Welcome to our 2016 calendar of events for digital communications professionals. There are 35-plus conferences listed below, many of which take place on our homeground in Europe, focusing on all the key areas we recruit in:
- tech comm
- content strategy and marketing
- IA and UX
- augmented reality
- intranet, CMS, mobile and more.
We cover many of the conferences listed below on the Firehead blog, or you can subscribe to Firehead to catch up on digital comms and recruitment trends quarterly by email. Did we miss any great conferences? Let us know in the comments. Thanks!
FEBRUARY
Agile Content Conf, London, UK, 1 February 2016
All about using agile methods to work together digitally and move away from linear workflows where publication of content is the final step.
Webstock, Wellington, New Zealand, 9-12 February 2016
#webstock
Lively conference that attracts some of the biggest (and most interesting new) names in digital to New Zealand. This year is its 10th anniversary.
XML Prague, Czech Republic, 11-13 February 2016
#xmlprague
A conference on markup languages and data on the web featuring topics such as: web markup, semantic visions and reality, publishing for the 21th century, XML technologies and big data, and the state of the XML union.
Mobile Trends Conference, Krakow, Poland, 17-19 Feb 2016
#mtc2016
Now in its 5th year, Poland’s biggest IT conference dedicated to mobile solutions and technologies offers more than 30 lectures across three days.
MARCH
Intelligent Content, Las Vegas, US, 7-9 March 2016
#intelcontent
The Intelligent Content Conference (ICC) is in its 8th year and focuses on how to plan, create, and deliver contextually relevant content.
SXSW Interactive, Austin, US, 11-15 March 2016
#sxswi #sxsw
One of the biggest and best web festivals in the world, famous for its parties as much as its panels. So good we’ve been twice.
An Event Apart, Nashville, US, 14-16 March 2016
One for web designers, the Nashville event kicks off the first of seven events that take place throughout the year and across major cities in the US.
Social Media Marketing World, San Diego, US, 17-19 March 2016
#SMMW16
A mega-conference for 3,000 marketers put on by the Social Media Examiner. The 2016 event features 100+ sessions, as well as talks by luminaries such as Chris Brogan, Guy Kawasaki, Joe Pulizzi and Darren Rowse.
APRIL
MadWorld, San Diego, US, 10-12 April 2016
#MadWorld2016
Technical communication and content strategy conference for technical writers, documentation managers and content strategists.
Click Z Live, New York, US, 11-13 April 2016
Digital marketing conference series looking at latest trends in marketing and advertising, plus tools, tips, and tactics to help streamline marketing campaigns. Others in the global series include Click Z London (see March).
TCeurope Colloquium 2016, Porto, Portugal, 15 April 2016
An event for technical communicators in Europe featuring information delivery, emerging technologies and methods for engaging users.
Digital Media Europe, Vienna, Austria, 20-22 April 2016
#dme16
Where European publishers discuss digital impacts in mobile, social, paid content, business innovation and advertising. In 2016 the themes are: online reader revenue, the end of display advertising 1.0 and tomorrow’s revenue today.
Intra.NET Reloaded 2016, Berlin, Germany, 28-29 April 2016
#intra_reloaded
Leading event for 250+ intranet professionals and internal comms teams to discuss the latest issues in digital internal communication and knowledge management. Features more than 40 speakers and 50+ sessions, plus multiple networking opportunities. There is another event in London in November.
MAY
J.Boye Philadelphia, Philadelphia, US, 3-5 May 2016
#jboye2016
Web and intranet conference for web managers, web project managers and intranet managers. Themes include leadership and strategy, standards and technology, intranet and digital workplace, content and communications, and personalisation and relevance.
The IA Summit, Atlanta, US, 4-8 May 2016
#iasummit
This will be the 17th IA Summit for professionals in information architecture and experience design. Karaoke is promised/threatened.
Beyond Tellerand, Dusseldorf, Germany, 9-11 May 2016
#btconf
Running since 2010 in Germany, this conference gathers speakers on creative web design and development. What does the title mean? The exact translation for the sentence is: “Take a look beyond the edge of the plate”. A second event will be held in Berlin on 7-9 November.
Adobe Digital Marketing Summit EMEA, London, UK, 11-12 May 2016
#AdobeSummit
A chance to connect with more than 3,000 digital marketing leaders and explore more than 100 sessions in nine tracks covering the latest tools and trends in digital marketing.
STC Technical Communication Summit, Anaheim, US, 15-18 May 2016
#STC16
STC’s 63rd annual conference moves to California this year with 80+ sessions talking tech comm at this popular event.
SMX London, London, UK, 18-19 May 2016
#smx
Search Marketing Expo is a conference series by Search Engine Land, covering hot topics and latest thinking in the world of SEO, SEM and online marketing.
Confab Central, Minneapolis, US, 18-20 May 2016
#confabMN
Content strategy conference featuring 650 content strategists and the chance to learn the topics, trends and best practices shaping content strategy today.
Shift, London, UK, 24-25 May 2016
ClickZ sets up shop in London for two days focusing on the drivers of digital change.
UXLx: User Experience Lisbon, Portugal, 24-27 May 2016
#uxlx
User experience workshops and talks for around 500 attendees.
JUNE
Augmented Reality World Expo (AWE), Santa Clara, US, 1-2 June 2016
#awe2016
Now in its 7th year, AWE brings together the world’s largest gathering of augmented reality (AR) professionals to ‘make the world more interactive’. AWE USA ’16 is poised to break all records with over 4000 attendees and 250 exhibitors; it will also stage in China (17-18 October) and Europe (Berlin, 18-19 October).
Content Marketing Academy, Edinburgh, Scotland, 2-3 June 2016
#TCMA2016
TCMA is aimed at helping business owners, marketers and entrepreneurs become better marketers through sharing resources, examples and case studies.
PePcon 2016, San Diego, US, 5-8 June 2016
#PePcon
The 7th year of PePcon, a conference focused on print and ePublishing with insights on eBooks, print, iPad/tablets, interactive documents, and more.
LavaCon Dublin, Ireland, 5-8 June
#lavacon
LavaCon comes to Europe for the first time and will take places at the Trinity College Conference Center near the Temple Bar area of Dublin, Ireland. There is also the annual LavaCon in Las Vegas in October. Founded in 2002, this event has grown from its technical communication roots to include sessions on project management, content strategy, UX, social media, mobile devices and more.
Future of Digital Marketing London, London, UK, 7 June 2016
A one-day event to discover what’s on the digital horizon, including automation and bots, growth hacking, the future of messaging for marketers, the future of digital content, radical personalisation, intelligent personal assistants and more.
UA Europe, Budapest, Hungary, 9-10 June 2016
#uaeurope
An annual conference covering the latest developments in software user assistance and online help for technical communicators, user assistance specialists, information architects, technical authors, software developers and documentation managers.
UnGagged London, London, UK, 23-24 June 2016
#LDNTechWeek
SEO and digital marketing tactics are on the table at this headline event of London Technology Week (20-26 June). If this isn’t your topic, there are many more events at London Tech Week.
JULY
WebVisions, Barcelona, Spain, 7-9 July 2016
#webvisions #wvbcn
One of six WebVisions events in 2016; the other European events are in Berlin (26 October) and London (29 October). WebVisions explores the future of design, content creation, user experience and business strategy for an audience of designers, developers and industry leaders.
SEPTEMBER
Content Marketing World, Cleveland, US, 6-9 September 2016
#cmworld
The largest content marketing conference, organised by the Content Marketing Institute, also gets bonus points for its follow-up Video on Demand option to see all the presentations. Kevin Spacey and John Cleese have both done keynotes here. Who will it be in 2016?
Social Media Week London. London, UK, 12-16 September 2016
#SMWLDN
SMW is a worldwide event taking place 18 cities throughout 2016. This year’s theme is ‘The Invisible Hand: Hidden Forces of Technology (and How We Can Harness it for Good)’. #SMWLDN brings together speakers from the likes of BuzzFeed, National Geographic and Forbes.
Technical Communication UK, St Neots, UK, 13-15 September 2016
#tcuk #tcuk16
The annual TCUK conference is the leading event for technical communicators in the UK. This year it will be held near the market town of St Neots, between Cambridge and Milton Keynes, and the theme is ‘From Novice to Expert – Writing Your Career Path as a Technical Communicator’.
Confab Intensive, Seattle, US, 19-21 September 2016
A conference of deep-dive workshops on topics spanning UX, CMS, editorial, workflow and governance.
CMO Digital Leaders Summit Europe, St Andrews, Scotland, 20-22 September 2016
A chance to tune in to 65 senior digital marketing decision-makers and business leaders, who will be discussing topics around the theme of ‘Digital Reinvention in 2016: The shift from volume to value’. Expect some good speakers.
EuroIA, Amsterdam, Holland, 22-24 September 2016
#euroIA
Europe’s 12th annual information architecture/user experience summit features presentations, panels and plenty of networking opportunities for IAs and UX designers. The theme for 2016 is ‘Connected Things Amongst Us’.
OCTOBER
Content Strategy Forum, Melbourne, Australia, 5-7 October 2016
#csforum
The original content strategy conference started out in Paris in 2010, and has since been hosted in London, Cape Town, Helsinki and Frankfurt. It continues the tradition of being hosted in lovely international cities as it pops up in Melbourne in 2016.
Conversion Conference, London, UK, 12-13 October 2016
Discover the latest strategies and tactics around lead generation and conversion rate optimisation, including meaningful data collection, A/B and multivariate tests, personalisation, persuasion techniques, cross-device UX and more. There’s another Conversion Conference in Berlin on 8-9 November.
WebVisions, Berlin, Germany, 26 October 2016
#webvisions #wvbln
One of six WebVisions events in 2016, exploring the future of design, content creation, user experience and business strategy for an audience of designers, developers and industry leaders.
LavaCon Las Vegas, US, 25-28 October 2016
#lavacon
A multi-day conference for content strategists, documentation managers, and marketing professionals. Founded in 2002, LavaCon has grown from its technical communication roots to include sessions on project management, content strategy, UX, social media, mobile devices and more.
WebVisions, London, UK, 29 October 2016
#webvisions #wvbcn
One of six WebVisions events in 2016, exploring the future of design, content creation, user experience and business strategy.
NOVEMBER
MarTech, London, UK, 1-2 November 2016
#martech
Marketing technology conference in which martech professionals share stories of the implementation, managerial and cultural challenges surrounding digital transformation. One for hybrid marketing and tech-savvy people and digital strategists.
J.Boye Aarhus 16, Aarhus, Denmark, 1-3 November 2016
The global knowledge-sharing community returns to Aarhus for the 12th time for a three-day event covering content strategy to UX to tech trends you should know about.
Web Summit, Lisbon, Portugal, 7-10 November 2016
Learn from industry leaders and digital marketers from the likes of Storyful, Getty Images, Google, Forbes and Instagram, and apply their techniques in your own role.
Velocity, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 7-10 November 2016
O’Reilly’s European wing of four Velocity conferences taking place this year for web professionals working in web operations and performance.
Beyond Tellerand, Berlin, Germany, 7-9 November 2016
#btconf
The second of this year’s Beyond Tellerand conferences on creative web design and development.
TC World and Tekom, Stuttgart, Germany, 8-10 November 2016
#tekom #tcworld
The TCWorld conference and the Tekom fair is the largest global event and marketplace for technical communication.
Integrated Live, London, UK, 16-17 November 2016
Launched in 2012 as The Digital Marketing Show, this ‘new look’ event recognises that everything is now digital and the importance is now on the context and the message. With 10,000 senior marketers coming to the show at London’s Excel, and 120+ world leading speakers teaching about the latest trends in marketing, Integrated Live is the UK’s largest marketing exhibition.
Intra.NET Reloaded 2016, London, UK, 24-25 November 2016
#intra_reloaded
The intra.NET Reloaded London 2016 brings together 100+ decision makers from corporate IT, communications and business departments to discuss all things intranet.
Image: (CC) Sebastiaan ter Burg / Flickr