The sun was slowly setting on the horizon. Reds and oranges mixed with blues and blacks giving the sky a unique niagara color. The color of the conference. The pilot of the Red Rocket was suddenly flooded with vivid memories and warm emotions. He could feel the taste of bacon-wrapped plums on his tongue. He could hear the excited whispers of the audience, and the charismatic voices of the speakers. The air of Krakow was once again filling his nostrils. MMConf was already over, but it still lived on in the mind of our brave rocket pilot. He looked around his cockpit. Right next to the photo of Amelia Earhart was the postcard urging to “Keep on MMoving“. With all the new ideas swarming in his head, he felt he was ready. He was ready to explore. He was ready to conquer the Mobile Mobile World.

Hi there! I’m Karol, part of the MMConf team that’s been working hard for the last few months to make the conference a great experience for you.

With this post I’d like to introduce you to another element of our make-MMConf-a-great-experience strategy: the Nicer app. By installing the app on your phone or tablet you’re agreeing to…, no WAIT, you’re not agreeing to anything. You’re merely positioning yourself closer to *us*, the organizers, and to MMConf itself. Nicer lets us to put an always-up-to-date agenda into your hands and message you with whatever we deem helpful or important.

Here’s the Nicer app in its full Instagram glory:

Go to:
http://getnicer.com/apps
Get the iOS or Android version, then follow the MMConf event. If you’re on iOS make sure you’ve got push notifications enabled. You will now *not* miss out on all the important stuff.

Mind you, I’ll be the man behind most of the Nicer messages coming straight to your mobile device. Same story with the @mm_conf twitter account. Get the app, follow our twitter and drop a hi. You can also reach me directly @karolsmazur.

If you looked at our agenda, you might have noticed the two lighting talk blocks. But what are they, how to submit and how to prepare for them?

A lightning talk is a short (up to 5 minutes) presentation on a specific interesting subject. If you have something interesting to show or tell other people, this is your chance!

At MMConf you will be able to submit your talk before the block begins. In case the number of talks submitted exceeds the time frame, the First Come First Served rule will be applied:) Worry not, there’s always the second day!

If you want to take your talk to the next level, here are few tips prepared by an expert in this field - Michal from Railsberry:

Figure out the most interesting thing you can talk about!

Don’t cover multiple subjects. You’ll have only 5 minutes, so you’ll need to really focus on one thing. Make sure it’s something you are passionate about.

Decide how will you deliver the talk.

Once you have the perfect subject, you need to make sure you can present it in the best possible way. If your talk needs live coding session, make it so. Do you need to walk around the stage? Do it. Help from the audience is required? Make sure you ask for it!

Practice your talk.

Ask your friend or two to be your audience few hours before. Rehearse your talk in front of them and make necessary changes. It will make a difference!

Plan to finish at least 30 seconds before the time ends.

Stressed of being interrupted? Don’t risk it. If your practice sessions take full time cut it in half, focus on one thing and try again.

Don’t advertise your product or your company.

It’s fine to add a small logo to your slides or mention what your company does. But don’t mistake a lightning talk with a product pitch. Your audience will be tired after a long day of conference and will expect entertainment. If you choose to advertise your brand instead of presenting interesting subject they might not be very happy about that.

Music is awesome.

And how awesome can a company providing instant access to music to millions can be? A company such a Spotify. Very awesome indeed!

So awesome it decided to become a MMConf’s Balloon Party Sponsor. Not only will they provide you with free drinks, but also get an awesome DJ to soothe your souls and make you dance like it’s the golden age of electro funk.

Speaking of the party, we have some details that we’d like to share with you. The MMConf Second Day Party will take place in Literki club on April 19. Check out their facebook photo stream to get a feel of what kind of place it is. Also, here an exclusive photo from their lower deck!

Two weeks ago, together with Heroku, we’ve announced a transport-paper based free ticket contest. Guess what?

We’ve got the winner! After consulting our thoughts with the Heroku team, we’ve decided that the free ticket should go to the Lucky Dragon made by @karlaurbańska. Isn’t it awesome?

But wait, there’s more! As we went through the contest submission, our hearts melted, and we’ve decided not to stick with the ancient rule of immortal beheaders! No. We did a little of abra cadabra and managed to produce one more free ticket for one more happy paper crafter.

The extra ticket goes to @Nieprosta’s amazing jetpack. See it for yourself.

Once again many thanks to the Heroku team for sponsoring this contest, and helping us choosing the best submission!

Wait, what? Isn’t there too much awesomeness in this post’s topic?

Nope.

Not even close. You’d better sit down if you’re standing (or buckle up if you’re floating in a spaceship). We are going to Hack Space! With NASA (as in National Aeronautics and Space Administration)! HACK SPACE WITH NASA!!

Cool down. Breathe. Imagine. 75 Cities, 41 Countries, 1 Planet. Among them us – in Krakow. Just after MMConf and before Railsberry. Perfect.

Back to being more composed:)
NASA is organizing an International Space App Challenge where “citizens from around the world (will) work together to solve challenges relevant to improving life on Earth and life in space”. Interested? You can sign up here.

It just so happens that we are helping with the organization of the event in Kraków. It also just so happens that the event is exactly in between MMConf and Railsberry. Coincidence?

Independent observers* already predict that week (18th – 23nd April) to go down in history as the best week ever both on earth and in space.

Whether you agree with this prediction or not, there’s simply no reason for you not to be in Kraków during that period. There just isn’t.

* We might have confused “independent” with “imaginary”

Or, in other words, what is the MMConf all about?

Our main goal while creating the line-up was to give the most broad and insightful view into what the mobile world looks like now, where is it going to and how to embrace it! The key to achieving that, in our opinion, is diversity.

People with different backgrounds will present their views on the mobile world and it’s important aspects.

We’ll start with a journey through our history to better understand where we are now. We’ll analyse what’s the satus quo of the mobile world. We’ll look into the crystal ball to get a glimpse of the future.

We’ll go to Africa and Asia, to see how other continents adapted to new technologies.

We’ll follow the process of creating and evaluating an idea, to see where we can go wrong and miss the expected result. We’ll go to the core of mobile development to expose the pitfalls that await the unprepared.

We’ll take a look at how the mobile development world interacts and relies upon its environment. On the other hand, we’ll see how the internal life of a company can rely on tailored mobile apps.

We’ll learn how to monetize the products of work of mobile developers, and in particular, how important the marketing is in their overall success.

And last but not least, we’ll learn about sensory abilities of mobile devices, and what’s even more important, how we can use them in the future to compensate people’s sensory disabilities.

This and more awaits! To get a sneak peek (not to confuse with sneak peak, or worse, snake peak) of the MMConf talks see the following gist document! Next week, we’ll have a full featured talks section of our website ready, so be sure to check it out as well!

Kudos to Heroku for becoming the Videographer sponsor of MMConf!

But if that wasn’t enough, Heroku decided to sponsor an extra ticket for one of you lucky guys! To get the ticket you have to prepare and show us a paper rendition of your favourite means of transport. Be it a paper plane, an origami hoverboard or a full-sized paper model of X-wing fighter, whatever floats your boat!:)

When you’re done, take a picture and tweet it with #Heroku and #MMConf hashtags. The contest will end on March 20, 12:00 CET. After that, together with folks from Heroku, we’ll choose the winner!

Good luck and may the force be with you!

This sure was a busy week for the movie and mobile conferences industries! It started with handing out the infamous Razzie awards then the good old Oscars, and now the time has come to officially introduce the new additions to the Mobile Mobile Conference roster. A busy week indeed. So, without further ado…

It’s a great pleasure for the speakers committee of Mobile Mobile Conference to officially welcome Steven Hoober, Brian Suda, Patrick Leddy and Pratik Patel!

You can read their bios on our speakers page, but here, we’d like you to get to know them from a completely different angle. Since it’s definitely a cinema-mobile week, we’ve prepared a bonus question to stay in the theme!

1. When did you get your first phone / mobile device and what was it?

Steven: The launch phone from Sprint PCS (I had to go to my collection and get the model number: Sony CM-D600S). I had plenty of experience with AMPS devices (the old static-prone cellphones) and was waiting for the digital phones to come out before I got one myself. So, one day in I think December of 1996 I am walking by their store on the Plaza, near my apartment, and it’s open. I go in, they say “well, we’re not really open till next week, but we can sell you a phone.” So I got maybe the first non-test digital phone in the area.
For everyone bored with that, I can’t tell what the first smartphone was because I cycled through a lot of test phones issued by work, but the first one I deliberately chose was an AT&T-crippled Nokia N75, shortly replaced with a N95 that my wife won at a hackathon; she is not a developer at all, so that’s another story entirely. That old scroll-and-select S60e3 device is still one of my favorite things ever.

Patrick: I was 10 when I got my first mobile phone, and it was the Nokia 3110.

Brian: Probably back in 2002 or early 2003. It was an old Sony Ericsson
T68i.

Pratik: The first smartphone I got was the Sony Ericsson P800 in 2003. I was amazed that I could surf the web and install apps onto it. It came with a whopping 16MB memory stick! It ran Symbian OS and could run JavaME, but as with phones of this time the data connection was GPRS, the standard before EDGE, which was before today’s ubiquitous 3G. I loved the phone and built a few basic apps that I installed on it.

2. If you could live in a movie, which one would it be?

Steven: As much as I like the excitement, and adventure, and really wild things of film, I am not sure there’s a world I want to live in more than this one. I do watch a lot of movies, but all my favorites are either the real world with some action (so would get boring again if I survived) or are dystopian so not places you’d really want to live. Boy, that’ makes me sound boring.

Patrick: The Matrix, I’ve always wanted to be able to fly.

Brian: Probably Goonies, I loved that movie as a kid.

Pratik: As a movie buff, this is hard to answer. The easy answer would be Star Wars, but only after the defeat of the Imperial army!

3. What’s your favourite means of transport and why?

Steven: As much as I like certain transit systems, and my series of euro sports wagons, I have to say walking or running. When time allows, I often walk places, and I try to take a break every day to run. Ostensibly for exercise, but I also come up with great ideas while out running, especially on trails.
This is also one way that makes me dissatisfied with every device that exists. I want something indestructible I can carry with me which allows typing, dictating or drawing those ideas. I get by, but haven’t found the ideal yet.

Patrick: I love flying, it gives me a great buzz and can get some work done as well. Other than that it would have to be my lovely car, I don’t do buses or trains very well!

Brian: Walking. I enjoy the pace as well as the ability to take in the
scenery and enjoy the surroundings.

Pratik: I’ve always been fond of travel by train. Once you hop on, you can stretch out, take a walk up to the galley, read a book, and generally relax. As the old TV advert slogan says: “Life is a journey, enjoy the ride“.

4. What’s the best place you’ve ever travelled to?

Steven: I’d think still Wyoming. Especially some smaller towns I get along with pretty well, but largely because of the proximity to nothing, and the mountain-climbing. See “walking or running” above.

Patrick: Cape Town, South Africa.

Brian: So far, Edinburgh, Scotland. It is an amazing city full of history.

Pratik: Near where I grew up in the US state of North Carolina, there are amazing mountains. Hiking & mountain biking in Pisgah National Forest and seeing the waterfalls and vistas is awesome.

5. If you could go back in time to the Middle Ages, what invention would you take with you?

Steven: Setting aside boring, lifesaving stuff like antibiotics, water treatment or weapons, probably some sort of quality writing utensil. I’d have to experiment to find out what will write well on the paper and vellum they have, but I am not putting up with raw graphite or dipping a pen in an inkwell. I’ve done both, and a really good pen is key to being able to keep track of stuff, and to come up with and work out ideas. I couldn’t be really happy for more than a few days if I couldn’t draw and write stuff.

Patrick: The Internet.

Brian: Calculus. That’s a pretty solid building block for everything that followed.

Pratik: A time machine to bring me back to modern day!