Parent Driven Development
Episode 029: Organizing Conferences
00:57 Balancing Conferencing with Parenting
Andy has organized RedDotRubyConf (https://www.reddotrubyconf.com/), still organizes Brighton Ruby (https://brightonruby.com/), and has spoken the past few years at RubyConf (https://rubyconf.org/).
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 (https://onerubything.com/).
Chris helps to co-organize Ruby For Good (https://rubyforgood.org/).
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 (http://rubycentral.org/) 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 (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0735211299/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0735211299&linkId=a6154fb4886e2b76620e69e1d1f699a2)
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 (http://rubycentral.org/community#scholarship)
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)
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Panel
Chris Sexton (https://twitter.com/crsexton)
KWu (https://twitter.com/kwugirl)
Josh Puetz (https://twitter.com/joshpuetz)
Andy Croll (https://twitter.com/andycroll)
