And even better, the financial outcome of the concert was also a great success. With ticket sales and matching dollars from Fluxible and Fluxible TV sponsor Zeitspace, Open Ears and NUMUS are splitting $5,610. At a time when they can no longer deliver live music experiences in person, we know that this will have an impact.
Nobody knows when either organization will be able to present live music experiences again. But I know that the musicians they present bring artistry and a devotion to their craft and that the result is great musical experiences in our community.
Finally, Open Ears and NUMUS have a joint Indiegogo campaign going on — check it out.
This post originally appeared on the Fluxible website.
Well, Fluxible TV has finished broadcasting, and the reviews are in. It was a great success!
Big thanks to our main speakers, who each delivered thoughtful insights during their presentations.
And thanks as well to the other alumni speakers to delivered wonderful pre-recorded segments for the broadcast. We’ll write more about them very soon.
And big thanks to our sponsors, whose ongoing support and enthusiasm is so crucial to delivering an event like this.
We’re reflecting on our first online event, and thinking about lessons learned that will inform Fluxible 2021, whether it’s in-person or online. But we’ll be back next year.
Oh, and how do we know that Fluxible TV was a success? We sent out a survey to our attendees. Here are some of the comments we’ve received from them:
“It was a Zoom call that didn’t feel like one — it felt like a wonderfully balanced, evenly paced, sequence of stories/insights with nice interludes and cameos from the UX community. Loved the classic old timer television broadcast metaphor!”
“It’s a great way to listen to experts talk about their ideas and approaches, and be able to use those ideas in your own projects.”
“Many conferences have interesting, insightful speakers and participants. But the energy of Fluxible is intimate, and sincere. It just feels different. It embodies the fun of thinking together, prompted by the presentations. (I guess the Slack channel helped that.)”
“It was a phenomenal, energizing, and well-run event that left me feeling recharged and satisfied!”
“A women-led panel of incredible minds in different sectors showing the power of UX in all aspects of life.”
“What stands out, though, was the range of content, yet their threads magically overlapped. I also really liked the resources that were posted that were related to the speaker. I hope your slack stays available as a resource.
“All of the speakers were equally provocative and informative. I especially enjoyed the way in which you separated each talk by shorter segments and unique musical entertainment.”
“Also want to mention that I sincerely appreciate the diversity of the ethnicity of speakers. It’s not an easy task but Fluxible TV did a great job.”
See you all next year, and thanks again.
This post originally appeared on the Fluxible website.
Zeitspace is proud to call Waterloo Region home. It has a vibrant tech ecosystem that makes the region a natural home for a company like ours. It also has a vibrant creative community that makes the region a wonderful place to live.
As I wrote back in 2018 when Zeitspace first sponsored Open Ears:
In past years, Open Ears has been somewhat associated with Fluxible, which I co-chair, and where various Open Ears associated musicians have delivered wonderful musical performances as a part of the Fluxible Conference program. (That’s a relationship that will continue this year, by the way, with more details to come.) As well, I’ve been on the board of directors for Open Ears for several years now, doing what I can to support an organization whose mission and activities are meaningful for me.
And, of course, there are many other arts organizations in the region. For example, NUMUS Concerts, like Open Ears, has a long history presenting music in innovative and unexpected ways. And also like Open Ears, many NUMUS-associated musicians have performed at Fluxible.
Fluxible is presenting a concert as a part of Fluxible TV, a streaming event that’s happening on June 4. But in addition Fluxible is streaming the concert separately as the Benefit Concert for Open Ears and NUMUS, expressly to financially support the two wonderful music organizations. And Fluxible is matching dollar-for-dollar ticket sales to make the support even more special.
And in that same spirit of support we’ve decided that Zeitspace will match dollar-for-dollar tickets sales for this benefit concert. Your ticket-buying dollars of support for Open Ears and NUMUS will now go even further.
So if you’re interested, please go buy a ticket now. You’ll enjoy a great concert while supporting two great music organizations.
And if not these organizations or this event, please look for other ways to support the creative community in Waterloo Region (or in your own community, wherever that is). The current focus has to be on survival, but let’s also be thinking about how we can all recover and thrive in a COVID-19 world.
We’ve already revealed Fluxible TV to the world. It’s streaming to screens everywhere on June 4.
Today we have a related streaming event to announce.
The Fluxible Benefit Concert for Open Ears + NUMUS is also happening on June 4 at the end of the Fluxible TV broadcast. That is, anyone watching Fluxible TV will be able to watch these awesome performances from exceptional musicians, all in support of Open Ears Festival of Music and Sound, and NUMUS Concerts. Many musicians affiliated with these organizations have performed at Fluxible over the years, and we’re lucky to have them in our community.
But not every music fan cares about Fluxible and UX. We do understand that!
So we’re making the Fluxible Benefit Concert for Open Ears + NUMUS available separately. And we’re doing it using pay-what-you-can pricing, to make it as accessible possible.The intent is to raise money for these two wonderful organizations that have been sharing innovative and inspiring sounds and music in Waterloo Region for decades. If you can pay more, that’s great for Open Ears and NUMUS. If you can pay less, that’s OK too. Both organizations want to reach as many people as possible with their music.
And there’s one more thing. Fluxible will match every dollar raised through ticket sales for the benefit concert. So the benefit gets even better because every dollar you spend goes twice as far!
Get your tickets now and enjoy some great music. See you next week.
This post originally appeared on the Fluxible website.
Back on March 10 we announced that Fluxible 2020 was cancelled. Obviously it wasn’t an announcement that we were happy to make, and just as obviously it was the announcement that we had to make. Today we have much happier news to share with you.
Fluxible TV will be streaming to screens everywhere on June 4, 2020.
We’re still finalizing details, and will have more to announce soon. Right now, though, we can tell you that we have the bulk of the program in place. Featuring presentations from trusted UX experts, musical interludes, and some special surprises, Fluxible TV has us excited and we hope you will be too.
Oh, and one more thing:
We’re thrilled that tickets for Fluxible TV are just $25.
Finally, we’ve set up a new Fluxible TV website to share all the details.Check it out, and then get your tickets.
This post originally appeared on the Fluxible website.
COVID-19 is obviously all over the news and on the minds of people around the world. It’s a global health crisis that has touched many people directly or indirectly. The world of conferences has been hit by big changes for 2020, with multiple high-profile events having cancelled, postponed, or changed their format to digital-only.
Like other conference organizers we’ve given the situation much careful thought. Our 2020 edition is less than three months away. Having a safe environment for our conference, workshops, and meetups is most important to us. But we’re not confident that, given the uncertainty and increasing health risks, we’re able to provide that.
We’ve decided that we need to cancel Fluxible 2020.
Obviously we’re not happy to take this route, but the health of our community is of primary importance. Under the circumstances it’s the right thing to do.
We’ll be issuing full refunds to everyone who purchased a ticket to Fluxible Conference or a Fluxible Workshop. We hope you understand and hope to see you at the next edition of Fluxible.
This post originally appeared on the Fluxible website.
Zeitspace created Fluxible Schedule for the 2018 edition of Fluxible. And it was such a nice resource that we’ve updated it with a more robust content management system behind the scenes to support all the great events at Fluxible. As it did last year, Fluxible Schedule does one simple thing: it keeps attendees informed about what’s happening each day.
We’ll have more to say about Fluxible in the coming days here in The Zeitspace Blog. Until then, do check out Fluxible Schedule if you’re at Fluxible (or even if you’re not). And consider attending Fluxible if you haven’t already. We think it’s a great experience.
Today I’m writing about yet another reason that we love Fluxible here at Zeitspace.
Earlier this year, Zeitspace sponsored the Open Ears Festival of Music and Sound, for reasons that I wrote about when announcing our sponsorship. In short, it’s a great music festival that does innovative programming.
On Wednesday this week, Fluxible is presenting a concert at Open Sesame in downtown Kitchener. The preformers are Ben Grossman (hurdy gurdy) and Matt Brubeck (cello) in a duet performance, as well as JoJo Worthington (ukulele/voice/electronics). Ben and Matt both played at Fluxible Conference in 2016. In fact, Ben is also doing a presentation at this year’s Fluxible Conference on the user experience of playing instruments. JoJo is new to Fluxible, and its great that she’s playing this concert.
Now here’s the connection back to my earlier mention of Zeitspace sponsoring Open Ears.
Fluxible is presenting the concert as a fundraiser for the Open Ears Festival of Music and Sound. All proceeds from ticket sales (except for Eventbrite fees and HST) will go to Open Ears. And the concert is a “pay what you can” model, as Fluxible didn’t want ability to pay to exclude anyone from hearing this wonderful music.
So check it out, maybe even buy a ticket, and come here some great music at a cool venue.
The whole Zeitspace team is excited about Fluxible starting this week. Many of us will be attending some combination of Fluxible Meetups, Fluxible Workshops, and Fluxible Conference. But that’s not the only reason that we’re excited. The Zeitspace team has created a Fluxible Schedule web app and we’re launching it today!
It’s a classic product launch origin: there wasn’t an easy-to-scan overview available showing all the events and sessions being presented during the weeklong Fluxible festivities. My Fluxible co-chair Bob Barlow-Busch and I had long seen that need. My Zeitspace partner Jeff Fedor and I were keen to help Fluxible meet that need. It seemed like a natural fit, so the Zeitspace team jumped right in and built Fluxible Schedule.
Fluxible Schedule is an MVP (minimal viable product) that does one simple thing: it keeps attendees informed about what’s happening each day.
It doesn’t support buying tickets to Fluxible Workshops or Fluxible Conference, as that can be done elsewhere (and you should go do it if you haven’t). It doesn’t provide any historical view of Fluxible events in years past, as that’s avaiable on the current Fluxible website. It doesn’t support conversations, or tweet streams, or other two-way engagement. Those are all things that we might (or might not) build down the road, but this MVP release is a great start.
In the near future the rest of the Zeitspace team will be writing more about our experience building this, and get into the details of the tech stack, how we approached the project, and future possibilities. Until then, do check out Fluxible Schedule if you’re at Fluxible (or even if you’re not). And consider attending Fluxible if you haven’t already. It’s a great experience!
While the Fluxible Conference and Fluxible Workshops are major parts of the week, there’s more. Fluxible Meetups are happening from Monday through Friday, and feature a variety of topics and a variety of formats. And they’re all free!
Each day at noon there’s a UX Brown Bag Lunch session happening at the Communitech Hub. Topics include behavioural economics, ethical design, and UI design refactoring. There are also several site visits. Oracle NetSuite, D2L, and Shopify Plus are each opening their doors to a Fluxible Meetup on an interesting topic. What a great opportunity to meet folks at those places and see what they’re up to.
A perennial topic of interest for many UX folks in Waterloo Region is hiring (or getting hired!). Check out the panel discussion Perspectives on portfolios from the pros to sharpen up the way you think about portfolios.
And a cool old tradition returns as Fluxible teams up with uxWaterloo for a presentation by Google’s Meagan Timney at their Kitchener office. Though based in California, Meagan is originally from London Ontario, so having her back in Southern Ontario is pretty great.
There’s more, so be sure to check out all the Fluxible Meetups for details. There ought to be something for just about eveyone.
This post originally appeared on the Fluxible website.
