Boris Hristov

Founder of 356labs

Founder of 356labs
and PowerPoint MVP.
Speaker, Trainer & Author.
A guy that loves to do sports, have fun and enjoy life. Gallery / Blog / Contact

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Attending: DigiTalk 2016

April 23, 2016 By Boris Hristov Leave a Comment

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DigitalK is one of the major yearly events that gather together people from the technology and the startup world. It’s a 2 day event and yeah, I decided to join the 2016 edition! However, I am not going to be speaking (not that I didn’t want to, just the organizers said that they accept only foreign speakers…). I am there to meet some great new people and if there is also good content – great! Taking in mind what happened at Innovation Explorer, though, I am approaching this conference with low expectations because every time I do the opposite, I leave quite disappointed…

So are you going to DigiTalk? Let me know in the comments or on FB if so!

P.S. I am going to be live blogging from the event, but will do that on the 356labs’s web site. Details coming right before the event.

Update: You can find the live blogging from the event here and I hope that by reading through it you will be able to get the main idea and what the event covered!

As for my personal thoughts, I would say DigiTalk was way, way better event than Innovation Explorer, which I blogged about too. The venue, the speakers, the content, the way they presented(!), the ticket price(which was lower than Innovation Explorer and let’s don’t forget that DigiTalk is a 2-day event) and in general, the overall experience was really, really good. I would recommend that event to everyone who wants to meet really interesting and innovative people and want to learn about future trends, technologies and successful startups.

So… see you at DigiTalk 2017?

Filed Under: Business, Perosnal Tagged With: Career Development, Conferences, Event Management, Events

Attended: Innovation Explorer 2016

March 5, 2016 By Boris Hristov 3 Comments

Innovation_Explorer_Sofia_Bulgaria_2016-1024x406On 25th of February I decided to attend a conference – Innovation Explorer 2016. I went there not as a speaker(strange for me too), but as someone who recently started his own company and as someone who wanted to get some practical advises and create some new contacts. (I did live blogging from the conference sharing both what I found useful and also the problems I saw during the presentations of the speakers).

The result: For such a premium conference – one that costs more than 100 Euros for a day(that’s a lot for Bulgaria), I am completely sure I will not attend next year. Why? Even though the networking was, let’s say, OK, the content was on a very, very low level. There were speakers from companies like Google, Intel, Pixar, HPE who instead of providing value to the audience(I will not even touch on their presentation skills and slide designs – you can see more on the link above), they were doing self-promotion of their companies!? Are you kidding me? As a speaker, your presentation must be focused towards your audience’s needs, not yours! Anyways…

The best speaker at the whole event was a woman from Bulgaria(surprise, surprise to all of you event managers who still believe that just because the speaker is from a different country than Bulgaria, then he/she is 100% better than the ones here) who is the president’s adviser on innovation and who talked about what we as a country should be striving for and doing in the next few years in case we want to advance as a nation.

To sum it up, my opinion is that Innovation Explorer was nothing special. At least the conference. May be the workshops were great and may be the VIP dinner allowed for better networking. I don’t know. The main event though, was not worth the money and if there is an event next year, I would seriously consider whether I should go. Especially on a price like this.

Filed Under: Business, Perosnal, Presentation Skills & Presentation Design Tagged With: Career Development, Conferences, Event, Event Management, Google, HPE, Intel, Pixar

Hangout #016 How to Organise a SQL Server Event?

April 7, 2014 By Boris Hristov Leave a Comment

SQLHangouts #16 with Janos Berke (t|b) and Zoltán Horváth (t|b) – the guys that put up quite a show for SQLSaturday Budapest where I actually also delivered a session! In this hangout video you will hear from them some of the things you need to know if you want to organise a SQL Server event. Prepare yourself as some of their advices are quite unusual, but it is exactly what I wanted to hear from them – lessons learned! So with a more than 500 people on their event now behind their back, I am sure you will be interested to hear their opinion and they can be of great help to you if you are also planning to organise or probably volunteer for an upcoming event in your region! Enjoy!

Filed Under: SQL Server, SQLHangouts Tagged With: Conferences, Event Management, Events, SQLHangouts, SQLSaturday