Join the Pear-tea: Growing our Community of Pears
TL;DR — We are growing Pear Conf with a combo of online and face-to-face meetups. Click here to get a ticket to our online meetup with Chelsea Troy!
When I started Pear Conf, it wasn’t called Pear Conf. It was called AndXP. I (along with others in the agile/XP communities) was consistently ranting at conferences and on twitter about how pairing, specifically pair programming could be amazing, but could also be ridiculously terrible, especially for people of under-represented gender, ability and color. None of this ranting seemed to penetrate with any of the “thought leaders” or companies doing pairing.
Lillie Chilen, organizer of the code retreat, AndConf, noticed me ranting and asked if I wanted to co-organize a small 1-day un-conference in her office at Omada Health. I said, “hell yeah,” and we pulled together a very small 1 day conference with heart, soul and a level of honest conversation that I rarely see at tech conferences.
Let’s talk about tech conferences for a minute. OH YES. Raise your hand if you’ve ever felt lost, confused, overwhelmed, scared, like you didn’t belong at a tech conference? o/
I’ve had people ask if I was at a tech conference with my boyfriend. I’ve been asked at javascript conferences if I’m a developer.(um…YEAH, I AM A DEV.) I won’t drink at tech conferences because I’ve heard too many shitty stories from too many close friends.
On the other hand, tech conferences are vital to tech. They are where we level-up our skills with workshops, look at how other teams are succeeding so we can make changes on our team. Tech conferences are the real job market and I’m not talking about the recruiter table. I’m talking about the back-channel, “oh hey you work at [COMPANY X]!! Are you enjoying it????”
Tech conferences are where you get a real answer, away from the recruiting table. Tech conferences are where you can have a conversation with someone about what you like to do and they say, “Oh hey, we have a job opening for that, you should apply!”
Despite all the bad behavior that happens BUT given their importance, opt out of tech conferences if you dare.
The initial Pear Conf (AndXP) was an entirely different experience. In fact, people enjoyed it so much that they kept asking me to do it again. Eventually, I did, and I had a realization: 1) I looooooooooove organizing tech conferences. 2) It *IS* possible to create a supportive, friendly atmosphere at tech conferences. 3) Pear Conf is more than a conference. It’s a thriving community of amazing people. How do I honor that?
From the beginning, I’ve wanted Pear Conf to encompass a distance greater than just the Bay Area. For this reason, I held the conference in Chicago this year and we had a great time. Now that our community is wider, how do we keep it together?
“WE NEED A SLACK.” I’ve been told, but slack can be problematic for a few reasons. In every slack, I’ve found that the loudest voices tend to dominate. It’s also a lot of hard work to moderate a slack, and, ultimately, there is a value in having time to reflect on what you’ve learned in a community on your own.
How do we keep it real and keep the conversation going as we widen our community?
This year, I’m trying an experiment in three parts.
Part 1 — An online monthly meetup
Let’s Sketch Tech! has taught me the awesome power of distributed meetups. People join from anywhere and they can participate as much or as little as they want! The stories and talks from these meetups create a shared experience which we can take to…
Part 2 — Quarterly face-to-face meetups in San Francisco, Chicago or online! Although Appear Works, LLC events are typically for-profit. These face-to-face community meetings will be community driven with different members organizing and the proceeds going to a charity picked by the local community.
Part 3 — Our yearly Pear Conf 3-day conference where we all come together.
Click here to join our first online monthly meetup on May 23.
Get on the Pear Conf community mailing list to receive details about our first quarterly face-to-face meetups in June and join the Pear-tea!
