Beyond Tellerrand 2022

I attended my first Beyond Tellerrand conference in Berlin last week. I'll not bury the lede and go right out and say that I definitely want to attend another Beyond Tellerrand. The event was such an excellent experience, featuring inspiring and thought-provoking talks as well as an excellent community with whom I chatted about everything from technology to data to anything else that came to mind.

The event was held in two rooms: an event room with seats where the talks were given, and a separate, well-lit room where you could go to chat and digest the talks. Marc Thiele, the event organiser, encouraged everyone to make new friends throughout the breaks. Each break was around 30 minutes, giving me plenty of time to find some amazing new people with whom to chat.

Marc introduced me to the "pacman rule" which says that when you are chatting in a group you should always leave room for one more to enter the conversation. I consciously left space so that more people could join conversations. This worked out really well and it's something I want to use in other community situations too.

The talks this year covered everything from data visualisation to getting out of your comfort zone. This wide breadth gave me lots to think and talk about during the event. Each talk was around 40 minutes long so the speakers could go deeper into their ideas.

The main theme across the conference is embodied by the "stay curious" phrase used by Beyond Tellerrand. Each talk encouraged me to think differently or deeper about something. I was introduced to new ideas, from the possibilities of data visualisation (which I now know is called "dataviz" in the community!) to how storytelling can make for a compelling presentation.

Beyond Tellerrand had a live captioner who transcribed everything that was being said by presenters. I appreciate the conference's focus on accessibility with the live captioning. There was also an amazing DJ, Tobi Lessnow, who remixed talks to create songs during the breaks between performers. Tobi Lessnow kicked off the conference with great energy, dancing behind his equipment on stage and playing great music before Marc introduced the event.

I didn't take too many photos because I was immersed in the experience of attending the event and chatting with people. But, I did take a few photos and I wanted to upload them to my site as a reminder of the experience.

If you're interested in the intersection of design and technology, I would recommend checking out Beyond Tellerrand. Their next event will be held in Düsseldorf in April 2023, followed by an event in Berlin later in the year. You don't need to be a programmer or a web developer to attend: the conference is not too technical, something I greatly appreciated since I am curious and want to learn about about technology from all angles. (There was also free coffee. One night there was free beer accompanied by a pub quiz!)

If this post has made you curious about the talks this year, you can view them on the Beyond Tellerrand YouTube channel. It doesn't look like all of the talks are up yet so you might want to check back on their YouTube in a few days.

Anyway, here are my photos:

Tagged in Beyond Tellerrand, design, web.