Speaker Manifest

We created The Things Conference in 2018 because we believed the global IoT ecosystem was missing a place where you could find the real stories around IoT without the hype.

The Things Conference has always been innovative when it came to getting the right IoT content to 250 thousand IoT developer world wide. The world is changing people and developers consume content different and most important, whether you like it or not, our attention spans are decreasing. Ever more than ever, you have to focus on the 2 or 3 messages that are going to stick with the crowd. You got 15 minutes make them count.

From the start we defined a simple set of rules for The Things Conference content:

1. The hard truth is that nobody really cares about your company or organization. They care about the solution you provide to their problem. Focus on that. They can find everything about your company online and you on LinkedIn. Keep the company introduction short.

2. Try to talk about things that do excite you.

3. No need to repeat the obvious. Yes, we’re going to have billions of device in 20XX. Yes, 80% of IoT project fail.

4. At The Things Conference you are talking to users, product managers and developers. Not to your investors. Keep it real.

5. Our ecosystem has 250K developers, and at the event we will have 2000. Your talk is going to be distributed online. Be concise, punctual, and make sure to prepare for some key take aways which we can edit into social media shorts. They will carry far.

6. IoT is hard, and these two days the people that do the hard work climb out of their hyperfocus and explore all kinds of new ideas. Make it fun, engaging and full of positivity for new opportunity. IoT is hard, but when it works it is incredibly cool and rewards are sweet.

7. Use plain language instead of buzzwords.

8. Don't be afraid to talk about what did not work. Remember the value of this event is that all visitors, incl. you and me, are learning from each other. Everyone knows most projects fail. Everyone screwed up more than once. Being honest about the struggles builds trust and helps others avoid the same mistakes.
   
   We are super excited for you and your company to join us and engage with the global IoT crowd!
   
   With ❤ from Amsterdam,️
   The Things Conference Team