Why Lessons from Peers Conference are Vital to the Digital Agency Industry

In 2013 I met my Clearfire business partner Casey Reid in Chicago to attend and sit on a panel at Peers, a first-year conference that promised to meld the separate, but symbiotic worlds of web agency business, design and development. That year, Peers delivered on its promise. But this year in Philadelphia, Peers hit its stride and elevated to a level that feels completely aloft of similar events.

I’d venture that the hundreds of conferences I don’t attend all generally go well and leave their attendees energized and motivated for what’s next in their careers. All of the conferences I have attended over the years have done the same. Post-conference follows and thank you’s and nice to meet you’s abound. As they should, regardless of the quality of the conference content. Just by human nature, people are going to meet, make new friends, and reconnect with forgotten ones.

Peers bills itself as the conference that brings together “developers, designers and web business owners to share their knowledge and experiences.” And it does. But what about Peers feels so special?

* Historic location
* Beautiful weather
* Well-appointed accommodations
* Great local restaurants and bars
* Unique venue
* Experienced speakers

Certainly all of these factors were present in Philadelphia, but none of them make this year’s Peers unique. Not at all, in fact.

What Peers has dialed in perfectly is relatability and intimacy.

As a business owner and developer, I had two Peers tracks to choose from that would have been applicable to my career, but for the past few years, I have always gravitated to business-focused talks. The business track this year was stellar, not because it was loaded with superstar web-celeb types, but because it was loaded with colleagues just like me. People with cashflow issues. People with process issues. People with confidence issues. And I’ll include my talk in this list as well: people with personal or family issues.

I could relate to all these people that opened up their feelings and emotions for us. Not just how they have done things well, but how they have made terrible choices. Not just their big wins, but how their struggles have impacted their health. Not only the good times, but the dark times as well.

Something about Peers, be it Jessica’s welcoming spirit, or perhaps Yitz’s reminders about what it takes to “get it” in this industry, or maybe Fred’s story of almost-certain-death-by-stress, or even my own tale of letting down my wife and kids by overworking… something about Peers brings out extreme transparency and honesty in the presenters and attendees alike.

Watching speakers open up about how this career can negatively affect their lives opened the door for attendees to do the same. The hallway track became as vital to sharing and learning as the formal talks on stage. As a speaker who does not shy away from transparency and emotion, I was reassured (but not surprised) by the attendees who felt at ease retelling their own tales of missteps, lapses in judgement, and the fallout that comes with it all.

It is easy to criticize bad decisions, bad judgement and even bad luck. Its easiest to profoundly criticize them in your own head. Perhaps hindsight reveals that seemingly smart decisions at one time really were detrimental to your mental health, your family life, or your business. But I’ve said many times, and will continue to say, that we are all making the best decisions we can at the time, with the information and experience that we can apply at that moment.

I don’t know if failing makes us better in the future, but I do know what it feels like to be drowning in feelings of failure while it is happening. And I also know that for three days, Peers helped me realize that I wasn’t alone in my struggles, and that everyone is going through it, to some extent. That more than a handful of us are watching the repercussions impact our personal and professional lives, helpless to stop the downward spiral while we are in it. And that just asking for help or reaching out for guidance can be all we need to shift our viewpoint enough to break the cycle.

Brandon Kelly summed it up best in a post-Peers tweet:

I’ll add one more: We shouldn’t wait for a once-a-year conference to remind us that we can do better. The lessons from Peers 2015 are universal, and timeless. So, chin up, web professionals. Its tough out there, and you can make it through. If you don’t feel like you can, give me a call. I’ll be your wingman.