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VizThink Europe 2008 Recap: Pre-Conference

It’s hard to believe two weeks ago we were just sitting down to kick-off VizThink Europe in Berlin. The three days shot by in a flash and I think, in some regards, both Tom and I are still digesting the experience which is what has delayed this recap a bit. The reality is, in many ways, VizThink is a conference like no other – I’ve experienced them now from both sides of the table – first as an attendee in San Francisco, now as a member of the VizThink team. Both have been powerful, interesting and thought provoking experiences that usually leave me in a bit of a daze in the days that follow. As those in attendance have experienced this isn’t a “sit and watch the speaker” affair, all of the VizThink facilitators are encouraged to make their presentations as interactive and engaging as possible.

So if you’ll indulge me I’ll try and recap the conference from my point of view – there are also other posts popping up online from other attendees as well – the keyword tag for the event was “vteu08” if you want to look for them.

Berlin

Berlin is quickly becoming one of my favorite European cities. I spent a week there last year and had the benefit of being able to arrive a few days early this time around to make sure I was over the jet lag before the conference started. It’s got so many different personalities and the contrasts between the East and West halves of the city make for some very interesting history and scenery.

Tom and I took advantage of the opportunity and promptly did what everyone getting ready to spend three days on their feet at a conference should do… we hiked around the city to the tune of ~10 miles a day.

Over the course of the conference a lot of people asked us “why Berlin?” – aside from a lot of practical business reasons Berlin floated to the top of the list for it’s strong, vibrant visual arts community – we all thought it was the perfect environment to congregate some of the best minds in the visual thinking industry.

In the end we spent a great couple of days exploring the city while talking over the last minute plans and changes for the conference & I got to take far too many pictures.

“No, we don’t need a podium, er, lecturn”

Going into the conference there was a lot of wondering and discussion about how it would turn out. As I said above, this isn’t a “Sit & Listen” kind of event – so the attendees have a huge hand in making the conference what it is. San Francisco was an incredible experience where the attendees got thoroughly involved and were up for just about anything and we hoped the same would be true for the attendees in Berlin. While San Francisco had a healthy representation of non-American attendees, this was VizThink’s first European event we truly didn’t know what to expect.

The early hours of setup proved to be an interesting start to the conference for us. The hotel clearly had a process and procedures for setting up a room and it seemed every corner we turned we were asking for something to be changed or, unfortunately, undone. The irony in this case was that we were generally asking them to do less than they usually would.

One of the more amusing set of interactions was over the podium. Shortly into setup someone came wheeling a podium into the room, ready to setup – Tom was quick to say “Thanks, but we don’t want it” which was met with a look of confusion and a “Are you sure?” (If I had a dime for every time we were asked that!). This routine repeated itself several more times over the next 24 hours as a helpful staff member would notice we were missing a podium and rush off to bring it to the room, each time asking for it to be removed. The next morning it had returned Tom asked them to remove the “podium”, at which point they started removing the stage. It turns out that in Germany, and perhaps much of Europe, the “stage” is commonly known as the “podium” and what we call the “podium” is known as the “lecturn”. Needless to say, on a few occasions we reverted to our visual thinking and just drew a picture to show what we wanted.

Pre-conference Sessions

On Sunday the conference unofficially began with our three pre-conference sessions. Dave Gray and David Sibbet, both of whom facilitated at VizThink San Francisco, both put on workshops as well as Rodolfo Capintier who offered a unique workshop geared more towards the freelancers and small business owners in the visual thinking industry.

The sessions were all well received and the feedback so far has been very positive. Dave & David are both seasoned workshop facilitators and, from what we’ve heard, Rodolfo truly delivered some great resources and materials to his group.

These pre-conference sessions are a great way for attendees to get some intimate and intensive time with some of the industry’s great minds. We’re pleased we’re able to offer them and you can expect a great line-up of workshops for the conference in San Jose (there should be some announcements in the coming weeks). If you’re makig the trek to San Jose I highly reccomend you look into the sessions available.

Opening Reception

The opening reception is the official “kick-off” of the Conference. Held on the Sunday night it’s a chance for the attendees to get together, loosen up over a couple of drinks and start getting to know each other. For us it’s also a great barometer of what the rest of the conference is going to be like as we get our first glimpse of a good portion of the attendees.

As I was in San Francisco, I was consistently surprised by the variety of people in the room. VizThink is truly a melting pot of disciplines and it seems like no two people I encountered had the same job description. Our attendees ranged form Designers & Illustrators, Graphic Recorders, Marketers & Business Operations types right through to Interaction Designers. This kind of diversity makes these mixer events all the more interesting as the conversations can really go anywhere, and from what I heard as I mingled through the room, they did.

All in all – it was a great start to the event and all signs were pointing to a great couple of days ahead of us.

- Ryan

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Watch the blog over the next few days for a series of posts recapping the VizThink Europe event…

Missed the conference? VizThink 2009 is coming up February 22-25, 2009 in San Jose, California and registration is now open. The early registration discount ends November 30 so now is the time to get the best possible price to attend.

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