FutureEverything was a bit strange. Most talks were interesting and inspiring. But the whole conference felt lacking in energy. The room was only have full for most of the time. It could also just be my perspective as I enjoyed the Haunted Machines conference-inside-a-conference last year so much.

Nevertheless, I can’t wait to link to the video of Madeline Ashby’s talk.

- Madeline Ashby

A big part of going to Manchester was also about breaking bread with some friends that form our version of the Eastern Standard Tribe (these days on Slack, of course). 

Unfortunately, I got sick right after returning from Manchester and haven’t fully recovered yet. Even so, New York has been a blast. It’s been five years since I’ve been here. So it was good to walk around a bit, discover the Dirty Chai (a chai latte with an espresso shot) and in general get a feeling for how the city has changed. Was also interesting to be here the week before the New York primaries.

The reason we came to New York was the Theorizing the Web conference. We’ve been following it on Twitter for the last couple of years and decided it was time to attend it. The conference brings together a lot of internet researchers from different academic disciplines, digging deep into the fabrics that make up a big part of our daily lives. 

As you could easily guess from my tweets, it was a fantastic conference. Maybe the best one I have ever attended. We always joke that after working with us, our clients will have more work than before. It’s the same with great conferences. So many new names to research and read what they’ve written. So many notes to revisit and extend.

If you have the chance to attend the conference next year, I urge you to do so. I also found out that there is an Association of Internet Researchers. And they are meeting in Berlin in October. That is going straight onto the calendar.

I will link to my favorite talks once they become available as individual videos. In the meantime, you can start with the two first keynotes from day 1 and day 2. Both were brilliant.

Ok, back to Berlin now.