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.
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)
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Panel
Chris Sexton
KWu
Josh Puetz
Andy Croll
