My ThinkVis

Firstly I’m not an SEO so at times I feel I have no right in going to Think Visibility let alone have work spending company money on sending me. There are not only the tickets but hotels, food and drink all weekend that I got with hardly dipping into my own moth filled pocket. So I feel bad if I don’t go to sessions or learn quite what I feel is enough to warrant my attendance.

And I wish I could say I did learn lots, and that I came away with ideas that although not particularly relevant to me as a designer still would help improve my work. But I can’t, not totally anyway, instead I missed a couple of sessions and a couple of others I attended did bore me a little. This is nothing against the conference or the speakers, more likely my own impression of what I’ve learnt, which is probably more than I can think of now whilst still suffering the after effects of the weekend.

When I go to design conferences I ensure I go to learn stuff in the knowledge that I hate networking and I don’t know personally all that many people in the design community. Actually it’s not that I hate networking but I struggle when wandering up to a complete stranger or group of strangers and trying to involve myself in the conversation. With Think Visibility I had the benefit of being able to hang around with Dave and Becky and get involved in the conversations that they found themselves in. Therefore meeting loads of interesting people, hearing some side splittingly funny stories and getting a few handshakes from people impressed with my work on Dave’s website which was of course rather cool.

Added to all this is the man himself; Dom. I think Dom would admit himself that he not the most serious of people and this aspect of his personality comes through in the conference he organises. Things like Rubber ducks, Scalectrix, pick ‘n’ mix and Play your Serps right all make for a highly entertaining conference. Yet Dom was still able to show a serious side and get a few tears out of the attendees at the end of the day when remembering a friend of the community who recently lost their life. I hope he follows through on his thoughts for more meetups outside of the conference as these would surely be a lot of fun.

With a difficulty in being able to take advantage of ‘networking’ opportunities I’ve always struggled to see why people say it’s this part of a conference that can be the most advantageous. But I now know exactly what they mean, it’s be one of the most fun and entertaining weekends I’ve had in a long time, topped off with a quiz win on the Sunday

I hope I get the opportunity to meet with some of the great people I met this weekend again, it was these people that really will make this one conference I’ll never forget.