Things That Matter Most

Things That Matter Most

I Won’t be at ZendCon

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Next week kicks off the latest version of ZendCon in Las Vegas. Though I had, for a time, expected to be there … I won’t be. You should know why.

Speaking Habits

I really enjoy speaking in public. It’s been a regular part of my career for the past decade, and it gives me ample opportunity to connect with and learn from the communities I care so deeply about.

I tend to submit multiple talks to multiple events per year. On average, I think I’ve spoken at 4-5 conferences per year for the past 6 years – in one “season” I presented in some form at 14 events during the period of the year. This gives me a lot of time on stage, but even more time connection with members of the community.

It’s opened my eyes to quite a few things; one in particular is the lack of diversity (or at least the representation thereof) at many events. We have a wildly diverse community, but a fairly homogenous lineup of “experts” presenting on stage.

Representation matters. I got involved in tech because people I related to were standing on stage telling me that I could. I want everyone to have that opportunity. To have that experience. More often than not, this means I need to step aside and encourage someone else to stand in the limelight. That’s humbling, but perfectly OK with me.

And it’s why I won’t be in Vegas next week …

Acceptance

My original acceptance email was lost to the aether, but eventually the organizing team was able to make contact and confirmed that yes, I was invited to speak. They’d selected both a workshop on security and a shorter talk about promise-driven architecture in PHP.

ZendCon Twitter announcement of my attendance and presentations.
Original Twitter announcement that I’d be speaking.

I was ecstatic!

ZendCon is one of the larger PHP events every year. Better yet, it’s a super short flight from Portland – there aren’t very many high-profile events I can attend to spend time with my community in my neck of the woods. I immediately accepted the invitation and flagged my calendar so I could schedule my time away from the office.

But then … my conscience got to me.

Withdrawal

Don’t get me wrong, the speakers’ lineup for this event looks to bring in solid experts who will be presenting great content. However, it’s also the speakers’ lineup that led me to withdraw from the event.

At the time I was asked to speak, there were 37 other speakers listed on the website. This group of individuals consisted of:

  • 4 women
  • 2 (apparent) people of color

For those who don’t want to do the math, this meant the speakers group was 89% male and 95% white. Adding my name to that list did nothing to make those numbers better.

My presence as a speaker at ZendCon would have actively diminished the value of the event. I refuse to be another white, male face among a speaker list comprised overwhelmingly of white men. This is not reflective of our community, and my ignoring that feeling and speaking anyway would be a betrayal of that community.

I hold no animosity towards the organizers of or speakers at ZendCon. However, I will not participate in your event until you address this discouraging lack of representation.

Moving Forward

I’ve taken fairly strong stances towards many things. I will not participate in events that lack a code of conduct. I will not abide racists, sexists, ageists, ableists, or similar.

I will not participate in events that fail to address serious issues regarding diversity, representation, or inclusion in our community. It’s one thing to say “well, people didn’t apply …” It’s another thing entirely to actively encourage members of the community to engage.

Said another way – if members of particular subcommunities are not organically responding to your CfP in volumes that would make a diverse speakers’ panel easy, you have far deeper problems with your event than you realize and it’s likely something I will not engage with in the first place.

As I’ve said on many topics recently: we can do better. We must do better. Those to whom we leave our projects, businesses, industry, profession behind deserve that we do better. Everything we do today is paving the way for generations to come – I am committed to doing everything in my power to ensure that the future of our community recognizes, respects, and values diversity.

Right now, that means calling out an inclusivity issue and refusing to be a part of the event that’s done little to solve it. In my white, male, cisgendered privilege, one of the strongest statements I can make is to not participate. If that makes room for one more person who doesn’t reflect “me” to the world, it’s a net positive.

Crowdstorming Conference Topics

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Crowdfunding seems to be all the rage these days and is useful for everything from kickstarting a multi-million dollar Facebook acquisition to helping a new cook find and prepare potato salad. Love the campaigns or hate them, crowdfunding gives entrepreneurs who’ve reached the end of their rope a creative way to bootstrap their business.

Fall short of creative ideas to raise money, and the community will lend a hand to pick things up and keep going. It’s a fantastic concept, but I wonder if it could apply to more than funding.

Brainstorming

I often talk about ways to find new blog topics and new conference talk ideas. Still, every now and then I fall short of new ideas and need to depend on others to provide a creative kick to get things going again.

Sometimes I head to my email to suss out ideas from contact and support requests. Other times I visit sites like Quora to see what questions and topics are currently abuzz in the world. Still other times I’ll ask a friend or two for advice.

But what if, like Kickstarter, you could ask millions of friends for advice?

Crowdsourced brainstorming – or crowdstorming – could become an interesting, sustainable way to gather hundreds of potential topics all at once. Pulling ideas from the community also means the ideas are already of interest to the people you’re likely going to address.

Conference Topics

The first time I ever crowdstormed a conference topic idea was 2 years ago. I don’t have notes as to which conference the ideas were for, but they helped me build a speakers’ bureau of several potential talks that I went back to time and again for over a year.

It’s time to run yet another poll; I’m hoping you can help me both refine and build a quality speakers’ bureau for the coming year!

Don’t be that guy: A Lesson in Conference Etiquette

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The summer conference season is in full swing, and it’s more important than ever to remember some important do-s and do-nots as you’re getting ready for the next meeting. Here are a few I’ve discovered through my (sometimes painful) personal experience:

Do-s

If you’re speaking, be sure to be prepared. Impromptu presentations are great for informal settings, but no one in a room full of paying attendees wants to see you give an off-the-cuff speech. Take time to build your slides in advance. Run through the talk a few times. Make sure everything is timed so you can get through you material in the allotted time and, consequently, not run out of material before time is finished.

If you’re listening, be sure to take notes and ask questions. Often, a speaker covers a lot of ground in their talk and questions you have in the first 5 minutes are lost by the time they’re done presenting. Speakers hate the awkward silence that follows “any questions.” Taking notes early on will help resurface and clarify any ambiguous points they made earlier without pulling teeth to find questions in the audience.

Thank the organizers and the speakers when you leave. Everyone involved in putting on the conference has invested significant amounts of time and effort into putting on the events – with community events like WordCamp, this effort is entirely unpaid. A simple “thank you” will make their day and drastically increase their chances of contributing in a similar fashion next year.

Do-nots

The people sitting behind you are paying to hear the speaker, not to watch you play World of Warcraft. Leave the gaming at home where it belongs.

The people sitting behind you are paying to hear the speaker, not to watch you play World of Warcraft. Leave the gaming at home.

If you’re going to have a laptop out during a talk, be taking notes or following along with the talk. Do not sit in the front row of an auditorium and play video games. You might be happy wasting your conference fee to sit in a room and play, but the room full of distracted people behind you will not be so pleased. Be respectful of the venue and your fellow conference-goers; leave the games at home.

Conferences often provide beverages and light refreshments throughout the day. It’s great to use these services, but do not leave a mess behind. The half-eaten pastry you leave in your seat will not look good when it’s sat on by someone else. A glass of water left on a table can be catastrophic to the large number of computers that frequent tech conferences. Clean up after yourself and everyone will be happy.

The conference might be long, but resist the urge to duck out early if there’s still more on the agenda. Both the first and last speaker of the day often speak to half-empty rooms as attendees either haven’t made it to the venue or have decided to head home early. If you have an appointment, by all means make it. But if you can stay you should, even if just out of respect for the woman on stage who’s invested the better part of a week (or more) putting together her talk.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, just a few high-level items to help you make the most of your next conference. Everything here is rooted in one simple concept: respect. Respect the speakers, respect the organizers, and respect your fellow-attendees. Follow this simple concept and everyone will be happy.

Why Speak?

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Speaking experiences at conference vary almost as much as attendee experiences. Some conferences come with significant speaker bonuses – software, backpacks, other swag. Some consider paying for airfare and lodging to be enough of a perk.

Others still require the speaker to not only pay their own way but also pay for their own ticket. I’ve been to more than a few conferences where I’ve not only presented, but paid for a ticket and my own travel.

The quality of a conference is also established by how the speakers are treated when on site. Some conferences have been so kind as to meet me at the airport, give me an impromptu tour of the city, and check in with me the morning of the conference to make sure I’m OK. Having a dedicated “speakers room” also gives time for speakers to meet one another and get to know organizers.

Nothing makes a speaker feel quite as out of their element, though, as traveling for a conference and being utterly ignored by the organizers of said conference.

Here you have an individual giving up a significant portion of their time, often of their bank account as well, and no one makes an effort to introduce him or her to the team and make them feel welcome. It makes me wonder why we bother to volunteer as presenters in the first place.

Why put up with it?

Speaking at a conference isn’t about the speaker at all. It’s about the speaker’s ability to present on a topic about which they have expertise. It’s about what they can bring the audience in the way of new information or knowledge.

It’s, in the biggest way, about giving back to a community that helped educate and build up the speaker in the first place.

We might not always be greeted at the airport. We might not have a swag bag waiting when we reach the conference. We might not ever meet the entire organizing team. But we volunteer to present regardless because we care about the community and sharing a tiny bit of the knowledge we’ve gleaned from that community with others.

Not every speaking opportunity will encourage or inspire me to sign up a second time. But I will.

Conference Scheduling Fiascos

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I really enjoy attending tech conferences. They give me the ability to learn new skills and techniques, network with other engineers in the web-based tech space, and find new ways I can be involved in the community.

I understand how difficult it is to plan large events, so my thanks goes out to the organizer community. Unfortunately, I also feel that the web engineering organizer community has dropped the ball when it comes to putting on a conference.

Scheduling

I select conferences to attend based on several factors:

  1. Location
  2. Time of the event
  3. Content

The third factor, the content of the conference, is actually the most important to me. If I can’t see who will be presenting about what before I buy a ticket, I probably won’t go. Yes, I understand a large part of the conference is the networking opportunity and being involved in the community, but there’s something that organizers don’t understand.

I give up a large chunk of my week (weekend or weekday, it doesn’t matter) to attend a conference. For many, there’s also a significant financial investment (either in the cost of the ticket, the cost of travel/lodging, or both). Considering the number of conferences on which I’ve gambled and bought a ticket in spite of a schedule filled mostly with TBA sessions – and been utterly disappointed – there’s little chance I’ll continue to gamble.

If you sell tickets before the speaker list is announced, I will not buy them. If you sell out of tickets before the speaker list is announced, I will not attend.

Speaking

I love to speak at conferences. A selfish part of me loves to be the center of attention for 15, 30, 45, 60 minutes. A selfless part of me loves to give back what I’ve learned to the community – and continue learning through feedback in return.

But I also love speaking because it often means I get to attend a conference that would be otherwise unreachable for me.

Just last week I received, however, my latest rejection letter from a conference. This time it was a local conference, so I wouldn’t need an expensive visa or airfare to make the trip – just a bus ticket downtown. Unfortunately, the conference sold out of their $400 tickets days before the acceptance/rejection letters started going out. Also, despite the contacts having begun to flow, the conference agenda is still TBA.

I was offered a “last chance” ticket to thank me for applying (I’d still have to pay to attend, but could still attend). But with a completely empty schedule, there’s little reason for me to go. What will I get out of my $400 ticket and two lost business days attending the conference?

I have no idea …

Of Meetups and Hackathons

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My team is amazing.

We do wonderful work from remote enviornments. We work odd hours and conduct complex conversations asynchronously using email, HipChat, and BaseCamp.

We occasionally come together in one place to educate and learn from one another. Our first such meetup was April of last year, and it was incredible!

Team Summit v2

Late yesterday, we closed our second learning/development summit with no less fanfare. Our team again 1 gathered together for a time of project reflection, team-building, and collaborative education. The amount one can learn in such a short time js staggering!

This year, though, we added a hackathon to our official schedule of events. If you thought our team was amazing before … wow!

In one day, we built (from scratch) two brand new WordPress plugins, polished loads of internal tools and documentation, and kicked off the launch of the new 10up.com.

Our team works remarkably well remotely. Given a day to collaborate face-to-face they’re even better.

But like any marathon (read: long-term effort), you can’t sprint the entire time. Our team hackathon was productive, yet exhausting. I look forward to a weekend of relaxation before we all hit Monday refreshed, revitalized, and refocused as a team.

There’s no stopping us now…

Notes:

  1. Well, not really “again.” Last time there were 20 of us. This time we’re up to over 60! ↩