On organising conferences
In 2010 I felt like I had enough of making the Internet; the passion for this job was slowly fading away trapped in routine work and client management. I was in the industry since 1996 and 14 years seemed like enough time dedicated to creating websites.
In July 2010 I saw a tweet by someone mentioning a new conference taking place in Nottingham on Jan 2011. I don’t know how, but until that tweet, I never thought about going to a conference.
That tweet somehow clicked and I bought a ticket; Andy Clarke was speaking at that conference, Transcending CSS was a personal favourite and I really wanted to listen to Mr Clarke.
Sitting in the Albert Hall, that Thursday morning, I knew I still loved my job. It was the way I was doing it that was killing my passion:
- I was not challenging myself enough;
- I was not studying enough;
- I was not meeting people smarter than me.
But most of all, I was not going to conferences.
Attending that single conference for me meant becoming a better doer, getting more confidence in my skills and meeting some incredible enthusiastic people from all over the world.
That night I had a wonderful chat with Simon Collison about organising conferences. Hours later, in my hotel room, I knew I was going to create something similar in Italy.
The beginning
Four months later I joined a group of developers (which previously organised a couple of meet-ups) and helped them setting up their first conference.
I was an absolute beginner and I knew nothing about it, except what I saw at New Adventures in Web Design that year and what I learned from the really good Conference Organiser’s Handbook by Peter-Paul Koch.
I knew nothing about this back then but I made my way through all the perils of organising a conference trying to sit on everyone’s chair before taking any decision: I tried to treat speakers as if I was a speaker too, attendees as if I were one of them, sponsors as if I was investing my own money.
And I’ve been supported with precious advice by some of the most friendly and competent organisers in our industry, namely Andy McMillian, Marc Thiele and Gavin Elliot.
Most of all, I had the luck of sharing these adventures with some of the most talented guys I know: Marco, Diego, Emanuele, Rocco, Marco, Pierre at From the Front, Matteo, Francesco, Enrico, Bea, Nicoló, Cristiano at Kerning.
I’ve been the luckiest man on earth.
I met (and have the luck to call friends) some of the smartest minds in our industry, people whose name I have been reading daily on articles and on the cover of books that made me grow professionally during the past 18 years.
I met and had fantastic chats with hundreds of fellow developers and designers with which I share the passion and the interest in becoming better day after day.
I developed friendships that escaped the “conference zone” to become part of my personal life.
The Last Crusade
Every journey has an end and forty-five months (and six conference) after boarding this ship I’m ready to step back from from both Kerning and From the Front and turn my energies toward new adventures.
It is not an easy call, but I’m sure it’s the right one for me and for the community that grew around our events.
I started this wonderful journey to contaminate the Italian scene with the passion that I could previously breath only at conferences abroad.
I hope I infected enough people.
P.S.: I will always be in the back of the theatre for the coming editions of Kerning and From the Front. If you’ll be there come and say hi ☺.
A special thank you goes to Paul Annett, Jake Archibald, Marta Armada, Aral Balkan, Matteo Balocco, Nicolas Bevacqua, Gunnar Bittersmann, Alberto Brandolini, Blaine Cook, Frank Chimero, Vincent Connaré, Marko Dugonjić, Fabio Forlivesi, Francesco Franchi, Francesco Fullone, Peter Gasston, Sebastian Golasch, Jon Gold, Owen Gregory, Luc de Groot, Aaron Gustafson, Ben Hammersley, Christian Heilmann, Jessica Hische, Bas Jacobs, Denise Jacobs, Sally Jenkinson, Jeremy Keith, Peter-Paul Koch, Nishant Kothary, Steve Krug, Bruce Lawson, Seb Lee-Delisle, Jenn Lukas, Ellen Lupton, Ulrika Malmgren, Andre Jay Meissner, Jan Middendorp, Denys Mishunov, Christopher Murphy, Rachel Nabors, Yves Peters, Stuart Robson, Richard Rutter, Linda Sandvik, Remy Sharp, Johnathan Snook, Sara Soueidan, Pierre Spring, Elliot Jay Stocks, Nina Stössinger, Erik Van Blockland, Lea Verou, Estelle Weyl for accepting to be part of this adventure. ❤
