Now is the time to follow these 3 steps and make the Web Summit work best for you
The event is approximately two weeks away. Attending such a large conference, one that claims to be the largest in the world, can be overwhelming.
If you don’t plan in advance there is the risk that you will be running from room to room, only to realise that the talk that you really wanted to see is almost over, and the next one — you realise by rushing to the app — is in a room opposite in the area opposite to the one you are in, meaning sometimes that it will take you 5–10 minutes to get there, only to find there is no seating place available.
That happened to me last year, so this year I am planning in advance and taking some moments to look at the schedule in advance to select those talks I really want to attend to.
1. Create your own schedule
Yesterday night I dove into the app, and took a closer look at the schedule. I almost lost spirit when scrolling the list for each day, as the it seems neverending, mixing speakers from different topics and subjects in what is almost a (fancy and techie) laundry list.
With everything put together as it was I ended up with a blurred notion of the topics that were going to be discussed, which made the selection more difficult. So I decided to go into each of the sub-conferences: PandaConf, Creatiff, Full STK, etc — get a notion about what they were about.
While some seem to be somewhat self contained, sometimes the same topic is spread by more than one conference — you will find for example the “content” topic discussed in Creatiff, PandaConf and Content Makers.
So what worked for me was to go to one by one of the sub-conferences and select checkmark) the talks that interest me the most according to the topic plus people delivering it, and wait to see the final output in the “my schedule” section.
As it was difficult to have the perspective of the whole with the “my schedule” provided in the app I decided to have my own spreadsheet version. After some pruning this was the final (preliminary) result.
(If you think a similar timetable would be usefull for you, feel free to use my simple Google spreadsheet version as a base for your customization here.)
The app didn’t alert me for any conflicts in timeslots, so sometimes I selected talks that overlapped. Instead of eliminating them, I decided to let them remain in the list (as backup plan), and shaded in grey the talk that would prevail in case of conflict.
I also wanted to have an highlight for the morning and the afternoon for a talk that I really didn’t want to miss. Looking at them now, this helps me understand the main topics I am trying to get insight into in this Web Summit. For me, it seems to be product, learning, the future of work, content and the evolution of the web.
You may argue by looking at the full list of talks one of the most talked about topics will be automous cars and AI. Since I have had *my share* of these topics, I opted to exclude them from my selection, but you may opt differently and end up having quite different set of fluorescent greens in your schedule.
Think it is good to have some understanding of the topics you are interested in, be it before or after doing your own plan, so that you are not randomly browsing talks — to the cost of losing the ones you might be really interested on.
My schedule is not in any way set in stone but going to the process of selecting the talks, helped me get an overall notion of the content of this year’s Web Summit, and better prepare to absorve it.
2. Figure out the logistics beforehand
You should also notice that the lunch break is around 1 hour, which judging by last year’s queues for food, leaves 10 mins to actually eat the food, or run late to the first session in the afternoon. If the same happens this time, I would consider quickly leaving the venue and going to the nearby restaurants, and carry some cereal/protein bars and a bottle of water in your bag just in case.
On the 7th the day starts at 9:35h with opening remarks, but the 8th and 9th November start at 10:15h. Traffic to the venue was chaotic last year, and the subway crowded, so think about a way to hack this. One solution may be arriving earlier to the venue, or if you are staying close enough to go by bike or moto, or any other means that is doesn’t imply being forever stuck in traffic.
Each day ends up at around 5pm, depending on the talks you have selected, and afterwards you may head to the Sunset Summit to have a taste of Portuguese culture — last year it was in a pavillion close to the venue (10 mins walk from Altice Arena), not sure this year if it is still in the same place.
From 8pm there is the Night Summit, which is nothing more than an informal array of dinners and events that you can chose to participate in. You may want to consider your state of overall exhaustion and the level of alertness you want for next day’s talks when selecting how much of these and until how late you are going to attend. Which leads me down to the last point.
3. Define your own purpose for attending
There is lots of hype about Web Summit, many celebrities in tech and other areas of public life are attending, and people are coming from all over the world to hear what they have to say.
However, at the end of the day this is about you, and your expectations for the event. At the end of it, what do you want to take home? In the Web Summit Women in Tech facebook group there was a poll about the motivations that lead people to come. I recall seeing that many replied it was to “get inspired”.
Now that you have your own schedule generated and fine tuned, take another look at it and see if it seems inspiring enough :)
If you are attending as a startup promoting in the exhibition floor that is a totally different ball game — and perhaps you should speak to other startups that were there last year to align your expectations and a define your goals accordingly.
With such a time and money commitment that attending requires, think that some further time to go through these 3 steps will help me and you make the most of this year’s event.
PS: Now just waiting for the detailed venue map to see how far apart are the specific sub-conference rooms this year — is PandConf close to SaasMonster?, and calculate how many sprints will be required in-between talks 😅
