We are sponsoring the Lean Agile Exchange Conference happening online, 10 and 11 September (UK daytime).
Lean Agile Exchange takes place instead of this years’ Agile Cambridge, Lean/Agile Scotland (which was about a full day travel from here, but was still worth going to last year), and Agile in the City Bristol.
I made a short animation to illustrate how a conference in the cloud makes rainclouds go away.
My name is Willem, and I attend conferences. Even in the before time, when conferences generally happened in real life, I often wondered why I would leave the comfort of my own office and go out to a conference. Yes, even when I get a friendly ping from Allison: “Will you be there?”.
And then I remember the words of Conference Gump:
A conference is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get out of it.
That may not sound like a strong recommendation, but if it wasn’ for e.g. Lean Agile Exchange ‘s precursors I doubt I’d have found out about Abeba Birhane ‘s work on ethics and cognitive science. I may have found out about Wardley Mapping, but seeing Simon Wardley in action and doing hands-on mapping workshops made it much more sticky. Interaction is baked in, I see it starts of with Lean Coffee in the programme facilitated by Cat Swetel and Julia Wester - this will likely be at least as lively as the IRL version, and will probably hold a bigger audience - I arrived late for the face to face ones last year and it was packed.
Now, with uncertainty blocking two days in me and my partner’s calendar (no meetings for her) isn’t easy. But stepping away, even virtually from my desk into a well curated space filled with surprises is probably a good investment, even if I don’t know exactly what the outcome will be. And when I need to step away, I can go back and watch the sessions and engage in conversation afterwards.
Lean Agile Exchange is an easy recommendation, they already had a strong track record on content, serendipity and diversity and know how to enforce a reasonable, strict code of conduct with a smile. Virtual Agile Manchester was a lot better than I expected, even though the team didn’t have much time to pivot from face-to-face to 100% online. I expect the next one to be even better. I wasn’t the only one, seeing quotes on the conference site like these:
I would definitely like to see more of such events as it let me attend any event held in any part of the world. Nishanth Hydru, Participant, Agile Manchester Virtual 2020
Having a wider variety of participants around is very pleasant.
Looking forward to that box of chocolates. I was already pleasantly surprised to see they chose someone from my Alma Mater to do the opening keynote on Nihilism and Technology. I wasn’t involved in that, and it was a pleasent reminded me, seeing recent debates on ethics, technology and education that there were and still are universities that make thinking about this non-optional.
We are proud to sponsor, and hope to virtually see you there! Grab a ticket - sooner is cheaper.
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