Events > Conference Program

Nextcloud community members can organize Nextcloud presence at trade shows and conferences to present our community and technology.

Want to show Nextcloud to visitors at an event? Below you will find materials you can use and practical tips on how to make it happen.

Resources

• Presentation templates and slide samples can be found here.
• Our page with tips and tricks on creating and giving a great presentation here.
• Flyers, stickers, posters and logos can be found here. Please do follow the branding guidelines on that page!
• videos can be found on our YouTube channel.
• Get some goodies
  We can send you some materials like stickers and flyers for your booth.Ask about this in the forums. In general, count on two weeks at least and please understand that currently we only ship in (most countries in) Europe and the USA.

Consider posting in the events category to discuss events with other Nextclouders.

Bring Nextcloud to conferences and trade shows

As Nextcloud appeals to both home users and businesses, we can be found at a wide variety of conferences and trade shows. To spread the word, you can either give a talk or workshop, or organize a booth.

• Give a presentation or workshop
  If you want to give a presentation or workshop on Nextcloud, you can get some ideas for subjects and slides here and on our features page as well as more extensive speaking tips and information here. There is also a presentation template which you can adapt to your needs.
• Organize a booth
  Going to a trade show or conference for Nextcloud is not hard. All you need are a few volunteers and some positive energy! Read the steps below to learn how to organize a booth.
  • Get the booth!
    Work out a booth space with the organization of the event.
    Now, get some people together who can help and arrange travel, hotel and all that! Before the event, try to print some of our promo materials and see Resources above for ordering some things from us.
  • Tell everybody about the booth!
    Once you've secured a spot, share the Nextcloud attendance to the event over social media - perhaps even set up an event page on Facebook and Google plus, ask people to share the news. And tell us about it!
  • Set up the booth
    A crucial thing when setting up a booth is to create open space. This is very hard, as many events put a row of tables in front of the visitors and it is of course easy to go and sit behind them. But that is hardly an effective strategy. Instead, put the table back against the wall if you can, and stand in front. That is much nicer for visitors! Nobody likes to be the first person at a booth, and if you and your booth friends are standing in front, it seems there is always something going on.
    
  • Promote the booth
    Get people to the booth! You can put some leaflets or hang up some posters around the venue, and if you give a talk you should certainly mention that there is an Nextcloud booth.
  • Handle visitors
    There are four kind of visitors you get at the booth: newbies, advanced users, business users and (potential) contributors. You're there to get newbies interested in Nextcloud, answer questions of the advanced users and convince the (potential) business users that their company needs Nextcloud! Last but not least, you should convince (potential) contributors to get on board with Nextcloud hacking: it is fun and easy.
  

Some practical booth tips

• Approach people with a question. For example:
  • "do you know Nextcloud?"
  • "do you use Dropbox or Google drive?"
  • "do you share files and work on them with other people?"
  Your goal is to find out what their problem is and then tell them how Nextcloud can help them. If they have no problem or Nextcloud can't help, well, that's it. No reason to make them listen to anything they won't be interested in, while you could be talking to people who DO need Nextcloud!
• Organize little talks or workshops at the booth. Like "building your first Nextcloud app" or "installing Nextcloud on a RaspberryPi". They might not attract a large audience, but that means you get to spend some quality time with a few interested Nextcloud users or potential contributors!
• If you encounter negativity or users with problems, of course try to help them. But don't spend too much time on it - rather, ask them to ask on the forums or on the mailing list. You sure won't be able to solve their complicated problem on the spot and there are lots of other people who want to hear about Nextcloud. Nothing is perfect, neither is Nextcloud - but we are best at dealing with that online, rather than at events.
• Don't hack at the booth unless you are giving a workshop. It makes it seem very uninviting.
• Have a screen with Nextcloud in action at the booth. You can demo Nextcloud easily that way, or let people play with demo.nextcloud.com. And have something 'interesting' happen while you are not doing a demo. A video of Nextcloud in action, for example. You can find some in our YouTube channel.

Contact/questions/support

• For setting up the meetup page, sharing the news on the upcoming event or a report from the previous one or any other questions, contact us.
• Share what you are did! It is great if you share what you did at the conference or trade show with the international community. Blog about it, put some pictures on line and let us know what you have been up to!