It’s been a month since Eyeo Festival and I have been reflecting on the importance of attending events like this. Many speakers and attendees felt Eyeo was something special, something different from other conferences. Paola Antonelli opened the first night expressing how much she had wanted  to attend Eyeo, to attend something unique, something in which people are deeply talking, seeing and listening to each other. The content was impressive but the interactions and connections were even more so. I credit Wes Grubbs, Jer Thorp and Dave Schroeder for truly encouraging and even insisting that attendees meet and connect with one another.

I adored that the speakers stuck around, encouraged each other and reached interacted with others attendees. The flattening of the superstar-factor helped everyone to envision how data vis and can grow into something bigger than just the next hot thing. Inspired by the excellence of the speakers, the outstanding nature of the work and the deep desire to collaborate, I left Eyeo feeling committed to doing a deeper examination of my own work, my own methods and my own ideas about what data visualization encompasses.

Isn’t that what conferences are for?