Conference Planning: How to Make It a Success

Two months ago, Riskified’s DevRel team and I were facing the challenge of producing our second community conference: hayaData.

hayaData is a non-profit event, which started in 2021 with the goal of being an annual conference. It was designed for the data engineering, data science, BI, and data analytics communities, to share professional knowledge, mingle, and much more. This year, we decided to produce a bigger conference than last year, with more participants and sponsors, and I was honored to lead this effort.

One week after we published our agenda, the conference was sold out. From 400 attendees last year, we grew to 700 attendees! In addition, Riskified was joined by other sponsoring companies as we grew from 9 sponsoring companies last year to 18 companies. The conference created a huge buzz on social media through the posts of the guests, speakers, and partners. Our employees felt proud to be a part of a company that facilitates knowledge sharing in the data fields and encourages learning.

The conference was a huge success, and made me wonder:
What made it so successful?

I came to the realization that I am not the only one interested in a structured guide for this process. Therefore, if you are looking to produce an organized technological conference, this post is for you.

In this post, I will share my experience and reveal the most important things you need to pay attention to when organizing a big community conference. I will explain how to plan a conference, tips for making it sell out, the best way to choose the content for the conference, and guidelines for managing it without managerial authority.

Organizing a conference is a marathon, not a sprint.
Are you ready to begin?

What led to the creation of the conference?

One of Riskified’s core values is knowledge sharing, which is why we wanted to take part in the local data community and help share professional knowledge. We identified the lack of a community conference that supports knowledge sharing on a range of data topics, from industry experts as well as from the academy. In addition, we saw the data community was eagerly waiting for a conference of this magnitude in which they could mingle and look one another in the eye.

Our decision to create this conference was a direct response to this existing need. We built a conference where you can hear insights from leading speakers, learn about the newest industry tools, and get best practices for working with big data.

Choosing the right team and sponsors

Coming from a non-technical background, I was fearful at first about taking on this challenge. Producing an event where you don’t know a lot about the main subject can be scary, but don’t let the impostor syndrome hold you back. You need to keep asking questions and learn from those who know more than you. People who may think about things differently and have different experiences can help broaden your horizons and help you develop new ideas.

You might not know everything (as most of us don’t), and that’s ok. Learning is the quickest way you can help yourself grow. This is why choosing the right team and partners is crucial.

We eventually had 18 members on our team, split into several smaller teams: Content team (Data Science, BI, Data Engineering, and Data Analysts), DevRel, Marketing, Design and Learning & Development.

Community conferences cannot take place without partners. To be a part of the community, it is important to cooperate with companies whose domains are related to the conference’s topic. By doing so, the conference audience will benefit from more information and value from companies in the same field.

We also partnered with private communities. These communities are truly passionate about data so we know that our goals of spreading the knowledge are aligned.

In addition to having an inside team and partnering with data companies and communities, we hired the services of a production company.

Managing multiple departments and people

One of the main challenges in producing a large-scale conference is the orchestration of all the teams involved. The teams worked for months around the clock.

So, how do you keep track of each team’s progress?

Creating spreadsheets based on missions and owners is crucial. We created a timeline and held routine meetings. The missions needed to be structured according to deadlines.

It is a big challenge to harness the teams to your side without administrative authority. All participants volunteered; this was not their daily job. It was very important to explain the rationale and importance of everything we did. It was easy for them to cooperate since they understood why we needed to complete the missions by a certain date.

Choosing the speakers and building the agenda

Our conference was focused on content. The content team was carefully assembled and included employees from various companies whose data drives their daily activity. We wanted a team that represented a wide range of data topics: Data Science, BI, Data Engineering, and Data Analytics.

The reason the content team was made up of employees from various companies is that we wanted to make this a community conference and to have several points of view.

It was crucial that the conference included accurate and relevant content. It was important to find the right speakers, and make sure their lectures were on point. The question was, what should we focus on when choosing lectures?

First, the content team rated the submissions according to clear criteria, which included:

• Lecture topic, and whether it is a horizontal topic that covers a wide target audience
• Speaker’s previous experience

The content team chose 23 talks with highly skilled speakers from a variety of companies. They exposed us to the latest tools available to work with big data and taught us how to use them effectively.

It is important to make sure that the lectures are well constructed, with accurate messaging and an opening that would attract the audience and provide value.

Personal mentors for the speakers

After the lectures were selected, it was critical to provide speakers with the tools they needed to build a successful talk. Our content team mentored the speakers. Some of the mentoring activities included: one-on-one sessions about storytelling, and performing “dry runs” — i.e. practicing presenting the lecture in front of a small audience while paying attention to the presentation’s basic design.

Speakers were also invited to a workshop called “Build Your Talk”. This workshop was designed specifically for the hayaData conference by Riskifid’s Learning & Development representative. The workshop focused on providing tools that helped the speakers shape an effective presentation structure, as well as with standing in front of an audience and their message delivery.

Producing a successful conference — general tips

• Choose a central location that will be close and accessible to your target audience.
• A production company is “your best friend” during the project. It is important to have good chemistry with them, and coordinate expectations in advance regarding the budget and their availability.
• Put together a professional technical team that will own the content domain — choosing speakers, preparing them and building the conference agenda.
• Make sure the lectures bring real value to the target audience. The lectures should include everyday examples that you can learn from. Verify that the topics covered in the lectures include innovative subjects, and at the same time, speak to a wide target audience.
• Manage a team with organized guidelines from the start.

hayaData 2023

I hope you found this guide useful. We are waiting for you at the “hayaData 2023” conference. Until then, you are welcome to ask any questions you may have.