In those 4 days, 77 panelists and moderators, as well as many TV professionals, producers, marketing agency people, IPTV service providers, cable distributors and other professionals will analyze the current state of television and related industries, try to predict future trends and just talk about all things media.

Our own CEO, Vibor Cipan will be there, mixing business with pleasure, rubbing shoulders with the movers and the shakers and keeping an eye on our social media Wall. Yup, for the first time ever, ladies and gentlemen, we will combine feeds from Twitter, Facebook and Instagram creating an out of this world social media experience. Join us! Tweet with #NEM2013 and enjoy Dubrovnik.

(Yes, Game of Thrones was shot here too.)

Why?

As designers, we’re always on the lookout for ways to stay creative and inspired. Many of us have “offline” hobbies to get away from our computer screens and do something fun and inspiring. It’s not really possible to stay creative otherwise.

We wondered what we could do to celebrate the coming of the sunny season with an event that stands out from all the others and brings a real blast of fresh air.

Many of you have already booked tickets and flights to various UX and design conferences around the world. We guess that you don’t need another one, so we decided to host a small and intimate two day event which focuses mostly on offline and offscreen experiences.

What?

GetAway! is a creative, fun and inspiring event with the aim of getting together some of the best minds in the local design scene away from their usual working routine so they can work, have fun, inspire and be inspired by other people.

Friday, 12.4.2013

On the first day, we are organizing a coworking session at Lauba. There you will be able to exchange ideas with some of the most experienced designers in this region. We will gather and work from 11AM till 5PM in a very creative environment. Who knows, maybe the next big thing will be designed during this session!

Saturday, 13.4.2013

Join us at UX Passion’s barbecue on Saturday afternoon and let’s have fun offscreen with no WiFi, 3G or smartphones. Besides enjoying a great BBQ, you can bring your design books and swap them with others. Also, there will be offscreen games like Thinkpak, Helveticards, Brand Memory Game, Haikubes, Rorshöck, WatchMaDrawIt and many more offline activities which are waiting for you!

Barbecue and offscreen gathering will be at beautiful place called Kuchica which is located in the near of Zagreb, but far away from commotion of everyday life.

Try a different approach and escape to the countryside where you’re sure to rediscover your inspiration, so crucial to our everyday tasks. We hope that the weather will be on our side next weekend.

UX Passion is sponsoring this event, so entry for both days is completely free of charge. However, you still need to reserve your spot. Have in mind that the number of spots is limited, so hurry up if this sounds interesting to you!

World Design Days

There is Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, International Women’s Day and all sorts of days in between. But, did you know that every year 12 to 15 April are the World Design Days?

These are your days and you deserve to do something awesome, creative, inspiring and fun.

We all spend way too much time staring at digital screens and sitting in front of our computers. It’s not easy to put your work aside for two days, but at least give it a try! Your mind is begging you, and your heart is beating like a machine while reading this. We know that!

Let’s step out of our comfort zone and take a short break from everyday life. We will work, learn, play, laugh and have a lot of fun together!

In case you have any questions or suggestions, please get in touch directly with the organizer of this event, UX Passion’s Creative Director, Antun Debak at antun@uxpassion.com. We hope to see you on 12 and 13 April this year!

Let’s get away! Together!

While Vibor will, of course, be talking about UX services and our popular Wall of Tweets, students will also hear from Tifani Protić, owner of Content Cod, a mobile app for product information; Darian Škarica, co-founder of Mash.me, a web-based system enabling anyone to easily create animated videos, and Bojan Pečnik, astronomer and co-founder of the Hypersphere satellite balloon system.

Saša Cvetojević of the Croatian Business Angels Network will give students the lowdown on how to pique investors’ interest and how to get expert business advice as well as that all-important cash injection.

We hope that for at least a few bright hopes in the audience this will be the start of the long, tough, rewarding and profitable journey to starting and running an innovative new business!

Named “South by Southwest” as a play on the title of the Hitchcock film North by Northwest, the festival started life as a music event in 1986, but quickly outgrew both location and subject-matter based boundaries to become a behemoth of the festival world, attracting almost 25,000 visitors in 2012.

As well as six days of music, there’s a film festival with hundreds of screenings, a gaming expo, the Interactive part (which is where we come in), and more.

Fancy hearing Tim Berners-Lee speak on his hopes and fears for the Open Web? How about immersing yourself in the MIT media lab? Keynotes from Tina Roth Eisenberg (a.k.a. swissmiss), Julie Uhrman (founder and CEO of OUYA), Elon Musk (of Tesla Motors and SpaceX) or Matthew Inman (the Oatmeal creator) tickle your fancy?

The sheer number and quality of sessions is terrifying, so Vibor will have his work cut out to catch the best material related to his passions of technology, startups and User Experience design. And the good news is, he’ll be reporting back to us.

So, stay tuned for some Tex-Mex flavoured insights hitting our blog soon! And in the meantime, if you’re at SXSW yourself, do give Vibor a shout at vibor@uxpassion.com or on Twitter: @viborc.

So, what’s it all about? With the topic “Startups and Coworking” and organized by Coworking Croatia (the Croatian national coworking community), the Jellyweek event in Zagreb will support the vibrant local startup community, painting a picture of the opportunities and potential offered by startups in the context of coworking.

Coworking session (source: Coworking.hr website)

Zagreb’s Jellyweek is comprised of three main parts. There will be coworking sessions, then a set of interviews with some familiar faces from the Croatian startup and digital media scene: Andrey Shtylenko, Barbara Slade, Luka Abrus, Ivo Spigel and our very own Vibor Cipan. This is followed by a treat for everyone – the Croatian premiere of the movie “The Startup Kids” by Vala Halldorsdottir and Sesselja Vilhjalmsdottir.

Find out more about Zagreb Jellyweek 2012 and if you’re around, be sure to catch up with Vibor and others from the UX Passion crew.

And of course our Wall of Tweets, the world’s best twitterwall, will be there. Then again, is there a well-dressed event without one?

Wall Of Good by Soonfeed and UX Passion

We’re creating an online “Wall of Good” that goes live on the eve of the “apocalypse” and features positive messages from people from around the world.

Send your text, image or whatever you want to hello@soonfeed.com before 20 December and we’ll add it to the Wall of Good. It might be:

• Your favourite quote
• A song you love
• An image that sums up your vision of a better future

As long as it’s not illegal or spammy or anything, we’ll add it to the Wall of Good powered by our awesome Wall of Tweets technology. So don’t miss this opportunity to say hello to a new era!

And speaking of a new era, you might want to join us at our UX Apocalypse 2012 party.

To be notified when the Wall goes live on the eve of 21 December, simply click “Join” and an email alert will take you there as it happens: http://www.soonfeed.com/happening/1936

Apocalyptically yours,

UX Passion, Wall of Tweets and Soonfeed!

UX Apocalypse web by @ UX Passion

We so often communicate through online channels only in this industry, so the idea of this event is to get together in real life and be able to chat about a bunch of interesting topics such as user experience, design, music, creativity, entrepreneurship and a lot more.

All of that will be followed by welcoming drinks, a private group tour for all of us at the Lauba Art House, finger food and live acoustic music.

As you can see, we have it all planned out and you only need to show up at our “Apocalypse” event. Of course, entry is free and the first glass of wine is on us! Sounds like an interesting and fun idea for a Thursday night?

UX Apocalypse agenda by @ UX Passion

UX Passion is more than just a company name. It’s also more than just a handful of people who are leading the company. We are proud of each and every one of our employees, so all of us will be in Bistro Lauba available for a chat with you. Just look out for the UXP badges (hint: pixelated heart) which we will wear on Thursday night.

UX Passion – Touch. Inspire. Influence.

The Lauba Bistro and Art House is the place to be on 20th of December! We already sent invitations to all of our clients, partners and friends, but in case you didn’t get yours and you want to take part in this event, we encourage you to drop us a message at party@uxpassion.com. Be sure to be quick since we have just few more invitations to our “Apocalypse” party.

Oh, and I’ve almost forgot. Take a look at our UX Apocalypse one-pager website for more information about this event!

Put your work aside for one night and let’s hang out!

It has two venues: Paris and London. This year’s Paris event is taking place on 3-6 December and the focus is on the Internet of Things – or how everyday objects are becoming more “intelligent”.

With speakers including Neelie Kroes, Vice President of the European Commission (responsible for the EU’s Digital Agenda), supermodel Natalia Vodianova, a plethora of journalists, industry folks and finance people, as well as a sprinkling of kiteboarders, it’s bound to be an eclectic affair, full of thought-provoking moments and fun.

LeWeb 2011 – Source: LeWeb Facebook

We’re there for the full three days, so if you are too, feel free to drop a line to our CEO, Vibor Cipan – we’d love to meet you!

Global Shapers are young people who have been selected as showing exceptional promise in using their leadership skills, both to serve their communities and society at a global level.

As part of this, Vibor Cipan will be taking part in events and projects organised by the Zagreb Hub of the Global Shapers initiative, and contributing to global discussions on the World Economic Forum platform.

Here’s what Vibor had to say:

Being part of the Global Shapers community makes you feel responsible for the state of the world, both on local and global levels. The ability to share and build a vision of the world as a better place and to work with Shapers all over the world is an opportunity that no one has the luxury of refusing. This world is our world and it is our responsibility to improve it on all levels.

We’re really happy and proud – working with the WEF guys has always been fascinating, and now through Vibor we get to make an even deeper contribution.

Take a look at this video about Global shapers

Everything you need to know about Silicon Roundabout in 10 Links by [vc]cafe

Some bright spark in the UK government clearly realised that investing in high growth industries, research and development is the way forward in these post-crisis times, and that one way to make that happen is bring heavy-hitting investors like Google and Facebook to invest in a technology incubator. By 2011 there were some 200 companies inhabiting Tech City.

The Trade and Investment Team at the UK Embassy in Zagreb has invited a clutch of Croatian tech startups to jet off to England’s capital and take a look at what’s going on – among them UX Passion. There, we’ll have the chance to take a tour, visit the tech accelerator space and make a pitch at the Google campus for our SidekickrTV intelligent TV system.

You might recognise some of the other folks that will be with us, such as Rimac (with their super-sexy electric sports car) and Hypersphere (with their low-cost, environmentally sustainable alternative to satellite monitoring). These were companies also wooed by the Americans when Geeks on a Plane visited this autumn, so we’ll see what the verdict is: Swinging London or California Dreaming?

Speaking of which, did you know this week is Global Entrepreneurship Week? As part of the activities in Zagreb, we had a chat with Kenneth Merten, the new US Ambassador to Croatia. Topics under discussion were the state of the nation and how innovations like ours can help us leap into a brighter and more prosperous future.

Nice to see the UK and US leading the charge to a diverse, buzzing global economy powered by high-growth companies like ours!