Weeknote 19/35

As mentioned in the previous note, I spent the better part of the week in Malmö, visiting The Conference.

Back in the old location (after two editions in the Opera, which I both missed), it felt pretty much as I remembered it. The quirky style, the attention to detail, the friendliness – all the elements that made me fall in love on my first visits were still there. But the novelty factor was gone. It felt familiar instead of surprising.

The quality of the programme was very solid, but unfortunately there were no talks this year that opened my eyes, triggered some deeper thoughts or motivated me to do something differently (maybe that’s asking a bit too much, but it happened in the past, so my expectations were very high).

I don’t think the curation was weaker than the years before. And I hope it’s not a sign of a general indifference on my part. Maybe it takes completely different topics to blow my mind after more than 20 years within the field of design and technology. Or perhaps it needs a much deeper exploration which would go beyond the scope of a conference like this.

All this might sound a bit negative to you. But that would be a wrong impression. The Conference is still an awesome event. I had a lot of fun and I don’t regret visiting. I’m just trying to explore why I’m not as enthusiastic as I was before…

So here's a link to my favourite talk¹ from this year, the closing keynote from Dr. James Beacham², the Wes Anderson of science.