7 Best Remote Work Conferences to Attend in 2020 6nomads Follow Jan 8 · 6 min read

Read the updated version here.

Until recently, it seemed that remote work is something completely new and fresh. Today, for many, it is daily life.

Now there are a huge number of articles, podcasts, interviews, blogs on various aspects of remote work. And all the same, there are many disputes, myths, misconceptions around. Remote evangelists can argue about whether asynchronous or synchronous work is more productive, whether it is necessary to turn on the video at team meetings, and many other things.

The phenomenon is still young and cannot be said that it was finally formed when the main tools on which remote work is based appeared quite recently.

It is all the more interesting to observe the evolution of the idea of remote work, as from the idea of the future it has become our everyday life, with its problems, difficulties and, of course, advantages.

For those who want to understand the topic seriously and prevent a lot of mistakes the founders of remote companies have already learned from, we recommend choosing a suitable conference (there are not so many of them yet), so that in a short time to absorb the intense flow of information and get down to business, being armed with actual knowledge.

We have selected 3 offline and 3 online events for this year so that you can make plans based on them now (some conferences will start very soon).

Offline events

17–21 January, Chiang Mai, Thailand

7 speakers

$179

“It’s the ultimate place to learn from highly successful professionals and network with hundreds of like-minded people who share your goals and vision. Come learn, grow and meet your future business partners, employers, mentors, and best friends.”

You can still book your tickets and go to Thailand for a portion of the sun, mango shake and active networking in the traditional havens of digital nomads.

We especially like one of the speakers — Stephanie Smith — for her blog. Even if you don’t go to Thailand, be sure to check out her inspiring website. The topic of her speech at the conference is “How Anyone Can Learn to Code and Build a Product Less Than 1 Year”.

The others sound like

“Starting and Selling a Million Dollar Online Business”,

“Financial Independence — Retire Early as a Digital Nomad”,

“How to Build a Fully Location Independent Business While Travelling the World and Building a Community at Sea” etc.

20–21 April, Austin, USA

30 speakers

$799

“Running Remote is carefully curated to teach you next-level, actionable strategies and tactics you can utilize the very next day to manage and grow your distributed team.”

Quite a big event, which will be held this year for the third time. The organizers try to make a show of the conference, entertain guests with activities, and then leave a large number of podcasts and videos. So at first, you can watch the previous interviews without going anywhere and decide whether you want to spend $799 dollars this April.

And here are a few speakers announced this year:

Wade Foster, Co-founder & CEO Zapier

Andy Tryba, CEO Crossover & Sococo

Sara Sutton, Founder FlexJobs & Remote.co

Lori McLeese, Global Head of HR Automattic

Andreas Klinger, Head of Remote AngelList and many others.

7–8 November, Auditorio Alfredo Kraus, Spain

€147

“We are a team of professionals sharing a common objective: making remote work accessible to everyone.”

Although the conference will take place only in November, you can already see the schedule, speakers and topics. You don’t have the opportunity to watch videos of past conferences for free, but you can buy individual entries on topics of interest to you.

Online events

It seems to us that conferences about remote teams should be remote. After all, if we are talking about a world without borders, about equal opportunities for talent everywhere, about an era where technology allows you not to travel distances for information or communication, then it is time for conferences to become suitable to these ideas. Moreover, all offline conferences like to claim that they are “the biggest” or “largest”, but what can be “bigger” than an event that is not tied to the location?

14–15 January

12 speakers

$0

“Learn valuable insights and get answers on running and managing a remote tech team directly from industry experts.”

The nearest event, if you don’t like to put things off for later. Moreover, there are no stop factors: the conference is online and free. The speakers are founders of remote-first startups, creators of remote tools and HR managers of remote teams.

So different participants from the most different businesses, different origins, but all of them have one thing in common: the choice of remote and successful mastering of it. A special place among the topics is given to the problem of building and maintaining a culture in a remote company and its role in the comfort of employees and their productivity.

UPD: You can watch recorded sessions here.

14 May, 14:30 – 19:00 (Europe/London)

10 speakers

£99

“Learn how to navigate the remote transition with fellow product leaders.”

The Remote PM, directed at product people who were forced to go remote because of the current crisis.

JAM is going to give a huge dose of insights from remote product leaders, and bring up the following topics:

— Advice and perspectives on how to adapt your product practices,

— Concrete strategies to prepare for a longer-term shift to remote work,

— A deep understanding of the habits, tools and mindset of experienced remote teams,

and many others.

+A 20% discount on a future JAM event.

October

“Featuring short audio interviews with inspiring virtual leaders, at a time to suit you, one per day, it also gives you the chance to interact with the other participants online. This is a unique way for you to develop your skills without traveling. There is no charge to register to listen in to each speaker via the web each day.”

There is no information about the topic of this year’s conference, about speakers and exact dates, but you can register now so that you do not miss anything, as there are still very few online conferences. The theme of the last conference was “Making Virtual Working Work: a retrospective”.

14+ speakers

“The Remote Work Summit is an initiative to bring together 14+ industry leaders from multiple Fortune 500 companies, startups and agencies and talk about the challenges & frameworks to build effective remote teams, organizations & careers.”

We put this “event” on the list for 2020, even though all the videos are already on the record, and this is a kind of termless conference.

You can buy a Premium Pass and get access to more interviews and materials, or watch first what is provided in the free access. Although these interviews were recorded last year, they have not yet lost their relevance, and you can watch them at a convenient time.

COO of Doist, Director of Recruiting at Zapier, CEO of Dribbble, Founder of Product Hunt, Founder & CEO of Workplaceless, Head of Public Relations at Buffer and many others are among speakers.

If you know other worthwhile conferences/meetups/events — please write to us lbaltaeva@6nomads.com