Five of our Xperts plunged into the hustle and bustle of the MACHN festival on 30 May, which this year had the motto ‘MACHN is like thinking, only krasser’ written on its banner.
Although the typical festival feeling was spoilt by the rain and the food trucks and open-air stages could not be used, the festival organisation showed great improvisation skills. Without further ado, the presentations were moved indoors so that the three event areas could impress with a varied programme.
For the third year in a row, the MACHN Festival brings together founders, companies, institutions and young professionals in a creative environment. For two days, concentrated knowledge and innovation meet entertainment and trends from the digital economy, the new world of work and technology.
At the same time, the 8th Agile Barcamp took place at MACHN and two of our Xperts were waiting to be part of it. In their session ‘How are you? - Phrase or serious question", the two of them talked with other Barcamp participants about the extent to which agile organisations and the Scrum framework demand human aspects and what we ourselves can manage in our day-to-day work. The aim was to discuss how much private space there is at work and how we as a team can deal with challenging topics such as farewells, anxiety or depression and the different reactions to them.
The historic Leipziger Baumwollspinnerei, one of the most interesting production and exhibition centres for contemporary art and culture in Europe, provided the perfect setting for further education, networking and a festival feeling. The Main Stage was usually well filled and offered a cosy atmosphere. In the Innovation Area, innovative start-ups presented their ideas throughout the day, which was particularly well received by festival visitors. The workshop area also attracted a large audience, even if the classic workshop formats were difficult to realise and were held more as normal lectures. The presentation on the Saxony cannabis cluster was particularly entertaining and elicited many tongue-in-cheek questions from the audience. What really surprised our Xperts was that several presentations were given on the use of LinkedIn, while the field of artificial intelligence was less of a topic than expected.
The MACHN Festival offered a perfect mix of knowledge transfer, networking and festival spirit, garnished with a good dose of art and culture. It once again proved that it is an important platform for companies, founders, start-ups, developers and creatives from Central Germany.
The conclusion of our Xperts: despite completely soaked clothes, we had a lot of fun and took a lot of inspiration with us. And best of all: we found some potential speakers for this year's WUD (World Usability Day)!