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World Hosting Days Global 2016

I could start 5 years ago, back in 2011 when I attended World Hosting Days for the first time, even though I had a high temperature (it was worth going). The only problem with that idea is that it would probably take you as much time to read it as it takes to get to Rust, Germany.

In the heart of Europe, between the Black Forest and the Vosges, lies one of the world’s most beautiful theme parks. More than 5.7 million people from all over the world visit the park each season to enjoy the excitement offered by more than one hundred attractions and shows. The innovative European theme concept; one of the largest hotel resorts in Europe; the various decorations for each season; and the large number of diverse and colorful events make Europa-Park a one-of-a-kind getaway destination all year long. Europapark.com

Rust is the hometown of Europa-Park one of the largest theme parks in Europe. And that’s where the World Hosting Days global is happening, inside a freaking theme park! But I am getting ahead of myself.

We started our long drive at 9 a.m., mainly because there’s isn’t a direct flight from our hometown Rijeka, Croatia, to Rust, Germany. By the time I was driving on the (or should I say “Die”) Autobahn, I was thinking about how I am just crossing off my to-do list something that might be on someone’s bucket list or someone’s salvation. On most parts of the Autobahn you can drive as fast as you want/can, and you have to watch more in your rearview mirror, than on the road ahead. To give you a clue, if you are driving 160 km/h (100 mph), you need to be in the center (second) lane.

We arrived at 8 p.m., and already there was something happening in Rust! InternetX was holding a domain auction at 10 p.m. to warm things up for World Hosting Days. Unfortunately, I had a headache and I had to skip that one, but I looked at the brochure and saw that there were going to be .club, .cloud, .global, Radix, and Uniregistry with some nice domains up for grabs.

Tuesday was the first conference day, and since this was my fifth World Hosting Days Global in a row, I already had some strategies that I followed. Also, in five years I’ve seen many changes with my approach and the organizer’s approach. But I don’t want to bore you… Maybe if we meet at WHD 2017, we can talk about those.

There’s so many choices and paths for you to take. Here are just a few:

  1. Keynotes
  2. Stands
  3. Fun (food, games, rides, chats)
  4. Meetings

Keynotes

At WHD, you have so many great keynotes that often you have to pick between two of them or reschedule your meetings because you want to hear where the industry is going. This year Symantec brought Peter Schmeichel on stage and some people even managed to get a photo with Pele! Their message was “Changing the game”.

Pele and Christian Jaeger

Pele and Christian Jaeger – World Hosting Days

So, as you see, although the keynotes focus on the data of where the “hosting” industry is going, and what are the new game changing ideas, they are also incredibly fun and doing their best to get your attention. I put hosting in quotes because it’s so much more. Sure, people talk about hosting, the cloud, and servers, but they also talk about the hardware, datacenters, and various tools that are responsible for your hosting. Keynotes are also about security, vulnerability, SSL certificates, hackers, backups, and so on. They are also about website builders, domain names, SEO, and so on.

On top of all that, you have guest speakers like Julian Assange, Steve Wozniak (last year), Edward Snowden, and Buzz Aldrin (this year). Yes, the second person that walked on the moon, that Buzz Aldrin. His message was simple: “Get your ass to Mars.”

Buzz Aldrin on World Hosting Days

Buzz Aldrin on World Hosting Days

Stands

As I mentioned earlier, this was my fifth consecutive year attending WHD, and during those years there’s been a clear pattern. Each year there have been more stands. Last two years it was completely obvious because there were new halls altogether that had to take in the stands. I guess I could say that majority of the stands are targeting hosting companies, but it’s a bit more complex than that. This year I saw a booth that promoted opening and doing business in Finland, for example.

If I need to describe the stands, I would have to try to describe the hosting industry and it’s hard to draw the line. This was also the topic of several keynotes, where should the hosting service begin, and where should it end? What does the client need and expect, and what does she get? Domain registration, hosting, monitoring, backups, SSL, website builders, mobile, social, SEO, email, and the list doesn’t end there! Green data centers, low power consumption hard drives, excellent RAM memory, 3-tier Internet connection, privacy, public cloud, encryption, there’s so much to take in and I probably missed something! I remember saying once during my presentation in Mountain View, California, “Hosting companies are holding the entire Internet up and running,” and this statement certainly kicks in once you visit WHD.

Fun

If someone had told me how much fun I was going to have at WHD before my first time there, I honestly wouldn’t believe it, I am 100% business. Where do I even start… Food is just phenomenal, one keynote speaker was raving on stage about a great German schnitzel! I am not making this up, that’s how he opened his keynote. Most of the food you eat is cooked by Europa-Park hotel, and it’s basically an “all-you-can-eat buffet” with several menus that include appetizers, deserts, and drinks. That’s lunch.

Atmosphere at WHD lunch

The atmosphere at WHD restaurant

On Tuesday you have to find your own dinner (OMG, the greek restaurant Dionysos in Herbolzheim) but on Wednesday and Thursday, WHD has you covered. If one of the first thoughts that crossed your mind when you think of Germany is Octoberfest, that’s great because Wednesday night is for BierFest. I guess that one just speaks for itself, and this year it was sponsored by Symantec. Thursday night, which ends the WHD, is the ConneXion party (this year it was sponsored by OnApp, and Boney M was performing live). I can bore you with the list of what I drank and ate, but you would probably have to run to the kitchen to grab something to eat before you are done reading this post.

As you can see by now, organizers, sponsors, and companies that exhibit want you to have fun, and everybody chimes in! In the last few years, SiteLock has had a great stand with a real blackjack dealer, and you can actually play 21 right there. Couple of years ago I played darts at the SSL guru stand and won an iPod nano!

Won an iPod nano at SSL guru

Won an iPod nano at SSL guru

But I also won Bose noise-canceling headphones (from Symantec) and an iPad mini (from the organizers—WHD) three years ago. Yeah, it’s that crazy. I think I could write a separate post just on what else you could do at WHD if you need a breather from that hectic conference pace. I will add one more thing; if you come often enough, you will make friends there from around the world, and you can be sure that you will meet with them at least once per year. You can all board the Europa-Park’s Silver Star (video) and enjoy the roller coaster ride.

Meetings

Let’s say, for the sake of the argument, that you come to World Hosting Days totally unprepared and you have absolutely no meetings scheduled. With that in mind I can almost guarantee that you will have at least 2-3 meetings per day. Either you will start a conversation with someone while driving on the train to lunch, or during lunch, or someone will approach you while you are drinking coffee in the Internet lounge; company employees at the stands will certainly approach you. Since there are over 5000 people attending, there’s a great chance you will bump into an acquaintance or senior management individual from within the industry that you are dying to meet. Have in mind that if you don’t have a planned meeting, someone might see you on the attendee’s list, and invite you to have a meeting with them (the other side actually plans the meeting). I am not making this up, all these scenarios happened to me during the years while attending WHD, and I can imagine there are more scenarios how you can spark a meeting at WHD. It also helps if you pick up the phone or send an email and actually arrange one yourself. I use to end WHD with as many as 30 business cards.

In closing, I sincerely hope I made my point. World Hosting Days global in Rust is definitely the place to be. It’s just getting bigger and better in so many ways! It hurts me how much I wasn’t able to mention here (like the hackathon that happened before WHD started), but think of it as a surprise for you when you actually do come here and experience it yourself. Be sure to ping WhoAPI, we would love to meet you there!

P.S.
A special hello to: Jonathan Wisler from SoftLayer, whom I am met with 5 times during 5 years at WHD, Matt Miller at SoftLayer, Arkadiusz Szczurowski at SSLGuru, Chris Sheridan at Weebly, Bojan Stopic at Ascio, Thomas Vollrath at BaseKit, Christian Jaeger at WHD, Igor Kuehn at InterNetX, Aaron Philips at cPanel, Paul Kelly at Blacknight, Zvonimir Gembec at Plus hosting, Jeff Sass at .Club, James Withall at OnApp, Ditlev Bredahl at OnApp, and everybody else that I met this year at WHD, that I missed, and that I will see next year.

GoranDuskic

Goran Duskic has been the Founder and CEO of WhoAPI Inc. since 2011, a company that specializes in developing APIs, including the well-known Whois API. He started his career in internet entrepreneurship in 2006 and has co-founded several online businesses, including a web hosting company that he later sold. Goran's work primarily involves creating practical API solutions to meet technological needs.

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