Push Conference in Munich, Germany – Report

Germany. Again. Always nice to visit the country I grew up in. While Germany is quite big and you probably stumble upon different variations of its cultures, I like the familiarity I am presented with here (which is most likely due to my solid German skills). Last time I was in Munich was in an airport hotel due to a canceled flight, but that doesn’t count I guess.

Anyway, I was happy to be invited by George Roter and Henrik Mitsch from the Mozilla Participation Team to help with Mozilla’s presence at Push Conference, a local design conference in Munich, Germany.

Push unites creative coding and user experience design, by offering a platform for designers, developers and UX professionals.

Mozilla sponsored the conference so we had a booth in the exhibition hall showcasing the Mozilla Open Innovation Toolkit and the Mozilla Open Design initiatives, including the new Mozilla rebranding and the Github repo. Although there were some opportunity to have WebVR stuff at the booth, but unfortunately most of our A-Frame Mozillians were fully booked during the weekend for some other conferences. Oh well, next time then.


I loved how attendees were interested in topics related to the Mozilla values and even the EU Copyright reform, rather than classic UX Design only. We had some pretty insightful chats which was quite refreshing. Again, it’s good to see that Firefox is still widely used in Germany. Definitely a model to get a lesson from when it comes down to Privacy awareness. Henrik and me covered a lot of topics at the booth, including:

Mingling in


I also met with Ame Elliott from Simply Secure, who connected me to the design job I got at The Tor Project. Her talk “UX for Privacy” was one of the highlights from the conference indeed. I usually don’t like following talks for more than half an hour, but her presentation was so well delivered, time flew by easily. Looking forward to the recording of the talk

adrianzumbrunnen

Adrian Zumbrunnen was another great speaker with whom I had some good conversations regarding his work as a UX Designer at Google. It was interesting how our worlds collided coming from different perspectives of the same background. Still sticking to Open Source Design though. His talk about UI transitions was witty, funny and overall entertaining. Good vibe indeed.

Briefly also met with Philipp Sackl, the UX Lead of Firefox at Mozilla, who was one of the organizers of Push. His enthusiasm was inspiring and he has put in some quality work into making the conference happen. Always good to connect with more creatives at Mozilla.

Last but not least I want to thank Henrik (who happens to be my mentor’s mentor) for keeping me in the loop of things and facilitating my trip to Push Conference. You can find his blog post about the event on his blog.

Summary

Name: Push Conference 2016
Edition: 5th
Attendees: ~600 (approximately)
Speakers: 18
Tracks: 1
Days: 2
Booths: ~20 (approximately)
Entry: Paid
Pros:

  • Very well curated speakers.
  • Most exhibitors were hiring, so it was a good opportunity for designers
  • Venue was well located, connected directly with the underground train
  • Food was diverse and tasty. Drinks and coffee as well
  • Many opportunities to network with industry professionals
  • Interactive booths ranging from IoT, VR and classic analogue showcases of paper and pen
  • Staff and volunteers were really helpful
  • Sessions were precisely on time

Cons:

  • Really bad WiFi connection for exhibitors (no WiFi for attendees, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing)
  • Conference website is not really responsive (which is a bit ironic)
  • Venue music was a bit too high at times (okay, I’m nitpicking now)