This is a guest post by Elena Yunusov, aka Communicable on Twitter.

Fluxible is the UX party disguised as a conference. “Sounds great,” I thought, and mentally signed up. But why do I care about UX? I’m a digital communications strategist, a journalist, and a startup marketer who appreciates good design and copy. So what does that have to do with UX?

Good questions. And here are my answers: the top three reasons I’m attending Fluxible.

1. I’m from Toronto

[caption id="attachment_6283" align="alignright" width="300"]Come for the content, the collaboration, and the community. Stay for the coffee. Come for the content, the collaboration, and the community. Stay for the coffee.[/caption]

I want to know more about the Kitchener-Waterloo startup and tech ecosystem. If you live in Toronto like I do, it might be easier to imagine boarding a plane for San Francisco than heading to KW. But with Communitech and KW startups regularly making the news, that mental distance truly needs to disappear.

Startups thrive on collaboration, sharing of ideas, and coffee meetings. There’s a reason why Google, Square, TD and others are flocking to KW. I want to see what it is they’re doing that works, and how I can bring some of that to TO. We have hundreds of startups in Toronto, but that sense of community can feel elusive. I’m going to learn about the tight-knit KW ecosystem — and not as a tourist. I’m going as an active participant.

2. UX, UX and UX

As a digital communications and marketing professional, I stumbled upon the intersection between communications and UX one day, and I’m glad I did. Like many of my peers, I felt somewhat disillusioned with the state of social and digital marketing. Could we all bow to the almighty algorithms? Do we all work for Facebook and Twitter now — and why does that frustrate me, when I owe so many great experiences to Twitter? There it was again: that word “experience”. It changed the way I think about my profession.

I see in UX a crucial ally to marketing and communications, a careful consideration for how products and services, digital or not, make people feel. I see UX as more of a practice, as a whole state of mind, a philosophy. What does it mean to design a great experience? I wrote a series of posts on communications as experience design recently, and I can’t wait to immerse myself in the magic of Fluxible for two days and learn from the greats. Going to Fluxible is the best way I can think of to fast-track learning and feed my UX obsession.

3. Making new connections

[caption id="attachment_6241" align="alignright" width="300"]Post author Elena Yunusov. Do say hello at Fluxible! Post author Elena Yunusov. Do say hello at Fluxible![/caption]

I’m going for the famous Fluxible experience. I remember seeing tweets from it last year, and having a major case of FOMO, because the conference sounded amazing.

I want to help build some of the much needed bridges between TO and KW. There’s been so much talk about KW, the revival of the region, the resilience of the tech community. Connecting outside of my own frame of reference makes sense, and Fluxible makes it easy with workshops, talks, and planned serendipity. Fluxible speakers commit to stay for the duration of the conference, and hanging out with the same group of people for the weekend sounds like a fun way to make good lasting connections. So much better than coming to a conference where people rush out of the room at the end of the talk, without so much as a smile.

Fluxible does conference experience differently. There’s live music, personalized coffee, surprise appearances, and so much more that the organizers have got up their sleeves. I plan a lot of events for work and fun, and a fresh perspective on event design would be awesome.

Fluxible calls itself a party disguised as a conference for a reason. This is not your typical conference. Whether you have worked in UX for years, are just starting out, or simply feel UX-curious, I hope to see you at Fluxible. It’ll be awesome.