It is Scheduled

Published Mar 21 by Jakob, Reading time: 3 Minutes

We just finished the first version of the schedule. 24 amazing talks spread over two stages on two days. This article explains a few thoughts and ideas that went into the specific running order we have now.

Think About! is a two day tech conference about technology, design and their impact on society. It will take place in a cozy cinema in Cologne, Germany. Go and check out the scheduled Talks!

Different Restrictions

Early on, we decided, that the Think About! Conference should cater to different people. On the one hand we want to be a tech conference with techy/nerdy software development talks. On the other hand we want to put emphasis on issues around our social impact as an industry as well as what design means in the modern days of software development.

The Think About! Team moving stickies on a wall!

This means, we will have many people on site with a multitude of interests and from different parts of the world. This led the following four goals:

1. No Track Collisions

This is one of the reasons why we avoid any collision of tracks. That means at no point in the schedule will there be two Tech, two Design or two Society talks in parallel.

This means if you want to see only Tech talks, you can actually see all. If you don't want to miss the design track, go ahead and watch all design talks. The same holds of course for the Society track.

2. Always an English Option

Since many attendees are non-native Germans, we have to make sure that the conference is accessible for English speaking folks. Of course, the entire conference material will be in English.

But we have a few talks that are in German. The schedule ensures, that there is always at least one English option during each slot.

3. Golden Thread of Topics

In each track we have talks of very different areas. To give the schedule this feeling of being curated it is important to put talks of similar content into adjacent slots.

It should be avoided to have two talks of a similar category (e.g. two privacy related talks, one in Tech one in Society) parallel in one slot.

4. Individual Speaker Needs

Besides those restrictions, some speakers have individual travel needs. Sometimes they have to visit another conference the day after or can not be there in the morning of the first day. Those restrictions applied early on, luckily just a few speakers where limited in their availability.

The Result

After a day of discussing and brainstorming using many stickies and an empty wall we came up with a first version that satisfies all four restrictions that were mentioned above:

First version of the schedule on stickies

The fully readable version is of course published on our landing page, check it out here!

Final Words

While this is a working version of a schedule now, it is not in concrete yet. It is more or less guaranteed that in the next few weeks things will come up that might have an impact on the order of things. A good example is a speaker who has some new restrictions, that can happen anytime.

Nevertheless, we will make sure that all changes have a minimal impact on the overall schedule and will preserve the mentioned restrictions.

We are happy about all the amazing people that believe in our cause to make not only the tech industry but also a part of our society a better and more inclusive place. Thank you so much for supporting us by buying tickets, telling your friends, subscribing to out newsletter or simply following us on twitter. Without all of you, we would not exist.

In the spirit of user feedback, don't hesitate to drop us a message and let us know what you think.

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Jakob Holderbaum

Founder of Think About!, Agile Software Developer & Consultant, Standard Nerd

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