What’s the purpose of tech conferences? – Chelsea Troy

It’s con season within the tech world. Yesterday night I flew from Pluralsight‘s Hyperlink/ unconference in New Orleans to Pycon US in Salt Lake Metropolis.


New Orleanians are simply as probably as to not give you a drink inside sixty seconds of greeting you. Eighteen hours after leaving there, I walked into the Salt Palace Conference Middle and made a joke about nonetheless needing my caffeine to almost-certainly-a-mormon.
I spend, in complete, between 4 and 6 weeks a 12 months at tech conferences. I’ve thought quite a bit concerning the objective of that point.
Are tech cons particular?
In 2020, Hillel Wayne began a crossover challenge as regards to whether or not software program engineers are actually engineers.
The final piece in his writeup addresses issues that conventional engineers may be taught from software program engineers: model management, and our cons. That’s proper:
We software program engineers take the existence of nonacademic, noncorporate conferences with no consideration. However we’re distinctive right here. In most fields of engineering, there are solely two sorts of conferences: educational conferences and vendor commerce exhibits. There’s nothing like Deconstruct or Pycon or !!con, a practitioner-oriented convention run solely for the enjoyment of the craft.
– Hillel Wayne, ‘What Engineering Can Educate (And Be taught From) Us’
Although cons like ours may not exist in different areas of engineering, we see an analogous phenomenon inside different communities. Nerd fan communities have their cons, like C2E2 and WorldCon. Movie buffs have Sundance. Individuals who present mannequin horses (sure; small plastic horses) have Breyerfest. Programming, for no matter purpose, has adopted the con construction of a globally distributed fan membership quite than a occupation.


Practitioner-led, joy-infused fan membership conventions are inclined to pop up round some kind of money cow. Of us go to C2E2 to get the forged of their favourite present to signal their memorabilia, they usually’ll pay for the privilege. Breyerfest and Sundance entice huge gamers to evaluate and compete, and successful accolades at these occasions means one thing for neighborhood alternatives later.
Tech conferences have their excessive profile keynote audio system and sponsor tables, however they don’t appear to wish a money cow to exist. Attendees don’t go, and audio system don’t converse, with the particular purpose of shopping for and promoting wares. Tech is profitable. Corporations will sponsor in hopes of recruiting a candidate or two; making a rent prices a median $70k in tech, so even a few bites at a convention are price a $5k sponsorship payment. Software program engineers additionally are inclined to obtain comparatively unregulated skilled improvement budgets from their employers, which they’ll use to come back to the cons with out an excessive amount of persuasion. These constructions create slack that enable tech cons to focus much less on the funds and extra on idealistic targets. And like all idealistic sixties kids, the tech business loves itself a sentimental narrative.
What’s that narrative? Loads of convention kickoff speeches will say one thing alongside the strains of “have enjoyable and make associates” or “enrich the neighborhood,” or they’ll quote that Muppets track the place Gonzo quotes Jim Henson.

These cons get to eschew the gatekeeping related to slating a tutorial convention. Folks aren’t required to have a sophisticated diploma or focus on a printed paper to talk at a tech con. Of us can to share their perspective with out having a factor to promote and with out having a paper that they want cited.
Maybe the looseness of the cash in our business by no means compelled the cons to articulate a worth proposition, or maybe engineers hate promoting. Both method, we’ve by no means clearly acknowledged what we’re doing at these cons. I’m completely satisfied to take a stab, however first I wish to deal with misconceptions that result in the wrong expectations and dashed hopes wafting off of cons.
Cons aren’t masterclass summits.
I’ve a pal who based a college particularly for educating shibari—a talent with its personal vigorous schedule of fan cons. That pal doesn’t assume it’s well worth the time or cash to attend a con. The individuals who get the go-ahead to talk don’t at all times meet this individual’s practitioner customary, and their educating abilities usually depart one thing to be desired. Between journey, resort charges, and the ticket, you’re spending a whole bunch of {dollars}, minimal. Should you spend that for the aim of attending 4 or 5 seminars, solely one of which could find yourself being helpful, it begins to seem like a fairly unhealthy deal.
I’ve stated myself that “I get very little out of 95% of tech talks.” Simply this morning I walked right into a packed lecture corridor, found that the presenter’s slides for this 100-person room featured 16 strains of code in 8-point font, and walked again out. Tech talks, by and huge, don’t educate matters. They’re nowhere close to adequate for that. They could make you conscious of matters, and that may be price one thing. That’s more durable to measure, although.
Cons are additionally not business newsletters.
I’ve an expert acquaintance who just lately threw a match on Twitter over RailsConf not accepting his speak this 12 months. This individual works on a device that a lot of the Ruby neighborhood makes use of, and he had submitted the speak “What’s new in <the device>,” and it had not gotten in. In most earlier years, I believe he did get in with this speak. So he took to Twitter to accuse the organizing committee of caprice.
Now, I’m not on the RailsConf committee this 12 months, however I’ve been on it previously. I used to be on it the 12 months that we determined to not make David Hanemeier-Hansson, unique committer to Rails, the keynote speaker for the primary time in sixteen years. That man melted down on this large weblog put up that echoed all through the halls of the web tech bro cafeteria for weeks. To help in organizing a tech convention is to commit numerous hours of your time, without spending a dime, to be harassed by way of electronic mail and social media by self-righteous, entitled jerks. You assume this weblog put up is gonna finish with “right here’s the purpose of tech cons,” however heck, I’d speak myself out of taking part in them simply by penning this factor.
Anyway, if you happen to’re trying to go to a singular occasion and get all of the updates on the large gamers for that 12 months, you’re making a mistake. I truly don’t assume convention attendees usually make this error. I believe self-important library maintainers resolve for themselves that the purpose of cons is to broadcast the message that issues to them personally, after which they get upset when confronted with proof that they aren’t, actually, who cons are for—no less than not of their capability as figures of energy.
Cons aren’t kingmakers.
They’re not about our celebrities; they’re not about our instruments. Convention organizers don’t sit round and speak about what they assume so-and-so needs to say this 12 months, after which choose talks primarily based on that.
As a substitute, speak choice often belongs to a rotating group of volunteers. It’s anonymized, theoretically to attenuate the temptation to have interaction in friend-nepotism. Reviewers know the title and the summary, and perhaps an overview. Most submitters don’t submit a really full define. There’s very little information to judge on. I’m an expert educator, and lemme inform you one thing: the title and summary of a chat tells you nothing about how good it is going to be1.
How do reviewers make selections on this scenario? Loads of instances, they isolate just a few themes. “This 12 months, let’s concentrate on talks about these 4 issues.” They choose sufficient matters that there’s one thing for everybody, however a sufficiently small quantity to perform two targets:
- Have sufficient talks inside every subject that, by the regulation of huge numbers, one of ’em no less than (and hopefully just a few) will likely be respectable.
- Maximize the probabilities that people speaking about these items will derive worth from assembly one another in actual life.
Goal #2 focuses on maximizing the worth of the hallway monitor: the unscripted, unplanned conversations that happen “within the hallway” outdoors the talks.
Con attendees love the hallway monitor a lot that they’ve developed a complete occasion class—the unconference—across the thought of organizing, planning, and catering a gathering that’s identical to a convention aside from no talks. Unconferences as a substitute characteristic hackathons, pair programming speed-dating, lightning talks, improv video games, or attendee-driven schedules made with post-it notes on items of cardboard. The actions explicitly encourage extemporaneous dialog.
Whereas conferences choose talks by way of an anonymized course of and than make attendee tickets obtainable for public buy, unconferences are inclined to forego a ticket payment and have organizers hand-select attendees. You don’t register for an unconference; you get tapped. The way you get tapped varies from unconference to unconference. In some instances, organizers invite colleagues or people they admire from the web. Generally they ask people they belief to advocate voices (usually newer, marginalized voices) for an invite. Generally they gather referrals from previous attendees.
The convention and the unconference sound like opposites. However they implement in a different way for a similar goal: focus the proper teams of individuals into an area to catalyze conversations that result in Massive Issues.
Cons are dialog catalysts.
When organizers speak concerning the level of conferences, they use phrases like “carry folks collectively” and “make associates” and “ugh…networking” and different imprecise platitudes that, admittedly, don’t do a terrific job of speaking the worth we’re making an attempt to create right here.
And this intractable worth, so tough to articulate, maybe inconceivable to measure, sadly carries the utility of the tech con.
Observe: utility is totally different from attractiveness. Utility is “why it makes any sense to create this factor, and what attendees get out of it.” Attractiveness is “why do folks come.” Dialog catalysis doesn’t carry the attractiveness of a tech con. Why do folks come? I imply—to journey to a brand new metropolis on the corporate dime, after all! Plus, if you happen to can take just a few days off work with out having to burn PTO days as a result of it’s a convention, why wouldn’t you? I make over 1 / 4 of my earnings educating tech abilities on-line. This has demonstrable utility for builders: they’ll take a workshop on the precise talent they want for his or her day job. However whereas builders present up in droves when the corporate prepays, they don’t wish to spend their very own skilled improvement funds on trainings. They wanna use that cash to journey, and cons launder journey into a piece expense. Programmers will say they’re going to cons to community, however bear in mind: we’re speaking about programmers right here, the very same folks who we quoted earlier on this very put up as saying issues like “ugh…networking.”
The connection between cons and prodev sounds underhanded and self-serving, however I believe it’s positive. The ideological purpose I believe it’s positive is, relating to who’s utilizing who, I believe it’s virtually inconceivable for particular person staff to out-use the businesses that make use of/use them. However the purpose I’ll concentrate on right here is logistical: the con nonetheless finally ends up being price it for the employers, sponsors, organizers, and attendees via this tough to articulate, maybe inconceivable to measure “dialog catalyst” factor.
Avdi Grimm talks about “obliquity.”
He’s a developer and trainer within the Ruby neighborhood, and I first met him at dCamp in 2014. I had been invited to that unconference on the advice of Coraline Ehmke to its organizer, Evan Mild. On the time I had comparatively little programming expertise. To me on the time, Avdi felt like a celeb: the talent, the cachet, the rockstar hair. We didn’t grow to be quick associates, however we did chitchat subsequent to a camp hearth and slowly construct a friendship from there. These days, I voice message on Avdi on Whatsapp about courting (Avdi and I aren’t courting one another; I’m a lesbian and he’s out of my league anyway) or when I’ve a response to Tech Drama that’s too spicy to say in public. Something salty you see on this weblog, Avdi heard it weeks in the past.
Who will get credit score for that relationship? Is it the 2 of us? Is it Coraline? Is it Evan? Is it whoever sponsored that occasion of dCamp? Would credit score have gone to the employers who compensated us with the prodev funds that put us on airplanes to that occasion?
And who advantages from that relationship? Clearly me and hopefully Avdi, but additionally, anybody who reads one in every of my spicy weblog posts that sounds higher as a result of I mentioned it with Avdi first. Anybody who has watched me speak about risk-oriented testing on Avdi’s RubyTapas. Anybody who has heard me converse at DDD Europe or SkillsMatter—cons that I solely utilized to as a result of Jess Kerr, who I met via Avdi, really useful them to me. And for that matter, my employer advantages as a result of after I converse at these cons I stand up and say “Hello, I’m Chelsea; I’m an engineer at Mozilla.” And after I give my killer speak, people come up and ask me what I do at Mozilla. And after I inform them, they wish to work at Mozilla. And in the event that they do come work at Mozilla, I get a candy little referral bonus, and even whenever you subtract my referral bonus, Mozilla saves about fourteen thousand {dollars} on outreach, which is near 5x my annual prodev funds.
Ultimately somebody cashes in on cons, however the mechanism is a Rube Goldberg machine. We again into huge issues occurring, with out actually aiming for them. That’s what Avdi calls “obliquity,” and he posits that relationship-based successes are finest reached obliquely versus aiming immediately at them. I don’t imply particularly romances right here; any relationship.
Cons grow to be price it from the conversations that occur between people who in any other case may not have met, that endure past the occasion itself. More often than not, these conversations quantity to comparatively little: a cool truth, a enjoyable sidebar, a mutual Twitter comply with proper earlier than the platform collapses without end. Generally they quantity to extra: a chunk of recommendation that non-negligibly improves somebody’s work challenge. Sometimes, folks refer one another for jobs or kick off significant collaborations. And conveniently, though cons ask us to pour balls right into a Rube Goldberg machine with no assure about the place they’ll pop again out, I’ve a suspicion that over time balls come out roughly proportionate to who’s pouring them in, with these balls possessing a big sufficient combination margin (bear in mind: one referral saves 5x my annual prodev for my employer) that there are many balls to spare for different neighborhood enrichment efforts to get some balls, too.
It’s infuriatingly random and untrackable and disorganized. It offends our sensibilities about information and determinism. Probably the most incensing half? Empirically, it really works.
Cons owe you nothing.
It seems that I (and also you) have nearly actually benefited from cons we’ve by no means been to and by no means heard of. Somebody has helped us in a roundabout way as a result of they met another person at a type of cons. You’ll be able to insist that the formal schooling choices aren’t good at cons (and also you’re principally proper). You might be pissed off that your device’s annual replace speak isn’t occurring at a selected con (entitled, however certain). You’ll be able to surprise why so-and-so isn’t coming, and so-and-so is coming, and who made that call. You’ll be able to even say “you already know what, this isn’t for me” and abdicate going to cons altogether. And nonetheless, cons would influence your expertise in tech as a result of they contribute to the richness of tech itself in methods you’ll by no means be capable to itemize.
Footnotes
- There are just a few engineered exceptions to the “title tells you nothing” rule. For instance, within the Ruby neighborhood, there’s a man who has made a reputation for himself giving talks that characteristic lemurs. If the proposed speak title has lemurs in it, it’s this man. This truly creates an issue for the CFP committee since you’re presupposed to abdicate if you already know who the submitter was, and on this case we all know who submitted it. The man is objectively extra expert at talking than 98% of the sector, so transparently we do need him to talk, however we have now to resolve if it’s OK for us to just accept as a result of we all know it’s him, even though we name our CFP nameless. I’ve up to now seen the lemur factor hold up two CFP committees.
Oh, you appreciated this put up?
If you wish to be one of many one in twenty builders who offers a helpful con speak, I wrote about how I do it, and you’ll choose my health to talk on that by watching some talks I’ve given.
Or, if you happen to want a change of subject, you possibly can watch be yak about spotting misinformation in articles about what “research have proven.”