Only after seeing every other person wearing a tie, tweed blazer and slacks did I realize how out of place I must have looked in my typical MxM outfit of sneakers, hoodie, t-shirt. The QZ: the Next Billion conference was slightly different crowd and topic than what we’re used to, which is why we chose to attend it.

At Made By Many we attend plenty of conferences on web development, interaction design, UX, and anything ‘lean or agile’ since it’s directly related to what we do. While it’s obligatory to stay current with our industry, it’s easy to lose touch of outside reality if it becomes an echo chamber.

Part of the reason we chose the Next Billion conference to immerse ourselves with what’s peripheral to our work but not directly related. The theme of the Quartz: The Next Billion conference was on how 2 billion people are projected to get internet access for the first time within the next 2 years. You can watch some of the talks here or catch up on some of the best tweetable soundbites and stats @QZEvents

The theme of the conference itself was the first surprise. The internet reaches into every corner of my own life, and yet I forget how many billions of people don’t have access to it. I’m surprised enough when I meet someone who’s never been on Facebook and yet I forget that not only is most of the world not on Facebook but not even 50% of the world has ubiquitous internet access.

The talk that stood out to me was Cameron Sinclair’s “Building communities for the next Billion” which focused on urban planning for the nomadic people groups displaced by civil conflict or migrant workers.

Of all the requirements needed to provide housing for transient populations, stable structure, access to water, affordable he claims that the most important question is how for transient and nomadic societies is, “How do we build for community?”

The speaker was referring to the millions of migrant workers and people displaced by civil conflict. His talk was about urban planning but I immediately translated his idea into my context. Because here in NYC and other cities, I see people choosing transience when they leave home and a stable community for their careers. It’s already easy to feel isolated in a city without community support, but this made me wonder if what we design makes it easier or harder for someone to feel isolated.

If tech has the power to disconnect us from each other when we’re already a nomadic society, how conscious of that are we for the screens we design and products we create. We may not be urban planning, but we can still ask ourselves “how do we build for community?”

Hearing about urban planning and other peripheral topics made me realize how much more perspectives I need to expose myself to. It may not be more conferences but I need to be intentional about exposing myself to ideas outside of my own industry. Also if you recommend a solid tweed blazer, give me a shout.