Michael Flarup recently wrote about what he calls The Comeback of Small Conferences. After attending two very different events back to back – Arctic Conference in Oulu, Finland, and the inaugural Tokyo Design Forum in Shibuya – he noticed the exact same thing happening in both places: people travelling long distances, not just for the talks, but for everything around them. The conversations, the shared experiences, the feeling of being part of something, even if only for a few days. What struck him was that these weren’t isolated cases of talented organisers making great events. They were the response to something happening around us. We are living through one of the biggest technological transitions humanity has ever faced, and the uncertainty of where we are headed makes people ask questions. Those conversations happen online, but the environment in fragmented communities on platforms (aka social media) designed for reach often produces more anxiety than closure, in my opinion.

There’s a realness that comes from meeting your peers face to face. All of the fluff that so often surrounds online discourse falls away. There is no hype, just passion. No engagement hook, just curiosity.

Instead of making followers, you make friends. (Michael Flarup)

“Small” events optimise for signal over noise. Fewer people. More conversations. Perspective is hard to get through a screen. It is easier in a room.

Also Sophie Koonin wrote a piece last year already which is simply titled You Should Go to Conferences. It’s direct, it’s generous, and it makes the case plainly: conferences are a fantastic way to not only broaden your horizons when it comes to your job and your skills, but also meet people who might lead you to a new role, or new experiences. She also touches on something I know all too well from the organiser’s side: since the pandemic, everything has become more challenging. Everything is more expensive. Companies have been tightening their belts and people are buying tickets later and later, making it genuinely unclear whether events will sell enough to go ahead. She mentions beyond tellerrand, my own event, specifically and links to something I wrote about the state of events in 2024. It means a lot when people in the community take the time to reflect on these things publicly.

The talks are obviously very important, but one of the best things about conferences is the "hallway track" – that is, meeting and chatting to like-minded folks. (Sophie Koonin)

Well and then there is the recap of my own talk at T3CON24, written up by the TYPO3 team: Why Independent Community Events Matter. It covers territory I care deeply about. At large corporate-sponsored events, feedback is considered in aggregate. At smaller independent ones, individual critique will actually be heard and implemented. And when people see their feedback being listened to, they become more thoughtful about the criticism they offer. That loop, the one between organisers and the community, is one of the things that makes independent events worth protecting.

Those events also have greater freedom to experiment, to welcome underrepresented groups and to provide a platform for diverse voices that may be excluded from corporate events often curated with a particular brand image in mind. That freedom is fragile, though. It depends on people actually showing up. On buying tickets early. On convincing employers that sending someone to a “small” conference has real value, even if the ROI is harder to put in a spreadsheet.

What all three pieces above share is a recognition that something real is happening and needs to happen: a kind of recalibration, a reaching toward contact and community after years of screen saturation. A conference is one of the few places where a scattered online community briefly becomes real. There is no hype, just passion. No engagement hook, just curiosity. Instead of making followers, you make friends, as Michael says.

I am running beyond tellerrand for fifteen years now. [Düsseldorf is coming up this April](beyondtellerrand.com/events/dusseldorf-2026/. If you've been thinking about going to a conference – any conference, not just mine – I want to encourage you to stop thinking and book the ticket now. The community that shows up for these events is the community that keeps them alive. Especially in times where finding sponsors for an event is tough.

Michael also published a longer companion piece, The Conference Playbook, which goes deep on what makes a good conference. Worth bookmarking if you organise events or are thinking about it. And if you know of other articles on this theme, please send them my way.

I collected these links to write a blog post at some point, but did not get to the point writing it, yet. Now, to make use of my list already, before getting to the point finally writing a blog post about public speaking, I have sorted my notes and list them here in no specific order. And I am going to let you know as soon as the actual blog post is done. Plus I am, of course, adding new resources any time I find something new.

Writing a Proposal

• Conference Proposals that Don’t Suck by Russ Unger for A List Apart
• How to Write a Compelling Proposal at the WAAA Blog
• Is Your Conference Proposal Good Enough? by Raquel Vélez
• An Addendum About Conference Proposals at Voodoo Tiki God
• What Your Conference Proposal Is Missing by Sarah Mei
• Sample Proposals by O'Reilly

Writing About Yourself aka Writing Your Bio

• A video by Danielle Barnes about Crafting Your Biography
• Writing a Personal Bio
• 11 tips on how to write your personal bio on BrandYourself
• How to Write a Short Professional Bio on TutsPlus

Writing and Preparing a Talk

• How To Give the Killer Tech Talk — A Pamphlet by Jan Lehnardt
• How to prepare and write a tech conference talk by Lena Reinhard
• A video by Saron Yitbarek about "Your Perfect Tech Talk"
• 7 best practices for giving a conference talk by Vicky Brasseur
• The Exhaustive Guide to Preparing Conference Presentations by Angie Arriesgad
• “How I write conference talks” by Ethan Marcotte.
• “Preparing a Conference Talk” by Jeremy Keith

Creating Slides

• The Art of Slide Design: Make Important Information Stand Out by Melinda Seckington
• The Art of Slide Design: Maximise Signal, Minimise Noise by Melinda Seckington
• A white-label slide deck by Alice Bartlett
• Preparing slides by Lale Byquist
• Top Ten Slide Tips by Garr Reynolds
• 10 tips on how to make slides that communicate your idea on the TED blog

General Public Speaking Tips (covering the above often as well):

• Tips for giving talks online by Juha-Matti Santala
• Shy introvert's (short) guide to speaking in conferences by Juha-Matti Santala
• How to Discover Conferences To Speak At by Melinda Seckington
• The Importance of Using White Space... In Your Talks by Melinda Seckington on her blog
• 10 Tips for Improving Your Public Speaking Skills by Marjorie North on the Harvard website
• How To Become A Better Speaker At Conferences – an article by Andy Budd for Smashing Magazine
• How to Become a Public Speaker in 1 Year – a lovely 10-step guide, covering a lot of topics. By Catt Small
• Public speaking – no one likes it at first! a short video by Karen Catlin
• Seb Lee-Delisle created a blog post in 2014 in which he states his way of dealing with and asking for an honorarium for a talk.
• What I wish I knew when I first started speaking internationally – a Medium post by Amber Case
• 9 tips to help you rock your first (or next) conference presentation – a post on Inside Design by Jennifer Aldrich
• What You Need to Know About Speaking at Conferences – a pretty complete post by Ashe Dryden
• The Best Advice on Public Speaking – a podcast with a variety of guests giving tips on public speaking
• Public Speaking Articles on Ladies in Tech
• Public Speaking Podcast on Ladies in Tech
• A website dedicated to Thoughts on public speaking by Zach Holman
• Des Traynor on How to get started at conference speaking
• An article at the Guardian titled How to crush stage fright and become a master in public speaking
• Presentation Skills is a website with many tips by Lale Byquist
• Breaking into the speaker circuit is a blog post by Andy Budd
• The Rectangle Behind You is a series of posts by Marcin Wichary about public speaking and presentations
• Getting Started In Public Speaking: Global Diversity CFP Day – a post on Smashing Magazine by Rachel Andrew
• Rebecca Murphey has written down her Speaker Notes with a lot of insightful help about public speaking
• The Ultimate Guide To Memorable Tech Talk – a Medium post by Nina Zakharenko
• Dave Rupert writes about a bad experience with public speaking and how to deal with problem (he had) in When Public Speaking Goes Wrong
• Oliver Schöndorfer has written (in German) about what he can – and has to – do to get more female speakers on stage.
• In this two-part post in German, Oliver Schöndorfer writes about his experience of finding a topic and proposing this to an event. He writes about the process of asking himself why he has not and if he wants to get on stage, his first steps when he decided he wants to get on stage and common pitfalls. Spiced with a lot of General help and useful tips. This way, please: Part 1 and Part 2.

Getting Information to the Organiseres

• Matthias Ott has written a speaker rider on his own website on which he does what you know from working with bands – if you ever have done this: these are the circumstances under which I come and speak at your event. Friendly, clear, informative – all you need to know as an organiser.
• It also is important to show the organiser that you did your homework and are prepared. Next to knowing the name of the person you are writing and at least having had a look at the event’s website this means to make up your mind what kind of event you want to speak at. Ethan Marcotte has written this blog post in which he lists his questions he asks any organiser when being contacted.

Books

• Demystifying Public Speaking by Lara Hogan (links to A Book Apart, no affiliate link)
• Talk Like TED: The 9 Public Speaking Secrets of the World's Top Minds by Carmine Gallo (links to German Amazon site, no affiliate link)
• Public Speaking for Success by Gale Carnegie (links to German Amazon site, no affiliate link)
• Medium post with 7 book recommendations
• (link: https://christianheilmann.com/2013/06/20/a-few-tricks-about-public-speaking-and-stage-technology/ text: Good article by Chris Heilmann about pitfalls and how to avoid them (amongst many other good points)

That's it for now, but I am pretty sure I gonna update it regularly. It would be wonderful, if you send me an email in case you have more links, books or anything that completes this list to learn about public speaking and presenting on stage.

I directly added it to my collection of useful things for public speaking.

I had a fantastic time. In Many ways. Here are my photos of Web Day Out 2026 in Brighton. (#WebDayOut)

I’ve been celebrating as of late, as at the start of the month on the 6th February, it was exactly 25 years since first registering my domain name jam-factory.com, which means it’s been a quarter of a century making stuff under the name of “Jamfactory”! I put together a wee video edit, cataloguing 25 years of passion projects […]

Here is the article and the video.

Congrats on 25 year of “making the all the stuff that absolutely no one asked for” my friend!

This video is part of a campaign by the Norwegian Consumer Council for its campaign “Breaking Free” against consumer-unfriendly “enshittification”.

Well, let’s work on it and find that guy!

So, I thought I’d sit down and write out the checklist that I usually keep in my head. It’s (hopefully) a practical list of things for podcasters because I’m sure others have been in the same situation like me, aka “forgetting small details”.

I considered making a separate checklist for guests, but in the end I figured it’s enough for me to have it and simply check in with my guests about the key points. Either via email before the recording or in our chat before. And no, I don’t go through it like an interrogation. That’s just not how I work ;)

A Pre-Talk

I don’t include content preparation in this checklist. A pre-talk, whether written, via email, or a quick (video) call, can even happen right before recording in my opinion.

In this pre-talk, you should let your guest know what they can expect and how you usually run your interview. Tell them how long your episodes typically are or if your format isn’t time-bound at all for example.

It’s also not a bad idea to ask if there are taboo topics or things your guest would prefer not to talk about. This saves awkward pauses during recording, or painful edits later.

Ask whether they’d like to listen to the recording before it goes live, just in case something unintentionally slipped in that makes them uncomfortable. Most people usually say say no anyways, but asking is just nice, isn’t it?

Finally, share the planned publication date.

Your Own Content Prep

Again, I don’t put actual content preparation into the checklist. I focus mostly on the technical stuff here. But of course, doing your homework about your guest is part of being a good host. Especially in interview formats, spending a little time learning about who your guest actually is makes the conversation flow better.

Recording Checklist (For You and Your Guest)

Here’s what I check before and during the recording session:

Mic & Sound

• Is there a good microphone available?
  • No: What’s the alternative? Usually a headset mic, like the ones that come with an iPhone, sounds way better than most laptop mics. Less room echo, and your guest can wear headphones right away.
  • Yes: Which mic? Make sure your guest knows how to position it. I once didn’t pay attention to this, and my guest spoke into the mic like a stage mic (e.g., Shure SM58), when it was actually meant to be spoken across the side.

Headphones

• Always use headphones.
  • It doesn’t matter what kind, but not using them risks echo from the guest’s mic picking up your voice. That creates really nasty feedback sounds later which are hard to edit and get rid of.

Room Acoustics

• Choose a room with as little reverb as possible.
  • Not always doable, sure, but if your guest is mobile and you realise the room sounds like a train station, ask if there’s another space.

Water

• Have a glass of still water ready.
  • This helps avoid smacking and dry-mouth sounds during the recording.

Noise Control

• Remind your guest to:
  • Close windows
  • Turn off notifications on all devices
  • Mute their phone
    Basically avoid any distractions or noise before pressing record.

Final Comfort Check

• Quick check-in:
  • Are they comfortable?
  • Is headphone volume okay?
  • Is your voice clear to them?

Start Recording — Locally Too

• Once everything’s good, start the local recording and explain it briefly if needed. Even if you’re using software like Riverside, Zoom, or similar, record locally too! It’s your safety net and usually gives you the best sound quality.

That’s it. Hopefully this checklist helps create smooth, fun, and well-sounding episodes. Got additions or experiences that make your workflow even better? Hit me up! I’d love to hear from you! hello@this-website-address

State of the Browser, London (UK)

State of the Browser, or SOTB in short, is an annual one‑day tech conference in London organised by London Web Standards (mainly Dave Letorey) that brings together web developers, browser vendors, and community members to discuss the modern web, accessibility, web standards, tools, and best practices. It typically features a single track of diverse talks covering topics like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, UX, and performance. The event takes place at Barbican Centre and can be attended in person (sold out!) or online.

📆 28 February 2026
💰 £60–£100 (~€70–€115) – online £20 (~€23)
👉 More information on their website.

Web Day Out, Brighton (UK)

Web Day Out is a one‑day, in‑person event in Brighton. It aims to teach web developers and designers what they can actually do with web browsers today by diving deep into practical HTML, CSS, and JavaScript platform features you can use in production. It features a curated lineup of speakers giving hands‑on talks about browser capabilities, performance, accessibility, and progressive enhancement and intentionally avoids sessions on frameworks or theoretical topics. It’s organised by Clearleft (mainly Jeremy Keith) and designed to help attendees stay up to speed with the current state of the web platform in a single day.

📆 12 March 2026
💰 £225 (~€260)
👉 Tickets and information
👀 beyond tellerrand Podcast with Jeremy Keith, also about Web Day Out

Smashing Conference, Amsterdam (NL)

SmashingConf Amsterdam 2026 is our friendly, inclusive multi‑day conference. This time in Amsterdam, targeting UX designers, UI engineers and front‑end professionals who focus on real‑world design, usability, accessibility, modern CSS, design systems and related web and interface topics. It takes place at the historic Pathé Tuschinski and combines talks and deep‑dive workshops. Single‑track and social side events help attendees learn practical skills and network. We also offer an online attendance option so people worldwide can join live.

📆 13–16 April 2026
💰 €725 (Students €362), Workshops €665
👉 Full information and tickets

beyond tellerrand Düsseldorf 2026 (GER)

beyond tellerrand. My little baby. My passion and my joy. I run this event for 15 years now and want to celebrate. With you. I have announce a handful of speakers for this year already and it is going to be great. If you want to get latest news and announcements, please subscribe to the newsletter.

📆 27–28 April 2026 (side events before and after)
💰 €349 (Students €99)
👉 Information and tickets

Accessibility Club Summit 2026, Würzburg (GER)

The Accessibility Club Summit 2026 is a two-day community-driven event in Würzburg, Germany for developers, designers and accessibility enthusiasts to share knowledge, experiences and best practices around digital accessibility. It’s organised by tollwerk (mainly Joschi Kuphal) and combines a BarCamp format of participant-led sessions on the first day with hands-on community workshops on the second. Hybrid participation (in-person and remote) possible.

📆 9–10 May 2026
💰 €30 – pay-what-you-can/want (Barcamp Day), Workshops €25–€50
👉 Full information and tickets

CSS Day, Amsterdam (NL)

CSS Day is an annual conference in Amsterdam that brings together CSS experts, implementors, and educators to explore the current state and future of CSS. The 2026 edition runs with fourteen speakers presenting talks and demos. Organised my a small team around PPK, it’s a highly focused event for developers and designers looking to deepen their CSS knowledge and connect with the web community.

📆 10-11 June 2026
💰 €816,75
👉 All info and tickets

Head in the Cloud, Espelkamp (GER)

Head in the Cloud is a summit for cloud, DevOps, tech, and agency professionals organised by mittwald, bringing together experts to explore technology, collaboration, and digital innovation. The 2026 edition takes place at the open-air mittwald Campus. With sessions spanning Cloud & DevOps, Technology, and Culture & Creativity, the event is designed not only for developers and engineers but also for designers and creative professionals looking for inspiration and cross-disciplinary exchange. Oh hey, and I am speaking 🤗 …

📆 25–26 June 2026
💰 Free (Festival Pass), €236,81 (Masterclass on 25 June)
👉 Information and registration

There are plenty of other events I’d love to attend and that I am looking into right now. Depending on time and other (family) things happening on or around those dates you might also find me at OFFF (16–18 April), All Day Hey! (7 May), All Flows (14–15 May), Pixel Pioneers (19 June) and others.

Where will we meet? What events are missing that I should attend?

I will list events of the second half of the year later ;)

But I am slowly catching up on my RSS reader unread count. One post I just read was “The Lifeblood of the Web” which is a perfect “convince your boss” document with reasons why anyone should attend events.

That’s when you realize: the Web isn’t just a bunch of servers and websites. The Web is the people building it. The Web is community.

Very true as well as …

That’s what’s so invaluable about conferences, about in-person events in general. They are like a cheat code, like a magic door – you enter, and suddenly, you find yourself on the inside of the conversation. The faces, the names, the people behind the blog posts – they become real. And you stop feeling like just being an observer of the Web community. You are now a part of it.

As well as all the rest he writes and with which he brings back lots of lovely memories.

Thanks for being part of the ride, Matthias!

With Smashing Conference running for 13,5 years and beyond tellerrand running for 15 years now, I don’t take that for granted and am happy that this is the case after such a long time.

I haven’t “upgraded” my iPhone to iOS 26 and I have no plans to.

Same here. I really don’t understand such “upgrades”. And Jeremy’s example is only one very small bit. Everything looks broken, inconsistent and barely usable

This is the first album I created and it is from New Adventures in Web Design, hosted by Simon Collison on 20 January 2011, nearly 15 years ago from today.

Enjoy the memories the photos might bring back to you!

Waking up Excited (and Still Doing the Hard Stuff)

Since I run events, what usually gets me out of bed in the morning is the countdown to the next one. As the date gets closer, I’m deep in the details. Those final bits and pieces that usually make an event feel special.

At the same time, there’s always the less fun part of the job. Money, admin, promotion, social media. Brad called it the “shit sandwich,” and that felt painfully accurate. Some of these things used to be enjoyable. These days, especially with social media, they’re mostly sadly “just” work. But they’re part of the deal.

Every job has parts you love and parts you simply have to get through.

Imposter Syndrome Doesn’t Disappear

Even after all these years, self-doubt still shows up. Working alone (often from home) makes it easy to question yourself: Is this really special? Does anyone actually care?

What helps is perspective. And people! Sometimes you need someone else to remind you what you’ve built and why it matters. We’re not meant to sit alone with our thoughts all the time, especially the critical ones.

The Internet Got Louder and Less Honest

We talked a lot about how little room there seems to be online for vulnerability these days. I miss the old forum culture, where people could openly say “I don’t know, can anyone explain this and help me?” and others would help.

Today, everything feels polished, confident, and performative. Social media emphasises this. But I actually don’t believe authenticity is gone. It’s just buried under noise. It still shows up in smaller, quieter spaces and in real conversations.

The Moment That Makes It All worth It

Brad asked me about a moment I am usually looking forward to, when I think about the process of organising and running my events.

For me, the best moment of every event is right before it starts. Tobi starts playing the music, the doors open, I’m backstage, and I know I’ll be on stage in a few minutes. Months of work suddenly become real.

Sometimes I get overwhelmed and tear up. Not from stress, but from relief and gratitude.

That moment when preparation turns into reality never gets old.

I shared a story about moving venues in Berlin, visiting dozens of spaces, and finally standing backstage on opening day in the new venue, emotional and exhausted. Only to be met with a wordless hug from Jeremy Keith, who was going to be the first speaker. No pep talk needed.

Those moments carry me through the harder days.

Why the One Negative Comment Sticks

Like most people, I’m way better at remembering the one negative comment out of a 100 than the 99 positive ones. That’s something I actively try to counter.

One small thing that helps is writing down “things that make (or made, if you do this after something took place) me happy.” It sounds simple, but it works. Sometimes life feels terrible until you stop and realise it really isn’t!

Showing up as Yourself (Even When People Box You In)

We also talked about confidence and identity. I’ve been boxed in my whole life. I mean: long hair, certain looks, certain assumptions. Over time, I learned to play with that instead of fighting it.

I never wanted to pretend to be “professional” in someone else’s definition. I always felt: if people work with me, it should be for how I think and what I can do. Not for how well I fit into a costume.

You don’t need to fake who you are to be taken seriously.

Reflecting, Adjusting, and Sometimes Pausing

Creative work changes over time. So do we. Every now and then, I sit down and ask myself: Is this still enjoyable? What needs to change maybe?

Sometimes the answer isn’t “stop”, but “pause”, or “scale down” or “get help with the parts I don’t enjoy anymore”. Most decisions aren’t black or white. They’re sometimes more like “yes, but …”, and then you figure out the “but part”

How I Reach out to People When They Cross My Mind and What Taught Me to Do So

After my first brother died in 2013, I was left with too many, what I called, “why didn’t I” questions. Since then, I’ve tried to do one simple thing: if someone comes to mind, I reach out. It has never been easier than these days with multiple channels and countless devices.

A short text. An email. A quick “thinking of you”. It costs almost nothing and it keeps connections alive.

I never want to regret not sending a message that would have taken 30 seconds anymore.

Creativity Is Curiosity – Not a Category

I don’t think creativity fits into a single definition. It can be art, code, music, problem-solving, really anything driven by curiosity and a willingness to look beyond the obvious.

That’s also what beyond tellerrand is about. It’s not just about “actionable takeaways”. It’s about energy, inspiration, unexpected connections and the ideas that start in hallway conversations and grow from there.

Closing Thoughts

I’m grateful for the conversation with Brad. It reminded me why I keep doing this: not because it’s easy, but because it creates moments of connection, joy, and courage. For others and for myself.

Video Version

Audio Only Version

Everything is so silent. The crunching snow under my feet. Our dog enjoys a good play with a snowball or playing catch me if you can.

Happy moments.

Let’s see what it was …

SmashingConf New York (1–10 October)

In 2014 we organised our very first SmashingConf in New York. This year, 11 years later, we are still running the show, but taking a break next year. New York and running SmashingConf there always has been special in some way.

This loud and busy city has a certain buzz to it that I love and that energises me. Back in 2018 I took our two oldest children to NYC for the first time, 2022 my oldest son and a friend of him and this year my oldest daughter again. It always is fantastic, if that is possible and they are not in university or busy otherwise. The event itself was a success and proof that events in the U.S. are still possible and needed.

St. Johann in Tyrol (11–19 October)

For decades we take the family to a hiking trip to St. Johann in Tyrol. We always aim for the complete family, including my parents in law as well as my sister’s in law family. And while it is not always possible and we mostly drive with our family and my parents in law, this time it worked out and we went on longer hiking trips all together again. Pure joy for the soul.

Gastspiel

My friend Andreas Dantz has been to beyond tellerrand quite often. In fact we have been to quite a number of other events together also already. A longer time already, he decided to leave his career as a web design and wanted to focus on YouTube. Unter the label of “Spiel & Zeug” he produces videos around smart home tech and all things that somehow touch this topic and does a really good job in my opinion. Close to 400k subscribers might agree to me.

Lately he had the idea of running his first ever event for his channel and the people supporting him. He asked me if I would support him and his team and I surely was up for another event adventure. It was great fun being part of this and once more showed, that a person (or people) driven by passion for what he does is one of reasons why people follow a channel or a community builds around a channel/event/product.

beyond tellerrand Berlin 2025

11 years after starting a second edition in Berlin each year, this years marks the last one for now. It was such a fantastic experience once more and surely everybody who came was sad to hear that I take a break in Berlin. They are not the people responsible for the break and therefore they are not to blame for it and I was very sorry to tell them.

The years after Covid have been incredible tough for me. Mostly financially, but that also has an effect on me mentally. Not directly, but after a while and with steadily rising importance the more I worry about paying the bills for my family etc. Especially Berlin has proven to be a tough job. People buy tickets very late or get approval too late to get their tickets. Sponsors went down to 10% of what it has been before the pandemic and in parallel everything gets more and more expensive: flights, hotel, venue rent, staff …

2026 will be the 15th year since I started running the show under the name of “beyond tellerrand” and I want to focus and celebrate the 15th year of the show in Düsseldorf on 27th and 28th of April with the known friendly and positive vibe and a positive push for anyone in our industry.

SPOILER Concert

We started this band in 2002, I know three of my bandmates since I am 14 or 15 years old and I can’t repeat often enough how much joy every Thursday is, where we meet for a few hours of making music together and chatting about nonsense.

2025 marks the year when we started playing live again after a longer break and have written a whole lot of new music. We decided a while ago that we focus on a few gigs a year where we know the audience would like our music and are not younger than our children.

Skate-Aid Night

For a number of year I am supporting Skate-Aid, a charity organisation that helps to empower children through skateboarding. What sounds like a strange way to get children off the streets and give them a purpose works wonderfully. So far Skate-Aid has created more than 25 projects in 18 different countries around the world.

Part of the money we make with beyond tellerrand always supports Skate-Aid and during the last two years I helped bringing artists like Rob Draper and Salventius to the Skate-Aid Night where they performed live and gave 100% of the revenue to Skate-Aid.

TYPO3 Conference and Awards Gala

For two years TYPO3 is supporting beyond tellerrand as a Global Partner. Next top their input to beyond tellerrand, this partnership is a two-way partnership which means, I bring in myself also. In 2024 I spoke at their event, have been a jury member of their awards and was interviewed on stage during the awards gala show. This time I had been a more passive role and visited their well organised events. They improved the conference days with a different setup and had a police cover band playing in the breaks of their gala.

I once more can say “Congrats! Well done.” and hope that our partnership continues in 2026. 🙏

Christmas and Our Journey to 2026

Last but not least – and that is the reason for publishing this post 3 weeks after starting to write it – I took some well needed time off with my family. We had a calm and cozy time around Christmas and celebrated New Year with a few friends.

As this post marks the first one for 2026, I’d love to end it with a favour to ask you for: spread love and positive energy. Motivate each other, celebrate achievements and push everyone who does something lovely into the spotlight to share how great it is what they do or who they are. We need each other to multiply positivity against anything negative. And where one might be not strong enough, let’s support each other.

♥️

Rick is a musician that I love to watch. I got to know his channel via his “What makes this song great” video in which he takes apart music and explains why he thinks that this song is great. Recently he got more into interviewing people. Big names. In his very down to earth way, passionated and his true interest in music, he also does this fantastically, I think.

He also records videos and live streams in which he talks about YouTube as his business. Struggles, how YouTube and life as a content creator have changed and all those things and I sometimes find it quite motivating what he says, as you can take is findings and advice to use it for the things you do – like me, running beyond tellerrand. This can be simple statements like this …

[…] posting things, YouTube videos, songs on Spotify, whatever, doesn't guarantee success. But not posting them guarantees failure.

… where he is just right. But I myself need to constantly remind me of exactly that, when I am worrying about what I do.

The next bit, in which he talks about sticking to something also reminded me of what Basti said to me a couple of weeks ago:

[…] the idea of sticking with something for a really long time. This is something that very few people unfortunately have the ability to do.

Basti recently finished the new beyond tellerrand website and with it comes a section with a catalogue of all speakers who ever spoke at my beyond tellerrand events. And he said that this was quite an impressive number when seeing them all listed at once. I mean, I run this show for nearly 15 years now. That is an achievement and he is right. But you, well at least I, sometimes have to be reminded of that.

Rick, when he continues after the quote above, also states that, of course it also does not only comes down to sticking to something, but also producing and creating good quality stuff and that you have to pour a lot of love and passion into what you do.

Then he touches another one of today’s challenges …

[…] the other thing that's competing for your attention now, unfortunately, is AI BS or AI slop, whatever you want to call it. Every time I open up Instagram, it's all AI videos. You know, these stupid disaster things where somebody jumps off a bridge, onto a trampoline, they bounce back up and they get on the bridge and then the bridge collapses or all these disaster things. A wave comes over and washes people away. I mean, obviously fake videos, one after another after another after another, and they are competing for your attention. And these platforms are promoting this stuff. They're promoting fake content made by computers that can work 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. You're competing against that. That's the sad part of it.

I mean, I am not completely against AI. There are really good and useful use cases. But this bullshit Rick is talking about is real and he is so right about it. That is why we really need to write more, record more, meet more in real and create real content made of real emotions and not fake. Just complaining won’t help. Neither will doing nothing at all.

So, why don’t we all do the stuff we like even more and support each other even more to point people who might not know to it to multiply reach? That also counts for jobs and work. If you know someone who is doing good work, don’t get tired to promote them to other who, at some point, might need someone in that field and remembers your recommendation.

We really need to do this more again. And, you know, it can actually be fun!

That’s my wish for the upcoming year.

If you want to have proof, here is my set of photos from the day.

So far email accounts have been transferred, all .de domains are already on the new server and transfer for all international domains has been started, but still needs a while to be complete for whatever reason. The deployment chains have been edited and all websites are already deployed to the new server.

I hope that the rest won’t need too long to avoid downtimes, but in case you experience a few hickups, then you know why.

Big shoutout to Mittwald for their fantastic support and seamless tools which make the move as easy as possible. More about that at a later point.

Surely within 26 years there is the one or other thing that is not your most favourite decision, but in general I have been satisfied. Even in a way that in one year, when they started to sponsor the servers also, I agreed to be featured in a campaign with interviews and full page ads in magazines. Sadly a lot of the things I said back then are things I would not say anymore.

Obligatory Switch to Microsoft 365

During the years prices increased and decisions were made, I did not agree to 100%. 2016 they were acquired by GoDaddy and I was hoping that not too much would change. It did not so much for me, but beginning of this year Host Europe announced their switch to Microsoft 365. Obligatory. No other choice than to eat this or leave.

That is really sad. Not only because I do not want to use it, but I also would have to pay extra for any singe email account now. And that are quite some accounts.

The Sad Leave

I am now looking into other options for my domains, websites, and email. This is a painful decision as, like I said, I actually was satisfied, but also because it is an annoying act and work I do not need these days, to be honest.

I am not really angry about this, but really sad and disappointed that they don’t leave any other options and don’t seem to care about the customer. 26 years of loyalty (well, and my money) and they let you hang with “you can always quit, if you don’t want to use Microsoft 365”.

Sad and disappointing.

I created these photos during our event.

Nice one and I thought I simply write it down for me and share it with you, if you didn’t know either.

So, instead of using https://www.facebook.com/ use https://www.facebook.com/?sk=h_chr.

Nearly forgot to remind you – phew. An remember: get your tickets early ;)

👉 https://2026.stateofthebrowser.com

Of course many will ask why even have a website these days? Well, I've had my site for twenty five years and it contains the entire archive of my work in that time. Nobody can tell me what I can and can't put on there. Nobody can switch it off. The platform it's on – the web - is not going to disappear because it got acquired by a big company. It's mine and I'm free to do with it as I please. It's also really useful too. Many times I've looked up how to do something, or how to write a certain piece of code and I've found it on my blog, having written it up in case it comes in handy later.

What Brendan says!

How to Survive the Internet

I first discovered Jamie Bartlett through his books, like “The Dark Net” and “The People Vs Tech”, as well as his podcast “The Missing Cryptoqueen”. A while ago, he launched a newsletter called “How to Survive the Internet” and it’s consistently a great read.

👉 Check “How to Survive the Internet”

Design Reviewed

Matt Lamont is a collector of graphic design artifacts, dedicated to preserving printed materials that both inspire and educate about the history of design. His newsletter “Design Reviewed” delivers curated pieces from his extensive archive straight to your inbox. Well, and I find it absolutely wonderful and inspiring.

👉 Check “Design Reviewed”

CSS Weekly

With over 600 editions, “CSS Weekly” is one of the newsletters that exists for a longer time already. Zoran Jambor does an excellent job curating news and useful resources for anyone interested in web development and especially CSS.

👉 Check “CSS Weekly”

That is it for this one. But why don’t you do what Eric and Dan did and also share yours? Would be lovely to get a few more recommendations ;)

Even though a few bad news landed in my inbox during this trip, I am back recharged and ready to hit Berlin with beyond tellerrand.

Are you? ;)

Especially in times, where social media is so fragmented, I love a good read, when I want it without the fear to missing out.

So here is, what hits my inbox at the moment …

The Index (English)

Twice a week I am looking forward to well-curated links in a short and digestible way. 5 links, that take not much of your time to read and see if there is something of your interest included. But, let me tell you: there always is at list one thing that catches my interest ;)

👉 Check “The Index”

sieben:30 (German)

Another easy to read newsletter. Easy to read as it only contains three notes about what happened in the social media world. This newsletter is a daily newsletter, but as it only comes with three news each day at 7:30 in the morning, it is a great read during your first coffee.

👉 Check sieben:30

Sidebar (English)

This one exists since 2012 already. Founded by Sacha Greif it now is curated by Fabricio Teixeira and each day a mix of design and tech links hit your inbox. No offence, when I say, that I have the feeling that Sacha caught more of the stuff that was my cup of tea, but I still like to scan this one every time it arrives.

👉 Check Sidebar

Creative Output (English)

I am a big fan of the work by Kevin Parry for a looooong time already. The newsletter he started in 2024 is not just about the magic he does in his videos, but also about the business side of things and social media and marketing. And with 3.7 million subscribers on YouTube, 3.4 million followers on TikTok and 1.8 million followers on Instagram it seems he might have some things to talk about. (hint: maybe you don’t want to miss out this year’s beyond tellerrand in Berlin in case this sounds interesting ;) )

👉 Check Creative Output

That should be enough for this post. I’d rather post another one before overloading you with this one ;)

Enjoy reading!

It’s a creative and friendly community and festival built on curiosity and connections.

It’s a passion project, I organise and run with all my heart.

And now it’s your chance to own a part: If beyond tellerrand has ever sparked something in you, consider becoming a “Friend of beyond tellerrand”.

It’s a simple way to give back and be part and – even more important – to ensure this creative, curious, and kind space continues to exist and grow.

Thank you!

I just upgraded 5 of my websites running on Kirby from Version 4 to Version 5. This is a major release with many new features and not a bug fix or any minor upgrade.

Usually you are prepared for things to break, right?

Nope!

Time: 2 minutes
Problems: 0

What a wonderful, stress free and painless experience! Thanks to the Kirby Team ;)

Would be lovely to see you there! Arriving Friday around 4pm and leaving Monday morning.

A lot is planned and you can see everything that is happening plus a detailed schedule on their website.

See you there!

The event has three different stages plus networking space and I am part of the “Community Panel” together with Ana Regidor, Felicitas Schmittinger and Harshini Karunaratne as well as a Community Space where people can get information about beyond tellerrand.

Next to all this, workshops and talks are planned also. Find the full program on this page

That said, I have learned to embrace if someone comes to me and says that it is “wonderful” or “truly special” and even “life changing”. If those people say that to you, they have a reason to do so. But I really needed to learn this and to then also say “Thanks, that is very kind of you to say” instead of “Well … I just run this bloody event. Anyone else could do this, but thanks.”

Rainer Kunst – an experience event organiser as well, amongst many other things – interviewed me for the April 2025 edition Vivid Magazin. This was absolutely enjoyable and lovely and his questions even made me think again about some of the things I do and how I do them.

You’ll find topics like “How do you find your speakers?” covered as well as “How does this show organised by you solely influence your family life?” or “Marc, what is your superpower?” ;)

I like how it turned out and if you want to read it, please drop in here for the English version and click here, if you want to read the German edition.

To being able to do this it needs someone to invite people to an event like that and be a host. Dave Letorey and the rest of the team did a fantastic job here and they created a friendly atmosphere in which people really enjoyed themselves. I times like these, it is a gem to being able to attend events like that and in order to keep them alive, we not only need you to get tickets and attend, but also partners that sponsor those events. Only then those events, like SOTB, ffconf or the many other lovely conferences and festivals, organised by individuals or small teams, can survive.

Sadly I see at the moment that all of those events suffer from lack of sponsors. Companies focus on big events with thousands of attendees or create and run their own conferences. And often they could simply do this and support these small events, as they often are not asking for a lot of money.

In contrast to the big events, where you might be able to reach more people, those grassroots community events offer high quality conversations. Their attendees are often passionated about what they do and if they speak to someone, they really want to do so and are honestly interested and not just passing by to be stopped at your booth to maybe check your service or product. If they speak to you, the offer honest and deep feedback. They care.

Those events usually also set a high focus on diversity and inclusiveness. That means, even though you may think that instead of the option to reach 5000 people you only reach 250 or 500 people, you can be sure that those groups of people you reach at the community events are diverse groups offering a diverse feedback also.

Often sponsor packages for those events also already start at €500 – like for my beyond tellerrand events – and where this might not seem much for the company or agency sponsoring to get their name and logo listed, for such events it makes the difference.

Here are my photos of State of the Browser 2025 (#sotb2025).

The reason for this is that I always try to imagine myself. Not getting an answer leaves you with questions like “Did the message arrive or did it end up in spam?”, “Did I say something wrong and upset her/him?”.

And it is so easy. I can really live with a short message stating no interest or even a “Fuck off”, which is way better as it does not leave me with nothing and not knowing whether my message arrived or not.

Am I old fashioned here and it is ok to not answer? Or does this belong to how we treat each other?

Also gave my Rose Sneak 2 an upgrade. About three years ago I got a Tailfin rack for my gravel bike. Yes, the Tailfin stuff isn’t cheap, but it is – in my opinion – worth every cent. Went on many backpacking tours with the rear panier bags and the rack top bag and got the carbon rack including panier mounts back in 2022. It is super light weight, but what was most important for me: it is easy to get on and off the bike within seconds.

The only thing I needed to get was another thru axle for my Sneak to replace the original with that one and ready is the Sneak for bike packing adventures as well. I now can use everything I got for the two bikes and attach the carbon rack to the bikes within seconds.

One part of those events surely is to meet people. Therefore: who is going to be there? Tickets start from £50 on – that is a no-brainer, right?

Looking forward to seeing you there!

This is the Darkglass NSG noise gate and the Hyper Luminal compressor (limited black edition).

Can’t wait to test them live with my band on our gig in April.

And the following is true for many independetn events these days …

As you can imagine, that’s not an easy sell.

Therefore all of those events need your help. Spread the word about the events you love, so new people learn about them and trust your recommendation.

The book comes with a mass of examples, but also:

[…] will arm you with a mountain of easily actionable tips that will elevate your photos to the next level. This book makes photography accessible to everyone.

Check it out!

Tracked this one on my Komoot and my Strava account

Just over a year ago, after more than 20 years, I decided to change my previous business bank. The reason was that the bank I was with seemed outdated and offered few good online services. Everything seemed outdated and was also quite expensive.

So I did some research and read up on several banks and N26 seemed to offer me what I wanted. Various portals gave the bank a decent and good rating. However, N26 did not come off well on review portals. I kept reading about poor to no support and “account freezes”. For this reason, I kept my old account until the end of 2024, just in case I also had a bad experience.

I wish I had listened to the bad reviews and kept my old account for longer.

How it all Started

It all started when I received a message from N26 with the following content.

To avoid restrictions, please submit the following documents by February 1, 2025 by clicking on the Reply button below. February 1, 2025 is the last possible day on which you can send us the requested documents.

Proof of address, such as: - your registration certificate or - a gas, water or electricity bill issued within the last 90 days

Proof of income, such as: - your employment contract or - pay slips or - statement of assets and income (e.g. rental income, cash gifts) etc.

Proof of your residence in Germany, such as: E.g.: - Visa documents - Proof of studies - Proof of refugee status - Proof of family reunification

Evidence of the origin of the funds, such as: - Contracts (e.g. purchase and sale agreements) - Information about the sale of assets or capital gains - Information about inheritances or other sources of income - etc.

Please also provide us with a rough estimate of your expected transaction volume per year (i.e. expected incoming and outgoing transfer amounts) for your N26 account - including the countries you expect to send these transactions to or receive them from.

We always ensure that your personal information is treated strictly confidentially and is only used for regulatory processes.

I could understand the first point and sent the current electricity bill.

The second point, not really. Employment contract? Pay slip? I have a “Business Metal” account, ”The premium business account with 0.5% cashback for the self-employed and freelancers.”. There are therefore no employment contracts. So I sent my 2022 tax assessment on this point.

By the third point I was already out. Visa documents? Proof of study? Refugee status? Family reunification? Excuse me?

And on the fourth point I didn’t really know what they wanted from me either. “Origin of funds”? I issue invoices and receive my money. A look at my account would certainly have helped. Everything was unremarkable.

No Answer and Blocked Incoming Payments

I received no answer to my questions and the sending of the above documents. Well, not directly at least. I was sent the same questions again. No answer to my questions.

Instead, six days ago (as of February 10th) my incoming payments to the account were blocked. The statement, again without answering my questions, says: “You cannot currently receive any incoming transfers, such as salary payments.”

No Contact Option Whatsoever

Although I have a “Business Metal” account where I pay for “Preferred Consent Service”, I have no way of reaching anyone who can help me.

It says...

Preferred Customer Service

If you have any questions or problems, we will be happy to help you. No matter whether you just have a quick question about your premium business account, want a function explained in more detail or urgently need technical support: Call the Metal phone number or contact us via the chat support in your N26 app - we are happy to help you.

What about “preferred customer service”. Yes, you can use the chat support. First via a bot, later via a human. But they can't help, just like the telephone support on the “Metal phone number”. Because nobody has access to anything. They can perhaps explain to you how the app works or how to find a function, etc. But they don't provide customer support there. Especially not if you have problems.

I then gave a negative review on Trustpilot, because nothing is more frustrating than not being able to reach anyone. Not privately and certainly not as a business customer who has to work with such an account every day.

They responded to the review promptly and ”[…]to write a private message on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter (X)[…]” and they would be ”[…]available there at any time.” That’s true in the sense that I could write there and they responded there, similar to chat or when I called. But they couldn’t help me there either:

Please excuse our delayed response. Due to data protection guidelines, we have no access to our customers’ accounts and data via “X”

So why tell me to contact them there?

In the end, it is and remains a mystery to me how you can offer a business customer service where no one is really available who can actually help. Apart from the actual problem, which I still don’t understand, that is actually the bigger problem and also the one that is currently making me look for a new bank only after a year.

It remains to be seen when and if someone will contact me and whether I will ever find out why exactly my money has been frozen. Today is February 10, 2025 and I will report how things develop.

• Why do we measure time?
• Since when do we define our own time and don’t let nature define it through day and night anymore?
• How much value has time?
• Does time equal luck?

It quickly became quite interesting and complex, surely. But one thing that stuck with me is – even though it is, or might be obvious – how much value time really has.

When we are younger, we do not care much about time. We seem to have endless time and everything else seems more important, of more value, like money or traveling for example. But at some point we realise how precious time is.

Isn’t one of the best things in the world spending time with you granddad and grandmother? With your dad and your mum? You best friends during your time in school? Well, we often recognise this too late sadly. And where we might be able to earn money all our life, getting time back with people who are not here anymore is something we’ll never be able to achieve.

If you ask anyone, rich or poor, relationships – time with other – makes anyone happier than anything else. How much value time really has dawns on us sadly often only when we are old.

People of age never regret not having had more money or owned more valuable things and fancy cars. They regret not having had more time for certain things.

Time? Time is valuable.

But still, I wasn’t sure what do get to be safe when it is cold. I read a lot and finally was chatting to Hans about what he uses, since I have seen him riding quite a lot also in the cold days of the year. He gave me some insights in what he uses and it mirrored pretty much what I was reading. He also gave me some tips on what he usually buys and I looked into it. I liked what he recommended, but also had an eye on stuff by Ryzon, which usually is something I find a little too expensive.

It turned out that they had a winter sale running and I got a few essential bits. Still some money, but I have to say after the first ride: worth every Cent. I got a base layer, a mid layer, a thermal jacket and last but not least some thermal bib tights. I usually don’t really like tights and use mountain bike gear from Endura during the Summer, but for the cold time of the year it really makes sense to get something like this.

Oh, and did I enjoy the ride! ;)

Since a longer time I interact less and less with social media. I think it started 2018 or so, that I thought it wasn’t feeling the same. As someone who was (is) dependent on social media channels, organising events and selling most tickets through Twitter in the past and as a multiplier to spread the word about my events in general, I still hung out there. Like many other people have written in the past months, it also was a channel where I kept in touch with many people I met during 20+ years of attending and running events.

Already before the pandemic, social media and specifically Twitter, but also Facebook and Instagram, felt different to me. Somehow the pandemic was a booster for those changes as it feels. The death of Twitter and the changes now, through that clown being elected again caused the “old” users to look for something new. Sadly that resulted not in one, but various platforms. Social media is so fragmented these days, that it felt hard to keep up.

• “Do I re-post everything I post on one platform to the others?”
• “Do I use each of the channels for a slightly different purpose? If so, which one?”
• …

Many questions how to deal with all those platforms popped up and I am confused to the day. Less about what I, as Marc Thiele post there or how to use it, but for my business, running events. I need to get the word out, but will people eventually get annoyed that follow me on multiple platforms? I mean, it is kind of advertising many of us do on those channels.

I could really write for hours on here, but actually I only wanted to say one thing, when I started this RSS Club post:

I am SO tired! The tough years after Covid are one thing, but social media adds to it and so I stopped reading any of it mostly these days. I open it, post my beyond tellerrand announcements and leave again. I can’t read most of it. It is tiring, depressing and sadly – like in many other media – often negative.

I want to focus on the positive. For months I have one tab opened in my browser holding a blog post by Kev Quirk titled “Things That Make Me Happy”.

That is what I want to do more again: make people happy. Inspire them positively.

Will you help me?

You can listen to the episode in the embedded player above, their YouTube page or any other player that supports RSS like Pocketcast, which I use.

Furthermore I got this whole podcasts transcribed and you can read the full transcription here (opens in a new window in case you started listening here already).

My task was to welcome people after picking their seats and introducing Gary to the stage to say hi. Later after the film has been shown, and that was the real fun, I lead a 30-minute Q&A with Gary and Brendan, chatting about the creation process, the idea and the technology of how this film was made.

I absolutely enjoyed this and next to co-hosting this, meeting with friends like Keir, Tobi or Brendan and Gary was a great start to the event year.

I have been asked if I’d like to stay in the hotel, but I said, that I live very close, so maybe I stay one day. When I told my wife, she instantly said, that I know how much I appreciate if speakers are there for the full event and actually also around the event to socialise with the other speakers, the team and attendees. Surely she was right, so I stayed in the hotel and that was a good decision, since I got to meet so many new and interesting people.

The closer the event came, the more I was looking forward to being on stage. The title or my talk was “Why Independent Community Events Matter” or “Why I do what I do and how I got do to it”. I spoke on day two after the lunch break on the main stage and really enjoyed speaking there. I have seen head nodding, people smiling and listening to me and Frank Schmidt, who was the MC for the whole event, not only did a great job during the three days, but also made me feel very welcome on stage.

When Daniel Fau asked me during the awards gala how I liked it and how my experience was, I stated that I was surprised how open and welcoming the TYPO3 community was and that they achieved to build a good community around the product TYPO3. I also had my organiser’s hat on and stated that everything was absolutely well organised during the event and especially at the awards gala on which, next to the talk during the main event, I was interviewed about the process of our job in the jury for the awards, which was great fun also as the moderators – Emily Whigham and Matt Beadle – did a fantastic job and made the whole 5-hour event feel snappy, fun and not boring at all.

As I said earlier, I had a fantastic time throughout the whole event and made many new connections. During the after show party after the awards gala, many people came to me and said they were happy to meet me, since a lot of employees of them would attend beyond tellerrand for many years and always came back inspired and happy – well, that makes me happy!

Thanks a lot to the organisers of the event: Luisa, Myrna, Daniel, Carsten and all the others involved. Well done.

Links to coverage:

• T3CON24 Recap by Panagiotis Semitekolos
• Wrap-up by Kendall Litton (who also interviewed me for a podcast that is going to be published soon) on Linkedin
• My talk description

I am invited to speak at the TYPO3 Conference this week and have also been part of the jury this year. Thanks for the kind invitation! I knew it is going to be tough as it is conference seasons right now and we ran SmashingConf New York and Antwerp, I ran beyond tellerrand Berlin and I have been part of a big organisers meeting in Vilnius.

Now it is two days until I speak at the TYPO3 Conference in Düsseldorf and all I have written down is the title of my talk. Well, yes, in my head I know what I gonna speak about, but I need to bring it into a certain structure. That means, if you expect an answer to your email this week: sorry – not happening. The next two days I am writing and then I am attending on Wednesday and Thursday.

What will I talk about, you ask? They said, they want to hear a bit about the story and background of why beyond tellerrand came alive and I said, it might be a bit exotic for the audience of a TYPO3 Conference, but well, I guess that is the idea of “beyond tellerrand”, right? I will also spice it up with a few bits about why I think that independent events, and there is not just mine, are important. For diversity, for an independent curation of talks (vs. sponsored or product talks) and for your net work and our community.

If you like, grab a ticket, drop in and spend a good time at the event together with me. Oh, and as it happens, I still have a couple of free passes. Simply email me to get one.

See you there!

With this third of three episodes all three episodes are live and I want to thank Alex Bürner and Dominik Laube once more for the invitation and the lovely conversation.

For example: if I want to type the name or my friend Tantek Çelik, for the Ç I can press the keys option+shift+c (⇧+⌥+c) gives you the special Ç in his last name. If you try this with the ć and think that typing ´+c like you’d do for an é it, for some reason does not work (does anyone know why, actually?). I was wondering if there would be a way of typing this anyways instead of copying it from the glyphs panel.

Fact is that 2024 many things have been much, much harder for a lot of my event organising friends. Some had to cancel, some suffer from less attendees and most suffer from less sponsors. Companies and agencies focus on big events these days again or decide to set up and host their own events. Both often is harder and more expensive than supporting independent community events like beyond tellerrand.

Berlin 2024 turned out to be wonderful, though. The conversations I had with lovely attendees, the absolute stunning speakers who all gave their best and brought thought-provoking, inspiring, and motivating presentations and last but not least a team that excelled in being welcoming, helpful and friendly.

The wonderful two days flew by and while I thought I’d stop Berlin after this one for a while and would not run a Berlin edition in 2025 changed my mind. It changed my mind in a direction, where I now say “Now even more it is needed that I work hard on keeping this little island of friendliness and positivity”. And you, those who were there, made this with me. Your warm and wonderful feedback changed my mind and anyone to whom I mentioned that I might take a break in Berlin said “No, please not”.

But that needs your help. Spread the word about beyond tellerrand. Let other people know about it and tell them what it is and what it gave you while attending and when being back home.

I feel empty and exhausted, but my heart is full of lovely memories that will last. Thanks so much to anyone who was involved in creating a festival like this and made it what it was!

(Fotos by Florian Ziegler – complete set of photos here)

We run the complete show in Antwerp on my tech and therefore I am not able to take as many photos as usual, but here is at least a selection of photos from the days in Belgium.

In the last two weeks, I have been in New York, being part of the Smashing Team, running SmashingConf New York (← photos of the event), after a break of one year. Big success, great atmosphere, everybody was/is happy. After New York, arriving at 5am in Frankfurt, I went to a family birthday party and the night after, at 4am, we drove to Austria to spend a week with part of the family (as our oldest daughter is in Sydney and our son studying, they sadly have been missing) in the Austrian mountains with best weather – it was woooooonderful.

We were hiking in the mountains during the day and I was preparing beyond tellerrand during the night.

Now I had a week to work on beyond tellerrand things 24h and got a lot of stuff sorted (already also working on the Düsseldorf 25 edition – page and first speakers coming in a few days). When writing these lines I sit between boxes and tech already and still have to write a talk and prepare things for a conversation with other event organisers 🙈

So, coming up …

SmashingConf Antwerp

After last years success we are back in Antwerp in the lovely Bourla Theatre. A great venue and if you want to be part, better do this now, since the lovely theatre will be closed for the next years (see photos of last year, if you want to know what I am talking about). Right now I prepare the tech, as we use my gear to run the stage tech and also anything that is used to stream the show.

beyond tellerrand Berlin

After ten years of running beyond tellerrand in Berlin, I did not expect this one to be the toughest one in selling tickets. Never ever has a btconf sold less that this one. I think the reasons are many (Berlin changes, too many events at and around these dates with a clearer focus, death of social media etc. – happy to chat, if you want to hear my full thoughts), but one thing is very clear: anyone who comes will get the best show that’s possible. As usual. The team, the speakers and I will do out very best to make this a wonderful experience and, hey, look at this line-up. I am SO looking forward!

Festival Eastern European Design

The week after beyond tellerrand, I will be in Vilnius at the Festival Eastern European Design. Next to attending the event, I have been invited to be part of an organisers event, where we discuss problems that each of us (independent) event organisers has these days, trying to find solutions for some things, but also maybe building a network of events. I am always excited to learn about and from other events, to share knowledge and grow my network. Exciting to see what comes out of this.

Skate-Aid Night

Since a couple of years I am also (indirectly) involved in the Skate-Aid project. One of their yearly events I attend for a few years now is the Skate-Aid Night on which we raise money for new projects of Skate-Aid. This time my good friend Rob Draper made a great piece that will be auctioned and he will also be onsite doing his “Your Words, My Hands”, where he creates wonderful posters with copper or silver ink on black with your words and, well, his hands. He does this at beyond tellerrand for a while now and it is highly popular, raising quite a bit of meany each time for charity (100% of the money always goes into those charity projects).

TYPO3 Conference 2024

Marc? TYPO3 Conference. Why that, you might think. Well, I think that also people running events with a focus on certain topics understood that you need topics from beyond the tellerrand to attract people from outside their bubble. Next to TYPO3 being an excellent btconf Partner for 2024, not only talking about the people, but also about understanding an audience of an event, they invited me to be part of their T3CON24 as part of the Jury Panel and to give a talk (which I also still need to write 😱).

My talk is going to be something along the lines of “Why independent events matter for the event industry and where they come from”. If you like to come, just join us, I am happy to being able to give out a few free full conference passes for this event. Please email me to get one

If you are at any of these events, please find me and say hello. I love a conversation with other people at events and am super happy to meet you again or for the first time.

See you!

We run this show since 10 years already. Always great to come back. Next stop Antwerp, then Berlin’s beyond tellerrand

Greetings from FRA and see you there!

Speaking to a lot of event organisers recently, one issue is one they all share these days: less and less people attend their in-person events. But why?

❓ Are people generally not seeing the benefit of attending in-person events anymore?

❓ Is going to events not affordable for individuals and/or companies anymore (travel, accommodation, food and ticket add up)?

❓ Do people think that virtual events and workshops are equally working for them as in-person conferences and workshops?

❓ Is the networking aspect these days unimportant (fostering the existing network as well as growing it and meeting new people)?

❓ Do people simply don’t know and hear of especially smaller, independent events anymore (since social media is scattered all over the place, building smaller bubbles of interest and most of the platform dictated by the algorithms to be seen)?

❓ Is Covid still something why you don’t attend events?

I am honestly interested in learning about this. Why? At any of the events I attend (or run myself) people are full of praise afterwards, absolutely happy that they have been there. So why are events these days so hard to sell to people?

It would be great to hear you. No matter if you still attend events or if you stopped or never actually went to events – let me know why and I post the outcome here (or if you prefer, also on Linkedin).

Sine the beginning of the year Asus is one of the main partners of my event series beyond tellerrand and I looked into what they are actually building. I got a Zenbook Duo and after I thought how the two screens in it could be of any use, I have to say, I love th two screens. But before I even started the computer and used it, I was impressed with the build quality of the laptop. The two screens are brilliant and the detachable keyboard is super thin, yet has a good and solid feeling when typing.

Well, yesterday it happened that I had been invited to a launch event of the new ProArt series, targeting creators and professionals. I really don’t have to say or write this, but the quality of those machines is really nice. They feel high quality, have good displays and hardware in general and as soon as I get one of the devices to test them for longer, I am happy to give you more insights.

So, even though Windows still feels kind of painful I have to say, if you are a Windows user or consider getting a Windows machine, go and check the hardware of Asus, like the ProArt series or their Zenbooks for example.

Next to this the event, being an in-person event, once more has proven, that there is a reason to attend an event in person. I made many interesting and nice people and really had a great day (thanks to Martin from Asus especially).

Now finally I got it working. While I was looking for a way to change it on macOS, I now stumbled over a way where someone changed it for their iPad or iPhone. The option that you have on those iOS devices is not existing on your Mac, though. Therefore I simply tried to change it on my iPhone and … tada! … it is also changed on my Mac. Holy cow. It only took YEARS to finally being able to send invites to people from my beyond tellerrand email now and not from iCloud.com anymore.

You find the setting on your iPhone at:
Settings -> iCloud[User] -> iCloud -> “Show All” (under “Apps using iCloud) -> iCloud Calendar -> Send & Receive

On the top you find the field “Send From” and can change the email accordingly.

Yay!

• Buy your tickets early
• Conferences need sponsors!

She also lists a few events and gives a short overview what they are about and what the price tag is.

But I also remember a moment in our conversation where he said something about that people need to re-learn and understand again how important it is to go out, meet people in real or, in other words, attend events like meetups, conferences and alike. When we were talking about this, I remembered a moment after one of the stops with Storyblok on our “Stories on the Road” events in Brighton where afterwards someone approached me and said something that stuck with me:

Hey Marc, this was the first time after the pandemic that I attended and event again. Thanks for putting up this lovely event. It was great fun and I totally forgot about how great those events are.

He said he forgot about it during the pandemic and had to understand and experience this again. Well, this is what we invite you to. Join us for the Warm-Up at Diesdas (even if you don't attend beyond tellerrand), join us for beyond tellerrand and grab a ticket or join the next "Stories on the Road" stops (for example next week in London and Frankfurt).

Go out and reconnect to the community again, meet people you know, make new connections and learn from and inspire each other!

Yesterday I got my new daily bike, a Rose Sneak 2 and typically chains of new bicycles come with an oiled chain. So did this one and I thought “Well, give it a try and drive this one with oil”. I drove about 8km yesterday, from the store to where I live and today about 6km with the dog and now have a look how this oiled chain already looks like and how the sand and dirt sticks to the oil.

If you imagine that on the image above, the chain of my Specialized Diverge is roughly 3500km old and I re-waxed it about 150km ago. The chain might be a bit old and could be replaced, yes, but no dirt or sand sticks to it.

I definitely will degrease the chain of my new bike as soon as I have a quick link and will also use wax on that one. The wax I am using is from Optimize. So far I never used hot wax, but only the fluid wax and am super happy.

Oh … and here is my new birthday-bike ☺️

Actually my roots in terms of my events life are based on this. I always loved the personal experience at events, the random things that happen in the breaks and getting to know and meet other people where sometimes those serendipitous meetings turned into friendships and long-term relationships. Yet sometimes even into projects and jobs, which never was planned in the first place.

The things I describe can surely also happen at big, corporate events and those events have their reason to take place. If I would have to pick and choose, I think I’d always go for the smaller, more community driven events, but that surely is a matter of my own taste. I only really wonder and want to understand, why more and more of the smaller events don’t survive and/or need to be cancelled. Many conversations with my friend Keir and also with other event organisers rise the same questions over and over again:

• Why are less companies interested in supporting those smaller events financially (aka sponsoring)? And how can those events make it more attractive or emphasise the benefits of supporting them again?
• Why are attendees buying their tickets so late, which adds to the organisers uncertainty of whether an event will make profit or even only break even?
• Which channels can be used to advertise an event with a smaller budget without paying lots to bypass the algorithms of social media platforms?

Often times it comes down to measuring the success of a sponsorship for companies to decide whether they would sponsor an event again next time. But how do you actually measure success these days? Generating leads like you did back ten or fifteen years ago, where you’d run a raffle and people throw their business cards into a glass bowl, is surely not the way to go anymore. In my opinion it is the conversations you have at events. Especially if you run a booth. The quality of a conversation is tough to measure and evaluate and how would you even report this to the one who decides about the budget for events?

When it comes to getting the tickets early, how can you convince someone to get their ticket early again and with this, support the organisers to plan and run this event with the knowledge that the cost is covered? Even if the actual attendee understands this, they need to report this to their boss paying the ticket in the end and make the boss understand why this is important. If I would not trust in the reputation of beyond tellerrand and it would be a newer event for me, I would cancel the Berlin edition in November due to not enough tickets being sold and not enough partners, aka sponsors, being on board. I am feeling a bit unsure about a recent project Karl Groves and I want to start next year in Washington DC with a new event called Better by Design for obvious reasons and it is so sad for me to see events like Front Conference being cancelled due to exactly this! I know the people running it and if you look at the line-up you see that they made an effort to get new names onto their list.

Conversations with many other event organisers underline the difficulties of selling enough tickets and everybody is talking about the same phenomenon. Are community events maybe something from the past? A relict that the new generation does not need anymore? Well, you know my opinion here. On the other hand my friend Keir sent me the link to this post on Linkedin, where Julius Solaris tries to predict the future of events. I get some of his points (especially those related to environmental aspects), but massively disagree to a lot of other predictions he makes.

Anything AI driven in the curation process for example won’t help towards a better event experience in my opinion. I also surely shiver, when I read his point 17 in which he says that algorithms are going to decide which events you’ll attend! Or no. 18 – “no more fixed agendas, opening keynotes or parties” – who the fuck wants this? Is the shared event experience not why we actually attend events and what we want? Memories we leave an event with and which are the result of someone who deeply cares and who organised and planned this experience for you?

I don’t say that online events or communities as he describes them in no. 19 of his points will have their reason to exist also, but why not in combination or alongside event as we know them. In my opinion, and I think the pandemic and the efforts made during that time to find something that is like the in-person experience have shown also, the dedication and commitment of people who travel to an event and are ready to spend a day, two days or even more including travel is so much bigger than of someone who is in front of their screen, attending an event, where distractions are waiting to ruin the event experience: the dog needs a walk, dinner needs to be made and the actual talk is boring anyways, sun is shining and I can watch the videos later anyways …

In short: I disagree to most points Julius makes about he event experience itself and how AI will help us for better events or a better event experience – “AI will attend on our behalf if there is no one to meet at an event”. I mean, really? You are the one people want to meet.

Concerning the last of the three bullet points, I think it needs us as attendees to broadcast the message. If we attended a good event, we need to speak about it. Even short messages with a few positives aspects that underline why you liked attending do help a lot. Social Media as a tool for event organisers does not really work like it used to be, but is still needed in addition to us attendees. Reposting, quoting and posting from us as attendees helps spreading the information to possible new delegates. Blog posts for longer write-ups in addition also help of course! Photos that capture the joy of being at an event. If you are working for a company or agency, why not having an after-event meeting with your colleagues in which you describe the experience, what you have learned and who the exciting people were, which you have meet? Make it a team experience next time!

I could go on forever, but I think you got my point. Why do you think in-person events are important? Or do you agree to Julius’ view of how future events will look like? What do you think how issues I addressed and other existing problems can be solved? Let me know via email or join our Discord to discuss this or, if you are totally fancy, here is a new Whatsapp channel, I created ;). I am honestly excited to hear you thought.

It was lovely to meet people again, like Elliot, Eva-Lotta, Norman, Jürgen, Martina, Francis or Ivo and Georg, plus the organisers of the event, of course, just to mention a few.

But surely it always is great to also get to know new people. I got to meet a few people that made this trip especially exciting, like Jamie, Emma who I had the pleasure to hang out with during this event or Gustavo Ferrari, who opened the third day of the event with a lovely talk about Fileteado, in which he was not only talking about his work, but also about the history of Fileteado.

Overall I hope that events like Berlin Letters will survive and grow. They are important for human connections, but also for your business. But most importantly they fuel your creative batteries and inspire you to explore new fields or motivate you to keep on doing what you do.

So, if you are a founder or entrepreneur, or someone running their business as a singe person, this event is for you. I myself am going to be there as well and am extremely looking forward to it! And as I heard, there are a very few tickets left. So better be quick to not miss out.

More information about Craft + Work here …

Running events like beyond tellerrand is wonderful and even more that I can call something like this “my job”. But it’s also exhausting. You might think, once the festival is over I can relax, but usually there is a lot of work post-event to be done. Easily two more weeks full of stuff to say thanks, pay the bills and collect material and coverage etc. And yes, there is Berlin also, where I need to focus on to make it as good as the last one in Düsseldorf.

Therefore it is the best to have my lovely wife Tanja to remind me to actually take a break and just calm down, doing nothing but spending time in the sun, trying to process what has been experienced. We had a fantastic weekend and relaxed at the Dutch sea. Thank you Tanja! ❤️

Am happy.

It offer a book market with more than 12.000 books, concerts and much more. Next to this you can attend a reading of Marcus Bensmann who reads parts of [“Der AfD-Komplex”](https://shop.correctiv.org/Der-AfD-Komplex/SW10118 ?ref=marcthiele).

All readings and concerts are free to attend, but surely a donation is more than welcome! Any profit made is going into charity projects. Find all details here.

He also invites to a short interview, for those of you who speak German. I like projects like this and it reminds me of those, where people show they favourite menu bar helpers, tools or what’s in their bag.

Thanks, dear Dirk, for having me at Le Bureau!

A generated film that never is played in the same way, you ask? For whom could this work out and isn't that too chaotic to watch? Well, if your subject is Brian Eno and his life, it is absolutely fitting.

At least the version I have seen on Saturday in the Barbican in London was an absolute watchable and great experience. So proud of what my friend Brendan Dawes is part of here. Gary Hustwit, Bren and their team did a wonderful job here and if you have a chance to watch it, you should not miss out.

Next to this I used the chance to meet a couple of more people in London. Like the tow chaps on the photo and Keir Whitaker on Sunday morning. Go and meet the people you know if you are in a city they live in or are close to. Always great and new experiences.

Took me a while, also because it is only 8 weeks until beyond tellerrand Düsseldorf, but here are a few impressions of how it was …

This time: Patterns Day in Brighton.

Packing my Bag

Like this one, in which “the artwork” cracks the frame with a hammer. Or this one where the glass of the frame is hit with a baseball bat (he has more of this kind, with smashed glass).

Well, simply check all of his work ;) Oh, and of course: visit his website!

This is a farewell and thanks for all the wonderful publications. 🥂 to Jason Santa Maria, Katel LeDu (always a pleasure working with you also on partnerships!), Jeffrey Zeldman and anyone else involved of course!

Sad to see you leaving the publishing stage!