My experience attending at CSS Day 2024
I’ve written and rewritten this post about five times now. This version seems to be the one to finally stick, though it’s taken a bit of a different direction than I was originally planning. In it, I talk about my experience attending CSS Day, both as an attendee, which was the original plan, but also as a well known figure, which I wasn’t going to talk about, but it seemed to fit with the general flow, so I hope you enjoy it.
Last week, I posted about my experience speaking at CSS Day 2024.
The best part about being a speaker, though, was finally being able to attend CSS Day!
This is a conference that I’ve had major FOMO every year it takes place.
I’d see the amazing lineups every year, see all the social media posts from the attendees, and just wish I could be there… And this year, I've got to go!
I was so excited to have an opportunity to meet so many of the people in the CSS space that I’ve followed for the last few years, to see the talks in person, and to hopefully have a good time.
Before I met anyone though, I made sure to enjoy some time in the city as well.
The days leading up to the conference
I arrived in Amsterdam a few days before the conference and, while I spent more time working on my talk during those days than I’d have liked, I did make sure to explore the city as well.
I visited Amsterdam around 15 years ago with my wife when we did a small tour through Europe back before we were married—it was on that trip that I proposed to her!—we loved it then, and it was just as great this time around as well.
Other than the constant threat of being run over by a bike (I’m sort of exaggerating, though I did see another speaker almost get run over one night 😅), it’s simply a great city to visit if you’ve never been.
It has its own character, and it’s a fun city to explore and get lost in.
And of course, like most European cities, it’s full of history, and if you like museums, they’ve got more than their fair share!
Turns out some people know who I am
I’ve come to realize that I’m one of the more public faces in CSS these days, and I knew that in going to a CSS-specific event, a lot of people would know who I was.
That still makes me a little uncomfortable at times as I’m not really the type to want to be in the spotlight, but it is what it is and I’m glad that I’m able to help so many people fall in love with something I’m passionate about.
To that point, I attended the pre-CSS-Day meetup at Amsterdam’s University of Applied Sciences, where Miriam Suzanne and Bramus gave talks.
Before it got underway, one of the professors told me many of the students in attendance were big fans of mine.
After the two talks, I talked with quite a few of those students, took some selfies with them, and was also very jealous of the amazing program they were studying in. From what I learned about it, it’s one that any aspiring web developer would dream of being able to enroll in.
The part about people knowing who I was carried over to the conference itself, as I got to meet a lot of people who follow me, which is really great.
Some of my favorite moments were when people would tell me about a specific video that resonated with them, or how their company integrated a pattern I showed in a video into their design system, or some people who showed me examples of things they made based on a video, where they took my idea and made it so much better.
As a YouTuber, I see my analytics, with things like my subscriber numbers, views, watch time, and all of that stuff all the time.
While it’s cool seeing a video do well, or reaching a new milestone in subscribers, in reality, those numbers are all pretty meaningless.
Seeing my work have a positive impact and seeing people take what I’ve done and make it into something more practical or better is the type of thing that shows me what I’m doing is worth it, and I’m so happy that people shared their stories with me.
But not everyone knows me!
While I enjoyed those interactions a lot, another recurring interaction that I enjoyed a lot was people coming up to me and saying, “I want to say I’m sorry because I’ve never watched one of your videos and had no idea who you were until today.”
I even had someone come up to me after we’d already had a conversation to apologize for not knowing me before, only having found out after our conversation who I was when a co-worker told them.
I get that not everyone watches YouTube, and I definitely wasn’t offended, lol.
I’d never expect someone to know who I was, and in some ways, the dynamic is a bit more on even-ground when they don’t know me, which can be a nice change after a lot of interactions with people who do follow me.
In a way, it makes me happy that not everyone is on YouTube, because as integral as it is for my business at this point, it’s probably best for society not to spend as much time on it as they do 😆.
The fanboy in me
If anyone who’s reading this was attending the conference and feeling nervous or shy about saying “hello” to me, that’s exactly how I felt when I first walked up to introduce myself to Miriam Suzanne and Rachel Andrew.
They have both been a big influence on me, so I definitely had my “omg, it’s Rachel Andrew, and she’s standing right next to me!” moment 😆.
In other words, I understand both sides of that sort of strange dynamic that happens when people meet their heroes.
The best part of it all is once you get past the general introductions and get to know them better, because as much as we tend to put people on pedestals in our own minds, everyone is just a regular person at the end of the day (and that’s a positive thing).
So, while I got to be a bit of a fanboy with some of the people I was lucky enough to meet, I also got to spend quite a bit of time just hanging out with them, having a good time, and getting to know them.
Hopefully, others who knew of me before meeting me at CSS Day can say the same thing, now that they had the chance to meet me as well 🙂.
Making meaningful connections thanks to the general vibe of CSS Day
Meeting people is great, ut the general vibe of CSS Day, I feel, makes meeting people a lot easier.
That might sound kind of silly, and I don’t have much experience in the whole conference scene, but I’ve heard a lot of stories of other tech conferences, and I have to say, CSS Day fits how I’d like a conference to be compared to some of the stories I’ve heard!
It was a very relaxed atmosphere in general, with everyone being very kind, friendly, and approachable.
After both days of the event, they have a “drinks and discussion time” that doesn’t have any music playing.
They aren’t trying to make it a party atmosphere or anything, but instead they want to encourage people to mingle and interact while having a bite to eat and a couple of drinks, and it works really well.
Partying can be fun, for sure, but they do a nice job of putting the “let’s let people hang out and talk” as the priority.
That same thing goes on during the breaks and the lunch periods as well, where it’s all about meeting and getting to know new people, and having fun discussions.
And, because you’re meeting and having fun discussions with people, that means things can continue from there.
From meeting new people during the breaks, to then hanging out with them for a few drink during the after “party”, to groups splitting off and finding ways to a restaurant, to eventually some people staying out way too late at Cafe Gollem that I may or may not have done on more than one occasion, those are the parts of CSS Day that I’ll remember the most, and where I made meaningful connections with people that I’d never talked with before, but now I consider a lot of those people my friends.
My unfair advantage
I do realize that, in a way, it’s easier for me to make these connections than for a “regular” person.
I’ve had people tell me they’ve attended conferences and wanted to make meaningful connections, but they had trouble because they are shy or don’t feel comfortable inserting themselves into ongoing conversations.
I can totally relate because that would be me if I were attending something where people didn’t know me.
At CSS Day, people will come and initiate a conversation with me on a regular basis, which makes my life a lot easier.
So I do get it, but this experience has helped me realize that everyone is just a normal person who’s at the conference to nerd out about the topic of that conference.
That means you know at least one common interest with everyone at a conference, and everyone is there to socialize and is expecting random people to insert themselves into conversations, so if ever you have the opportunity to attend a conference, take advantage of that 🙂.
What about the talks?!
Oh yeah, there were some good talks too!
I was planning to write more about them, but I felt like the little recaps I was writing weren’t doing them justice, and they’ll all become public eventually on the YouTube channel anyway, so you can watch them all when they come out.
And definitely watch them all, they’re worth it.
But yeah, the talks, while they are what the conference is centered around, and several of which had an impact on me and gave me new ideas to try, are, to me, the excuse for a crowd of like-minded people to gather, so all of that stuff I talked about above can happen.