GDG DevParty Together: when unity is strength
(Per questo articolo in Italiano, premi qui)
In the past seventy days, the entire nation has faced one of the biggest health emergencies since the first post-war period.
After a first moment of general displacement due to the stringent measures with which the Italian government has implemented to deal with the emergency, the GDG Communities have also organized themselves.
And they restarted, moving all their activities from on-site to online.
In fact, in recent months, unless there are proven work or health needs, all movements have been prohibited and all events, of any nature, have been postponed or canceled.
This freezing of activities, however, has allowed us to totally break down the barrier of distance: “Neighbors, although distant” is the slogan that accompanied us in reading the newspapers or during television commercials.
The Community of GDG Italia wanted to implement it, in its own way, by organizing the first major conference ever set up before.
And totally online.
From programming to the two days of the conference, there were no organizers or speakers who met in person.
A Community Leader task force was therefore created from the following GDGs: GDG Bari, GDG Campobasso, GDG Cosenza, GDG Firenze, DSC Firenze, GDG Nebrodi, GDG Pescara, GDG Pisa, GDG Roma, GDG Torino, GDG Cloud Torino, GDG Trento, and with the participation of WTM Italia.
Thanks to excellent coordination based on common sense and democratic voting, the first two activities on which the whole group worked were:
- Group subdivision into subgroups: communication, content, community-engagement, follow-up and infrastructure
- Creation of the name of the conference, which could reflect the unity of the communities despite the distance, but also the spirit that unites all the GDGs: here, as if by magic and out of nowhere, the brand “DevParty Together”
- The topics to be discussed during the conference, the dates and the main language to be used
Since then, each subgroup has moved independently, reporting their progress in weekly plenary meetings.
The time available to organize the conference was short but intense — about 1 month — and all the organizers really gave 110% during the organizational period.
The weeks passed quickly and gradually the puzzle of the various activities was composed in a single drawing: the two days of live event.
The first GDG DevParty came to life on 2 and 3 May: directors, presenters and moderators were present at their workstations, ready to give their best and offer a level conference to the entire Italian community.
Over 35 sessions divided into 2 afternoons, 6 tracks, 3 of which parallel with topics such as Cloud Computing, Frontend, Mobile, Machine Learning, Soft Skills and Diversity & Inclusion.
The stage saw the succession of high-level speakers who showed us technicalities, gave us smiles and shared their fears and weaknesses with us.
With a rigorously respected timing, thanks to the direction and the speakers (who managed their available time well) everything went as expected.
Indeed, no. Better than expected.
The participants responded en masse to this most unique and rare occasion: with an audience of over 1300, with peaks of around 500 on some tracks, the listeners actively interacted with questions to the speakers.
Overall, the conference has always maintained an average of 600 views, divided on three tracks.
I can only thank all the organizers who, like me, have done their utmost to really propose a high-level conference.
And thanks also go to the stars of the two days spent together, the speakers, who immediately believed in the “DevParty project”, a conference at the first edition and totally unknown, which turned out to be a success.
All this, and much more, was the first major Italian GDG DevParty Together.
And I’m proud to be able to say not the classic “I was there”, but rather “I lived it fully”.
In the next article we will see in detail the activities carried out by each working group, so that it can be a useful track for all communities wishing to organize a successful online conference, without being afraid of forgetting anything.
Made With Love.
Gianni
