I started to download all my photos from Flickr and re-upload them on my own website.
This is the first album I created and it is from New Adventures in Web Design, hosted by Simon Collison on 20 January 2011, nearly 15 years ago from today.
Enjoy the memories the photos might bring back to you!
A while ago I sat down with Brad Frost for an episode of his podcast Wake Up Excited, which he recently released.We ended up talking about far more than conferences. It turned into a really honest conversation about creative work, motivation, self-doubt, community, and why it’s still worth doing things that are hard.
Since I run events, what usually gets me out of bed in the morning is the countdown to the next one. As the date gets closer, I’m deep in the details. Those final bits and pieces that usually make an event feel special.
At the same time, there’s always the less fun part of the job. Money, admin, promotion, social media. Brad called it the “shit sandwich,” and that felt painfully accurate. Some of these things used to be enjoyable. These days, especially with social media, they’re mostly sadly “just” work. But they’re part of the deal.
Every job has parts you love and parts you simply have to get through.
Even after all these years, self-doubt still shows up. Working alone (often from home) makes it easy to question yourself: Is this really special? Does anyone actually care?
What helps is perspective. And people! Sometimes you need someone else to remind you what you’ve built and why it matters. We’re not meant to sit alone with our thoughts all the time, especially the critical ones.
We talked a lot about how little room there seems to be online for vulnerability these days. I miss the old forum culture, where people could openly say “I don’t know, can anyone explain this and help me?” and others would help.
Today, everything feels polished, confident, and performative. Social media emphasises this. But I actually don’t believe authenticity is gone. It’s just buried under noise. It still shows up in smaller, quieter spaces and in real conversations.
Brad asked me about a moment I am usually looking forward to, when I think about the process of organising and running my events.
For me, the best moment of every event is right before it starts. Tobi starts playing the music, the doors open, I’m backstage, and I know I’ll be on stage in a few minutes. Months of work suddenly become real.
Sometimes I get overwhelmed and tear up. Not from stress, but from relief and gratitude.
That moment when preparation turns into reality never gets old.
I shared a story about moving venues in Berlin, visiting dozens of spaces, and finally standing backstage on opening day in the new venue, emotional and exhausted. Only to be met with a wordless hug from Jeremy Keith, who was going to be the first speaker. No pep talk needed.
Those moments carry me through the harder days.
Like most people, I’m way better at remembering the one negative comment out of a 100 than the 99 positive ones. That’s something I actively try to counter.
One small thing that helps is writing down “things that make (or made, if you do this after something took place) me happy.” It sounds simple, but it works. Sometimes life feels terrible until you stop and realise it really isn’t!
We also talked about confidence and identity. I’ve been boxed in my whole life. I mean: long hair, certain looks, certain assumptions. Over time, I learned to play with that instead of fighting it.
I never wanted to pretend to be “professional” in someone else’s definition. I always felt: if people work with me, it should be for how I think and what I can do. Not for how well I fit into a costume.
You don’t need to fake who you are to be taken seriously.
Creative work changes over time. So do we. Every now and then, I sit down and ask myself: Is this still enjoyable? What needs to change maybe?
Sometimes the answer isn’t “stop”, but “pause”, or “scale down” or “get help with the parts I don’t enjoy anymore”. Most decisions aren’t black or white. They’re sometimes more like “yes, but …”, and then you figure out the “but part”
After my first brother died in 2013, I was left with too many, what I called, “why didn’t I” questions. Since then, I’ve tried to do one simple thing: if someone comes to mind, I reach out. It has never been easier than these days with multiple channels and countless devices.
A short text. An email. A quick “thinking of you”. It costs almost nothing and it keeps connections alive.
I never want to regret not sending a message that would have taken 30 seconds anymore.
I don’t think creativity fits into a single definition. It can be art, code, music, problem-solving, really anything driven by curiosity and a willingness to look beyond the obvious.
That’s also what beyond tellerrand is about. It’s not just about “actionable takeaways”. It’s about energy, inspiration, unexpected connections and the ideas that start in hallway conversations and grow from there.
I’m grateful for the conversation with Brad. It reminded me why I keep doing this: not because it’s easy, but because it creates moments of connection, joy, and courage. For others and for myself.
For some it might be nothing special, but over here it rarely snows and I embrace this right now.
Everything is so silent. The crunching snow under my feet. Our dog enjoys a good play with a snowball or playing catch me if you can.
Happy moments.
Wow! Two Three month really went by so quick. I am, right now, sitting on my couch (not anymore, it’s the kitchen table now) and thought “Let’s see how long I haven’t posted on my personal site anymore” and ouch, that was quite some time. Reason for this was that I have done a couple of things that kept me busy (and happy). Sure, beyond tellerrand in Berlin, but a lot of other things also.
Let’s see what it was …
In 2014 we organised our very first SmashingConf in New York. This year, 11 years later, we are still running the show, but taking a break next year. New York and running SmashingConf there always has been special in some way.
This loud and busy city has a certain buzz to it that I love and that energises me. Back in 2018 I took our two oldest children to NYC for the first time, 2022 my oldest son and a friend of him and this year my oldest daughter again. It always is fantastic, if that is possible and they are not in university or busy otherwise. The event itself was a success and proof that events in the U.S. are still possible and needed.
For decades we take the family to a hiking trip to St. Johann in Tyrol. We always aim for the complete family, including my parents in law as well as my sister’s in law family. And while it is not always possible and we mostly drive with our family and my parents in law, this time it worked out and we went on longer hiking trips all together again. Pure joy for the soul.
My friend Andreas Dantz has been to beyond tellerrand quite often. In fact we have been to quite a number of other events together also already. A longer time already, he decided to leave his career as a web design and wanted to focus on YouTube. Unter the label of “Spiel & Zeug” he produces videos around smart home tech and all things that somehow touch this topic and does a really good job in my opinion. Close to 400k subscribers might agree to me.
Lately he had the idea of running his first ever event for his channel and the people supporting him. He asked me if I would support him and his team and I surely was up for another event adventure. It was great fun being part of this and once more showed, that a person (or people) driven by passion for what he does is one of reasons why people follow a channel or a community builds around a channel/event/product.
11 years after starting a second edition in Berlin each year, this years marks the last one for now. It was such a fantastic experience once more and surely everybody who came was sad to hear that I take a break in Berlin. They are not the people responsible for the break and therefore they are not to blame for it and I was very sorry to tell them.
The years after Covid have been incredible tough for me. Mostly financially, but that also has an effect on me mentally. Not directly, but after a while and with steadily rising importance the more I worry about paying the bills for my family etc. Especially Berlin has proven to be a tough job. People buy tickets very late or get approval too late to get their tickets. Sponsors went down to 10% of what it has been before the pandemic and in parallel everything gets more and more expensive: flights, hotel, venue rent, staff …
2026 will be the 15th year since I started running the show under the name of “beyond tellerrand” and I want to focus and celebrate the 15th year of the show in Düsseldorf on 27th and 28th of April with the known friendly and positive vibe and a positive push for anyone in our industry.
We started this band in 2002, I know three of my bandmates since I am 14 or 15 years old and I can’t repeat often enough how much joy every Thursday is, where we meet for a few hours of making music together and chatting about nonsense.
2025 marks the year when we started playing live again after a longer break and have written a whole lot of new music. We decided a while ago that we focus on a few gigs a year where we know the audience would like our music and are not younger than our children.
For a number of year I am supporting Skate-Aid, a charity organisation that helps to empower children through skateboarding. What sounds like a strange way to get children off the streets and give them a purpose works wonderfully. So far Skate-Aid has created more than 25 projects in 18 different countries around the world.
Part of the money we make with beyond tellerrand always supports Skate-Aid and during the last two years I helped bringing artists like Rob Draper and Salventius to the Skate-Aid Night where they performed live and gave 100% of the revenue to Skate-Aid.
For two years TYPO3 is supporting beyond tellerrand as a Global Partner. Next top their input to beyond tellerrand, this partnership is a two-way partnership which means, I bring in myself also. In 2024 I spoke at their event, have been a jury member of their awards and was interviewed on stage during the awards gala show. This time I had been a more passive role and visited their well organised events. They improved the conference days with a different setup and had a police cover band playing in the breaks of their gala.
I once more can say “Congrats! Well done.” and hope that our partnership continues in 2026. 🙏
Last but not least – and that is the reason for publishing this post 3 weeks after starting to write it – I took some well needed time off with my family. We had a calm and cozy time around Christmas and celebrated New Year with a few friends.
As this post marks the first one for 2026, I’d love to end it with a favour to ask you for: spread love and positive energy. Motivate each other, celebrate achievements and push everyone who does something lovely into the spotlight to share how great it is what they do or who they are. We need each other to multiply positivity against anything negative. And where one might be not strong enough, let’s support each other.
♥️
When chatting to my friend Basti recently, he asked me if I had see the latest Video of Rick Beato on YouTube and I had not to that point. Now I have and I simply agree to everything Rick says there.
Rick is a musician that I love to watch. I got to know his channel via his “What makes this song great” video in which he takes apart music and explains why he thinks that this song is great. Recently he got more into interviewing people. Big names. In his very down to earth way, passionated and his true interest in music, he also does this fantastically, I think.
He also records videos and live streams in which he talks about YouTube as his business. Struggles, how YouTube and life as a content creator have changed and all those things and I sometimes find it quite motivating what he says, as you can take is findings and advice to use it for the things you do – like me, running beyond tellerrand. This can be simple statements like this …
[…] posting things, YouTube videos, songs on Spotify, whatever, doesn't guarantee success. But not posting them guarantees failure.
… where he is just right. But I myself need to constantly remind me of exactly that, when I am worrying about what I do.
The next bit, in which he talks about sticking to something also reminded me of what Basti said to me a couple of weeks ago:
[…] the idea of sticking with something for a really long time. This is something that very few people unfortunately have the ability to do.
Basti recently finished the new beyond tellerrand website and with it comes a section with a catalogue of all speakers who ever spoke at my beyond tellerrand events. And he said that this was quite an impressive number when seeing them all listed at once. I mean, I run this show for nearly 15 years now. That is an achievement and he is right. But you, well at least I, sometimes have to be reminded of that.
Rick, when he continues after the quote above, also states that, of course it also does not only comes down to sticking to something, but also producing and creating good quality stuff and that you have to pour a lot of love and passion into what you do.
Then he touches another one of today’s challenges …
[…] the other thing that's competing for your attention now, unfortunately, is AI BS or AI slop, whatever you want to call it. Every time I open up Instagram, it's all AI videos. You know, these stupid disaster things where somebody jumps off a bridge, onto a trampoline, they bounce back up and they get on the bridge and then the bridge collapses or all these disaster things. A wave comes over and washes people away. I mean, obviously fake videos, one after another after another after another, and they are competing for your attention. And these platforms are promoting this stuff. They're promoting fake content made by computers that can work 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. You're competing against that. That's the sad part of it.
I mean, I am not completely against AI. There are really good and useful use cases. But this bullshit Rick is talking about is real and he is so right about it. That is why we really need to write more, record more, meet more in real and create real content made of real emotions and not fake. Just complaining won’t help. Neither will doing nothing at all.
So, why don’t we all do the stuff we like even more and support each other even more to point people who might not know to it to multiply reach? That also counts for jobs and work. If you know someone who is doing good work, don’t get tired to promote them to other who, at some point, might need someone in that field and remembers your recommendation.
We really need to do this more again. And, you know, it can actually be fun!
That’s my wish for the upcoming year.
It was great to be back in London and met a few lovely people. Keir Whitaker managed to create another great day with his Craft & Work event. A full room, great conversations and an overall good atmosphere.
If you want to have proof, here is my set of photos from the day.
A quick note: I am moving to a new hosting partner. In case there are any dropouts, please stay tuned. We are working on it.
So far email accounts have been transferred, all .de domains are already on the new server and transfer for all international domains has been started, but still needs a while to be complete for whatever reason. The deployment chains have been edited and all websites are already deployed to the new server.
I hope that the rest won’t need too long to avoid downtimes, but in case you experience a few hickups, then you know why.
Big shoutout to Mittwald for their fantastic support and seamless tools which make the move as easy as possible. More about that at a later point.
I am with my current hosting partner since 1999 when they still had the name One-2-One. I usually was happy with them and they even sponsor two of my servers. One on which runs everything beyond tellerrand related and one where anything else, like this page, runs on.
Surely within 26 years there is the one or other thing that is not your most favourite decision, but in general I have been satisfied. Even in a way that in one year, when they started to sponsor the servers also, I agreed to be featured in a campaign with interviews and full page ads in magazines. Sadly a lot of the things I said back then are things I would not say anymore.
During the years prices increased and decisions were made, I did not agree to 100%. 2016 they were acquired by GoDaddy and I was hoping that not too much would change. It did not so much for me, but beginning of this year Host Europe announced their switch to Microsoft 365. Obligatory. No other choice than to eat this or leave.
That is really sad. Not only because I do not want to use it, but I also would have to pay extra for any singe email account now. And that are quite some accounts.
I am now looking into other options for my domains, websites, and email. This is a painful decision as, like I said, I actually was satisfied, but also because it is an annoying act and work I do not need these days, to be honest.
I am not really angry about this, but really sad and disappointed that they don’t leave any other options and don’t seem to care about the customer. 26 years of loyalty (well, and my money) and they let you hang with “you can always quit, if you don’t want to use Microsoft 365”.
Sad and disappointing.
Another Smashing Conference in Freiburg in the books. This year we added workshop day before the main conference next to the one after the conference days.
I created these photos during our event.
When I mentioned, how my timeline looks on Facebook these days, when I visit it – which I rarely do really, Jeremy Keith gave me the tip to add “?sk=h_chr” to the URL, which removes all the crap like suggested posts, groups and so on and gives you a clean, chronological timeline.
Nice one and I thought I simply write it down for me and share it with you, if you didn’t know either.
So, instead of using https://www.facebook.com/ use https://www.facebook.com/?sk=h_chr.