Knew“). I’ll limit myself to sharing this video that originated the “Think Different” campaign which has the peculiarity of being masterfully narrated by Jobs himself (the aired version was narrated by Richard Dreyfuss).

Full transcript

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes.

The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them.

About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They invent. They imagine. They heal. They explore. They create. They inspire. They push the human race forward.

Maybe they have to be crazy.

How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art? Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written? Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?

We make tools for these kinds of people.

While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

R.I.P. Steve Jobs (1955-2011)

Actually not, but this article by Andy Budd from Clearleft (amongst other things, organizers of dConstruct), and the discusion it generated, is worth the read for event organizers (don’t miss the comments, at least the first bunch). The two original articles cited by Andy are linked below and have some interesting points to reflect on too.

A few extracts (bolds are my own):

As an individual or small company it is incredibly risky to put on events like this and I know numerous folks who have lost money on their conferences. As such, organising a conference isn’t the path to riches than many people suspect. In fact it’s an incredibly stressful endeavour that is just as likely to see organisers out of pocket. But people continue to organise these events because they love the industry and desperately want to put something back into the community. As such I really feel for these smaller conference organisers when people accuse them of not trying hard enough or profiteering.

The truth is that conferences are hugely costly to run and what seems like a massive profit to the untrained eye quickly fades to nothing. [...]

Like all things, it’s about the value proposition. [...]

I’ve learnt new skills which have allowed me to charge more for my time or at the very least help me out of tricky situations; I’ve met new business prospects and built a network of friends and associates who provide leads and recommendations; I’ve found new staff for my company and met many people who have found jobs via a similar mechanism; and these are just the tangible things. I’ve met speakers who have inspired me and had hallway conversations that have helped crystallize thoughts I’ve been having for months. I find myself explaining techniques or using concepts with clients that I know I picked up at conferences, although I can’t for the life of me remember which ones. There are so many benefits to attending a conference above and beyond the tangible; it’s difficult to put a dollar value on them.

Original article:

• Conference Nonsense by Andy Budd

Cited articles:

• 7 ways web conferences suck (and how to fix them) by Robert Hoekman Jr (BTW I agree with several of Robert’s points about many wrong practices by us event organizers, will comment on that soon)
• Is Conference Pricing Out of Control? by Jeffrey Way

Hat tip to folletto for pointing out this conversation.

Austin’s annual South By Southwest Interactive conference is bigger and glitzier than ever. Physically and virtually–even though it seems more fragmented this year.

But that’s not to say that it’s not full of lines and crowds as usual at SXSW.

Organizers of event, which started Friday and runs through Tuesday, said they expect a 30 to 40 percent increase in attendance from 2010′s 14,000 attendees.

SXSW has in recent years acquired a reputation as an ideal environment for launching social technology products, because it’s such a concentrated hotbed of socializing by people with smartphones.

But, honestly, it’s such a concentrated hotbed of socializing, these apps seem barely necessary.

Just walk around the streets and you’ll find relevant people and friends. In fact, schedule planning and friend finding are so fragmented across all these different apps, they’re almost superfluous.

Read full article at All Things Digital

Wired’s SXSW crew has pieced together a survival kit consisting of a handful of mobile apps designed to keep you on time, in the know and entertained.

Some are specific to the annual conference in Austin, Texas, which in past years has served as a launch pad for Twitter and other heavy hitters. Others will serve you well beyond Austin’s city limits.

Read the full article on Wired (in short, it recommends SXSW Go, Beluga, Lanyrd, Uber, Instagram, Sched, Foodspotting, Plancast and Shazam).

On this peek preview of the movie PressPausePlay, author and speaker Seth Godin goes back to the original stimulus for writing his influential book Unleashing the Ideavirus (download e-book). A great book to read or re-read if you haven’t done so in a long time and a very interesting movie to look forward to. Wish you all a remarkable weekend.