At Distributed ’22, Miro’s free annual conference, we explored the theme: Make Space for Human. In 44 distinct sessions created by and for the Miro Community, 71 speakers and thousands of attendees came together for two days to share solutions for collaborating, creating, and innovating together in an increasingly digitized and distributed world of work.
Couldn’t make it to the event or want to watch sessions again? We’ve got you covered! Learn about the ideas we explored together at this year’s event and watch replays of the four keynotes and top breakout sessions on YouTube.
The Ways We Work Study
We asked 2,000 people about their relationship with work & received some very human responses. Learn more
The future of work
We all know the world of work is changing — we can feel it in our day to day. That’s why Distributed brought together speakers to dive into this burning topic.
The Human Side of the Way We Work [Keynote]
| Paul D’Arcy | Chief Marketing Officer at Miro |
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How have our feelings about work shifted in recent years? We surveyed over 2,000 knowledge workers to find out. In this Distributed ‘22 keynote, Miro CMO Paul D’Arcy unveils insights from our in-depth exploration of the evolving behavior, preferences, and priorities of today’s employees.
Walk away with insights from our Ways We Work study, as well as actionable solutions for fostering humanity in the modern workplace.
Innovation in the Modern Workplace [Keynote]
| Varun Parmar | Head of Product at Miro | Briana Rogers | Head of Product Marketing at Miro |
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On the second day of Distributed, we looked to the future. Our Heads of Product and Product Marketing shared exciting product announcements that will create even better spaces for teams to collaborate and enable new ways of working — all to unlock your team’s potential.
How Organizations Are Using Miro to Create a Better World [Keynote]
| Max Harper | Visual Strategist at Refractive | Kyle Chipman | Chief Process Officer at Chipman Design Architecture speaking on behalf of My Block My Hood My City | Jovonee King (moderator) | Customer Education Facilitator at Miro |
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Countless nonprofit organizations around the world use Miro to develop and run innovative programs that serve their communities and the planet. In this session, we meet leaders from a few of these organizations and see how they keep Miro at the heart of their work as they strive to solve some of the biggest challenges facing the world today.
Working Smarter Through Your Tech Stack [Keynote]
| Steve Wood | SVP Product, Platform at Slack | Emma King | Director of Business Development at Dropbox |
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| Sanjana Tandon | Head of Strategic Partnerships at Miro | Hollis Kool (moderator) | Partnership Marketing Manager at Miro |
There’s no amount of tools that can resolve systemic collaborative inefficiencies like communication siloes, ineffective meetings, or time spent looking for information. Listen in as leaders from Slack, Dropbox, and Miro discuss how to enable all teams across an organization to make work easier, more engaging, and increasingly innovative.
One Canvas, Any Content, Anytime
| Amanda Botha | Platform Partnerships Lead at MiroSteve Wood | SVP Product, Platform at Slack | Swarna Krishnaswamy | Lead Product Manager, Platform at Miro |
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In this session, a few of Miro’s platform experts leverage real-world examples to showcase how to bridge multiple sources of content into one hub while ensuring the content always stays up to date, thereby enriching your collaboration experience. Learn how to bring your team together and break down barriers to knowledge through useful, relevant interactive visual frames of reference for faster, more contextualized decision-making.
The Next Rules of Distributed Work: Mindset/Skillset/Toolset
| Gary A. Bolles | Author of The Next Rules of Work and Chair for the Future of Work with Singularity University |
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The “great reset” of modern work has created a new world of distributed teams — and a world of new challenges. In this rapid-fire session, Gary A. Bolles shows how a “next” mindset, skillset, and toolset, can empower teams to come together and solve the problems of today and tomorrow.
Racial Inequality Needs Action. How Can Tech Help?
| Bhavna Devani | Consultant at McKinsey & Company |
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Recent events have driven employee demand for more corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the adoption of new tech. So, McKinsey & Company held a racial equity hackathon that combined these two topics.
In this session, Bhavna Devani explains the practical solutions it led to and how they helped teammates adopt the tools. Learn how any organization can pair CSR topics with educational opportunities to bring about change.
Meetings and workshops
How can we improve how we meet, collaborate, and interact in this new era of work? Learn from experts and peers who are dedicated to this problem.
Facilitation Can Get You a Seat at the Table
| Jake Knapp | Author of The Sprint, Advisor at Miro, Co-Founder at Character VC | Shipra Kayan | Product Evangelist at Miro |
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The word “collaboration” shows up in almost every job description. Leaders have to unite teams across cultures, manage across geographies, and gather input across practices. However, most meetings are designed around presentations — a communication tool, not a collaboration tool.
In this session, Jake shares three basic facilitation techniques that will transform your meetings into active collaboration spaces.
Turning Meetings into Experiences
| Chris Stone | Enterprise Agile Coach at virtually agile |
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Tune into this insightful and interactive exploration all about turning “meetings” into engaging, playful, remotely-inclusive “experiences” that people actually enjoy.
The (A)Sync Game
| Vihar Parikh | Product manager at Miro | LEonardo doin | Engineering manager at Miro |
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| sophia chia | Product Marketing manager at Miro | srecko dimitrijevic | Product designer |
As knowledge workers, we often ask, “Does this really need to be a meeting?” When the answer is no, we are faced with the challenge of asynchronous communication. Derive inspiration from the game that session attendees played to decide how best to communicate and collaborate with others at work: Sync or async.
You’ll also get a taste of Miro’s latest asynchronous collaboration feature: Talktrack!
How to Be More Interesting Than Your Learner’s Inbox
| Ashton Cousineau | Learning & Development Professional |
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How many times have you been asked over the last two years to “digitize” training that was previously delivered only in person? It was one of the theme songs of 2020, and many still have that tune stuck in their head. Humans want to interact—we are social creatures, after all. This session shows you how to tap into that desire and, in doing so, make online learning more engaging.
Meet Smarter, Not Harder
Learn more about Miro Smart Meetings
Find out why Product Teams love Miro
For product development teams
Let’s take a look at sessions specific to product teams, teaching arming them with insights and tools to work, build, and innovate better together.
Using Miro To Grapple With the Beautiful Mess (of Product)
| John Cutler | Product Evangelist & Coach at Amplitude |
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Behind the simplicity of a product exists a “mess” of assumptions, beliefs, and facts. Over-simplify and you’ll lose your most passionate problem solvers. Go too deep and you’ll lose the rest of the company. It’s not easy… especially when distributed.
Tune in as John Cutler shares how Amplitude helps customers fine-tune strategies using Miro.
Miro for Developers: Building Miro Apps & Integrations
| William Bishop and Addison Schultz | Developer Advocates at Miro |
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Learn from Miro Developer Advocates Will and Addison about how you can use the Web SDK, REST API, and Live Embed to fully customize and enhance the Miro experience for millions of users.
You’ll get tips and best practices while having a look under the hood of existing builds with these capabilities. You’ll be on your way to building your own apps and integrations with the Miro Developer Platform.
Bridging the Empathy Gap to Create More Valuable Products
| Krasi Bozhinkova | Strategic Design at Owtcome | Daiana Zavate | Concept Lead at Owtcome |
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The approach to empathy in product development and design thinking requires a reset. While empathy may begin with putting yourself in your customers’ shoes, designers and product teams need to take it one step further. What are some practical ways to activate empathy? In this workshop, explore the empathy gap and ways to shrink it using a unique collaborative tool.
What Is My Impact?
| Véronique Carbonneau | Senior Coach, Garrow & Evoy | Lara Evoy | Co-Founder, Garrow & Evoy | Stéphanie Garrow | Co-Founder, Garrow & Evoy |
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In this workshop, discover how the Theory of Change helps you define objectives—internal and external—and develop the strategies to meet them. Then, leverage Garrow & Evoy’s Theory of Change template to develop a roadmap for implementing your changes and predicting the forks in the road along the way.
Team collaboration, connection, and creativity
According to our Ways We Work study, workers feel drained by nonstop virtual meetings and emails. So how can workers today connect and collaborate in new ways? Let’s explore.
Helvetica the NFT
| James Sommerville | Founder of KnownUnknown | Bill Connolly | Community and Partnerships at Monotype |
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In this collaboration-centric workshop about the world’s most famous typeface, learn about the creative process, typography in culture, and how emerging technology like NFTs are driving access and community across the creative landscape.
Why Your Brain Loves Stories: The Science of Storytelling
| Elliott Rayner | CMO at Arion |
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This session leverages videos, animations, real-world examples, and, of course, a Miro board to illustrate how storytelling has a unique power to influence the way we all think, feel, and act. Learn how to tell stories and unlock individual and team creativity.
The 1970s Called, They Want Their Office Model Back
| Lisette Sutherland | Founder of Collaboration Superpowers |
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Explore how digital nomads, virtual entrepreneurs, and global organizations are reaching through their screens to collaborate seamlessly at a distance. Walk away from this rewatch with new ideas about what it means to be “present” at work and how to create that sense of team even when you’re virtual.
My Day in Miro
| Jennifer Clark | Manager of Miro Academy at Miro |
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Walk through a typical workday with Jennifer Clark, Manager of our Miro Academy, who will demonstrate how to prioritize tasks, build a deliverable for a project, and leave feedback for your team all in Miro. Find out how to achieve your professional goals while getting more from Miro—and learn a few tool-specific secrets along the way.
A big thanks
At Distributed ’22, we supplemented sessions with boards to keep attendees connected, engaged, and informed. Special thanks to our partner who created them, Lucie Agolini of Workshop Canvas.
The Make Space for Human board was our main Distributed launchpad. It included:
- Schedule of events
- Helpful resources
- Links to other interactive boards
The Conference Talk board was a space for networking remotely! Participants could fill out a profile card, comment, and chat with other attendees.
The Champion board served as a template for the Community to set learning goals, take notes, and save screenshots and pictures from the event.
