Full Transcript for Marty Haught

look like now, but leveling up our skills. 00:05:05.411 --> 00:05:17.586 And so I had been running conferences my own conference, rocky Mountain, ruby for that and so I brought some of those different elements from that to RailsConf, while still trying to keep the polished feel. 00:05:18.120 --> 00:05:20.348 And we did have extra help, and that was really important. 00:05:20.348 --> 00:05:29.209 Leah Silber of Tildy helped us immensely with managing sponsors and having a professional sponsor hall, which is really important. 00:05:29.209 --> 00:05:33.783 Sponsors truly do make these conferences affordable. 00:05:33.783 --> 00:05:41.887 They pay, depending on how you structure it, about half the cost of the conference, and as these events get larger, it's not linear in cost. 00:05:41.887 --> 00:05:50.891 And so you start looking at like, wow, food's going to cost us half a million dollars that's a lot of money for food and like, yeah, it gets really rough. 00:05:50.891 --> 00:06:02.050 So, having sponsors and giving them a good experience, we're also not selling out your attendees, because we still have this view that this is a conference for developers. 00:06:02.050 --> 00:06:14.653 It's for us first and foremost, and we also want to make it valuable to sponsors, because they want to connect with us, either through hiring our attendees or through showing how their products can make our lives better, that sort of thing. 00:06:15.139 --> 00:06:23.184 So it was great to get involved and see the conference at that scale, I think the thing that I was most proud of my time there. 00:06:23.184 --> 00:06:24.425 There's two things, really, I guess. 00:06:24.425 --> 00:06:31.055 The first one is I brought over the scholars and guides program from Rocky Mountain Ruby. 00:06:31.055 --> 00:06:47.420 It was a great experience there and I'm like I think this could work at a higher scale and I really love the purpose of that program and ushering in new folks that normally would not have that experience or wouldn't feel welcome at the conference, that normally would not have that experience or wouldn't feel welcome at the conference. 00:06:51.160 --> 00:06:58.324 The other thing was trying to make the conference more sustainable, because it's a lot of work to put that on and oftentimes it would fall to one or two people to do all the work and it basically is almost like a full-time job. 00:06:58.324 --> 00:07:11.362 It's not quite, but it is 20, 30 hours a week, depending, sometimes more as you get closer to the event, and so finding a sustainable model of how to run the event was really important, and so the program committee was a key to that. 00:07:11.362 --> 00:07:36.889 The other thing I liked about the program committee was it gave us the opportunity to give folks from the community the opportunity to shape the program and see how the sausage is made behind the scenes and get involved, and so I think it's nice, because then you don't have one or two people picking all the talks, all the content for the program, and instead you're allowing folks that have different experience levels, different perspectives, to offer their voice and have a chance to shape it. 00:07:37.430 --> 00:07:37.872 I like that. 00:07:37.872 --> 00:07:41.430 One of the things I wanted to circle back to a little bit with the Scholars and Guides program. 00:07:41.430 --> 00:08:05.543 I've mentioned it multiple times on the podcast because I got to participate once back in 2015 or 16, I think as a guide and I had a phenomenal experience with it, and so I was hoping you would kind of expound a little bit on the origins of that and how that got started, even if it's at Rocky Mountain Ruby and not necessarily with RailsConf, I'd love to hear more about that Back at Rocky Mountain Ruby. 00:08:05.603 --> 00:08:10.593 We knew we had a number of folks from boot camps and code schools. 00:08:10.593 --> 00:08:19.610 They didn't have the connections and we had gotten some feedback just talking to folks at the conference that they were daunted by all these people and they didn't know who to talk to. 00:08:19.610 --> 00:08:32.711 And I thought about well, if you only had someone who could sort of introduce you or answer your questions because you're not going to ask questions of just someone next to you in the conference, right, you're just not going to feel safe with that. 00:08:32.711 --> 00:08:34.846 And so I'm like, well, what if we paired folks up? 00:08:34.846 --> 00:08:50.020 What if we one found people who maybe couldn't afford or couldn't justify buying a ticket, but this experience could be a great life-changing event for them, perhaps, or just eye-opening or open a new door or something like that. 00:08:50.020 --> 00:08:54.900 So it's like, well, we have plenty of folks in our community who are very generous in giving. 00:08:54.900 --> 00:08:57.548 So I think our community would be very receptive to being guides. 00:08:57.548 --> 00:09:06.764 And certainly there are plenty of folks out there who maybe were curious enough but were a little gun shy on buying a ticket and coming to the conference. 00:09:06.764 --> 00:09:09.251 And so we thought, well, let's give it a shot. 00:09:09.251 --> 00:09:25.394 What would the simplest thing that possibly could work look like that would put this together, and so we identified that we could take on I think we could take on 20 scholars and then pair up with guides, and we tried it in 2012 at Rocky Mountain Ruby and it worked really well. 00:09:25.394 --> 00:09:26.263 It worked way better. 00:09:26.263 --> 00:09:50.894 We wanted them to have an event before the conference started where they could at least get to know each other and get registration done, and that was huge for them because they already had seen some faces, they had a guide, they got their badge, they didn't worry about registration in the morning, and so when they show up that first day, a bunch of anxiety has been has been

reduced, because you don't have these things you have to worry about. 00:09:50.894 --> 00:09:56.580 You're going to meet some people that you know you've already seen and then they can help you guide you through the experience. 00:09:56.679 --> 00:10:12.066 Now, at Rocky Mountain Ruby single track conference, you don't have to choose content, but when I thought about, when I brought to RailsConf and RubyConf as well, this is even harder, because not only is there like 3X, 5x the people, there's also all these tracks to choose from. 00:10:12.066 --> 00:10:16.330 And how do you choose that when you're brand new to Ruby or to Rails or whatever? 00:10:16.330 --> 00:10:20.609 You don't really know, maybe some things, but you don't really know all this content. 00:10:20.609 --> 00:10:21.759 So how do you navigate that? 00:10:21.759 --> 00:10:28.874 And so the guides play a huge role in helping them make that choice of how to navigate the content. 00:10:28.874 --> 00:10:34.809 And also, maybe don't go to all the talks, maybe don't be overwhelmed, maybe hang out and have conversations in the hallway. 00:10:34.809 --> 00:10:37.950 It's okay to not feel like you have to go to every talk. 00:10:37.950 --> 00:10:49.250 So I think that's kind of where it started and it got really good reception early on from both sides from the guides and the scholars and I think it just took on a life of its own at that point. 00:10:50.299 --> 00:10:55.591 Yeah, I was in that camp for a while where I tried to always attend every talk. 00:10:55.591 --> 00:11:06.033 I wanted to be in there learning something every time, and then it took me years to be like, wait, there's a whole other side to why you come to a conference the hallway track. 00:11:06.033 --> 00:11:11.905 That I was missing out on, honestly, and I've gotten a little bit more balanced in my approach now. 00:11:12.807 --> 00:11:13.510 Yeah, for sure. 00:11:14.801 --> 00:11:20.663 Have you attended at all recently, with the ones that you haven't been involved in, or has your experience with it kind of gone to zero? 00:11:21.745 --> 00:11:25.474 I think the COVID years were interesting. 00:11:25.474 --> 00:11:28.606 No one saw it coming. 00:11:28.606 --> 00:11:30.071 Yeah, that's one word for it. 00:11:30.071 --> 00:11:32.849 It essentially canceled 2020. 00:11:33.519 --> 00:11:42.508 We were pretty sure there was, I think one of was it maybe I don't remember which conferences one of Leia's conferences, and I want to say it was EmberConf. 00:11:42.508 --> 00:11:51.067 I'm not sure what it was, but there was one of her conferences that was like in March and there was still like do we still have it, Do we not have it? 00:11:51.067 --> 00:11:56.471 We were pretty clear that we couldn't have it in March. 00:11:56.471 --> 00:11:59.166 We were pretty sure, and so the team was pivoting. 00:11:59.166 --> 00:12:01.408 I was not a conference chair that year. 00:12:01.408 --> 00:12:22.371 I guess one thing we should talk about

with the program committee that we did at Ruby Central was we started rotating to where the chair wasn't always the same person, so essentially you could give someone a conference off, and so that was my conference off at that point, and that helped us not get overwhelmed with all the work. 00:12:22.371 --> 00:12:26.649 But I think for that we had to go to all online. 00:12:26.649 --> 00:12:28.192 I think we just put it all online for free. 00:12:28.192 --> 00:12:51.062 We didn't obviously lose some money, but we didn't lose as much because we shifted our venue date to come back to that date another time in the future, Because the reality is you sign a contract with a venue, usually about two years in advance or 18 months in advance, and so you're on the line for some minimum with them and they don't care if you had the event or not. 00:12:51.062 --> 00:12:51.764 You still have to pay them. 00:12:51.764 --> 00:13:00.363 They're all very gracious to allow us to like well, let's just come back in two years or something like that and not be financially on the line for that. 00:13:00.764 --> 00:13:05.946 But the COVID years were very challenging because we were trying to figure out well, when do we go back in person? 00:13:05.946 --> 00:13:08.972 Can we make hybrid work or just fully remote work? 00:13:08.972 --> 00:13:11.785 And I think we had varying degrees of success with that. 00:13:11.785 --> 00:13:13.812 The reality was it wasn't the same. 00:13:13.812 --> 00:13:21.288 Railsconf and RubyConf are all about being in person and, while you can have something collected online, it's not the same and I think we made the best of it. 00:13:21.370 --> 00:13:25.183 But it's very challenging, I think, for everyone involved and also financially. 00:13:25.183 --> 00:13:54.528 We just started losing money with events and that's kind of led Ruby Central to a tough place in the last couple of years, where we had built up reserves but that slowly had been drained down from losing money at the events, and so it's made things hard and that's actually led to the next year being the last one is that unfortunately, people haven't gone back to attending conferences like they had, I think the macroeconomics in this last year and all the layoffs. 00:13:54.528 --> 00:13:56.481 The companies aren't sponsoring travel anymore. 00:13:56.481 --> 00:13:59.234 They're not sponsoring conferences as much as anymore. 00:13:59.234 --> 00:14:03.471 This year looks like it's pretty good, but that's just brutal on us. 00:14:03.471 --> 00:14:08.708 It's a double whammy if you think about it, because we're losing the sponsorship money and we aren't selling tickets. 00:14:08.708 --> 00:14:20.368 And if we booked a thousand person venue and only 500 people show up, it's hard to make that financially viable. 00:14:20.408 --> 00:14:31.982 That's reality, yeah, I mean, all of the reasons that I've heard for why this is going to be the last RailsConf makes all kinds of sense in terms of just

the financial restrictions around putting on an event like this. 00:14:31.982 --> 00:14:35.070 Yeah, the COVID years definitely did not help with that. 00:14:35.070 --> 00:14:45.988 I have a very weirdly vivid memory of the people part of the general public for these events is like all is like wondering are these events going to even happen anymore? 00:14:45.988 --> 00:14:48.041 Why are they not canceling or whatever? 00:14:48.041 --> 00:15:02.894 And it's like well, if they cancel, they're still on the line, so they kind of have to wait for some kind of public statement or government or whatever to be like you can't do those things, so that then the venues can't need to make an accommodation. 00:15:02.894 --> 00:15:06.427 It was definitely a very weird, frustrating time. 00:15:07.571 --> 00:15:15.782 Yeah, and I think, getting back to your kind of point, what's it been like to have let go and I've been with Ruby Central a long time now I'm actually back with them. 00:15:15.782 --> 00:15:34.888 I stepped off the board in December and after being on there for 11 years 11 years is a long time and I wanted to give other people an opportunity to lead, and I think that's kind of with the conferences, the same thing is that, like Evan Phoenix and I did so much work for so many years at the conferences and we enjoyed it, but it was also just a ton of work. 00:15:34.888 --> 00:15:43.293 But it's great to see other people step in and bring their own sort of take on the conference and make those changes. 00:15:43.293 --> 00:15:54.380 And I think things are really going well short of, like sponsors and ticket sales not quite where we'd want them to be, but some of the things that they're all doing are really creative and really great. 00:15:54.380 --> 00:16:00.383 I think it makes for a better experience and I think that's the other thing is we're a scrappy bunch. 00:16:00.383 --> 00:16:03.751 You make the best with what you got, but then you're thinking outside the box. 00:16:03.899 --> 00:16:05.364 What should we be doing with this event? 00:16:05.364 --> 00:16:10.364 How do we make this experience the best it can be when you bring people together. 00:16:10.364 --> 00:16:11.288 What does that look like? 00:16:11.288 --> 00:16:16.966 The introduction of Hack Day at RubyConf is really like gets back to the roots of what RubyConf is about. 00:16:16.966 --> 00:16:18.591 What does that look like for RailsConf? 00:16:18.591 --> 00:16:21.869 For the final one, this is the thing that can only happen in person. 00:16:21.869 --> 00:16:23.091 What does that look like? 00:16:23.091 --> 00:16:24.543 And to be creative with that. 00:16:24.543 --> 00:16:31.403 So I think the current team is really thinking well about those sort of things, and it just makes me excited to see what they're. 00:16:32.884 --> 00:16:39.109 In regards to you stepping back from the board to give other people the opportunity to experience and guide things. 00:16:39.109 --> 00:16:43.572 I wanted

to ask a little bit something in the realm of that. 00:16:43.572 --> 00:16:48.654 Even though RailsConf is coming to an end, rubyconf is still going to be around for, hopefully, a while. 00:16:48.654 --> 00:17:01.062 Once RailsConf is over, they want to kind of become a resource for the smaller regional conferences to help those get better and have a bit more support. 00:17:01.062 --> 00:17:09.928 But all of that still kind of heavily relies on people doing the work to create those conferences. 00:17:09.928 --> 00:17:17.259 So what advice would you give to someone who wants to get involved with an existing conference or if they're really insane and want to create their own regional one? 00:17:18.005 --> 00:17:19.711 Yeah, there's a lot I could say. 00:17:19.711 --> 00:17:23.596 I think that a regional is not as hard as you might think. 00:17:23.596 --> 00:17:43.892 So if you feel like your local community could benefit from having an event and you're interested in exploring that, there's some very easy ways of getting into that that aren't as intense as something like a RubyConf or a RailsConf Rocky Mountain Ruby, which is coming up the 7th and 8th of October. 00:17:43.892 --> 00:17:48.815 It's coming up and that was the conference I used to run, but I don't run anymore. 00:17:48.815 --> 00:17:49.950 I do help them with that. 00:17:49.950 --> 00:17:56.557 That's an event that is looking to be probably 150, 175 people in terms of size. 00:17:56.557 --> 00:18:05.455 They have a venue they picked out that's very reasonable in cost and is actually a lovely space that will be fantastic for the event. 00:18:05.455 --> 00:18:17.034 And so the amount of work it takes to put on an event of that size is not as bad as something as like a 600 to 800 or a thousand person conference and financially isn't quite as risky. 00:18:22.125 --> 00:18:24.490 And the other thing I could say is you can do something like a single day, like a half day event. 00:18:24.490 --> 00:18:28.848 You can find maybe there's a company that has a larger space that they're willing to let you borrow something like that. 00:18:28.848 --> 00:18:41.396 So it's like more than just a meetup, but it's not quite the same sort of obligation as a multi-day event where you're booking a venue and all that and you could just see if enough people come out. 00:18:41.396 --> 00:18:46.487 The other thing is you can connect with the community and see if there are maybe three or four other people they're willing to help organize. 00:18:46.487 --> 00:18:52.807 So, like hey, who's going to handle catering, or who's going to handle the website and design, or maybe t-shirts? 00:18:52.827 --> 00:18:54.811 If you want to do that, you don't have to do that. 00:18:54.811 --> 00:18:58.398 You can have it simply be about coming together and doing something together. 00:18:58.398 --> 00:19:02.296 Maybe it's talks, maybe it's like unconference, who knows what. 00:19:02.296 --> 00:19:06.575 There's so many options out there, but I think it's not as scary as you might think. 00:19:06.575 --> 00:19:26.936 If you want to do that and Ruby Central does have resources available and folks who are willing to talk to you through that process and also the other regional organizers are super helpful they're happy to give you plenty of advice, including, like hey, use this template essentially to run your event, so they can answer all those questions. 00:19:26.936 --> 00:19:32.277 So if that's, you certainly reach out because there are people who can help you get there. 00:19:33.059 --> 00:19:34.566 Well, thank you so much for joining me today. 00:19:34.566 --> 00:19:38.797 Marty, Do you have any closing thoughts you'd like to give people as RailsGun comes to a close? 00:19:39.625 --> 00:19:43.135 I think it's just that community is key. 00:19:43.135 --> 00:19:50.751 It's so important, and I would encourage you all to think about how you engage with your local community or with the regional community. 00:19:50.751 --> 00:19:58.346 Yeah, I think you just get involved and connect with others, because I think that's where the magic happens, as I say, and I think it's great. 00:19:58.346 --> 00:20:02.076 So I hope to see you all at a future event Awesome. 00:20:02.297 --> 00:20:03.066 Thank you so much, marty. 00:20:03.066 --> 00:20:04.230 Yeah, thanks, david.