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 panel@parentdrivendevelopment.com.

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

Episode 007: Keeping up to date with tech

00:27 Welcome back Allison

01:00 Today topic: Learning during the work day

02:47 It's ok if learning doesn't happen when your kids are little

04:14 Learning if you're a single parent is more difficult

It's more difficult if you don't have a partner to hand things off to
Real talk: you will always just have less time

7:15 Choices and Bringing your laptop along

Being efficient and aware of the time you have
But don't burn out

12:36 The pressure to always be learning

Pros and cons to these feelings
How it relates to burn out
How it related to work/life balance

15:35 Staying competitive in the industry

Tools, tips, and tricks

18:36 Learning staycations

22:33 Know how you learn and setting goals

Knowing how you learn is really important
How much do you want to learn? To what extent? etc.

23:34 Learning while you're on the clock

Convincing your employer to give you time to learn
Selling learning time to your boss

34:36 External groups like meetups, slack, etc. are extremely important for having a peer group to learn from

Support groups are super important
Coworking locally is even helpful if you can't make it to meetups, etc.

37:10 Genius / Fail moments

Chris - Conference swag as gifts for kids when you get home #Genius
Allison - I get to do 3 because it's been a while. I started a subscription to Le Tote so I can get new clothes that are nursing and postpartum body friendly #Genius
Baby has been sleeping for the entire podcast #Genius
My son didn't realize he could get out of his room on his own in the morning and he thought he had been left home alone #Fail
Josh - Labo is a set of projects made out of cardboard and it's integrated into a Nintendo Switch. It's awesome, but we haven't had a chance to do it yet. #Genius
JC -We're participating in the mulch fundraiser. My kids had to go out and hustle and sell mulch, cover fees, etc. But the fail was that my 15 year old had a snarky answering machine message on his phone and he lost a sale as a result. #Genius turned #Fail

53:00 Contact Us!

Tell us what you're learning!

Follow & Support

Please follow us @parentdrivendev on Twitter or email us at panel@parentdrivendevelopment.com. Our website is at ParentDrivenDevelopment.com
Support us via Patreon and get access to our our Slack Community.

Panel:

Josh Puetz
Allison McMillan
Chris Sexton
JC Avena