Written by Dan Jenkins
Over the past few weeks I’ve been asked a couple of times “who is actually behind the organisation of CommCon?”; so here I am with all the answers!
A little about Me & Nimble Ape
In case you don’t know Nimble Ape or myself personally or professionally you probably want to know a little about the team behind CommCon. I run a RTC consultancy called Nimble Ape Ltd in the UK. We have clients all over the world working on projects with a range of different scales involved. Nimble Ape (and inherently that means myself included) are trusted by many in the RTC industry as a company that knows its stuff when it comes to RTC solutions — especially the use of Open Source software. The company itself is now in its 6th year of helping its clients through the constantly evolving spectrum that is Real Time Communications. I’ve personally spoken at probably over 60 events over the past decade I’ve been a part of the RTC industry — so I believe I know a thing or two about putting on a good conference — both in terms of content but everything around it.
Last Year
Last year’s CommCon was pretty much a solo affair. Other than my friend Tammy looking over a couple of contracts, visiting Wotton House and generally being my event organiser sounding board; up until the week of CommCon — it was all organised by myself! I know, I was mad!
Speaker selection and agenda was pretty much completely decided by myself last year. Theres pros and cons there. You get to make decisions fairly quickly but you also run the risk of it becoming a conference centered around what I thought was interesting and not necessarily what everyone wanted to learn about.
The week of CommCon was pretty much run by Tammy (from Tracery Events) and Kathleen King (formerly of FreeSWITCH Solutions and now at Simwood). I realised that week how nice it was to have support to take on those tasks that would have just split me in 3 different directions at once. The actual week of CommCon just wouldn’t have been possible without Kathleen and Tammy taking on the general tasks of logistics (the staff at Wotton House were also amazing — it’s vital to get a venue that’ll actually help you and not hinder your every move)
This Year
This year I’ve increased the number of people dedicated to working on CommCon by 200%! Yes, that means there’s now three of us doing all of the early planning (or the late planning depending on how you look at it). I recently hired Sandra to help with everything CommCon as well as all the day to day things that Nimble Ape needs for the metaphorical doors to remain open. So if you’ve been keeping up to date with our different Social Media presences you’ll have been seeing Sandra’s work! The CommCon sponsors will have already “met” her but you’ll all get to meet her in person at the event in July. Yes, July — it’s suddenly seemingly very close now — only 12 weeks remaining so if you haven’t bought your ticket yet, why not? You can get your ticket at https://2019.commcon.xyz.
Being “a web developer who happens to do telecoms” I always wanted to do the CommCon website, make it amazing and do all of those “web’y” things that I harp on about all the time but anyone who attended last year will tell you — I completely ran out of time (I do have a business to run too) and the website was less than perfect which is a shame when you’re using it to access information about sessions, speakers, breaks, evening activities etc etc. So I took the hard decision this year to out-source the website to a professional who I trust and who I knew could do it justice. He’s still cleaning up my mess from the “OMG I’m launching CommCon 2019 and I haven’t got a website or anything ready” but by the time we get to CommCon it’ll be an awesome place to get content from.
Last year’s content was decided by the solo committee of Dan — this year I asked some trusted friends in the industry who can’t make the event itself to go through and help me decide on sessions. The final decision is still mine but there are quite a few sessions in there that I might not have picked without their support. Expect an agenda to go on the website in the coming week or so — we’re currently announcing all our speakers on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn (All the Social Medias!) so head over to one of those to see those announcements.
Sponsors, AV & Activities
Of course there are a tonne of other people who make CommCon possible — whether thats financially through sponsorship or whether thats through a particular set of skills. We’re close to signing on the dotted line for what evening activities everyone’ll be able to take part in as well as an AV team who’ll be able to deliver the quality that I expect for CommCon.
This year is going to be amazing
So now you can see theres a real team behind CommCon; it’s not just Dan Jenkins that crazy Brit who thinks residential conferences are awesome; it’s Dan Jenkins that crazy Brit who thinks residential conferences are awesome with an absolutely stellar team beside him.
CommCon 2019 is being held at Latimer Estate 7th — 11th July. Arrive late on the Sunday and leave first thing on the Thursday for a brilliant 3 core days of RTC content. Want to buy a ticket? Head over to https://2019.commcon.xyz Want to join the team that makes CommCon possible by sponsoring the event? Email [email protected]
