Reflections Conversion Hotel 2024 conference
Weekly overview of interesting reads, events and jobs for the experimental mind: #245
Hi folks!
Last weekend I have been to the Conversion Hotel conference. This was already edition number eleven and I attended seven of those, with one as a speaker. In this post I will share my personal take aways and some general reflections. For all notes of the talks visit this doc.
Can’t wait until November next year? Kelly Wortham and Ton Wesseling are organising Experimentation Island in February. Should be similar vibes, on a different location.
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💭 My Take aways
Some personal take aways from my favorite talks:
Sustainability (Theo van der Zee): Focus on responsible consumption. Prioritize not buying, and when purchase is necessary, guide customers towards environmentally friendly choices through transparency and smart defaults. Never greenwash. Referencing this paper.
Experimentation (Marta Mijatov): Reframe failure as a learning opportunity. Reward progress and effort, not just outcomes.
Organizational Culture (Ruben de Boer): Spread experimentation internally. Build allies, understand colleagues' motivations, and grow a culture of curiosity.
User Research (Abi Hough): Develop deep, empathetic relationships with customers by understanding their emotional context.
User Experience (András Kobza): Understand different types of friction (interactive, cognitive, emotional). Aim for clarity and intuitive design.
Messaging (Diane Wiredu): Communicate in customer language. Transform product features into meaningful benefits that resonate with audience needs.
🤔 Reflections
But Conversion Hotel is much more than the insights you get from the talks by speakers. What makes the conference so special? Some reflections.
Ton Wesseling: the quality of a conference depends on the organiser. Ton is the driving force behind the conference. He personally finds and selects all the speakers. This year he got help from an amasing crew of previous attendees. Still, without Ton, no Conversion Hotel.
Optimisation: this is one the conferences where people buy a ticket without knowing the line-up. I think the main reason is because Ton optimises each and every detail around this conference. People know that and trust they will have a good experience.
Time to talk: you never feel rushed. There is plenty of time to connect with others.
Dinner discussions: at dinner you have to opportunity to discuss what has been presented on stage. Speakers are also attendees. This is yet another thing that makes this conference special.
Pacman Rule: one thing Ton continually reminds people of is this rule:
When standing as a group of people, always leave room for 1 person to join your group. — Eric Holscher
Hello Robots: AI has entered the conference room: live subtitles (created by Slobodan Manić in a couple of hours) and AI generated summaries.
Unconference: you can go deep into niche topics during one of many unconference sessions. Host your own or join a discussion.
Why are not all conferences like this?
😃 Something that made me smile
🚀 Job opportunities
Find 100+ open roles on ExperimentationJobs.com. This week’s featured roles:
Product Manager- Experimentation at Statsig (Bellevue, USA)
Experimentation Engineer at Gen Digital (Prague, Czech Republic)
Ecommerce Data Analyst II – Experimentation & Analytics at Tribute Technology (Canada)
CRO Consultant at REO (USA or Canada)
Senior Strategy Consultant (Experimentation) at Creative CX (United Kingdom)
📣 How was this edition?
Let me know:
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Read what others are saying and add your own.
Have a great week — and keep experimenting.
Thanks, Kevin
As emphasized here, Failure is an opportunity to learn. I like to remind myself of the acroynm: FAIL - First Attempt in Learning. It is a challenge in self-compassion to do this. But, it goes a long way, in helping to bounce back after a failure. Often things seem worse than they are immediately after they happen.