#59 UX design conferences
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When you choose a design conference, start from your goals. What do you hope to achieve out of it on a very tangible or measurable level? Is it networking? Is it just new ideas and exploring how other people think? Is it very tangible? Do I want to learn and master a new skill? Do I want to grow as a designer using Figma? Or what do I feel like is the thing that I want to focus on? ♪

Hi everyone and welcome to a new episode of Honest UX Talks. As always, I'm joined by Anfisa and today we're going to be tackling a very, very exciting topic, which is design conferences. We're going to try to unpack a little how to choose the design conferences that you'll be attending, what was our experience with design conferences, maybe types of conferences, and overall, what are the pros and cons of attending events. But before we do that, I just want to take a moment to thank our sponsor.

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If you want to be a design freelancer or if you're doing freelancing work right now, make sure to check out Figura.digital. And thank you so much for being with us on this journey. So with that, because this is the second episode we were recording on this wonderful sunny Sunday, I'm not going to go into how we've been because we've just talked about it in the previous episode. So I'm going to jump straight to the topic of the day, which is design conferences.

So Anfisa, what has been your own personal experience with design conferences so far? Yay. Thank you so much for joining guys. Welcome everybody to the next episode. My experience with design conferences was diverse, I would say. So I'm a big fan of all the on-site events. So when I jumped into UX industry, I started from Design Hackathon, which is also a type of an event.

And because the people were so passionate and excited about, you know, building stuff together, I got really inspired by that energy. It ignited me to transition to UX. And for me, it was always like this place where I can return and get to meet people with the same interests and energy. And for me,

Conferences were always the medium where I get to meet people from my network who are probably similarly passionate about building stuff and being designers themselves. And so because it's almost like a vacation for me every time to go into the conference, it's always like the festival sort of things. I was always very proactive and looking for conferences.

So I was in different conferences in different countries. I always visit conferences locally. So for example, I'm right now living in Czech Republic and pretty much all the conferences related design, I'm always there. Mini conferences, big conferences, middle conferences, whatever.

Same as in Ukraine, pretty often, well, before the war, I was pretty frequently in Ukraine and I was also visiting their conferences, seeing talks from really legendary designers such as Don Norman and other like design legends. And it was always like this really fun experience that I was eager to participate in. Obviously, in the last two years, I was more and more in the online conferences.

which unfortunately for me didn't stick around. I was not really excited of visiting them. I mean, in the beginning it was fun because, you know, it was still experimentation to figure out, can we bring networking effect to the conferences online? But pretty quickly, no matter the tool, it was really hard to drive the networking effect. People would be, you know, excited and talking a lot, but it will be harder to build the connections I usually would build in the on-site settings.

And so I quickly stopped to visit in online conferences. Every time somebody even gives me like a free ticket, I would be like, I have other things to do in the offline setting than visiting online conference because the content is great. Obviously, many people think that you visit in conference

the content that you're going to learn something. I think the most common notion is that design conferences is all about learnings but after visiting like three, four, five, ten conferences you quickly realize that it's really not about the content and the content always repeats itself. It's often same topics unless somebody shares their case study or their story or their like speciality knowledge and information that could

be helpful for you in the future so unless somebody shares something very unique to their field it's going to be always same things it'll be all personas yes or no oh you know design process it's all the things you practice and know and sometimes it's just the boring content that I even opt out to visit or listen to for a sake of going out there to the coffee stand and just talk to designers or talk to people talk to different companies and see what's out there the last few years were not a

I would say conference fruity for me. But this particular summer, I explored or discovered for myself a new concept called UX Camp, which is not really like a conference itself. I think the UX Camp is coming from the notion of Bar Camp, which is a community-driven event or conference, if you will, where

it's really all about the community. So community comes together in one location, organizers organize the venue, the food, and they try to facilitate the whole agenda. But all you do is just pitch your idea in front of everyone, throw this idea onto the wall, and...

So do many other people. Let's say 100 ideas of what people want to talk to. Some of them would have slides, like different points they want to make. Some of them would test their ideas onto, let's say I was doing the research in this area. I want to discuss it with you. And somebody will just want to have a conversation about, here's the problem I'm facing. Let's talk about it.

And there will be also things such as games, role-playing games, workshops, et cetera, et cetera. It's a really, really fun event. The fun thing about it is that it's free. So I was like really mind blown that A, you can go to the conference where you would see a lot of really smart and knowledgeable people. For example, this year in UX Camp Berlin, there was Eric Rice, who is the author of many books. He was like presenting there and it was great.

really casual. He would talk to you like you're his friend and he would throw a lot of jokes, talk about how designers sometimes think they're the center of the world and stuff like this and do some irony around us designers. And it was just really cool. Many, many, many talks. So you sit in the same room with really smart, cool people who wrote books or made really an impact in the design industry. And there was you having fun or discussing ideas and you can contribute and you can give feedback. Yeah, you can participate in a workshop, whatever it is, and it's all free and you can choose the topics.

So I guess the agenda is built once everybody's in the same room, people throw ideas, you choose which room to go, you go and interact with many, many different rooms and topics, community-based. And I really fell in love with this idea. So for me, that became an ultimate, I guess, merge of content and networking effect. And so far, I'm like a big promoter of it. And I think I was in Berlin in June. And also in August, I went to UX camp in Hamburg, which is also a great occasion to visit the new city. Yeah.

and it's beautiful. So that was my experience. How about you, Ioana? Which conferences have you been visiting and which ones were your favorite? Speaking about local events, it's really sad that in Romania we don't have local UX conferences anymore. The UX conference that was traditionally organized, I think every two years in Bucharest, was actually organized by two of my very good friends. Somehow they lost the drive, especially with the

pandemic and everything. And it's a lot of hard work and they were doing it voluntarily after their full-time jobs. We don't have a lot of local events here in Romania. We have some events for startups, but not design dedicated events. But I remember the first design conference that I attended was when they were still organizing it. And then I think we kind of gathered together, let's do it, let's organize another one. But then life got in the way. So I

I think you really have to treat this like a full-time job. I'm doing this and it's a lot of work to organize conferences. Anyhow, so we failed for the last couple of years, but who knows, maybe we restart that project. But that's when I first attended design conferences. I think it was 2016 or 2017 when we had Jared Spool.

here in Bucharest for the conference and was incredible. Andy Budd was also a guest, I think, on the previous edition. So my first contact with the design conference was actually attending a Jared Spool workshop. And so it kind of set up a very high standard for design conferences. And it was great to have it in Bucharest, obviously. Yeah, so that was the first time. And then it felt

extremely valuable because what happened is that if you go to these conferences and are a junior designer, then probably most of the things you'll hear there will feel new to you, right? So for me, it was just this world of new things, new ideas, new concepts, new frameworks. Everything was so exciting. But what happens today, if I attend a conference, most probably I've heard most of the things that are being discussed. So it's really hard to find new ideas. Not that I know everything, obvious, but somehow if you've been on the industry for

Close to 10 years now, you've heard most of the concepts, especially with all the content that's being created and put out there for free. So for me, the challenge right now is to find valuable content in conferences. And by valuable, I mean sort of new or at least deeper than the things that I've already been exposed to.

So it was a revelation. And then I became a huge fan of design conferences. And I said, you know what, I'm going to dedicate my life to traveling for design conferences and everything. And so I did that. In the same year, I went for a Nielsen Norman conference in London, and I spent there three days. And then a couple of years later, I went on my second Nielsen Norman conference in London, and then I spent the

full week. And like you said, I think the most valuable byproduct or the thing that you don't intuitively expect is that these are amazing networking opportunities. So I've met people that prove to be long term relationships afterwards. And then I've also remet people who I haven't seen in a long time. And our conversations got restarted and some opportunities emerged from that. So I feel that for me, what was most benefic was to lean on the networking aspect of these conferences.

So I've been to Nielsen Norman conferences and yeah, and in 2020, I had my South by Southwest tickets bought. I think for me, at least maybe I'm projecting these onto other people, but I feel like it's the dream design and creator conference if you want. Of course, it's not UX dedicated. It's arts and crafts and just thinkers and philosophy and it's all so many things in one. But I think it's just an incredible event and I think Austin is such a creative town to go visit and just

get some of the energy out of it. So I was supposed to go to South by Southwest, but then everything got canceled. And so hopefully I will go next year because my ticket has been rescheduled. And then I think that sometimes as designers, we are very focused on going to UX conferences, but that's for the next question. So let's jump into the next question on how do you find and choose the right events? Of course, we don't have unlimited budget. We don't have unlimited time. So we have to be

picky and careful when we choose the events that we're going to attend because we want to get as much value as possible, right? And so how does one choose the right event to go to? And what are maybe some criteria or some types of conferences or some things to look at when you're looking for conferences and choosing one? What's your advice on that?

I think for me, it would be very straightforward and not maybe necessary for everyone. It would not align with everybody's thinking. But I think for me, it's always about networking. So like I said, for me, the value, the biggest joy, the biggest takeaways I always get in the conversations is

from having talks with people, especially if the whole conference is driven to have a conversation and not just like static content on the stage, next, next, next, next, next. If I see the conference with an opportunity to have workshops, conversations, roundtables, whatever of that sort, or even maybe some fun activities together, like for example, in Czech Republic, we have WebExpo and it's a pretty cool event. One year before COVID, they had like a tram activity. So, you know, Prague is very famous for like trams and trams are all around the city and they booked

a special tram without a roof and with the beer tap. They got a game. So people would sit on a tram, the tram's were going every half an hour or so. You get in the tram, you get a freshly brewed tap beer and there is like a group of 10 people. They sit and we have the game to play. Will we destroy the world or not?

And we are presented with different scenarios of how we can design the world. We make choices at the end of the game, at the end of the road. And while we are in this tram, we're like going through the whole Prague in September, warm, beautiful, sunny day. It's really nice experience that they designed. So you go through the whole Prague and as you arrive to the end location, we know, did we destroy the world or not?

And it was a really fun way to get to know people, have some fun, discuss different point of views. And again, understand something for yourself. You do have takeaways. You did learn the consequences of your actions, if you wish. For me, I would always look out for those opportunities. If the conference is just online, heavy content based and fun,

Especially if even like their experience on the website, how they position this conference, if it's like bulky, static, I would say. If you see it and it doesn't look like a fun experience, I would probably not opt in to go there. So yeah, that's the biggest criteria for me. Networking, exercises, activities, workshops. Second,

thing I would also look for is, of course, the content. And that means that the content should be a bit deeper than just trendy topics today. So one thing I see a lot of conferences have a scene of doing, they will Google what's the hot topics today in design market, and they just build their agenda around that because they need to sell tickets. And I get it. I mean, of course, this is still a business, especially if it's, you know, for profit. It's

conference but at the same time these topics are just built for a sake of having catchy lines clickbait topics and then you sit in the conference and then you see something super default nothing new no deep just like I squeezed out some content for a sake of matching up to this title and

And that's the experience I always feel frustrated about. I always try to make sure this is not a catchy topic. It could be very interesting, but more often than not, it will be just, yeah, clickbait in it. I found myself leaving the auditorium after seeing those talks. And so for me, it would be really all about looking for the content that matches with my interests that I see maybe will be an important topic moving forward. The topics that are important for the world today, for example, maybe psychology or a

psychology whatever is aligned with my interest so many other topics i'm usually looking at the content with the notion or with the question will i be able to find the use of trying or will i need this information in my future is this information something i want to get more about like practice more understand the fundamentals learn the resources etc etc so maybe like

content should be a preview to something you want to learn moving forward or is it something that you are already working on and you think you have a problem so let's hear how other people think about solving this problem so that would be my take on looking for the conference and it's always i rather prefer having case studies like sometimes even live showcases or whatever like when you don't just hear my slides it's beautiful it's animated or something

But it's really like, here's my projects. Here's how I organized it. Here's the problems I stumbled over. Almost like a storytelling case study, if you will. Like I said, I really need workshops because one thing I've realized, so my husband is a backend developer. We sometimes discuss the conferences we do as him. And when I say what kind of design conferences we are going to,

He always is super surprised because in development, they have very different conferences. They would have very practical, open the console and start showing the code and start explaining how they solved something really online, like by showcasing it to all the audiences. While for us, at least the conferences I visited, it would be often very abstract, very theoretical, very like articles.

like here is the design process we do ABC we need five research participants and stuff like that so this is something that is not really known knowledge and if you need to answer the question you just Google it and you find an article on NGOM stuff like that and so I think that we have a lot to learn from some developer conferences as well so yeah again if you're interested in developer conferences it's

I mean, you can visit, but that's not the point. Point is that I think we're missing the content that would be more practical rather than theoretical. What about you? I also have something not controversial, but a bit like weird kind of advice. I would say I'm going to start with not the weird part. So I would say when you choose a design conference, start from your goals. What do you hope to achieve out of it on a very tangible or measurable

level? Do you want to go there and just learn theory, think about new ideas, learn new ideas, learn information about different topics that you're interested in exploring or going deeper into? So I would say, do you want to just acquire information or do you want to build practical skills? Do you want to learn how to do something very tangibly like

We learn in different ways. Some people learn by listening or reading. Other people learn very well by doing. I think most people actually learn pretty well by doing. So I would start by understanding what's my goal when going to this conference? Is it networking? Is it just new ideas and exploring how other people think? Is it very tangible? Do I want to learn and master a new skill? Do I want to grow as a designer using Figma? Or what do I feel like is the thing that I want to focus on? And then after you have some clarity on the goals that you hope to achieve,

be them educational or just social like networking, start mapping out what might be some opportunities for those goals that match those goals. So in my case, just an example, at some point I felt like I wanted to move into a more managerial kind of track, into a management role, be able to lead teams, lead with confidence, be able to be more

efficient when it comes to dealing with stakeholders relationships. And from that, I started mapping out opportunities for honing those skills. And I ended up doing the management track with Nielsen Norman in London. So I took five days where I would do just workshops around the management skills on their management track. So that's an example. But then other times, like right now, I feel like I want to be better at Figma and I'm going to choose an opportunity that helps me achieve that.

So you lose the contact with the more tactical or tangible kind of elements like building design systems in Figma and so on. So I would say start from your goals and treat conferences as educational opportunities and social opportunities and just prioritize some of the goals over others. That would make your choice easier. And then another aspect, I think, is that sometimes you...

might want to explore other conferences which are not UX focused. And I've learned that, for example, this week I've been a mentor for startups in a conference that was dedicated to startups. But it was really interesting for me as a designer to explore talks by investors, talks by successful founders. So things that don't pertain to UX design

but that are related to the business of building products, the business of building experiences, right? But from a different angle, from an interesting lens, which I'm not necessarily exposed on a daily basis when I'm spending time in Figma, right? So it was really interesting to understand the investor's perspective, for example, and when it comes to what kind of products they go for or they trust. And also strategies for growing your products and so on. So it was packed

with insights that I don't typically think about. So I would advise anyone to maybe consider conferences that are tangent to UX design. Another example is a local conference that I'm actually an advisor for when it comes to the conference experience. It's called Unfinished Festival. And typically they bring speakers from different fields of thought.

if you want. So you can imagine speakers like Marina Abramovich, which is an artist. And then in another year, the keynote was Esther Perel, which is a psychologist. And so people from different artistic or just philosophical, different buckets of ideas brought together in this festival for thinking and for breeding ideas and interesting new concepts and interesting things. It's

It's just happening this weekend. I'm super excited about it. I can't wait to be there. And so what I'm trying to get at is that sometimes you might want to let yourself be surprised and just go do something that's a bit outside of your typical interest and see how that will inform your design philosophy, your design ideas, your design process eventually, and so on. So that's my quirky piece of advice.

Yeah, I just wanted to add, it's a very good point because in the beginning, as I was still like working with a lot of freelancing or like startups, I did my own startups. I did visit a lot of like really irrelevant to design conferences and it made me like my growth was so much more broadened by then. I was visiting like growth hacking, like marketing conferences.

because I did like a crypto startup in 2016 or 17 whatever and we had to visit like crypto conferences in Estonia and in Dubai and so it was very different but hey I've learned so much about different industries and how they operate and their values and how they think and from investors like you

said, especially from investors, because working with startups, it's something that is crucial to many companies to survive. And so by introducing yourself to that area, you'll be expanding how different companies and startups and just companies in different stages and specialities or industries work. You can empathize much better, at least. So those are the top of

mind things that I had in mind, I'm going to jump into another angle that we can look at this conversation through. So we've briefly touched upon this, what we can expect out of conferences, the social benefit of networking, the content benefit, the tangible hands-on kind of knowledge and skill that you might build. These are some of the pros. Do you have any other pros in mind? And then what are some cons to attending conferences?

Oh, tough topics. Now. Yeah, we did talk about it a little bit. And right now, I don't have like more things to add. But I would say that maybe the process that you sometimes get to travel to new location and explore different cultures. For example, like I said, I went to UX camp in Berlin. It's like the biggest UX camp event in Europe. And they have like, if I'm mistaken, 300 people or even more. So there are people travel from all around the world. There are people from

Brazil, China, Japan, Indonesia, Australia, US, you name it. And so it was more international. And then two months after in Hamburg, they had the local Hamburg-based UX camp. And I was pretty much almost the only one, not German there. So I traveled there because I really liked the idea of the concept of UX camp. And I was like, okay, there is another event. Why not go in there? Even though it's a smaller one, I think they have less than 100 people.

So it was all about like local environment. So the topics were all about German specific market. I think I entered the auditorium. I was like 10 minutes late or something. And I was the only international there. I entered the auditorium and some of the organizers recognized me and they said, can we please switch to English? So they actually switched to English.

for the whole conference, which was amazing. But the idea is that it was really interesting for me because I was sitting there and listening how in different countries UX works, what the problems are, how the companies work. I came here as my perspective, being a designer in Czech Republic, working for an expat company. And then I'm sitting there and listening how the companies work. We also had some fun activities there. We would walk through the city and it was called product walks and we would discuss things. But the idea was that I could

get to learn very new perspective to me. And even though Czech Republic is so close to Germany geographically, it's a very different mindset. It's a very different culture and we can all learn from each other. So it was a fun experience to me to understand that it's very different for us. And I got to see their offices. The conference was wonderful.

in one of the huge local LinkedIn sort of office, huge building, beautiful in the harbor. Again, you travel, you see people, you experience new culture. At the same time, you experience how UX work in this new context, in this new culture. For me, that was a huge benefit. And again, it helped me broaden the horizons. In terms of the cons, I think, again, the con is always about poor content.

And maybe there are more, but right now this one is biggest for me. And I don't think of any other big no's. Maybe small things like, you know, you get very tired after it. You need like one day of sleep or something because, you know, a lot of social interactions, a lot of energy. But other than that, it's not a big deal. But the content is, it's always something that makes me frustrated in the end of the day. Like if I just visited some conference because it was just local conference or whatever, and it was just making it click bait.

Then I would leave. I mean, of course, I would discuss the topics with my friends or colleagues who I've met in that conference, but I would just leave sort of thinking, oh, I wasted time. Or if the content was just very theoretical, very not interesting, not practical, nothing I can learn or try in my future. That's always the biggest corner, the biggest risk for me going into a conference.

And sometimes, again, you see a really cool topic, like the future of design, the robots and blah, blah. You go there and you listen to something super stupid, automation, something you know, go and use Zapier. This is something you know, right? So things like that, that usually is the frustration point for me. How about you? What do you think?

I think your point speaks very well to me. I remember going to this local conference before I moved into UX, but I knew that I wanted to get a job in tech and I knew that I wanted to like explore this area. So I went to a conference that was about generic internet mobile kind of thing. So I went there with my hopes high. It was, I was like very young, 22 or 23. And so, wow, I'm going to get so much value out of it. And it was so salesy. It was just a bunch of commercial projects

pitching that people went on stage and they talked like this person from I don't know what product and then they would just advertise the product and it would just be an endless line of ads if you want very very long ads I was also drained but frustrated and disappointed

so I can accept the tiredness and the draining feeling that comes out of so much interaction and such a hectic schedule if I'm getting value out of it. But yeah, another con to conferences is that they're pretty exhausting. So I can draw a parallel to music festivals. So when I was younger, I would go to,

music festivals all around Europe, mostly. Werther in Belgium, and then I would go to Primavera Sound in Barcelona, and then I would travel for concerts and music and everything. And so I remember staying until 6 a.m. to catch, I don't know what concert, that was very, very late. But the joy was so big that the cost was worth it. So I would come back exhausted, sleep from

for one week, but it was worth it. So, I mean, it's similar to this. Like if you get the joy out of it, if you get the value, then it's worth probably delaying your day-to-day work and your to-do list and having things pile up and having to deal with all that postponing when you get back from the conference. But if you get value out of it, then you won't feel that.

And getting value out of it is pretty difficult. And I think it becomes more and more difficult, right? Because on one hand, I do understand speakers as well. So they have to build a talk or like an experience that's accessible to anyone. So especially if it's not a very niche conference that doesn't have a precise audience. So it's just a general generic design conference. Then you want to talk about things that everyone in your audience can sort of relate to and understand. And that kind of forces you into a generic space. But

That's where I think the most important mission that conferences have is to communicate who they're for, right? So I think that's where the misalignment and expectations come from. Like if I go to a UX branded conference and then they're talking about things that are very generic, very like, what is UX design and why is it important?

And I'm not going to be happy that I spend my money on that. But if that conference says this is open to marketers, it's open to salespeople, it's open to anyone who wants to understand what UX is, then I'm not going to be frustrated because I know what that's about. And same goes for more niche talks or things that are just...

just say from the beginning, this is for beginners. This is for people who don't do UX. This is for senior UX designers. And then that's where I'll go. And I'm probably not going to be frustrated because I know what to expect. And the person who's building that talk or that workshop knows who they're addressing that

workshop for. So I think that's it. Setting the right expectations. I think it's an issue of ethics and transparency from the conference's side. So that's another con. And yeah, and I think that sometimes for me, what has been difficult was to like interrupt my normal flow of work. So I would go out of the normal things that I had to do,

the things that were always like with the sense of urgency attached and then get out for two days, be exhausted, come back, not be productive. And then everything would like always there's the physical cost, like just paying for the conference, but it was also like a mental cost, right? Or an emotional cost that you're paying when you're going to conference.

So that's why I became very picky about them. But South by Southwest, you can imagine that I'll be traveling from Europe, from Bucharest all the way towards New York, probably where I would switch planes, go to Austin because there's no direct flight from Europe to Austin. So it's going to be so intense, so hectic just for a couple of days of

intense networking and talking and going to talks and wanting to soak everything in. But I feel that it's worth it. Like for me, it just makes sense. So where I'm trying to hint at is if it brings you value on a personal level, like not what all the people want to go to the juiciest conference in, I don't know where, Lisbon. But if it brings you personal value, if it's aligned with your goals at that specific moment in your career, then go for it and absorb all the information, all the value and just pay the price for that.

And I think that's it in a nutshell. I love that at the end of it, we touched on not just content and education, but so many other aspects of why conferences could be great opportunities for designers to not just learn new design tricks and hacks. If that's the goal, then just online could satisfy you as well. But other than that, there are so many other things that conferences could offer in the back.

right? I think the only difference I would say that the price should be different. If this is like a local experience, it's one price. If it's online experience, it shouldn't cost the same as an offline experience as for me. And this sometimes was like a frustration point for me that I've seen during COVID that online conferences would cost the same money as their offline conferences and the logistics is so much cheaper for them. So I didn't get why it was happening. So, but end of the day, again, I was not just visiting online conferences and

For me, it was all really about the physical interaction, the networking effect, the connections you make during these days, the experience you get traveling to new locations and really like the cultural context that you're gaining. I guess that's my one of the takeaways. Okay, so do you want to continue with your other takeaways?

So we wrap this up. I think it was more of a conversation. So I don't know if we have like prominent takeaways, but I think in general, to answer back the question of this conversation, design conferences worth it or not. I think for me, it is definitely worth it. At least if you...

get to be in offline settings because then you pay the price emotionally and money-wise but at the same time you get not just the educational content you have a lot of food for processing and information and realization and you can reflect especially if you're traveling alone it's maybe a moment when you can be on your own if you're sitting in a train you can think about you can reflect it's a great opportunity for you to

break through your everyday business grind. So for me, it's definitely worth it, not just for the content, but for all the things that comes with traveling, networking, activities, etc. What else was the takeaways? I think be careful with the content that sounds very clickbaity and

really promising because oftentimes it's like high expectations low reality it might be not as good as you hoped it would maybe another thing it's not a takeaway but another thing i just remembered that look who's the highlight or speaker for the conference because they often come up as really really great entertaining content that engages people usually it's the last panel presentations at the conference and they usually keep them for the end so people stay until the end

But they would always be really fun, engaging, smart. The people who are talking, sometimes it's a no-name, it's normal. And they could give great presentations. When you listen to the presentations by people who you know about, who are great online personas and even role models for UX people, those usually don't fail to deliver. So I'm always happy about at least some content.

But yeah, be careful with it. Sometimes it's just buzzwords like it is happening with design industry. What about your takeaways? Did you get any? I think that things that I want people to get out of this conversation are that like with anything, and I keep saying, and I think I'm starting to become a very, very boring voice. I just want to say that you got to start with your goals. Start from yourself, understand what you hope to get out of the thing that you're going to experience and pay for and try to, if you're not sure about it, if you feel like

this might, I don't know what opportunity or what conference might be the right conference. Reach out to people who have attended it. Ask people in your network. It's something that I very often get questions for, like the Nielsen Norman group kind of experience, which is a more, less of a conference, more of an educational kind of course, if you want. But I get questions a lot about it. And I want to encourage folks to reach out to people in their network who might have attended an event or another event and just do your research directly.

And so that's another takeaway. And I would say don't eliminate non-niche conferences because I think they're going to give you a fresh, interesting perspective. For me, that's what's happening in this time in my life, going to creative, artsy kind of craft design or startup conferences. And I feel like they're really expanding my perspective. So that's it. And I think with that...

we can wrap up this episode. And yeah, I just want to thank everyone who has listened to this conversation. I hope you got value out of it. Thank you Anvisa for another cool conversation. Thank you everyone. Don't forget to check out the links under this show and DM us in case if you have any questions or things you want us to talk about in the next episode. And don't forget to rate us. So if you're on Spotify or on Apple,

podcast we would really appreciate it will make us happy and more excited to keep it up and feel free to leave us a review yeah because you know we had a perfect five rating and now some people ruined it for us and it causes me a lot of pain and suffering so if you want to help us

With a nice review, we're going to appreciate it. I'm going to be able to sleep better. So thank you all for contributing to our mental health. Yes, definitely. And see you on the next episode. Bye, everyone. Bye-bye.