Cancelling Scatter 2018

TL;DR I’m very disappointed to have to inform all of our attendees, speakers, staff, and vendors that we’ve made the very difficult decision to cancel this event.

What happened?

The final decision to cancel Scatter 2018 was a result of some recent cancellations, both from speakers and attendees, but this was a culmination of factors over the weeks and months leading up to now.

When I announced the event last year, the vocal feedback was very much in line with what I’d heard face to face from countless people. This was a great idea — a way for remote folks to share their experiences and learn from each other. Learn how to interact with our team from afar, discover new processes and tools for making remote work more seamless, and for the “soft side” of distributed work: the impact on our health, diversity, and inclusion.

And yet, I kept hitting the same persistent obstacle when talking with another group of folks.

“If it’s a remote work conference, why do I have to be there in person?”

“Oh, there’s a live stream? I’ll just catch it there.”

I found myself explaining, time and time again, the benefits of meeting in person. That remote work doesn’t negate the need to occupy the same physical space once in a while. The face-to-face and serendipitous interactions that can only happen in person are too valuable to ignore. Ironically, I think anyone would agree with this… in the right context. Sadly, because Scatter is a “remote work conference”, too many people conflate it with “remote work” rather than “conference”.

And this failure falls squarely on me. I vastly underestimated its impact on the event, and did a very poor job elucidating the benefits. For that, I apologize not just to all of our attendees and speakers who are directly impacted by this, but to the potential audience who I failed to reach with our message. I truly believe we had something wonderful to share, but in the end I failed to make it a reality.

What now?

The conference is very much “in the red”. I have no illusions that this is going to change and have committed to fulfilling my financial obligations as an organizer. This is the risk you always face when running an event.

Attendees

For attendees, I will cancel and refund your tickets immediately. If you haven’t received a notification of your ticket refund (via Tito, note that it will likely take longer for the funds to hit your bank account or credit card) by March 1, 2018, please contact me.

Speakers

First off, I want you all to know just how much I respect your time and effort. It’s always a huge time sink to invest yourselves in any event, much less one trying to get off the ground. I recognize this is a huge inconvenience for you and am sincerely sorry for putting you into this situation. I will work with each of you directly to adjust your travel plans and make sure that you’re not inconvenienced any more than you already have been.

Is this the end of Scatter?

I certainly hope not. There are so many of us that have successful #remotework stories and want to learn from each other. This cancellation is a setback but I believe strongly in the value of telling these stories in person. We’re going to evaluate what happened, see what can be improved, and look to the future. I hope to see you there. 🍄🌈✨

Jason Dixon
Scatter 2018