RedMonk puts on great, intimate tech events. I am not even going to try and be modest. We are not in the business of events, so when do run one it is a labour of love. We sweat the small stuff, the big stuff, and all the stuff in between. We make conferences that we’d like to attend – single track, tightly curated, never more attendees than you’d find in small village.
This Fall we have a couple of events you definitely shouldn’t miss.
September sees the return of Thingmonk, London September 11th-13th. This year is looking to be the best one yet. We have a splendid, diverse set of speakers, the hackday is back, and our theme is Developing For the Digital Twin. If you aren’t familiar with the Digital Twin concept yet, you likely soon will be: the idea is to build models that track a product from design, through manufacturing, to service and support. Product + Service is the new reality for companies that used to simply build products and throw them over the fence for someone else to manage. The idea of Digital Twins began in the US Navy, before being taken up by the likes of IBM and GE. We’ll have great speakers from startups, but also industrial leviathans including Bosch. Microsoft and IBM are sponsoring the hackday, but i understand Salesforce will also be making an appearance. The speaker list is crazy good and going to get better with a few more confirmations still to come. Fintan is managing the event this year and everything is shaping up very nicely indeed.
In October comes the Monktoberfest, in which you get the chance to do some leaf peeping and sample the delights of Portland, Maine. Expect literally the best beers in the world, with great food and talks about the intersection of tech and social that you literally won’t find anywhere else. Stephen curates a truly amazing event, and I am always stunned that he manages to up his game year over year, creating ever more delightful experiences. Portland is a gorgeous little town, where you literally can’t find a bar or café that doesn’t serve world glass food and beverages. Mostly however Monktoberfest is a community, where you’re just as likely to meet a CEO as a local software developer. If i knew who the speakers were I’d tell you, but Stephen keeps literally everything a closely guarded secret. He’s my business partner, and pretty much the only things I can tell you is that we’ll convene with a boat trip around the bay, and the event itself will be in excellent local public library. One of the pleasures of the event is checking out the art exhibition that the library invariably has on the same floor as the talks.
Which brings us to planning for the Monki Gras, Feb 1st/2nd 2018. Our theme will be Sustaining Craft. I want to look at how to sustain what we do, whether that be by finding ways to support open source maintainers, by writing better documentation, or by signing up to learn morris dancing. We’ve had Barn the Spoon, the green wood spoon maker before. You can expect more of that. How we can create more sustainable experiences and look after each other and the work we do? I haven’t got the website up yet, but this year may be slightly less shiny in terms of our venue and so on. I want Monki Gras 2017 to be our most sustainable and sustaining yet. Of course the food and drink experiences are going to be incredible, and the talks will be short and sweet. If you have a craft you’d like to teach us about please let me know. We like stories and anything that goes meta.
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