Did you miss Interaction 2019 conference? — here is what happened
You should never judge a book by its cover, and you shouldn’t judge a conference solely by the speakers. I prefer to judge them in the following categories: Inspiration, Workshops, Networking, Vendors and Swag, Food and Logistics. After all, it’s not just the talks to which you should be paying attention. To get the most out of a conference you have do the homework and have a goal before you attend. Basically you need to create a strategy on how to experience a conference.
I know more about potatoes than attending conferences, but I’ve collected some “street-cred” based on my previous experiences at:
An Event Apart - San Francisco
AIGA triple H - Minneapolis
UX-LX - Lisbon
Valiocon - San Diego
Design & Content - Vancouver
The Homework
The most important thing before the conference is to set an intention on how you are going to experience it. I’ve been in the industry 15+ years and it’s hard to find new and relevant topics that haven’t been discussed or written about or something that you can already google. This attitude can make you cynical and critical and not in a good way. Thus I set an intention to find the positive in every talk and write down a way of how it can be applied to my own work and process. So when you hear a topic that you are familiar with or you may even have more expertise than the speaker, that’s when you should really actively pay attention, because some of the best insight may come to you when you read between the lines.
Best example was during Jon Kolko’s heartwarming presentation. Although I was familiar with the value of story-telling and I’ve read a bunch of studies on dopamine, cortisol, oxytocin, and endorphins I had no clue that a good story releases hormones in your brain. I don’t have Jon’s slides but here is a really good video explaining how the process works. Basically if you want to connect with your audience to the point where their body reacts to you, then you better start with a good story.
Networking
Interaction 2019 can be really good for networking if you make the effort. When meeting peers from our industry I always try to see what i can learn from a person or what can I share. Things you will learn from people at the happy hour can be just as impactful as things you learn from the main speakers. Some really talented ux’ers may not be interested in the speaking portion of conferences but they could be really great to talk in-person.
I met Patricia from San Francisco who is really amazing at writing out interaction annotations and promised to share them with our whole group. AJ from Adobe showed how fast Adobe XD can handle thousands of artboards on an older Mac.
Ricky from New York told me about how he was able to successfully incorporate Lottie and After Effects for animations. While snapping a photo of the Space Needle I bumped into Ivor, who turned out to be one of the presenters I missed from the Death talks. Catherine told me of the advantages of being a woman in ethnographic research in manufacturing plants. Apparently people tend to disarm, trust and be more open to a woman, while a man may be perceived as one of the “Office Space” Bobs, who is there to eliminate someone’s job. I spoke with Trevor from Volvo cars about choosing the right design software for teams across the globe. I learned of the challenges the T-Mobile’s design team is facing. Tyler from Amazon told me about how they sourced those amazing sketchbooks from Singapore for under $6. Which brings us to Swags.
Swag and Vendors
Material things give you much less dopamine and are forgotten much quicker than experiences. However, great Swag will definitely enhance your conference experience. My all time favorite swag is a good sketchbook. Cisco and Axure came through with the classic shape sketchbooks. Amazon on the other hand came out strong with ACRE sketchook with 4 different types of paper patterns in one book.
The covers’ photo doesn’t do justice to show Amazon’s game.
Google and Facebook offered a raffle for some home security gadget and Oculus headset respectively. I entered both but didn’t win :(. Among stickers, buttons, patches and other useless swag, pattern socks were trending strong. If you ever need to design a sock for swag please do not make a pattern with your logo (unless you’re doing it for Louis Vuitton). Service Now did it tastefully, while Adobe XD just Command+D their logo all over. Use this opportunity to create a fashionable sock and sneak the logo in tactfully. Trust me, I’ve been in the sock game back when it was weird to wear anything other than a black or a white sock. Spotify had good quality coffee mugs but no enough for everyone.
Most vendor booths were pretty standard. Majority of them were there to hire talent, only a few were there to sell services. I was really surprised i didn’t find InVision. Some were a bit hard to tell what they were. Maybe I am not “thinking outside the box.” What do you think this booth is for?
Food and Logistics
The only First World Problem complaint was having to check-in every morning to access the Amazon building, the IXDA badge just didn’t cut it. The multi-track talks were split between the three venues in multiple buildings. This was a great “nudge” to get you outside to do a bit of exploring the city (or city block). The main venue had a built in comic relief in the benches that would make a fart noise when you tried to move around.
The room with the View was on the 16 floor with 180 degree view of the city and surrounding waters and mountains. However my favorite was the Theater with the most comfy and reclining seats.
The food was great and abundant. It may not seem important but my PM was attending Saastr conference during the same time and paid a similar price, however they did not get breakfast, which apparently is a disaster in the Product world. If you wanted to up your foodie game, there were plenty of options within a walking distance radius. Despite a plethora of sea food options, I was most impressed by Rocco’s pizza which is currently my favorite pizza in the world.
Inspiration
I was tempted to recap the talks, but you will be able to watch the videos or slides soon and to get your perception. I recommend a few that stuck out.
The most valuable talks
I am a sole designer on a product team, a complete opposite of someone who has lead a global team of designers, like Maria Guidice. Maria’s talk shed some light onto what a design leadership role entails. If you’re thinking of advancing your design career then you will follow a few of her steps.
The second most valuable talk was by Chris Avore. Chris’ talk titled “Scaling Emergent Design Leadership for Complex Teams, Organizations, and Markets” is a bit wordy but the talk had really good insight a actionable steps about Design Leadership.
The fun vs. money realization
Most of the audience is probably working on their regular, default design career. If you ever wondered what it would be like to win the “Golden Ticket” to the adventurous design career then watch Nelly Ben Hayoun. Let her take you on a journey of what it would be like if you decided to quit your day job and indulge yourself a journey of executing every crazy-awesome idea you have. Spoiler alert: you need to generate insane amounts of fierce energy, be highly self motivated and to have no reservations to ask for money.
You’re a designer, why aren’t you designing the life you love?
Ayse Birsel has created a brilliant product. Self-help is highly saturated industry and yet Ayse managed to carve out a space for herself by offering a way to deconstruct your life and put it back together through a designer’s lens. Ayse’s talk promotes a book and workshop, but she does provide enough for you to get your creative juices flowing.
Do you love to geek out on human behavior?
Did you know that while you’re listening to a good story some hormones are released in your brain? And that these hormones impact your behavior? For example, you’re more likely to donate to a charity after you listen to a story that evokes empathy. Watch Jon Kolko’s “Stories: The Way to Our Heart, and the Key to Design Strategy,” if you’re into that kind of stuff. This presentation also revolves around a quite meaningful project.
Best slides
Some presenters were not only presenting good content but also had designed great slides. I do appreciate well chosen colors and great typography. On the other spectrum if you want to go without slides then watch Jon Bell. This is a good example of someone who is in complete control of their body language, has mastered stage pacing with excellent storytelling.
TLDR
Interaction 2019 was inspiring, fun and well worth it. For networking most attendees (I met) were designers and researchers. I only met one PM. Most vendors were there to hire. Seattle + Amazon combo makes for a good home for an event because it made it appear grand without being overwhelming. Always go to a conference that is far away to get exposed to different culture and way of life. It was fun to watch the “Snowmageddon” happening.
Missed Connections
If anyone knows this guy from SAP (on the left in the image below) please send me his contact info. We had a really great conversation about becoming “talker-talker,” and would like to talk more.
