What Is Gel?

Gel is a 10-year-old conference focused on good experience in all its forms - in art, business, technology, society, and life.

Overview

Gel was founded by Mark Hurst in 2003 and run annually almost every year since, making 2013 both the 10th anniversary and the 10th Gel conference. (We also were proud to run Gel Health in 2009 and euroGel in Copenhagen, Denmark in 2006.) Gel brings together ideas, experiences, and thought leaders from many disciplines. Gel is run by Creative Good, the world leader in customer experience.

Gel speakers represent an incredible diversity of accomplishment and thought. Past speakers include This American Life's Ira Glass, Harlem Children's Zone founder Geoffrey Canada, New Yorker cartoon editor Bob Mankoff, Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, the artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude, nutritionist Marion Nestle, author Clay Shirky, performers The Flying Karamazov Brothers, and over 100 others.

Gel is also known for finding new voices and putting them on a major conference stage for the first time. Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, performance artist Ze Frank, Khan Academy founder Sal Khan, Wordnik founder Erin McKean, prankster Charlie Todd, photographer Chris Jordan, inventor Theo Jansen, and many others debuted at Gel before speaking at other top events.

Attendees

The Gel community is a thoughtful, diverse set of influencers interested in experience design: product managers, entrepreneurs, executives, students, and innovators of all types. When asked to describe Gel in their own words, attendees offered comments like these:

• "Gel gathers a fascinating group of innovative and energetic individuals who are trailblazers in their respective fields."
• "Gel is unexpectedly extremely relevant to how I approach my everyday job."
• "Gel is unlike any other conference you will ever attend. It won't tell you how to improve your business or life, but it will expand your horizons enough so you can do it on your own."
• "By far, the best conference I have ever attended."

Sponsorship

Interested in connecting your brand or company with the Gel community? Email sponsor@creativegood.com. Past Gel sponsors include Google, Microsoft, Carbonite, and The Ladders.

Sign up! For most people, the best way to understand "What is Gel?" is to attend.
Sign up now for Gel 2013.

Transfer and refund policy

Transfers: Discounted tickets (i.e., Creative Good premium member discount, student discount) may not be transferred. Non-discounted tickets (i.e., Early-bird and Last-month rate) may be transferred at no cost by using Eventbrite (see instructions).

Refunds: Refund requests received by 11:59pm on Wednesday, March 27 (three weeks before the conference) will receive a 50% refund. Past that point, non-discount tickets may be transferred, per the transfer policy above. To make a refund request, contact us.