029: Organizing Conferences

Parent Driven Development Episode 029: Organizing Conferences 00:57 Balancing Conferencing with Parenting Andy has organized RedDotRubyConf, still organizes Brighton Ruby, and has spoken the past few years at RubyConf. Andy also puts out an email newsletter, with one Ruby/Rails technique delivered with a ‘why?’ and a ‘how?’ every two weeks. It’s deliberately brief, focussed & opinionated, and called One Ruby Thing. Chris helps to co-organize Ruby For Good. Systems, systems, systems. Staying in the speaker hotel during crunch time. Getting paid helps. Having no co-organizers = no extra communication challenges. Relying on your partner. Staying local helps. Having a venue. 06:52 Conference Sizes: How Big is Big? Andy runs Brighton Ruby as a single track, one-day conference of 300-400. Ruby Central conferences by comparison are up to about 1,000 attendees and multi-track over 3-4 days. Ruby For Good is about 80 people, but has less of a conference feel because it's groups of people hacking on different projects over a few days. 09:46 Classifying These Gatherings as "Work-Adjacent Hobbies" Benefits the career. Meeting, networking, and making friends. Feel-good factor. Prioritization. Time frees up as kids have gotten older. 19:30 Family Involvement Kids on stage are cute. Teenagers can help volunteer! Osmosis of exposure. This is what mom/dad does! Showing that work does not necessarily equal drudgery. 22:30 Behind-The-Scenes Tradeoffs The best track at any conference is the speaker track. Coaching, mentoring, and cheering on first-time speakers. Repetition of putting on conferences over the years = it gets easier, more fun, and less stressful. Atomic Habits 28:21 Meal Kits and Meal Planning Conversation We all have tried them. We all have opinions. We are definitely open for sponsorship. Email us! 👇🏻 32:36 Getting Involved in Conferences (for those who are brave enough) Speak. Volunteer. Conference Scholar/Guide Programs. i.e. Ruby Central's Community Meetups 37:46 Genius / Fail Moments Andy's kids learning empathy from movies. (#Genius) Chris forgot to pack his son's main lunch entreé and left it in the microwave! (#Fail) Josh's daughter revealing she has a video clip of the two of them from when she was very little and being fond of watching it often. (Genius) KWu's son fell and hit his head 🤕. (#Fail) Follow & Support Please follow us @parentdrivendev on Twitter or email us at [email protected]. Our website is at ParentDrivenDevelopment.com. Support us via Patreon and get access to our our Slack Community. Panel Chris Sexton KWu Josh Puetz Andy Croll