There are some very special conferences, where the actual conference-track is embedded into a much broader community experience with very deliberate choices of venue, speakers, code of conduct and support like day-care for children. It’s a celebration of the organisers’ superb sense of taste as if they imagined a great day that happens to be a conference. With , , and created such a wonderfully curated event in Melbourne: Above All Human Susan Wu Bronwen Clune Scott Handsaker “Above All Human is a conference for startup founders, makers, designers and innovators who want to do great things, build innovative products, and be the most effective entrepreneurs they can be.” I had heard very good things about last year’s first instalment and it single-handedly surpassed those high expectations. Things that I really, really liked about the conference: The quality and variety of speakers — a lot of people whom I’ve never heard of or whom I would not have actively sought out, but they shared such a great variety of topics and backgrounds. Who knew I’d be fascinated by the philosophical aspects of astrophysics? The diversity of speakers — apparently is was no big deal to pull off 50% female speakers, but I think it was and think it should be highlighted as an example for other conferences to follow. The tone of the conference — there was very little brouhaha and a lot of sincerity. As pointed out , it was a heartfelt, inclusive and honest conference. Presenters talked openly about their struggles to share their hard-won learnings and present food for thought rather than half-baked solutions. in the opening remarks The venue — it easily hosted 1,000 people and never did I feel constrained, packed or uncomfortable, which is not a given for an introvert at conferences. The food — plenty, good and easily available. Such a great to place food all over the place instead of having one central trough where everybody crams around. idea So, what did I learn on Friday? JOMO — The . Being so immersed in the moment and disconnected from everything else that you very deliberately avoid any distractions. That was not part of the conference itself, but it came up in a conversation with a stranger in-between sessions. Joy of Missing Out There is still room for growth in the Australian venture capital (VC) ecosystem. $500m was invested amongst the Australian VC community in 2015 vs. $800m that were gambled just on the Melbourne Cup in one day alone. I found that an exceptional way to illustrate that the Australian VC community is way below saturation and Australia has a significantly higher tolerance towards risk that it currently admits to startups. In that same session, I liked version of : “The best ideas at our refugee hackathon came from non-technical caseworkers and refugees themselves. Those ideas had little tech involved and a lot of impact.” Annie Parker’s know your customer intimately A culture-first company (i) knows what it is willing to suffer for, (ii) builds on a promise (a brand is a promise to a customer and its culture is how it is going to deliver on that promise) and (iii) sees a world that others don’t. gave a great presentation about why culture matters and why it is not that soft and fluffy thing, but a hard-hitting tool to drive company performance. As Didier put it “moral makes the difference between whether you get on your dollar a return of 25 cents or $3.” I wish that talk had been longer with time for Q&A. Didier Elzinga Persistence come from purpose — if you have a strong purpose and can communicate it with passion, you will inevitably end up with traction with employees, customers and investors. of Adore Beauty told the unglamorous story of her and how she got to be as successful as she is now. Long story short: a lot of suffering and conviction — it’s not pretty (ironic for an online beauty business). It reminded me of the Parker’s law: “Running a startup is like eating glass. You just start to like the taste of your own blood.” Kate Morris startup The total amount of kids taught coding by could now fill the entire Googleplex in Mountain View. Being one of their volunteers that visual made me very proud, especially given that we target a very specific niche of kids between 9 and 11. Just imagine the potential of a whole generation being able to understand how code works, its potential and its limitations. I’m looking forward to seeing us fill another Googleplex in the next year or two. Code Club Australia Software is the ultimate infinite game. Ali Rayl of Slack gave a good reminder that in hardware businesses like construction it is very difficult to continuously improve your creations, whereas software can improve infinitely. It’s a way more optimistic view of the world where bugs are constantly fixed, features implemented and new functionality invented. There were two other sessions by internet royalty at the conference, that were just too rich to put into a simple bullet of insight (fortunately, you can find their talks and ). The first was by talking about the apprentice model and why it might be a good idea as a designer to (very applicable to other professions as well — you can see ). He’s a force on stage, very insightful and highly entertaining. If you haven’t seen him, I highly recommend checking out online. here there Mike Monteiro get some experience before joining a startup a version of the talk over at Vimeo some of his presentations The closing session was by Anil Dash talking about why we should get rid of the cynical notion of “don’t read the comments on the internet” and rather start transferring our learnings from 10,000 years of building a society into the online world. In his Q&A he gave one of my favourite quotes of the day: “These companies [Google, Facebook] have all the money in the world. They shoot rockets into space, design self-driving cars and work on pro-longing life. But once you ask them to make sure that the jerks on their platforms behave for five minutes, they throw their hands in the air and declare that it’s too hard.” Anil posted earlier this week his talk . Against “Don’t Read the Comments” It was a great conference with very insightful talks and great people on stage. Thank you, , and . You’ve done a fantastic job. I am very grateful for this conference and hope to have the chance to attend again next year. Susan Bronwen Scott is how hackers start their afternoons. We’re a part of the family. We are now and happy to opportunities. Hacker Noon @AMI accepting submissions discuss advertising &sponsorship To learn more, , , or simply, read our about page like/message us on Facebook tweet/DM @HackerNoon. If you enjoyed this story, we recommend reading our and . Until next time, don’t take the realities of the world for granted! latest tech stories trending tech stories
