Through a combination of survey results, industry experience and a no-bullshit approach to explaining problems and solutions, Sam Marsden recently shared his thoughts on the state of conferences talks.
In the following article, he explains the need to provide actionable takeaways, researching your audience and how all stakeholders at a conference can get involved to make presentations better.
We’ve previously spoken to a Developer Advocate (namely, Chloe Condon) for this very blog. But, at that time, we wanted to hear what she had to say about breaking into coding from a non-traditional background.
The more we learn from our customers here at Tito, the more we see the diversity in what they bring to the table using both their technological and interpersonal skills.
An example of when both traits come together, is developer advocacy, as Lynne Tye so eloquently puts it in her article sharing the experiences of multiple developer advocates explaining their careers.
Florin Nitu runs a freeCodeCamp in Brasov, Romania. At the time of his writing the post below, they’d just hosted their 40th event (and, as such, we’d like to offer them our [somewhat belated] congratulations).
Going from no interest to fostering a community of budding developers, Florin traced the steps that took place over those 40 events and shared what he learned in the process.
Everything about organizing an event is hard. Finding speakers, estimating attendance, securing a venue, scheduling, letting people know about the event, getting them badged, getting them wifi, getting them fed… all of this is hard.
One of the most outrageous-sounding solutions I’ve ever heard when it comes to organising an event is the brain child of Filip Hracek. Of all things, he proposed using a genetic algorithm to organise his conference schedule.
Taking into account all of the different stages of his developer conference, he calculated that there were a whopping 23! (factorial, that is) permutations of how the schedule could be lain out, taking into account talks, breaks and lunches across a single track and two days. He then went on to say, assuming considering each variation took a microsecond, that an organiser could potentially take 819 million years to go through all the variations.
Madness.
People usually use their brains to come up with a schedule that works based on the inexact science of common sense. However, by the power of automation, genetic programming, and (one can only assume) brimstone, he seems to have landed on the perfect timeline for a developer conference.
For the full article, go here: https://medium.com/@filiph/using-a-genetic-algorithm-to-optimize-developer-conference-schedules-27f13d97fa9a
Will Curran from Endless Events is a fountain of knowledge when it comes to all things AV. As even more of a god-send, his specialty is (as the company’s name would suggest) events.
The four types he suggests are:
He also suggests that conference organisers use “coming next” and recap videos to add to the experience.
Lena Reinhard likes raspberries, beautiful light, and good landscapes. She also loves public speaking and is an introvert.
Though this might seem like a contradiction in terms, she’s spent some time writing about the processes she uses when she prepares and writes conference talks.
From the audience’s perspective, it’s easy to think that good speakers just “have it”; that they sit down at their computers and start writing, and the magic flows from there.
However, if you’ve ever given such a talk yourself, you’ll know that quite a bit more goes into creating something that people actually want to hear. From finding good conferences to speak at, to applying, to dealing with rejection, Lena has put together a comprehensive outline of how she’s found success.
For the full, in depth article: http://wunder.schoenaberselten.com/2016/02/16/how-to-prepare-and-write-a-tech-conference-talk/
At Tito, we’re big fans of transparency. As probably the most sensitive subject when it comes to hosting events, a lot of organisers can find themselves alone when they’re considering how much they should be spending on their conferences, and what they should be focusing on.
With formidable style, the teams behind JSConf EU and CSSConf have shared how much it costs them to host their events, and why the numbers add up to that total.
For the full breakdown, visit their site: https://2019.jsconf.eu/news/the-jsconf–cssconf-eu-finances/
Any podcast that’s been going for 145 episodes immediately sparks curiosity in me. Usually, if there’s that much of a commitment, there must be a similarly large amount of demand. And, after listening to a few episodes of the Eventicons podcast, I can see why.
This particular episode sees the hosts and guests discuss their favourite tools of the year in the event industry and beyond. From VR to just really good fiction books, they cover a lot of ground, and managed to put a lot of smiles on my face.
Getting the UX Collective newsletter to my inbox is one of my favourite parts of the week.
Given the nature of UX and design, it’s inevitably pretty, unavoidably interesting, and rapturously engaging.
Recently, they put together a list of their most highly recommended UX/design conferences for this year and, given the level of expertise I’ve seen them share since subscribing, I’d take them on their word.
Yes, yes, yes, we’re 17 days into it, but Advent is here, and Christmas is nearly here.
To mark the holiday, here’s an advent calendar full of short programming puzzles (one for each of the 24 days of advent) to get stuck into. Eric Wastle made it.
If you get through them at lightening speed, here’s the 2017 version.
This post won’t tell you how to sell out your tickets or get funding. Nor will it tell you how to mingle, or the jokes to tell to make strangers like you.
What it will do, is give you a friend.
In this case, someone who tells the story of the nerves and intrusions that are our plus-one for most of us at conferences: Fear.
Bonnie Abbot asks hard questions and gives honest answers.
She’s organised conferences, attended them, and found both endeavours wanting, but also puts forth the case for making design events better.
Here, she showcases a six point dissection of reasons as to why some conferences are crappy, from a lack of consideration for people with children to speaker line-ups that are regurgitated year on year.
Refreshingly, she highlights the virtuous attempts by certain conferences to thwart these disappointments, namely XOXO, DjangoCon, and Úll, among others. She also goes into what we can all practically do to rectify the state of design conferences; the advice is also applicable to the conference industry at large.
For the full article, go here. And please read to the end: https://uxdesign.cc/does-your-design-conference-suck-c008b42ab447
I’m always a little wary of business advice articles that promise quick wins or tips. I get more wary with each number the writer adds to the title, most of the time.
For this list, I’ve made an exception. Aside from being shared over 5,000 times on social media, the team at Small Business Trends didn’t pull their tips from thin air, a sin that a lot of publications are guilty of. Instead, they asked people behind successful events to contribute, and so curated their event management tips from such veterans as Julius Solaris of EventMB, two event agency CEOs, and the Managing Director of event consultancy, Doubet.
The list goes through specific ways to organise contingency plans, affordable promotion activities, and the benefits of writing down specifics, as well as what those specifics should be.
CW: Harassment
The post we’ve linked below refers to breaches of Code of Conduct at Learn Inbound and, in turn, references issues of harassment.
Mark, founder of Learn Inbound, took some time to write up their latest conference. There, a number of women were harassed, despite the best practices they had in place. As such, the post discusses what happened, the prevention measures they had in place, and their practical commitment to improving on those for future conferences.
Upon finding this resource and deciding to share it on the Tito blog, I immediately Googled “German word for wishing you’d thought of it first.”
Peter-Paul Koch founded QuirksMode, self-described as the prime source for browser compatibility information on the internet.
That’s interesting and all, but my prerogatives make me far more drawn to his extensive, and damn useful conference organiser handbook, the full text of which is right here:
If you’re interested in a (more niche) guidebook for conference organisers, we’ve got you covered too:
In a wonderfully honest portrayal of the high-octane emotional state we get in to when we come together at a conference and discuss all that goes into what we do, why we do it, and what we do when we don’t, Virginia Roberts suggests that we should all cry.
Could I get the same sense of excitement and social interaction that I’d normally get at one of these big tech events, without even having to go there?
Since staying at home would save me about four hours of driving in Bay Area traffic, I hoped the answer would be yes.
Rachel Metz is the senior editor for mobile at MIT Technology Review. In this article she explains the benefits and limitations of attending a keynote in virtual reality.
We all forget something when we go to conferences.
Usually it’s a charger, or contact lenses, or a pair of comfortable shoes for the return journey, but more often we forget to make sure we’re prepared to get as much as possible out of the event. Here, I’ve put together some resources from around the web to help with that. So, with them, I present to you:
And how to best go about each step:
Choosing Which Conferences to Attend:
Convincing Your Boss and Getting Funding:
Choosing Business Cards:
Finding Accommodation and Booking Travel:
Preparing Takeaways:
Finding Your Way Around:
Packing:
Networking:
Listening:
Decompressing:
Networking is a lot like dating. If you were seeking a spouse, you wouldn’t go up to a stranger in a bar and ask “Will you marry me?” Instead, you’d take the time to get to know the other person. And that requires listening to them and getting to know them.
Debbie Madden is the CEO at Stride, an Agile software development consultancy in NYC. In a recent post on Medium, she explains her one networking rule to rule them all: “Focus on the conversation, not on the outcome.”
Therein, she shares some advice she gave to a colleague about navigating networking conversations by providing value, and discovering what interests the person you’re talking to has, as opposed to diving right in by trying to get what you want out of them for personal gain.
For the full article: https://medium.com/newco/youre-networking-wrong-2b9231c1bc6e
It’s disgraceful that someone should be made to feel unsafe at an industry event where they went to learn, or speak. But if that happens, why not just contact the conference organizer, contact the police, contact the venue, and contact their employer. Just zero fucking tolerance. That seems pretty straight forward, right? Turns out it’s not.
Mike Monteiro, here, acknowledges that he’s a man. What’s more, he acknowledges that there have been men at conferences that have intimidated and ruined the experiences of colleagues and friends at conferences.
It’s not the cheeriest read, until you get to the solutions he calls out.
A number of women from the Women Who Tech community feel like large startups admit there are diversity issues, but not enough action is being taken to address the problems. Conferences can be a great venue for attendees who are in positions of management, including founders and future founders to get concrete advice.
The fact that this post was published two years ago brings about mixed feelings in me. A) It’s reassuring to think some of these tips have been repeated a million times and b) it’s disheartening to think that they need to be repeated again.
In any case, they’re true, honest, and well-founded. Here, Allyson Kapin, Founder of Women Who Tech, gives her feedback and recommendations of how to welcome and engage women to your conferences in the most effective ways.
Don’t forget the comments section as well!
Though I don’t strictly agree with all of these, we’re more than halfway through the year, and almost all of us are past our summer holidays (if we were lucky enough to get one).
Most everyone who reads this blog either runs events, or works with them in another capacity, meaning you’ve all had some exposure to the high-stakes orchestration and organisation that goes into making sure that no-one and nothing to do with the event goes on fire (literally and figuratively).
Yeah, some of that is concepting, design, ideation and fun stuff, but a lot of it is straight-up admin and menial tasks. Dropbox have put together a list of counter-measures to make sure that admin doesn’t dull your shine. It’s not strictly written for event organisers, but I’ll be damned if it’s not something they can relate to.
The first is about shoving some of those tasks into your commute, on which I call B.S. Anyone who’s ridden an 8am subway, underground, or Luas will understand. But the fifth is something I’ll begin implementing for myself the second I’m finished writing this.
We’ve previously written about what makes functional, beautiful design for conference badges, but now we want to share a new easy, practical way to produce those designs.
The folks over at Laracon EU have given their attendees the option to design their own badges to be worn to their upcoming conference. The tool allows you to choose from three pre-set styles, different gradients, font colours, lines and frames. While I’m no designer, here are some examples of badge styles that you can whip up in a matter of seconds:
Lauren and I often share what one might loosely call CEO-bro articles with one another: tone-deaf screeds on the profound personal joy of waking up at 4 a.m. to answer emails or holding six-person conference calls from the venue lobby of a wedding they’re attending.
Lauren and I have never felt this desire, never considered waking up at 5 a.m. to tackle projects or beat competitors, never aspired to a life where the growth of our company was more important than the growth of our personal happiness. And this has meant redefining entrepreneur for ourselves and actively deciding that there is no one personality type we must aspire to or path we must follow for us to take pride in what we do.
From a Tumblr blog, to a 5 person business, The Financial Diet is one of those welcome stories of resilience that those going from start-up fever to start-up fatigue need.
