The clickbaity title is representative of what my essay is about. Read the title again, and you’re done with this text. The only reason to read my essay is if you’d like to learn how this is not about age shaming, but about the old fashioned mindset.

Or instead of myself telling you what to do you can watch one of several videos where our resident gen z brings up examples of how younger people perceive content, and goes after ideas that Karina and myself come up with. One single zoomer breaks apart two industry experts with tons of experience.

Skip to 5:09 please, if it doesn’t automatically.

Did you put the video to “watch later” or did you just ignore my call to watch it?

I can probably guess your age by the answer.

The correct answer is “I clicked on this video and forgot about your wall of text”.

But if you’re still here, let’s remember you and me in spring:

• Nice! That cool event in New York that I was never able to attend is now virtual and free with all the iconic speakers!

Remember? Take a look at us two in November 2020 now:

• Fff…all these ads about virtual events. All these talking heads, endless Zoom calls, spammy chats with folks sharing their LinkedIn. “Steve, please unmute yourself. Steve… you’re still muted, and we cannot hear you...”

Can you relate? 

Can we also agree that in spring we were happy about folks streaming from their bedrooms with noisy built-in MacBook mics and “can you see my screen”?

Would you nod to your screen thinking of how just six months later we get anxious about an echo, audio-video asynch or a stuttering sound today, despite the general quality of everything has significantly increased?

You, me, the world has fast-forwarded the content consumption habits.

We care about the audio, video, slides, tools, Zoom accounts, streaming platforms, length, format, time and day...

We, in our thirties (or even forties?) are now closer to content consumption routines of the young minds. 

Yet your company’s content production team is still old fashioned.

• You think “let’s put our logo all over a virtual conference” when you want to ship a product.

• Your sales folks buy premium business tickets to virtual events and spend their time setting Zoom calls with people they already know.

• Your marketing team makes webinars. Webinars! Where you read aloud your product manual...

Here’s an ad that fell into my inbox recently. I am looking at it and it feels like making a barbecue summit about vegetarians. Like shipping a DVD documentary about TikTok... No?

More eye candy.

This is our ad for a live podcast about good virtual events. We were about to start it in summer with a sort of a dream team. Then it fell apart.

We wanted to tell how empathy is important, how a community is different from a userbase and how it can drive the business today. Also, we plotted to unpack and discuss some of the newest content formats and tools.

Now, I am promising you to go through some of these topics as soon as Karina, Lera and I experiment with them within our Devrel Events framework.

I took a Tyrosine pill and played one of my favourite music albums to stay focused and ship this text on Saturday.

The last week was a blast. Next week we’re shipping five pieces of content on two different conferences, doing an investment pitch and meeting the new partners.

Oh no, I am not complaining. These 12-14 hour working days keep me tired but happy. And somewhat sane, somewhat away of doomscrolling.

A super social always travelling people-loving nomad like me could not have survived the year 2020 any other way.

Music for today’s essay:

Mariner - a collaborative studio album between the Swedish band Cult of Luna and the American vocalist Julie Christmas, formerly of the bands Made Out of Babies and Battle of Mice.

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If you’re still here, probably you enjoyed this writing?

Can you please express somehow if you find this writing fun, useful, curious or delivering any other kind of emotions for you?

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