Experimental Mind: summer time with Ton Wesseling
😎 Summer time with Ton Wesseling
Is it simply work as normal or do you slow down?
I always schedule a one-month break in the European summer. Mostly around July 15th - August 15th. At some point in my time as a digital agency owner, I learned that there was hardly any new business happening during these weeks in the countries I was doing business with, and I liked the thought of being able to spend a large part of the school summer break with my partner and kids. When my entrepreneurial life grew further with publishing and events, I ensured that the one-month break survived by not having scheduled work for me between July 15th and August 15th. Why? Because after I experienced the pleasure of one entire month not running around for business but being here and now and the inspiration that brings to me once back at work, I got hooked.
Are you traveling? What kind of trip(s)? Nature or culture?
What we mostly do is campervanning through Europe. No real plan besides a massive wishlist of beautiful locations still to visit and favorite places to return to. The weather predictions will guide us. Not too hot, a bit cooler at night, and not too much rain. Ideal weather for long walks in nature, cultural explorations, swimming, and much time for sharing food and drinks. So yes, some strategy is involved here to keep us happier, but we don't know where we will end up once we start driving. And that start driving part of campervanning is wonderful - my holiday always starts the minute we start the campervan engine - being on the move with our tiny summer home.
I used to need a couple of days to relax and wind down from work (or even finish the final to-do's in the first evenings away), but I became better at scheduling and telling in time that I will not finish something before the summer break. To not become nervous about what to expect when back at work in the final week, I started building in morning routines during my summer break, where a couple of times per week I get out of bed 2 hours earlier than everyone else. These hours are when I check messages and reply (this is mostly finance/administration/tax-related stuff for the businesses I'm running, but also some regular emails and social replies when there is time left). This method helps me to have an even more relaxing start at work. It's a winning experiment so far, and it helped to get you some Experimental Mind newsletter content. 😉
Preparing for the second half of 2022? Anything exciting you can share?
Conversion Hotel 2022 is coming up on November 18-19-20. Most performers are announced, and most tickets are sold. I look forward to a "normal" edition after the virtual 2020 event and the heavily Covid regulations impacted, but still excellent, 2021 event. This 9th edition, colored orange, the champions edition, will be a fantastic ride again for all attendees - I can hardly wait to work on finalizing the experiences after my summer break.
I am also looking forward to creating the 2022 CRO maturity report, currently running as a survey among the CRO community. It's been a while since a good benchmark report for CRO was available. More response means, better quality of the report, and the easier you will be able to benchmark your CRO maturity. The survey takes 15 minutes, and we will raffle ten free passes to the Conversion Hotel full keynote video archive among the participants: https://abtestguide.com/cro-survey-2022/
Finally, the 3rd edition of The Experimentation Culture Awards was broadcasted just before my summer break. Again it was a wonderful experience - I'm humbled by the impact of this event on experimentation at organizations. The exciting news is that after my break, I will start working on publishing more content on Experimentation Culture available within the community supporting this event. There is a lot to share and learn from, and I'm happy to be able to work on this. Keep an eye on https://experimentationcultureawards.com and my Linkedin (https://linkedin.com/in/tonwesseling) timeline to get updates on this.
Thank you Ton for sharing your story and ideas.
🚀 Job opportunities
Check out the job board to find all other open roles.
📅 Upcoming events
In two weeks time Ronny Kohavi's class Accelerating Innovation with A/B Testing starts. I will be joining this cohort. Let me know if you will be there as well.
All upcoming events in the next months:
22 Aug: Accelerating Innovation with A/B Testing (virtual)
20-23 Sep: Nonprofit Innovation & Optimization Summit (Kansas)
20-21 Sep: Marketing Insights Event (Utrecht, NL
26-30 Sep: Experiment Nation Conference (virtual)
25-26 Oct: CXL Live (Austin, Texas)
See the full overview of events to find other events and conferences for you and your team.
🙏 Thank you for reading
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Have a great week — and keep experimenting.
Kevin