Just over five months ago I was sitting in The Hotel at Avalon seeing the fruit of 10 months worth of work finally manifest in the form of the first ngAtlanta conference. The thoughts and ideals that became conference itself was the result of a ton of hard work from not just myself but from several key people around me.
Since the conference a lot of people have reached out asking how we did what we did. Now that we are beginning to plan year two of our conference I wanted to write down a few of our lessons learned as well as some tips on things that I believe could help other conferences.
The Beginnings
You may have seen our origin story but in case you have not here it is again.
From the moment of ngAtlanta’s inception as an organizer I had a rush of excitement, I’m going to put on a conference, but there was also a huge feeling of fear and anticipation. The fear stemmed from two things, the first was “what if nobody shows up”, the second, harder to admit, I was struggling with impostor syndrome, I’ve never even organized a meetup before, what qualifies me to organize a conference, let alone one this large.
As you can probably guess by now the event did happen, people did show up and I had some wonderful coaching from Scott Hanselman along the way that helped me get past that impostor syndrome.
Code of Conduct
Before you begin to invite speakers, before you begin to solicit sponsors, before you begin to sell tickets, create and publish your code of conduct. There are many sites and conferences out there that you can use as inspiration for your code of conduct, but I implore you to not only read it, but embody it and put it at the top and bottom of your website. The code of conduct is the foundation of your conference.
As you begin to prepare you may realize things that you may want to add that are important to you. One of the things I wanted to see called out as a form of harassment is offensive verbal comments regarding “Financial Status”, something I had not seen in a code of conduct before but due to my personal history was something I felt was important to add.
Without your code of conduct, and how it will be enforced, your vision for conference will suffer.
Why you should start with your why
“Start with Why” by Simon Sinek was one of the things that I feel really helped make this event different. The Ted talk from years ago has stuck with me and is one of the fundamental questions I ask as I begin new endeavors.
From the onset of conference planning I made it clear that I believe that conferences should have diverse speakership and a diverse audience. That belief is rooted in another belief that technology itself needs to be more diverse. In a single sentence our why: “We believe that software should be a diverse and inclusive industry.” I then took that a why and made it a specific and measurable action.
50% of our speakers will be women in technology
Once you have this why and you start to communicate it you will find that other people will coalesce around it. You will also have people who do not agree with this why that will distance themselves from you as well, thats ok.
It was a constant conversation with myself to remember that the conference is not about me, the conference is not about the content (though the content was outstanding) the conference was the progressive realization of our why.
Reaching Out
I distinctly remember the first night of conference planning, it was late at night, I was laying in my bed, unable to sleep. The first Twitter message I sent was to Tracy Lee. Tracy is not only a Google developer expert, fantastic engineer but is also one of the best networked individuals I have met. After sharing with her why I was reaching out, and how I planned to achieve it she wanted to be part of the conference. It was that conversation that also served as the genesis of an introduction to Angel Banks. Tracy went on to give a great talk on “Reactive Programming to Future Proof Your Code” at the conference.
I literally had no idea just how strong the developer community was in Atlanta until I met Angel. She leveraged her UX design strengths, connections and influence, along with the wealth of organizing experience she had due to being an organizer for WeRiseConf. This proved to be critical to not only our media partnerships and conference speakers, but also the event as a whole. It was fantastic having her as one of the organizers for ngAtlanta 2018 and we are happy to have her back for 2019!
I also made it a point to reach out to Brad Green the engineering director for the Angular team. The shirt he wears at every conference “You Can Sit With Us” was one of the symbols of how I wanted the conference to feel. His encouragement and participation helped tremendously. His talk on “Angular as a strategy for collaboration and scale” is our #1 viewed clip on YouTube.
A lot of people ask about CFP’s and how you get people to submit. I believe that a CFP is one of the ways to get speakers, but another way is to reach out to the community and solicit speakers directly. Part of that effort is looking for known speakers, part is looking for yet to be discovered speakers.
We wanted to make sure that we gave the opportunity to speak to some first time speakers as well. For 2019 we are actually quantifying it and set a goal to have 10% of our speakers are first time speakers when we sign them up.
Read about other’s experiences at conferences
When I was looking at articles about women in tech at conferences I found a wonderful post by Chloe Condon on “What It’s Like to Be a Woman at a Tech Conference”. After reading that post I reached out to Chloe. She not only attended ngAtlanta but was one of our awesome speakers, doing a talk on “Logging Errors and Metrics, Oh My!”. As you read about the experience of those around you allow your compassion for them to push you to the next level of organizing. Also ask for their feedback and guidance along the way as you organize.
Be aware that not everyone is like you
There is a realization that diversity is not just about what you look like, where you come from, what you believe, but also about what you eat, how you communicate, how you like to participate, and so much more.
As an organizer it is your responsibility to make sure that those attending your event have a safe, welcoming and fulfilling experience. It is your event and the people attending are trusting you to have their interests in mind.
It’s no small small feat to take on a conference, but you will be surprised how far taking care of the basic needs, like food, can make a difference in the experience. As our speaker list grew I found that one of our speakers was a vegan. April Wensel who gave a talk on “Emotional Intelligence for Engineers”. I made it a point to reach out to her specifically at the onset of preparations to share the menu we were preparing for the conference. That conversation also proved helpful during the initial meeting before the event at the Hotel at Avalon. We were able to speak with the head chef for South City Kitchen and they prepared meals specifically for our vegetarians, vegans and other dietary needs.
During the event
Be aware that you will not get everything perfect. There is a human aspect to what it is we do. There will be people who you may offend along the way. It is your job to make sure that you ensure they are heard and their concerns are addressed. Part of that being addressed may mean changes in your own behavior and recognizing your own unconscious biases. Being willing to have those hard conversations will help you grow. How do I know? I had the pleasure of having one of those conversations with Kim Crayton. If you don’t know of her yet you you should. She will give you the unfiltered truth, it will hurt, but at the end of the day it will make you a better human being.
At the end of the day not everyone will choose to participate in your event again. Respect, compassion and adherence to your code of conduct will make it more likely that everyone will have a safe, enjoyable experience and have a desire to come back again.
Post event feedback and reactions
One of the most fulfilling parts of this entire process has been seeing the reactions of the development community.
Jessica O’Brien shares a summary of her experience at ngAtlanta in her blog.
Brad Green shares a trip report on his experience at ngAtlanta on the Angular blog.
Stephen Fluin shares about ngAtlanta at Google IO 2018
