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Barcelona Yoga Conference 2019 - Review


Tine

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  • Moderator
Posted

It was the first "real world" appearance for happiness.com, also the first time sponsoring an event. We were blessed to have so many insightful conversations at our stand. We could share our vision and reflect on what works and resonates with real people outside our office. Such a gift!

Let's continue the conversation here. We want to hear from you. We are grateful to learn from you and shape happiness.com together!

  • Moderator
Posted

One of the main takeaways for me is that conscious community means that the people I spoke to are conscious about how they use their time and be here now often means to favor real-life interactions over those online. If it is online it needs to be worth it. Another time-consuming site just won't cut it. I feel it for myself if I have fallen into the "facebook-trap" and afterward feel how it has eaten up my attention, sold it for advertising money and I have only lost time to otherwise be alive.

What does this mean for happiness.com? For me, it means that if people log in to make it worth their time and attention. Yes, we need a call to action, we need to motivate people to commit and engage and at the same time we need to make sure we respect their time, that if they invest time and attention it's worth it, that there's a real connection, vulnerability, support not just some scrolling through updates.

  • Moderator
Posted

I had the same impression. value is key. People are more conscious about their online time and there is already a lot of content out there. We also need to see the different target groups. As there are yoga teachers and other businesses on the one hand side which make out a living and which like to find better reach. On the other hand side, there are students who want to look for classes, improve their yoga or maybe connect with others. So we should look at how we can improve communication here. Usually, the token argument was not the first thing to communicate.

  • Moderator
Posted

During the event, we realized that also the usability of the signup process might be improved (e.g. bring the gender part to the second step) and make clear that a user can't use a space for the nickname.  Also some of the zip codes did not work (e.g. 31172), Germany is shown first in the list etc. We also might overestimate English speakers in Barcelona for the topic. There are still people who write Spanish only or prefer to do it. How do we handle the Spanish content in the newsfeed?  There was still some more feedback I'll share later.

 

  • Moderator
Posted

I was very happy to see people approaching us as soon as they read the roll-up! I thought, wow, these are types of people I would love to see as part of our little community. The curious, the adventurous, the seeker. I do tend to agree with Yvonne about the Spanish though. Although BYC attracts a fairly international crowd, majority of the people still spoke Spanish and I found it particularly hard trying to explain what it was. What will we do with the list of emails we collected? Maybe a nice thank you note and an invitation to sign up should be sent some time this week, or early next week? I must say I felt very proud to see the happiness.com logo boldly displayed on the sponsors banner at the entrance of reception. Thank you Yvonne and everyone for setting up a super cozy and nicely branded stand.

@Tine Does happiness.com currently support a poll function? And can we post as happiness.com in the newsfeed? Although I love the weekly news and magazine article, I think there could be more interaction or content from us as well. Maybe sharing the instagram post on the newsfeed and creating a discussion around it is already enough.

  • Moderator
Posted
4 hours ago, Bethnicles said:

 

@Tine Does happiness.com currently support a poll function? And can we post as happiness.com in the newsfeed? Although I love the weekly news and magazine article, I think there could be more interaction or content from us as well. Maybe sharing the instagram post on the newsfeed and creating a discussion around it is already enough.

1

Thank you for your input ?

Yes, we do support polls. However, I am not sure how to do it exactly. If you have an example what to ask the community we can try to set it up with @Lizzie's help? It's normally easier if you have something tangible.

@Calvin77 usually posts the Instagram content on the site too, right? Could you post some of the BYC pictures too?

  • Moderator
Posted
On 7/9/2019 at 9:57 AM, Yvonne said:

There are still people who write Spanish only or prefer to do it. How do we handle the Spanish content in the newsfeed?  There was still some more feedback I'll share later.

This is very interesting and something I was thinking of too: I'm currently seeing English, German and Spanish language due to the people I have become friend with and the settings they have. If you speak the language fantastic, but not all of us will. Wonder if we have any settings for newsfeed languages preferences aside from only selecting to see happiness.com in English/German. The issues of a building a global community ??

  • Moderator
Posted

I wanted to start my answer with "I am not much into yoga" then I remembered that I attend a weekly yoga class ? So I might have to reassess that.

The two days I spend at the Barcelona Yoga conference were in the free area. So I can't comment on the quality of the paid part. Having a free area that not only has food trucks and shops but also a small stage that offered music was a nice touch, which I thought reflected the values of a conscious community well. There were also free Yoga classes offered for those who can't afford a ticket.

My favourite time was when the music played at the free stage - some Bhajans to sing along and be joyful.

I had some inspiring, deep conversations which also highlighted to me that conscious gatherings and shangas create an atmosphere of openness, safety and support that is hard to find elsewhere but which the world needs. So it was a much-appreciated opportunity to recharge my batteries there.

  • Moderator
Posted

But I totally can start with "I am not much into yoga" ;) Let´s say still not. I know it´s a good thing but just never have started to do this seriously.
I do really like the surroundings of an event like this. The relaxed people, the good atmosphere, healthy food and healthy people everywhere. I joined just on Sunday, but I had a good time, talking to interesting and interested people when there has been some more movement.
It was nice to attend an event of this kind to me

 

  • Moderator
Posted

It was really nice! What happens is, that those kinds of Events are completely different than other "Marketing" Events. It would have felt weird going too proactive to other visitors to "oblige them" to get us to know or running around to show off with happiness.com. On this event, it has been important to communicate with the people when they came to the stand by themselves, or start a conversation with them once they showed an interest somehow. But that´s totally cool! We´ll have a diversion in the Events which is nice as well, depending on the audience that is around.

The Spanish, English, German thing may lead to confusion, I agree. If Spanish people from an older generation (mine basically and older ;) ) sign up, not all of them speak English or do not feel comfortable doing so. If they anyways signup and want to be part of the community, do we answer them in Spanish? Otherwise, we lose them

  • Moderator
Posted

I couldn't attend this time, and i think I missed something ;). I go to yoga once a week but still don't feel like a "yoga person". The yoga in class I do is very breathbased/ slow yoga and I think many Yoga classes are quite different from this technique. I would love to get to know different kind of techniques, just out of curiosity and such a Yoga conference would have been a great opportunity. I will mark the date for next year and hope to see happiness.com with a stand there as well!

A question about the conference: I have many friends who themselves are yoga teachers, they might be happy to connect here with people who already have attended the event to get in touch for more information. For example would you recommened the conference for teachers as well as or is the target group more for students?

  • Moderator
Posted

Well, just a reason more to learn spanish, I would say ☺️?. I'm sure we find a solution here, maybe find some spanish speaking volunteers who can help out within the community. I would love if the community would start to be a place for language tandems in english/spanish, spanish/german or english/german, where people can talk about their struggles, experiences and personal way of life while learning a language better. That way it would add an even more interesting twist to it. I'm up for a spanish tandem, if someone is interested :es::de::gb:!

 

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