Full Transcript for 267 - Upcoming Ruby Events with Jim Remsik, Founder of Flagrant

having, of more events and stuff like that. 00:05:39.774 --> 00:05:44.810 I'm curious how come you want to do this. 00:05:47.790 --> 00:05:49.956 I'm curious how come you want to do this? 00:05:49.956 --> 00:06:00.309 Yeah, I mean, I think the fact of the matter is you could have worked your entire career, an entire five-year career in software, and not really had access to regional events. 00:06:00.309 --> 00:06:08.257 Obviously, sin City Ruby and Rocky Mountain Ruby exist. 00:06:08.257 --> 00:06:26.701 If those aren't in your backyard, or if you didn't understand what conferences afford you, you might not seek them out, you might not figure out to go and spend some time with people in physical space and just how valuable that is, and so we're putting these together. 00:06:26.922 --> 00:06:28.105 They've got a hundred dollar ticket. 00:06:28.105 --> 00:06:30.862 They're happening on Saturday, so you don't have to take time off work. 00:06:30.862 --> 00:06:43.612 We're putting them in people's backyards so they don't need a hotel, they don't need airfare and they can just show up experience community and say man, how do we get more of that? 00:06:43.612 --> 00:06:59.353 I want to do more of this Because throughout my career, it has been personal connection that has led to most of the opportunities that I've seen, be those clients or job opportunities, what have you? 00:06:59.353 --> 00:07:10.754 And it's just so powerful, especially in the age of AI, to stand face-to-face with somebody or stand in the same room as somebody and get to communicate with them. 00:07:12.235 --> 00:07:13.300 Yeah, yeah. 00:07:13.300 --> 00:07:16.406 It's interesting that you say, especially in the age of AI. 00:07:16.406 --> 00:07:20.353 Some things come to mind when I think that. 00:07:20.353 --> 00:07:22.067 But like, why exactly do you say that? 00:07:26.240 --> 00:07:26.459 think that. 00:07:26.459 --> 00:07:29.446 But, like, why exactly do you say that? 00:07:29.446 --> 00:07:31.129 Um, it is when you're speaking to somebody in person. 00:07:31.129 --> 00:07:36.944 They don't have a, a filter, they don't have, you know, additional data being fed to them. 00:07:36.944 --> 00:07:38.990 Um, it is you. 00:07:38.990 --> 00:07:39.790 You get there. 00:07:39.790 --> 00:07:52.327 Uh, I was gonna say raw unfiltered, but most of us have a filter, and so you get to really understand who they are, you know all the way down to a few drinks, and then we get a more unfiltered version. 00:07:53.490 --> 00:07:56.829 Sure, these events are happening between nine and five. 00:07:56.829 --> 00:08:04.744 So maybe, if you hang out with people afterwards but yes, for sure, and so it, it really is. 00:08:04.744 --> 00:08:12.189 But yes, for sure, and so it really is it is hard to understand sometimes when you get those job as an employer. 00:08:12.189 --> 00:08:15.134 It's hard to understand when you get those job applications coming in. 00:08:15.134 --> 00:08:17.975 Is this really this

person? 00:08:17.975 --> 00:08:20.196 Is this what they know? 00:08:20.196 --> 00:08:25.177 Is this their voice, or has it been produced, polished, et cetera. 00:08:27.077 --> 00:08:28.899 And not that there's anything wrong with that. 00:08:28.899 --> 00:08:35.524 I do that myself and what is also true is that AI tends to. 00:08:35.524 --> 00:09:00.509 Ai tends to clip off the peaks and valleys and bring you more to the middle, and I think, for me, I really care about people who are passionate, who care about the things that they care about, which is not to say you have to be passionate in order to work at Flagrant. 00:09:00.509 --> 00:09:11.956 What I'm saying is that I want to know that that exists in you for something, and if you've got it for that, you could have it for other things as well. 00:09:11.956 --> 00:09:24.336 And everything seems like most things that get parsed through AI just get reverted back to the mean and it's fine. 00:09:24.336 --> 00:09:27.905 But it's not really you. 00:09:27.905 --> 00:09:33.620 It's a less authentic version of people yeah, yeah, it's so interesting to me. 00:09:34.081 --> 00:09:35.951 I was talking to this guy on the phone the other day. 00:09:35.951 --> 00:09:38.476 He emailed me out of the blue. 00:09:38.476 --> 00:09:39.860 This kind of thing happens sometimes. 00:09:39.860 --> 00:09:48.793 He emailed me and he was like hey, I'm a retired master plumber and I need help with my business's website. 00:09:48.793 --> 00:09:50.756 Uh, can you give me a call? 00:09:51.317 --> 00:10:02.932 I'm like okay, like I, I don't really do that kind of thing, uh, right now, but I'm always happy to talk with people and maybe I can at least steer them in the right direction and stuff like that. 00:10:02.932 --> 00:10:14.985 And he spoke to me from an employer's perspective about evaluating candidates and he said, like it's impossible because of AI. 00:10:14.985 --> 00:10:26.272 It just you get spammed with all these applications that are basically not real and they all look the same and it's like, well, what can I do with this? 00:10:26.272 --> 00:10:30.679 Like what can you do with that? 00:10:30.679 --> 00:10:32.102 It's kind of useless. 00:10:32.964 --> 00:10:37.558 And then I'd thought about it before from the other side. 00:10:37.558 --> 00:10:46.889 When he said that to me, that was kind of, for some reason, that struck me, even though that wasn't the first time I'd heard it from an employer's perspective. 00:10:46.889 --> 00:10:57.865 But from the other side, you're experiencing this phenomenon of being a drop in a bucket. 00:10:57.865 --> 00:11:24.426 You know, the competition has increased so much because these applications are getting like DDoSed and so your application can't really stand out anymore, and so this method of people getting jobs that kind of started maybe 20 years ago. 00:11:24.426 --> 00:11:30.278 Uh, with with online jobs and applications and stuff like that, it's kind of been ruined. 00:11:30.278 --> 00:11:46.750 I don't know that that might be too strong of a way to put it, but it kind of seems like it's been ruined and now we just have to go back and, and, and and get jobs the old fashioned way way, by just like in-person connections, or at least personal connections. 00:11:48.313 --> 00:11:49.155 I think you're correct. 00:11:49.155 --> 00:11:51.822 Ruined is maybe strong. 00:11:51.822 --> 00:11:58.702 They've become a lot less effective, like we went that route to make things more effective and now that's no longer true. 00:11:58.702 --> 00:12:01.052 I guess you could say that's ruined. 00:12:01.052 --> 00:12:10.085 But I think there's a similar aspect of when everything is sort of reverted back to the mean. 00:12:10.085 --> 00:12:14.977 If I come to you with sort of this abstract notion of hey, jason, would you ever hire a junior person? 00:12:17.001 --> 00:12:18.323 Would you yeah? 00:12:21.350 --> 00:12:23.379 But it probably depends, right. 00:12:23.379 --> 00:12:27.774 But it probably depends right. 00:12:27.774 --> 00:12:32.543 Like, um, if, for us, uh, we only take on junior people when we know that we can support them. 00:12:32.543 --> 00:12:41.400 Um, and so if people email us right now and ask us if we're hiring juniors, I have to say no, just cause I know that we don't have the room to support them. 00:12:41.400 --> 00:12:48.419 Um, but if I go to, I go to larger companies and say, hey, would you consider hiring a junior person? 00:12:48.419 --> 00:12:51.238 You know, there's some hemming, there's some hawing. 00:12:52.250 --> 00:13:01.361 That abstract notion of a junior is harder to respond to than if I say hey, jason, here is Cody. 00:13:01.361 --> 00:13:02.855 Cody's a junior developer. 00:13:02.855 --> 00:13:06.679 He has worked in customer service. 00:13:06.679 --> 00:13:23.539 He has a background in Cody's, actually a member of my team, so he has a background in R and Python, mostly noodling about, and then also a big fan of chess. 00:13:23.539 --> 00:13:29.562 And given those attributes, I could say that is something that I can work with. 00:13:29.562 --> 00:13:37.916 You know, he has problem-solving skills, he has strategic skills, he's good with people. 00:13:37.916 --> 00:13:40.636 That's a person I can take a shot on. 00:13:40.636 --> 00:13:45.611 That is, you know, somewhat more concrete, even if I've only got a limited number of details. 00:13:45.611 --> 00:14:06.562 Um, and so, as a junior, I would say, or a mid-level, whatever, uh, the more that you can um find some edges that people can uh understand how they fit into their puzzle, the better equipped you are to find a role. 00:14:08.705 --> 00:14:14.116 Yeah, yeah, wait, can you say that again? 00:14:14.116 --> 00:14:18.815 You said something, the better equipped you are to find a role, but I didn't quite catch the beginning. 00:14:20.259 --> 00:14:20.399 Yeah. 00:14:20.399 --> 00:14:40.789 So the more excuse me yeah. 00:14:40.789 -->

00:14:44.360 So the more details that you can give somebody who's trying to make a decision as to whether or not to hire you, the better they're able to understand. 00:14:44.360 --> 00:14:45.845 Does this piece fit into the puzzle that I'm trying to assemble? 00:14:45.845 --> 00:14:53.230 And if I just say generically, can you, are you hiring a junior person you might have in the hall you might say, you know, no, we, we can't, we can't support that right now. 00:14:53.230 --> 00:15:16.783 But if I say hey, if I've got somebody who has some experience, who you know is good with people and you know takes on the abstractness out of it, and say, could you hire Cody or Paula or whomever, that's a different question. 00:15:16.783 --> 00:15:25.268 When you're able to put some actual edges on the people and define who they are put some actual edges on the people and define who they are. 00:15:27.750 --> 00:15:29.453 Yeah, okay, yeah, I get what you're saying Totally Like. 00:15:29.453 --> 00:15:51.597 Sometimes I've interviewed people or I've known people who I could potentially refer to a job and stuff like that, but they may be either like not to be mean, but like they don't have any like personality to them, like they don't have any distinguishing interests or anything like that. 00:15:51.597 --> 00:16:07.192 And, and the worst is when I can just like tell so obviously that they just like went to a boot camp to hop on the programming gold rush and they're like not really into it, it's like man, like I don't know, like maybe, but I don't know. 00:16:08.294 --> 00:16:46.868 Um, but if you can showcase yourself as an interesting person, um, then that can help, and I've tried to do the same thing myself, um, yeah, I will say the it's not bad for people to get into this industry to make a living, like we need those people too, and I think that whatever, whatever authentic facets of your life help define who you are. 00:16:46.868 --> 00:16:50.059 They can help you align to various roles. 00:16:50.059 --> 00:17:23.861 So if you are somebody that donates lots of time to good causes, that might be really appealing to a nonprofit, to a charity organization, that your values aligned with them, and it might not align you well with a financial, uh startup that you know just wants to be your life, you know, for the next few years, and so for me, it's those. 00:17:23.861 --> 00:17:41.013 Finding those edges ultimately helped define, like, what are the things that motivate you and and what are your values and how can those align to an opportunity that either today or in the future presents itself? 00:17:42.375 --> 00:17:44.680 yeah, yeah, yeah, that's interesting. 00:17:44.680 --> 00:17:49.412 Yeah, I read in this in this consulting book. 00:17:49.412 --> 00:17:52.419 Maybe you're familiar with Alan Weiss, but I've. 00:17:52.419 --> 00:18:00.755 I've read several of his, his books on consulting, and he has a piece of advice to make yourself an object of interest. 00:18:00.755 --> 00:18:02.756 An object of interest, and I really took that to heart. 00:18:02.756 --> 00:18:12.364 Um, like, read widely and, and, um, I don't know, just try to become an interesting person. 00:18:12.364 --> 00:18:15.266 Um, and that can help you. 00:18:15.266 --> 00:18:37.875 Um, and I've found, you know, by by taking that advice, uh, that that specific advice to read broadly and stuff like that and develop a broad range of interests, I found myself able to more easily form personal connections with a lot of different people and that helps. 00:18:38.769 --> 00:18:41.497 There's also some almost opposite advice. 00:18:41.497 --> 00:18:46.800 There's this blurb that really stuck with me from this book I read. 00:18:46.800 --> 00:19:00.336 It said don't try to impress people, be impressed by them and let them love you for it, which I think is really smart, because when I was younger, I would often try to impress people. 00:19:00.336 --> 00:19:06.125 Um, but, like, people are rarely impressed by people trying to impress them. 00:19:06.125 --> 00:19:11.619 Um, what is a lot more appealing is if you show a genuine interest in other people. 00:19:11.619 --> 00:19:17.298 Um, you'll in that book how to win friends and influence people. 00:19:17.298 --> 00:19:27.223 Um, he says something like you'll make more friends in two weeks by being interested in other people than in two years trying to get other people interested in you. 00:19:27.223 --> 00:19:46.646 But, in any case, one of the big takeaways, I think, of everything that's happened over the last few years with COVID and AI and stuff like that, is the importance of personal connections. 00:19:46.646 --> 00:19:52.201 It's not just about the buzzwords on the resume and stuff like that. 00:19:52.201 --> 00:19:56.141 You have to form relationships with people. 00:19:58.070 --> 00:20:21.318 I think that's so important because you can have all the buzzwords on your resume or not, and that's going to be a limiting gate for you, like somebody is going to stack up all the resumes, they're going to feed through the system and they're going to say haves and have nots and who knows whether the people that submitted those resumes are going to be successful at your company, are going to be successful at your company. 00:20:21.318 --> 00:20:40.450 That process is a manual separation just to thin the herd, to get down to what is a smaller set of data that we could work with, and the advice that I got from somebody who was a consultant when I was about to start my first company. 00:20:40.450 --> 00:21:03.233 They said it's not what you know, it's not who you know, it's who knows you, and I think that that is something that I've taken to heart that throughout the years, like who knows not only your name, but who knows that you'll show up, who knows that you have the skills to be able to help them solve their problems and that you are. 00:21:03.233 --> 00:21:13.894 You know somebody that they're going

to enjoy being around, whether because you, you seem impressed by them, or or or whichever like it it comes down to. 00:21:13.894 --> 00:21:29.784 Somebody else needs to make a decision and what have you put out in the world that allows them to say, yes, this is definitely a person that can help me, either because they've been doing it for 20 years or they're just getting started. 00:21:29.784 --> 00:21:38.269 But I look at all of their experience that they have in high school and college and the groups that they belong to and the things that they've published online. 00:21:38.269 --> 00:21:41.239 Those are all the things that get looked at anyway. 00:21:41.239 --> 00:22:02.832 Those are all the things that get looked at anyway, um, and so how can we, um, how can we package that all up and into a, an appealing package and or or a package that can be found, and part of that is by being in person, um, and going through similar experiences, watching talks, etc. 00:22:02.832 --> 00:22:16.723 And then coming out into the hallway and talking about them and understanding your perspective of what did we just watch and did you take away the lessons, or is this something new for you? 00:22:16.723 --> 00:22:52.630 No-transcript. 00:22:52.849 --> 00:23:10.154 Ultimately that's that's why we wanted to put the events on is to um, give people a low risk, low cost way to get together in person and help light a fire under local organizers, who are already doing a lot of the work anyway. 00:23:10.154 --> 00:23:16.311 That's why we're working with local meetup groups like Chicago Ruby and Austin RV and Atlanta Rug. 00:23:16.311 --> 00:23:21.295 It's not a. 00:23:21.295 --> 00:23:26.137 You know, you've experienced conference life right, it is. 00:23:26.137 --> 00:23:40.906 I think my Madison Ruby was not as successful as pre-COVID Madison Rubies and I attribute that to, in part, just it's easier to stay at home. 00:23:40.906 --> 00:23:41.807 There's so much content. 00:23:41.807 --> 00:23:56.671 It's just easier not to put your shoes on and go out and support With meetups. 00:23:56.671 --> 00:23:58.560 They happen frequently enough that we don't put our shoes on. 00:23:58.582 --> 00:24:00.089 We'll say we'll go next month, what have you? 00:24:00.089 --> 00:24:02.454 The Expo Ruby events. 00:24:02.454 --> 00:24:04.420 They're going to happen at a point in time. 00:24:04.420 --> 00:24:14.556 Either you make the trip or you don't, um, you go across town, you go, you know, to a neighboring city, or you don't um, but you have this one opportunity. 00:24:14.556 --> 00:24:17.790 There's not going to be another one until next year at the earliest. 00:24:18.471 --> 00:24:25.805 And so we really wanted to be a uh, we really wanted to use that as a way to draw people out of the woodwork. 00:24:25.805 --> 00:24:28.636 Lots of people moved during COVID. 00:24:28.636 --> 00:24:39.799 I don't know everybody that's in Chicago anymore, but I know that there's a whole city full of

Rubius there and lots of them don't know that they're there together. 00:24:39.799 --> 00:24:52.105 And so how can we be a force to unite these regional groups to come together and discover oh, you moved here during the pandemic, didn't know that. 00:24:52.105 --> 00:25:06.571 Um, and then highlight the things that are happening more regularly as well uh, like the user group meetups and what have you yeah, I think what a lot of places need is just a catalyst, like the people are there and the interest is there. 00:25:07.314 --> 00:25:17.566 there just needs to be somebody to pick up the torch and be like, hey, there's a thing happening on this date at this place uh, come to it which doesn't. 00:25:17.566 --> 00:25:20.092 It hasn't been happening, for whatever reasons. 00:25:20.092 --> 00:25:25.761 Hasn't been happening as much since the pandemic, at least with Ruby. 00:25:25.761 --> 00:25:43.580 I can't speak for anything else, but there's kind of some headwinds, like it's harder to find space these days because fewer places have physical offices and then people kind of scattered during the pandemic. 00:25:43.580 --> 00:25:53.276 There's no reason to live in the expensive city, so people receded into the suburbs and so you did that too. 00:25:54.259 --> 00:25:54.780 Yeah for sure. 00:25:54.780 --> 00:26:03.237 We live an hour outside of I mean, madison's not a huge metro anyway, but we live an hour outside of town on a one acre plot on a lake. 00:26:03.237 --> 00:26:06.163 Most of our neighbors are farmers. 00:26:06.163 --> 00:26:13.232 I don't have local Ruby community here. 00:26:13.232 --> 00:26:16.301 I have to go to Madison at the at the nearest or, you know, go in and explore Milwaukee or Minneapolis. 00:26:16.301 --> 00:26:17.003 What have you? 00:26:18.951 --> 00:26:20.974 Yeah, I'm in a bit of a similar boat. 00:26:20.974 --> 00:26:31.801 I'm about 30, 40 minutes outside of Grand Rapids, michigan, and there's not a lot of Ruby community in Grand Rapids. 00:26:31.801 --> 00:26:34.599 There's certainly not like a meetup that meets regularly. 00:26:34.599 --> 00:26:45.672 I have to go to like Chicago, I would say Detroit, but like, not even really Like there's hardly a ruby community there. 00:26:45.672 --> 00:26:57.280 Michigan is not really like a big ruby state, um, which is probably the case just kind of outside the coasts in in general, um yeah so. 00:26:57.280 --> 00:27:17.035 So that's good though to have some of these regional events, because it's not like there's nobody, there's just um, there's just um, I don't know you maybe have to do it in a in a bigger city in order to have a a draw um so I think there's, there, are. 00:27:17.175 --> 00:27:33.269 There certainly are some outliers, um and you know, depends on your definition of big city, but um columbus, ohio, there's uh still regular meetups going on in columbus columbus river brigade and there's a fair amount of activity there. 00:27:33.871 --> 00:27:39.857 Um kansas city, I've had a surprising number of people reach out saying, hey, um, can we do something here? 00:27:39.857 --> 00:28:05.346 And quite literally, though the, the goal has been to put the community on the map, and so, as I'm driving from city to city, we're looking for is there any place between Chicago and Atlanta where community is happening and could we just do like a social event or like grab coffee, do you? 00:28:05.346 --> 00:28:14.876 I know one of the original plans was to drive from miami to atlanta and I know that there is a guy named dan that works at a small company in live oak, florida. 00:28:14.876 --> 00:28:32.593 That uh was like I can drive along, obviously, stop in orlando and whatnot, but I can meet up with dan in live oak, florida and um hashrock still has an office in in jacksonville and like where are all these people, and then, you know, put a spotlight on on that. 00:28:32.653 --> 00:28:53.002 whenever we meet with those, uh, whenever we go to those places and and say here's, here is where the ruby community is, and then then ideally we'll get people shouting, shouting to say, hey, I'm on the way, you know, can we, can we stop and have coffee, or can you visit the office? 00:28:53.002 --> 00:28:53.471 What have you? 00:28:54.152 --> 00:28:55.414 Yeah, yeah, that's pretty cool. 00:28:55.414 --> 00:29:09.555 I had the idea to do something similar Some years ago I called it the code with Jason world Tour, but I never really was able to carve out the time to do a contiguous road trip or something like that. 00:29:09.555 --> 00:29:14.345 I just had some disconnected visits to certain cities. 00:29:14.345 --> 00:29:16.530 But even that was still fun. 00:29:16.530 --> 00:29:34.826 Um, because you know, I have I have the podcast and so like, uh, almost everywhere I visit, I find at least one person who like is already familiar with me, and so it's kind of cool to like meet people who have listened to the podcast and stuff like that um for sure. 00:29:34.988 --> 00:29:38.317 Um yeah, cory haynes also his journeyman tour back in the day. 00:29:38.317 --> 00:29:39.539 I don't know if you know him. 00:29:40.291 --> 00:29:40.799 I know him yeah. 00:29:41.821 --> 00:29:56.460 Yeah, and so he was just sort of traveling from city to city, and I'll refrain from making a quantum leap joke, but you know, we sat down, he interviewed people wherever he went about. 00:29:56.460 --> 00:29:59.289 You know how did you get into programming and what are those stories? 00:29:59.289 --> 00:30:08.587 Yeah, it's not necessarily a new idea and I also can't point at anybody else that's doing it right now. 00:30:10.772 --> 00:30:16.112 Yeah, by the way, I'm starting to think more seriously about my next event. 00:30:16.112 --> 00:30:21.424 Starting to think more seriously about my next event. 00:30:21.424 --> 00:30:24.114 So, dear listener, if you don't know, I, me and my wife have been hosting a conference called sin city ruby in las vegas. 00:30:24.114 -->

00:30:30.326 We did it three times 2022, 2024 and 2025. 00:30:30.326 --> 00:30:34.112 Um, we're not going to do it anymore for various reasons. 00:30:34.112 --> 00:30:39.962 One is las vegas is 2 000 miles away and it's kind of inconvenient to organize a conference that far away. 00:30:39.962 --> 00:30:45.882 Another is is the expense of Vegas and stuff like that, and doing it at a hotel. 00:30:45.882 --> 00:30:49.830 Um, so we're going to do the next one. 00:30:49.830 --> 00:30:54.748 If we do one, it's probably going to be in Michigan, um, somewhere in Northern Michigan. 00:30:54.748 --> 00:30:57.133 Um, have you been to Northern Michigan, jim? 00:30:57.133 --> 00:30:58.221 Somewhere in northern michigan um. 00:30:58.241 --> 00:30:59.022 Have you been to northern michigan, jim? 00:30:59.042 --> 00:31:10.271 uh, you mean wisconsin's hat, wisconsin's hat yeah, I, I mean sure I'd include the up, but also just like the northern lower peninsula too I, I have not. 00:31:10.553 --> 00:31:15.948 Uh, the furthest north I think I've been in michigan is detroit okay got it. 00:31:15.948 --> 00:31:21.742 Yeah were you, which is pretty, pretty south for right listeners yeah, were you at that detroit? 00:31:21.742 --> 00:31:31.251 Uh rails comp for whatever it was yeah, we, we sponsored that one, and then we also went back and did an event in detroit, um with um. 00:31:31.251 --> 00:31:44.692 We did a detroit meetup, uh, where we brought Noel Rappin out, and I think we had about 15 people there. 00:31:44.692 --> 00:31:50.451 So I actually did not know that you were in Grand Rapids, oh, okay. 00:31:50.519 --> 00:31:51.826 Probably should have reached out to you. 00:31:51.826 --> 00:31:55.888 But yeah, I mean, there are people around. 00:31:55.888 --> 00:32:03.653 There are companies around that are using Ruby in Detroit and right across the river in that Canadian city Is it Windsor? 00:32:03.653 --> 00:32:14.932 Yeah, like there are folks around, I think that if they had a catalyst to bring them together, it's possible. 00:32:16.034 --> 00:32:17.123 Yeah, yeah, totally agree. 00:32:17.123 --> 00:32:17.605 Okay, it's possible. 00:32:17.605 --> 00:32:19.292 Yeah, yeah, totally agree. 00:32:19.292 --> 00:32:27.390 Um, okay, so what is the very next upcoming uh, xo Ruby events at the very first. 00:32:29.521 --> 00:32:31.326 The first and next is Chicago. 00:32:31.326 --> 00:32:32.470 That's September 6th. 00:32:32.470 --> 00:32:35.405 Um, we're at the Fulton street art collective. 00:32:35.405 --> 00:33:08.791 Uh, one of the things that you just noted is that, um, when people think conferences, often they think hotels, and that's because, at a large scale, those are the only places that can fit outside of maybe a convention center or some other purpose-built structure, those venues is that they, they are your only option and they, you know they might not price their rental to be super expensive, but then, oh, you want AV and you want food. 00:33:08.791 --> 00:33:18.193 Food you have to use our catering, like everything just becomes a line item on a very large invoice. 00:33:18.233 --> 00:33:25.772 Eventually, we had that same experience with Madison Ruby, but we were able to pull it off. 00:33:25.772 --> 00:33:36.275 But I knew that, going to cities that I didn't know or haven't spent a whole lot of time that I wanted to avoid hotels. 00:33:36.275 --> 00:33:40.991 So our venues are intentionally smaller For Chicago. 00:33:40.991 --> 00:33:48.709 We have the Fulton Street Art Collective and it is a loft space Seats about 80 and we are. 00:33:48.709 --> 00:34:17.865 We are bringing projector stage backdrops, pa system, microphones, we are working with Comfreaks to record them, and so we'll have all the video equipment with us as well, the goal being that, basically, we could go into any space that has seating and bathrooms and be able to put on an event. 00:34:17.865 --> 00:34:48.007 We've got a few more attributes that we look for in our venues accessibility, self-catering, so we want to be able to bring in like prepackaged snacks and coffee and water and whatnot, and then but all those things are we're doing to lower the risk and be able to put these things on more efficiently and so far it's working and we're getting some really interesting venues. 00:34:48.519 --> 00:35:05.943 We've got a black box theater in Atlanta called the Limelight Theater, and then in New Orleans we have the Maroney Opera House, which is a converted church and just it's really hard to describe other than it's very New Orleans, like it's all. 00:35:05.943 --> 00:35:09.496 It's a white church but it has sort of a grit. 00:35:09.496 --> 00:35:10.880 On the outside it looks haunted. 00:35:10.880 --> 00:35:22.681 And then you know, in Portland we've got a, an, uh, an industrial, chic warehouse, um, that is just it's very Portland. 00:35:22.681 --> 00:35:31.027 And we're working with San Diego on a uh, a little arts playhouse that you might expect, you know, near the beach in San Diego. 00:35:31.027 --> 00:35:45.070 So really trying to um, highlight the uh, the scene, the vibe, whatever you want to call it of the cities that we go to, but also stay smaller. 00:35:45.070 --> 00:35:49.510 That's why we're looking at 60 people at these events. 00:35:49.510 --> 00:35:53.309 Those are always the events where you really get to know everybody in the room. 00:35:53.981 --> 00:35:58.242 Oh yeah, I love that about the smaller events. 00:35:58.242 --> 00:36:10.202 I always tell people that, ironically, the it's at the smaller events that you meet more people, um, and you come away with like deeper relationships too. 00:36:10.342 --> 00:36:59.503 because that's the more important thing to me is is the depth of the relationships that you form, as opposed to the quantity well, and so one of my favorite uh stories that I got from madison ruby was, um, one of our attendees uh, I forget his name and I'll probably get a message after this airs

but um, he talked about like about, the best part of Madison Ruby for him was to be able to sit down at lunch with Tenderlove and the conversation was whatever the conversation was, but the thing that broke the attendees' brain a little bit was they spent so much time talking about America's Next Top Model attendees brain a little bit was they spent so much time talking about America's next top model. 00:36:59.523 --> 00:37:18.356 I think so often we forget that these keynote speakers and celebrities in our spaces are just people, and so to be able to break that down a little bit is it's an it like it is a luxury and an opportunity that we have if we make it. 00:37:18.356 --> 00:37:22.811 Um, I had a similar experience in uh, finland. 00:37:22.811 --> 00:37:31.713 Um, I went over to frozen rails probably 2014, something like that and my my conference. 00:37:31.713 --> 00:37:55.755 Uh, trick is to go to a place where english is not the the native language, because there's usually some other English-speaking speakers there, and so then they all cluster together and talk English with each other, and so I got to spend a bunch of time with Patrick McKenzie Patio 11, over a couple of days in Finland, just because we were comfortable talking to one another. 00:37:57.565 --> 00:38:00.969 You know, done the same thing in Scotland and other places as well. 00:38:00.969 --> 00:38:05.612 But you know, at these smaller events you have access that you don't get. 00:38:05.612 --> 00:38:15.230 If there's 800 people and you know Shopify setting their whole team, they're probably going to get together and go hang out together. 00:38:15.230 --> 00:38:17.490 It's their onsite for their team. 00:38:17.490 --> 00:38:26.177 But at a smaller event where you might have one or two other people from a team, you're still probably going to gather other people when you go out to meals and whatnot. 00:38:27.405 --> 00:38:32.885 Yeah, that was one of the things that was part of my pitch, for Sin City Ruby is. 00:38:32.885 --> 00:38:39.135 At some of the bigger conferences I noticed that it's kind of socially stratified. 00:38:39.135 --> 00:38:52.128 There's like the, the, the high status speakers and stuff like that, and then everybody else um, which is like that's, that's natural and and whatever um. 00:38:52.128 --> 00:39:08.411 But at a really small conference like sin city Ruby, everybody's mixed in together the whole time and like we had Dave Thomas there and quite a lot of people at the conference had a chance to just hang out and talk with Dave Thomas. 00:39:08.411 --> 00:39:32.331 When you get a chance like that, you know and and I personally I had some privileges as the organizer, so I got to like go have lunch with Dave Thomas and some of the other people at the conference and it was just, it was like a secret code or something to get access to the special experience that you never would have otherwise. 00:39:33.753 --> 00:39:34.193 Absolutely. 00:39:34.193 --> 00:39:34.976 What am I? 00:39:34.976 --> 00:39:41.686 You know, absolutely One of my. 00:39:41.686 --> 00:39:44.748 You know just, it's hard to. 00:39:44.748 --> 00:40:03.228 One of the experiences that I had was we went to Huntsville, alabama, for a conference Jeremy McNally was putting on and Chris Wanstroth from GitHub was keynoting, and wound up spending, you know, the evening playing, uh, werewolf and other games. 00:40:03.228 --> 00:40:08.548 Like, we're all in the middle of Huntsville Alabama, what else are we going to do? 00:40:08.548 --> 00:40:21.114 Right, um, it's actually a cool city, but, um, but yeah, we, we didn't didn't necessarily know where and what to do other than hang out with each other, and so, uh, that was a good time for sure. 00:40:22.056 --> 00:40:23.972 Yeah, yeah, I love those experiences. 00:40:23.972 --> 00:40:28.568 Yeah and again. 00:40:28.568 --> 00:40:29.130 Okay. 00:40:29.130 --> 00:40:30.074 So I had a question for you. 00:40:30.074 --> 00:40:37.916 Actually this is just out of my own selfish interest, but how are you finding these venues in these towns? 00:40:37.916 --> 00:40:41.355 Because to me that seems not easy, Like you don't live there. 00:40:41.355 --> 00:40:42.318 How do you finding these venues in these towns? 00:40:42.318 --> 00:40:43.922 Because to me that seems not easy, Like you don't live there. 00:40:43.943 --> 00:40:44.505 How do you find these places? 00:40:44.505 --> 00:40:47.614 A couple of different ways that this has happened. 00:40:47.614 --> 00:41:05.389 There are sites online where you can go and search for event space Peerspace, evective, gigster, those are all places that are trying to sell their space and so it's been a fair amount of. 00:41:05.389 --> 00:41:08.757 We talked to some folks and it didn't work out. 00:41:08.757 --> 00:41:12.251 And we talked to other folks and we found really great opportunities. 00:41:12.251 --> 00:41:26.077 But we're also working with local organizers as much as we can, and so we're getting folks that do live in those cities to recommend spaces, and that has been particularly helpful. 00:41:26.077 --> 00:41:28.853 Nathan Hessler from Austin RV has been really helpful there. 00:41:30.226 --> 00:41:37.199 Nate Vick, who is in Portland, is helping to organize ExoRuby Portland. 00:41:37.219 --> 00:41:47.769 Portland is helping to organize ExoRuby Portland has done a lot of boots on the ground, research and went to the space and recorded videos and whatnot, because I can see things online. 00:41:47.769 --> 00:41:52.052 But if I've never been in the space before, maybe it stinks to high heaven, who knows. 00:41:52.052 --> 00:41:57.856 And so it's a mixture of referrals and just finding stuff online. 00:41:57.856 --> 00:42:10.989 But the goal is to log all the places that we consider and give those to the organizers, say here are the opportunities that we found, this is the one that we chose, here's why we chose it. 00:42:10.989 --> 00:42:17.737 So, again,

if they want to put in an event next year without us, they can do that. 00:42:17.737 --> 00:42:25.137 Not everybody is built for running conferences and so if they say, no, you could do that again. 00:42:25.137 --> 00:42:28.708 Uh, here next year, yeah, we'll, we will consider that as well. 00:42:28.708 --> 00:42:49.117 The the hope is that these go well and that, um, this becomes something that we do regularly, but with some cities being taken over by, uh, local organizers, and then that will free us up to do other cities yeah, okay, okay, um, yeah, and I wanna okay. 00:42:49.538 --> 00:43:08.713 So, with these events, like you can never promote them too much, obviously, um, and so I'm starting to talk more now about my event for I'm thinking summer 2026 is when it will be, and Sin City Ruby 2025 was really like a. 00:43:08.713 --> 00:43:11.938 It made an indelible mark on me. 00:43:11.938 --> 00:43:18.538 I guess the word is scar because it was just so painful. 00:43:18.538 --> 00:43:23.396 Me and my wife lost a lot of money, sorry to hear that. 00:43:23.936 --> 00:43:25.670 Yeah, I mean, it's fine. 00:43:25.670 --> 00:43:30.275 It's probably a net positive in the long run, you know. 00:43:30.275 --> 00:43:37.721 But I'm thinking, kind of like you mentioned, how can I do this in a low-risk way? 00:43:37.721 --> 00:43:54.175 I talked with Andy Kroll, who I imagine you know about Brighton Ruby, and he said that he designed it from the beginning so that, like, if 50 people came, then it would work out fine, or if, like, 500 people came, it would be fine. 00:43:54.175 --> 00:44:03.239 I don't remember the numbers, but you know the idea that it could, that it would be unproblematic, no matter how many people came or didn't. 00:44:03.239 --> 00:44:06.831 And so that's the way I want to do this one. 00:44:07.253 --> 00:44:31.356 I'm thinking like it'll be a thing where it's like and I'm curious if you have any thoughts on this it's kind of like be in this city on these days and that's, you know, stay here's a recommended hotel, but like just be in this town on this day and that's the start of it, and then I can figure out a venue later. 00:44:32.746 --> 00:45:01.065 Um, and and I'm not expecting it to be a very big thing, because there's always this chicken egg problem with events, you know, it's like you don't know how many people are going to show up and you have to like commit to these expenses before you know if you're gonna, if, if, if that thing you're committing to actually makes sense for you for your event or not, then obviously that's going to limit who's going to be willing to, to make the leap right. 00:45:01.065 --> 00:45:20.679 Because, like, if if you just say, hey, we're putting on this vague event on these days in this town, like maybe you, jim, would come to that and a few other people I know well, but like not everybody's going to do that, um, I don Any thoughts as a fellow organizer on how to approach that thing. 00:45:21.925 --> 00:45:22.606 Oh my God, yeah. 00:45:22.606 --> 00:45:35.556 So first of all, a friend of mine who's spoken a number of times at Madison, ruby Martin Atkins, has always said get the smaller venue and sell it out. 00:45:35.556 --> 00:46:03.019 If you get a smaller venue and sell it out, then you can look at solving that problem by getting a larger venue and there are opportunities to lock down value venues without like signing away your life for them or working with places that have multiple size venues, and just let them know what you're trying to do and say I'm pretty certain that we can get 50 people here. 00:46:03.019 --> 00:46:20.367 So if you've got a 75 seat theater and then next door you've got 150 and then across town you've got a 300 seat theater, Like, as we sell these things, as we sell tickets, as we know how things are going, we'd like the opportunity to grow into the other spaces, if that's possible. 00:46:21.568 --> 00:46:40.320 Um, alamo draft house in austin has a ton of spaces and so, um, that is, that is a the sort of place where I would consider that uh, approach, um, but yeah, like, what's what's the problem if you have, if you only have, 50 people, and it's amazing, right. 00:46:40.320 --> 00:46:51.360 If you can't resolve that, if you can't move on from the 50-seat venue to something smaller, then people just have FOMO and you know what? 00:46:51.360 --> 00:46:52.731 You'll sell more tickets the following year. 00:46:52.731 --> 00:46:58.831 But again I go back to the advice that I had earlier it's not what you know, it's not who you know. 00:46:58.831 --> 00:47:00.195 It's not who you know, it's who knows you. 00:47:00.195 --> 00:47:12.617 And so the mere fact that Jason is putting on the conference and people have had experience with Sin City and know you and want to show up for you is going to make those things more successful. 00:47:12.617 --> 00:47:16.675 So he's not giving me a whole lot of details, but I know it's Jason. 00:47:16.715 --> 00:47:25.237 I trust Jason, I'll sign up to go to this event yeah, yeah, and if only 20 people show up, then I think that's great. 00:47:25.237 --> 00:47:43.329 I think it would be a lot of fun if, like we I don't know people, people maybe get their own hotels and stuff, but then additionally get an airbnb and we like all have together Like we don't go to a restaurant, like we make food and all have dinner together, like as a family. 00:47:43.329 --> 00:47:52.550 Um, it would just be like a much more intimate, closer connection type thing than than almost any other event you're going to go to. 00:47:54.012 --> 00:48:02.646 I agree, and, uh, that is a an easier lift, probably a higher price point, cause you got fewer people splitting the cost Potentially. 00:48:02.646 --> 00:48:04.373 Who knows how you run it? 00:48:04.373 --> 00:48:17.550 I've actually gone to an event like that called Web Whiskey Weekend, where they rented a place that sleeps 20 people, and so I wound up sharing a

bunk room with three other people, and I was comfortable with that. 00:48:17.550 --> 00:48:20.329 That's what I bought into, but the price was per bed. 00:48:20.329 --> 00:48:24.947 So if you wanted the, the king bed and the master all to yourself, that was a higher price. 00:48:24.947 --> 00:48:31.166 Um, and then everybody, um, brought a bottle of whiskey, but that's not necessarily required. 00:48:31.166 --> 00:48:36.773 And then, um, you know, we, we communally cooked and did dishes and whatnot. 00:48:36.773 --> 00:48:37.896 It was a really great experience. 00:48:37.896 --> 00:48:40.860 So those things absolutely can happen. 00:48:40.860 --> 00:48:50.632 I think, to push back just a little bit, you can also get a room block without committing to a number of rooms at a hotel. 00:48:51.373 --> 00:48:52.155 Why did I know that? 00:48:53.025 --> 00:48:53.646 They will give you. 00:48:53.646 --> 00:48:57.010 I mean, not everybody does it, but it is possible to do. 00:48:57.010 --> 00:48:58.650 That's what we did for Madison Ruby. 00:48:58.650 --> 00:49:06.824 Everybody who stayed at the conference hotel got a special rate which wound up being $30 or $40 cheaper than retail. 00:49:06.824 --> 00:49:15.378 And then it wasn't huge, and so I think we had like 20 rooms and sold that out. 00:49:15.378 --> 00:49:16.179 We renewed it. 00:49:16.179 --> 00:49:24.677 We got another 10 rooms because we sold out the smaller block, but we still had people staying, you know, all over the city at other hotels. 00:49:27.146 --> 00:49:37.518 Yeah, you know, like some small town in Michigan, like a little outside peak season, might be a little easier to negotiate than Las Vegas. 00:49:38.820 --> 00:49:48.715 For sure, like again when you go into those big beige rooms that are designed to extract money from people that are putting on events. 00:49:48.715 --> 00:50:07.077 They are often the only game in town, and so, while you might not have a ton of choice for hotels in Grand Rapids, you're going to have a choice, and so, yeah, there are definitely options. 00:50:07.077 --> 00:50:08.972 We can also take this offline. 00:50:08.972 --> 00:50:10.230 I'm happy to talk more about this. 00:50:10.230 --> 00:50:16.411 Or, if anybody's curious about starting their own conference, I'm happy to talk about this stuff whenever. 00:50:17.373 --> 00:50:25.295 Yeah, conference, I'm happy to talk about this stuff whenever yeah, yeah, have you talked with um travis doctor who's? 00:50:25.315 --> 00:50:29.384 putting on uh last off yeah, yeah, yeah, I think, um, he just joined uh. 00:50:29.384 --> 00:50:37.416 Ruby central has a uh, a meetup organizer group, um, and so he just joined that. 00:50:37.416 --> 00:50:40.146 He's thinking about putting together a meetup group locally as well. 00:50:40.146 --> 00:50:50.632 And so if you're in the I think it's Albuquerque, new Mexico and you're interested in meeting up with other Rubius, there is a meetup coming. 00:50:50.632 --> 00:50:58.894

It might work out that I'm able to stop in Albuquerque between San Diego and Austin and and and join them for a night as well. 00:50:58.894 --> 00:51:09.139 So, um, but I haven't uh, I talked to him at RailsConf and we've bounced off of each other a couple of times, but looking forward to blast off uh Rails next year. 00:51:10.001 --> 00:51:10.644 Yeah, yeah. 00:51:10.644 --> 00:51:17.210 It's great to see another person taking the leap and and trying their hand at putting on a conference. 00:51:17.210 --> 00:51:21.099 Um, all right, it's probably time to start wrapping up soon. 00:51:21.099 --> 00:51:23.813 Is there anything that we haven't touched on yet that we should? 00:51:27.146 --> 00:51:36.353 We've got some really great speakers in all the cities Scott Werner, aji Slater, coraline Ademke in Chicago. 00:51:36.353 --> 00:51:44.304 We've got Jeremy Smith and Igor Alexandrov in Atlanta. 00:51:44.304 --> 00:51:45.389 That I'm really excited about. 00:51:45.389 --> 00:52:02.150 We just got Tender Love confirmed for Portland, and so the details get a little bit fuzzier the further out we go, even though we're only a few three, four, six weeks away from some of these events. 00:52:02.150 --> 00:52:05.907 But I'm really excited about the stuff that's coming in the background. 00:52:05.907 --> 00:52:16.052 We've gotten really great support from Cisco just from the start, as well as a number of folks sponsoring the cities. 00:52:16.052 --> 00:52:21.751 The Unsimple just joined on and they've sponsored every city, which we're hugely appreciative of. 00:52:21.751 --> 00:52:27.409 There are conferences happening all over. 00:52:27.409 --> 00:52:30.693 I just spoke with Roland Lopez from RubyConf Thailand. 00:52:30.693 --> 00:52:33.969 That event is happening in January. 00:52:33.969 --> 00:52:42.333 If you want to scooch over to Thailand, which I really want to do, we'll see how these turn out first. 00:52:42.333 --> 00:52:45.835 But yeah, there are people getting together everywhere. 00:52:47.045 --> 00:52:50.235 Yeah, yeah, man, that would be so fun to go to Thailand. 00:52:50.235 --> 00:52:52.233 On my personal list is Taiwan. 00:52:52.233 --> 00:52:54.610 There's a Ruby event in Taiwan. 00:52:54.610 --> 00:52:55.494 Really want to go to that. 00:52:55.494 --> 00:53:04.672 What a pity that there's a limited amount of time and money and you can't go to every single event that ever happens. 00:53:04.672 --> 00:53:11.115 Yeah, okay, well, I wish you the best of luck with all these events. 00:53:11.115 --> 00:53:12.309 I'm sure they're going to be great. 00:53:12.309 --> 00:53:16.855 And where should people go to find out more? 00:53:18.605 --> 00:53:27.452 XORubycom, just the letter X, the letter O, rubycom that came together as these are sort of a love letter to the community. 00:53:27.452 --> 00:53:28.255 So XO oh. 00:53:28.835 --> 00:53:29.318 I see. 00:53:29.338 --> 00:53:33.735 Okay, and you can subscribe to the newsletter there. 00:53:33.735 --> 00:53:39.813 The event information that's available is all there and tickets are for sale for all six conferences. 00:53:40.635 --> 00:53:40.916 All right. 00:53:40.916 --> 00:53:42.632 Well, Jim, thanks so much for coming on the show. 00:53:42.632 --> 00:53:46.945 Thanks so much for having me, thank you.