WEBVTT NOTE This file was generated by Descript 00:00:06.215 --> 00:00:07.505 CJ: Welcome to Build and Learn. 00:00:07.505 --> 00:00:08.465 My name is CJ. 00:00:09.295 --> 00:00:10.135 Colin: And I'm Colin. 00:00:10.135 --> 00:00:14.365 And today we are gonna be talking about Rails Conf and other ways for 00:00:14.365 --> 00:00:18.085 you to get involved with your own local and regional developer communities. 00:00:18.909 --> 00:00:21.859 CJ: I am super jealous that you got to go to Rails Conf this year. 00:00:21.884 --> 00:00:23.289 I was really hoping to go. 00:00:23.589 --> 00:00:27.009 The timing did not work out, but yeah, I'm, I'm pumped to like, 00:00:27.279 --> 00:00:31.149 hear how it went and hear about your experience giving a workshop. 00:00:31.539 --> 00:00:33.099 Because that sounds like it. 00:00:33.099 --> 00:00:36.249 It was a hit and it was packed and lots of people attended. 00:00:36.249 --> 00:00:39.489 And I know you and Chris worked really hard on prepping that, so 00:00:39.949 --> 00:00:41.179 curious to hear how that went. 00:00:41.389 --> 00:00:45.559 And also like, yeah, I mean, before we get into that though, I wasn't able to 00:00:45.559 --> 00:00:49.160 go because I've been taking a ton of time off and I was very, very, a f k. 00:00:49.249 --> 00:00:53.359 This is actually like the first time I'm back on my computer in, in weeks. 00:00:53.359 --> 00:00:57.229 And so yeah, it, it is so amazing to get offline. 00:00:57.709 --> 00:00:58.609 It's really refreshing. 00:00:58.609 --> 00:01:03.059 I think like a lot of people, especially in our industry encounter burnout. 00:01:03.059 --> 00:01:07.019 I know for sure that I was burnt to a crisp, just kind of grinding 00:01:07.019 --> 00:01:11.489 it out for years on end and was ready for a break for sure. 00:01:11.939 --> 00:01:15.539 Colin: Going from one thing to the next thing, doing multiple things. 00:01:15.539 --> 00:01:18.479 I mean, us doing this podcast is an extracurricular for us. 00:01:18.479 --> 00:01:22.324 So, you know, I've, I've definitely been online enough for the two of us. 00:01:22.329 --> 00:01:27.075 So I, I'm appreciating that you got some time to disconnect a little bit. 00:01:27.949 --> 00:01:30.199 Sounds like hanging out with the kids, hanging out with the family, 00:01:30.199 --> 00:01:31.579 that that sounds like a good time. 00:01:32.044 --> 00:01:32.914 CJ: Yeah, totally. 00:01:33.124 --> 00:01:36.364 And I'm, I'm reading this book right now, I think it's called The Nature Fix. 00:01:36.814 --> 00:01:40.144 And we'll put a l we'll put a link in the show notes, but I'm only like 00:01:40.149 --> 00:01:42.604 through the first couple major sections. 00:01:42.609 --> 00:01:45.994 But it's really interesting and it talks about how there's all these 00:01:45.999 --> 00:01:48.124 studies in Japan and South Korea. 00:01:48.129 --> 00:01:51.604 Even a couple folks here in, they, they went out in Utah, in the Moab 00:01:51.604 --> 00:01:53.554 Desert, and they're researching how. 00:01:54.349 --> 00:01:56.664 Going out in nature can decrease your stress. 00:01:56.664 --> 00:02:01.194 And so one of the things was like in Japan they have this concept of forest bathing. 00:02:01.254 --> 00:02:02.094 Have you heard of this? 00:02:02.629 --> 00:02:07.129 Okay, so this is, it was, it was a new concept to me where you just kind of go 00:02:07.129 --> 00:02:10.969 out in the woods and like smell the trees and you snap a branch, you kind of like 00:02:10.974 --> 00:02:14.689 smell inside the branch and you just hear the birds and you hear everything. 00:02:14.689 --> 00:02:19.399 And so being spring here, everything, like the snow just melted and 00:02:19.399 --> 00:02:22.579 everything is turning green and the birds are all, all over the place. 00:02:22.579 --> 00:02:25.939 And so it has been really, really, really rejuvenating. 00:02:26.299 --> 00:02:26.449 Colin: Yeah. 00:02:26.454 --> 00:02:30.709 Like literally coming out of hibernation and like, it's, it's amazing how even 00:02:30.709 --> 00:02:35.419 just one season makes you like a, like we lose sight of those things and then 00:02:35.419 --> 00:02:38.419 it starts to be nice outside and you wanna spend more time outside like, 00:02:38.809 --> 00:02:42.499 Even being in Atlanta, I was expecting Atlanta to be hotter than it is in Reno. 00:02:42.499 --> 00:02:43.459 And I came back to Reno. 00:02:43.459 --> 00:02:45.619 It's like 80 degrees here now. 00:02:45.979 --> 00:02:46.999 CJ: Oh my gosh. 00:02:47.599 --> 00:02:48.019 Colin: So 00:02:48.199 --> 00:02:48.559 CJ: Yeah. 00:02:49.249 --> 00:02:53.169 Did you go, did you get to go outside in Atlanta or were you kind of Mostly Okay. 00:02:53.559 --> 00:02:53.849 Nice. 00:02:54.049 --> 00:02:57.919 Colin: I try to do this thing when I go to conferences or, you know, traveling 00:02:57.924 --> 00:03:03.809 by myself to new places where I tried to bring my running shoes and go somewhere. 00:03:03.809 --> 00:03:07.259 And so the conference was very much downtown in Atlanta. 00:03:07.369 --> 00:03:10.429 Not what you just described, just the opposite of forest bathing. 00:03:10.939 --> 00:03:16.489 And so I found a cool market that I ran to, which was on the BeltLine. 00:03:16.519 --> 00:03:19.519 And the BeltLine is this awesome like project that they've 00:03:19.519 --> 00:03:21.109 been working on since 2005. 00:03:21.439 --> 00:03:22.659 It connects like a. 00:03:22.659 --> 00:03:26.709 12 of their parks and two huge food halls. 00:03:26.709 --> 00:03:30.829 And so I ended up running 12 miles on Sunday before Rails Comp from 00:03:30.829 --> 00:03:32.749 food hall to Food Hall Park to park. 00:03:32.754 --> 00:03:33.739 Like I just took my time. 00:03:33.739 --> 00:03:36.889 I wasn't racing or anything, I was just like running, but there were like 00:03:36.979 --> 00:03:41.279 thousands of people walking, riding scooters, riding bikes and you know, just 00:03:41.279 --> 00:03:46.489 walking from food hall to park to the next park and never even seeing a car because 00:03:46.489 --> 00:03:48.799 you're just on this miles and miles of. 00:03:49.139 --> 00:03:52.819 Pedestrian walkway and it, it's very similar to the Highline in New York City. 00:03:53.634 --> 00:03:57.814 But more outdoorsy especially cuz you're in, you know, Georgia and there's just 00:03:57.814 --> 00:04:01.394 like green everywhere and in New York it's like you're on the highline but you're 00:04:01.394 --> 00:04:05.084 still surrounded by sky rises and, you know, high rises and things like that. 00:04:05.089 --> 00:04:06.284 So it was pretty cool. 00:04:06.284 --> 00:04:07.904 I was not expecting to run that far. 00:04:07.904 --> 00:04:10.544 I just was like, okay, I'll run to the next one and then 00:04:10.544 --> 00:04:11.535 get lunch and then run back. 00:04:11.954 --> 00:04:16.334 And it just ended up being like almost a half marathon before Rails Comp, but, 00:04:17.464 --> 00:04:20.454 CJ: So do you would, was it like an out and back or is there a loop or? 00:04:21.074 --> 00:04:22.064 Colin: It was an out and back. 00:04:22.069 --> 00:04:22.274 Yeah. 00:04:22.274 --> 00:04:25.594 So there was a little bit of like a sketchy car you know, downtown car 00:04:25.599 --> 00:04:27.124 infested area that I had to get through. 00:04:27.124 --> 00:04:30.064 And then once I was on the BeltLine, it just kind of kept 00:04:30.064 --> 00:04:31.904 going and yeah, it was cool to see. 00:04:32.369 --> 00:04:32.759 CJ: Dang. 00:04:32.759 --> 00:04:33.749 That sounds epic. 00:04:33.929 --> 00:04:34.669 That sounds so cool. 00:04:35.294 --> 00:04:37.784 Colin: I was definitely taking notes cuz I was like, I want to bring, 00:04:37.784 --> 00:04:39.314 like, why don't we have this in Reno? 00:04:39.374 --> 00:04:43.454 Like we should, like our Riverwalk is not even this nice. 00:04:43.454 --> 00:04:46.554 It could be very similar to like the Riverwalk in San Antonio. 00:04:47.604 --> 00:04:51.964 CJ: So there is this thing that is new to me being like just just having 00:04:51.964 --> 00:04:53.104 movement moved to the east coast. 00:04:53.104 --> 00:04:57.664 It's called rail trails, where there's like old railroad track areas where 00:04:57.724 --> 00:04:59.194 trains don't go anymore apparently. 00:04:59.199 --> 00:05:02.224 And they like fill it in with a paved walkway. 00:05:02.764 --> 00:05:03.484 Is that okay? 00:05:03.489 --> 00:05:03.554 So. 00:05:03.709 --> 00:05:04.699 Colin: It's one of those, yeah. 00:05:04.924 --> 00:05:05.434 CJ: Got it. 00:05:05.434 --> 00:05:05.764 Got it. 00:05:05.764 --> 00:05:09.304 Yeah, we, I mean, I didn't, I don't know of any of those in Reno. 00:05:09.334 --> 00:05:09.634 Right. 00:05:09.634 --> 00:05:12.394 And growing up in Reno, Tahoe, like I didn't see any of that. 00:05:12.724 --> 00:05:14.914 And so here there's tons, like all over the place. 00:05:14.919 --> 00:05:18.116 So that's something we've been trying to get out and see more of, but. 00:05:18.491 --> 00:05:19.471 Colin: Getting out on the bikes. 00:05:19.946 --> 00:05:20.366 CJ: Yeah. 00:05:20.906 --> 00:05:23.906 And yeah, I mean it was one of, one of our nature things. 00:05:23.906 --> 00:05:26.516 So we went out and we saw a bunch of friends and family, and we celebrated my 00:05:26.516 --> 00:05:31.626 grandparents' 70th wedding anniversary in San Jose a couple weekends ago. 00:05:32.136 --> 00:05:34.086 And despite growing up in. 00:05:34.611 --> 00:05:37.401 In and around Northern California, Northern Nevada, 00:05:37.401 --> 00:05:38.841 I had never been to Big Sur. 00:05:39.351 --> 00:05:44.271 And so we took the kids and drove our little rental, rental car down to Big Sur. 00:05:44.571 --> 00:05:47.821 And there is this waterfall called Mwa Falls. 00:05:48.301 --> 00:05:51.031 I dunno if you've seen this, but there, it just like shoots out of 00:05:51.031 --> 00:05:56.101 the mountain at like, I dunno, 30, 50 feet up and it goes into the ocean. 00:05:56.461 --> 00:05:59.821 And it's one of the only like two waterfalls apparently. 00:05:59.821 --> 00:06:03.061 I dunno, it's like in California or like on the west coast that goes like 00:06:03.151 --> 00:06:04.951 from the mountain, like into the water. 00:06:05.221 --> 00:06:07.591 And it is just mind-blowingly beautiful. 00:06:07.591 --> 00:06:09.661 Like it was so, so, so cool to see. 00:06:10.111 --> 00:06:11.531 So yeah, got got to go do that and. 00:06:12.616 --> 00:06:17.266 All of these things are just chipping away at that kind of like plaque buildup 00:06:17.266 --> 00:06:22.456 of anxiety that you get over like years and years of just like cranking on 00:06:22.456 --> 00:06:26.146 content and you know, stressing about work and kind of constantly being on 00:06:26.151 --> 00:06:30.996 and, you know, worrying about Slack notifications at 2:00 AM And so yeah, 00:06:31.226 --> 00:06:33.586 kind of slowly whittling away at that. 00:06:34.456 --> 00:06:35.596 Colin: That's, that's really good. 00:06:35.746 --> 00:06:39.136 Yeah, I think this is something that I've been trying to bring into my daily work. 00:06:39.136 --> 00:06:43.156 It's like for the amount of time that we spend in front of a computer, balancing 00:06:43.161 --> 00:06:48.256 it with time, you know, getting out on a bike, going on a run, whatever it 00:06:48.256 --> 00:06:51.987 looks like for you is super important cuz the computer will always be there. 00:06:52.576 --> 00:06:53.596 Work will always be there. 00:06:53.936 --> 00:06:55.046 You gotta take care of yourself. 00:06:55.046 --> 00:06:58.376 And so, you know, having that balance, it's great that you got to have like 00:06:58.376 --> 00:07:00.686 a full uninterrupted time of a break. 00:07:00.686 --> 00:07:04.466 But I think we can, if you can't take lots of time off, either try 00:07:04.466 --> 00:07:08.276 to find a job that lets you, but also try to find it every day. 00:07:08.276 --> 00:07:11.846 Cuz it's better to be a little preemptive in preventing the 00:07:11.846 --> 00:07:15.806 burnout than, than it is to, to like burnout and then have to go reset. 00:07:16.426 --> 00:07:18.706 And start all over again every time you do that. 00:07:18.706 --> 00:07:21.586 So definitely feeling that, especially as it's getting nicer 00:07:21.586 --> 00:07:24.316 outside, more, more bike things. 00:07:24.316 --> 00:07:26.636 We need some like tech conferences out outside. 00:07:27.211 --> 00:07:27.721 CJ: Totally. 00:07:27.901 --> 00:07:28.171 Yeah. 00:07:28.171 --> 00:07:30.211 One, one last thing about being outside. 00:07:30.211 --> 00:07:33.871 There's this new thing called Outside 365 that I just recently learned about, 00:07:34.561 --> 00:07:40.871 and the goal is to spend at least or like to do one human powered mile. 00:07:41.801 --> 00:07:46.691 Per day outside and there's a bunch of stuff about all the, the health benefits. 00:07:46.691 --> 00:07:50.471 But if you go to outside 360 five.blog, you can learn more about that. 00:07:50.501 --> 00:07:53.951 That also is something that's really compelling and we're 00:07:53.956 --> 00:07:54.971 trying to do it as a family. 00:07:54.971 --> 00:07:58.571 It's tough, it's super tough to like line up schedules and weather and 00:07:59.021 --> 00:08:01.761 whatever, but yeah, going outside is 00:08:01.971 --> 00:08:02.571 Colin: I like that. 00:08:03.291 --> 00:08:03.681 Cool. 00:08:03.771 --> 00:08:05.781 Actually, that kind of brings me to the idea. 00:08:05.781 --> 00:08:10.341 There is actually an outdoor rails conference coming up called Rails Camp. 00:08:10.921 --> 00:08:12.451 And that is in Hawaii. 00:08:12.581 --> 00:08:16.841 It's very much like an UN-conference, so there's no scheduled talks. 00:08:16.871 --> 00:08:20.501 I don't even know if the, there's necessarily the need to bring a laptop, 00:08:21.011 --> 00:08:25.971 but That conference looks cool from just like wanting to hang out with your rails. 00:08:25.971 --> 00:08:29.961 Ruby Friends make new rails, Ruby friends and go to Hawaii. 00:08:30.591 --> 00:08:33.286 But rails Comp was not in Hawaii this year. 00:08:33.686 --> 00:08:34.256 Sadly. 00:08:34.316 --> 00:08:36.866 And yeah, it was, it was a bummer to miss you this year. 00:08:37.251 --> 00:08:40.881 Cuz you and I submitted the, the workshop talk together, and then sadly 00:08:40.881 --> 00:08:44.921 we had to change things up there, but Chris and I had had a good time. 00:08:44.921 --> 00:08:46.451 We, we learned some new tools. 00:08:46.456 --> 00:08:50.421 We actually we're trying to figure out how best to teach, you know, a workshop 00:08:50.426 --> 00:08:56.211 format in, you know, it's a two hour workshop, so like, how best do you. 00:08:56.531 --> 00:09:02.771 Teach when the audience is all different types of levels and experience, and 00:09:02.771 --> 00:09:06.071 do they have to have rails installed and what version of Ruby do I need 00:09:06.076 --> 00:09:07.031 and all these different things. 00:09:07.031 --> 00:09:08.821 And so we created GitHub. 00:09:09.796 --> 00:09:13.816 Repo and we like worked very async on it because Chris was in Italy for 00:09:13.816 --> 00:09:18.316 like two weeks on a food tour, and I was like doing some stuff at work. 00:09:18.316 --> 00:09:20.266 And so we were just like working on it when we could. 00:09:20.776 --> 00:09:24.956 And we ended up with like a very much like guided GitHub repo. 00:09:24.956 --> 00:09:28.976 So, You know, if you're curious how webhooks work in Rails you can 00:09:28.976 --> 00:09:32.336 actually follow along with this without us having to talk you through it. 00:09:32.826 --> 00:09:36.036 But it was good to like be able to answer questions while we were going through it. 00:09:36.486 --> 00:09:40.946 And we used this tool called Mark to make our slides and it was just kind of cool 00:09:40.951 --> 00:09:45.326 cause we could just copy and paste the README code into Marp and then generate 00:09:45.496 --> 00:09:50.326 slides and I don't think I'm gonna go back to ever using like a regular keynote or 00:09:50.326 --> 00:09:54.796 PowerPoint again, just cuz like I always wanna make all the slides look pretty 00:09:54.796 --> 00:09:58.406 consistent and it just does that for you cuz it's like, this is what an H one is, 00:09:58.406 --> 00:10:01.306 this is what an H two is, this is what a link is, this is what code looks like. 00:10:01.756 --> 00:10:04.576 And highly recommend Mark if you're doing any talks like 00:10:04.576 --> 00:10:06.676 in your company or whatever. 00:10:06.706 --> 00:10:09.376 Especially cuz you conversion control them too, which is nice. 00:10:11.286 --> 00:10:12.066 CJ: Yeah, this looks dope. 00:10:12.066 --> 00:10:17.536 I think the, any, any time that you can write in markdown When you're 00:10:17.536 --> 00:10:20.416 writing code, it makes it so much easier because it plays so nicely 00:10:20.416 --> 00:10:21.826 with GitHub and all the other things. 00:10:21.826 --> 00:10:23.026 So yeah. 00:10:23.086 --> 00:10:24.346 Colin: and it works in VS code. 00:10:24.346 --> 00:10:27.736 So you can preview your slides and VS code while you're writing 00:10:27.736 --> 00:10:28.786 them, which is really sweet. 00:10:29.436 --> 00:10:32.471 And then it'll generate the PowerPoint, the keynote, all that stuff too. 00:10:32.501 --> 00:10:32.891 So, 00:10:33.521 --> 00:10:36.791 CJ: So, was the workshop recorded or what's the best way for people to 00:10:36.791 --> 00:10:38.831 go consume, consume this after the 00:10:38.831 --> 00:10:42.071 Colin: Yeah, so the workshops were not recorded, and this was kind 00:10:42.076 --> 00:10:46.301 of like the tactics of going to a conference a little bit is that I think 00:10:46.331 --> 00:10:49.481 a lot of people wanted to go to the workshops and do the hallway track. 00:10:50.231 --> 00:10:53.171 Because a lot of the talks, most of the talks were recorded. 00:10:53.201 --> 00:10:56.051 And this is the tricky thing about going to a conference, right? 00:10:56.051 --> 00:10:58.151 You're spending time and money to go to a thing. 00:10:58.871 --> 00:11:03.401 Do you spend the time going to the talks, having given talks before? 00:11:03.461 --> 00:11:06.041 It's very nice to have an audience when you're giving your talks. 00:11:06.046 --> 00:11:10.301 So like I try to balance between a little bit of going to a 00:11:10.301 --> 00:11:11.921 workshop that's not recorded. 00:11:11.921 --> 00:11:13.871 In our case, the workshops weren't recorded. 00:11:14.321 --> 00:11:17.291 Going to some talks that I really wanna support the speakers at, 00:11:17.711 --> 00:11:21.591 because again, it's not great to give a talk to an empty room. 00:11:22.051 --> 00:11:25.651 And then figuring out like, okay, there's like three talks during this hour. 00:11:25.951 --> 00:11:27.661 Which 1:00 AM I gonna go see in person? 00:11:27.691 --> 00:11:30.901 Which 1:00 AM I gonna definitely note down for when the videos get released? 00:11:31.241 --> 00:11:34.411 There were a lot of really good ones that are gonna be coming 00:11:34.411 --> 00:11:36.511 out on YouTube later this year. 00:11:36.511 --> 00:11:41.741 So We'll put a link to the Ruby Central YouTube, but there were a lot of like, all 00:11:41.741 --> 00:11:45.941 four of these sound amazing and I'm just gonna make a note for the future cuz there 00:11:45.946 --> 00:11:47.231 was definitely some good stuff out there. 00:11:48.151 --> 00:11:49.771 CJ: As the barrier to entry. 00:11:50.511 --> 00:11:53.936 Kind of gets lower and lower for posting stuff on YouTube. 00:11:54.206 --> 00:11:59.516 I wonder if fewer people or fewer conference organizers will have like 00:11:59.606 --> 00:12:05.576 recorded talks and do more of the workshop style stuff, because it seems that most 00:12:05.576 --> 00:12:09.546 people who can prepare for a talk could as easily do it in a video format. 00:12:09.656 --> 00:12:12.536 Does that, I don't know, does that resonate with you? 00:12:13.361 --> 00:12:17.051 Colin: So Andrew Culver from RailsSaas and Bullet Train was talking about 00:12:17.051 --> 00:12:20.771 this because the problem is sometimes the environment and the recording 00:12:20.821 --> 00:12:23.431 setup is not awesome, right? 00:12:23.431 --> 00:12:27.601 As it's like when you have so many speakers and rooms and tracks, you 00:12:27.606 --> 00:12:29.281 just can't give it the same quality. 00:12:29.691 --> 00:12:30.041 Right? 00:12:30.041 --> 00:12:33.451 And you can also do retakes if you do a prerecorded video and things. 00:12:33.451 --> 00:12:38.481 So at at Rail SaaS, they had a room where they recorded the speaker with 00:12:38.481 --> 00:12:42.951 like hair, makeup, amazing lighting, amazing background, fully produced 00:12:42.951 --> 00:12:46.851 artifact that not only the speaker gets to have as a resume thing, 00:12:47.301 --> 00:12:50.721 but now you have this amazing thing that can be given, you know, later. 00:12:51.291 --> 00:12:53.931 And then the speaker gave the talk again, live. 00:12:54.381 --> 00:12:58.981 I think that's a big ask for most speakers, but I think if you like 00:12:58.981 --> 00:13:02.911 what you just said, I think doing a pre-recorded or a really, like, maybe 00:13:03.031 --> 00:13:07.741 you don't pre-record it, but you have an amazing video recording studio where 00:13:07.741 --> 00:13:12.751 they, the talks are recorded at Rails conf, but then there's more workshops. 00:13:13.346 --> 00:13:17.276 I will say the one thing that I missed at this Rails Conf that seems like a miss, 00:13:17.276 --> 00:13:21.326 but I think that we'll we'll talk about Rails World in a second, is there was not 00:13:21.326 --> 00:13:28.406 really like areas to hang out and like we, we hung out where we could and, but there 00:13:28.406 --> 00:13:33.411 wasn't like couches, Honey Badger had a lounge, which was like amazing cuz there 00:13:33.411 --> 00:13:35.301 were no other places to really hang out. 00:13:35.731 --> 00:13:39.361 I think Shopify and Meraki both had like some tables for people to do 00:13:39.361 --> 00:13:40.651 like pairing sessions and stuff. 00:13:41.221 --> 00:13:44.221 But you really kind of wanna ha, like, especially if you're gonna go 00:13:44.221 --> 00:13:45.541 to a conference, it's like, okay. 00:13:46.196 --> 00:13:48.326 I want to, you know, pair on something. 00:13:48.326 --> 00:13:49.526 I want to check something out. 00:13:49.526 --> 00:13:52.046 There were some people demoing some of their new products that 00:13:52.046 --> 00:13:54.086 aren't out yet, stuff like that. 00:13:54.456 --> 00:13:58.806 Or even just doing a podcast, like having a podcast recording room, having a 00:13:58.806 --> 00:14:02.676 recording room for workshops, things like that would've been pretty cool to have. 00:14:03.606 --> 00:14:06.756 Because then you end up with all these like artifacts and videos and 00:14:06.756 --> 00:14:11.166 podcasts that come out of Rails Conf instead of the more ephemeral stuff. 00:14:11.166 --> 00:14:15.186 So that was, that was just something I noticed as like running a coworking space. 00:14:15.186 --> 00:14:18.726 I think about like having these, like facilitating environments where 00:14:18.726 --> 00:14:22.176 you want people to hang out and it's like if we put a bunch of couches, 00:14:22.176 --> 00:14:24.786 some bean bags and some coffee, like people are gonna hang out and chat 00:14:24.786 --> 00:14:25.956 and that's, that's what you want. 00:14:26.376 --> 00:14:27.936 Put some whiteboards in there and you're good. 00:14:28.926 --> 00:14:29.376 CJ: Nice. 00:14:29.586 --> 00:14:34.176 Yeah, I You have definitely a, I would say, expert level experience in 00:14:34.176 --> 00:14:39.396 terms of creating spaces where people collaborate given the the Reno Collective. 00:14:39.401 --> 00:14:44.496 And so I'm kind of curious to, if we pivot a little bit towards just 00:14:44.556 --> 00:14:47.076 generally growing developer audiences. 00:14:47.106 --> 00:14:49.896 I know there's probably a few more things we can sprinkle in about Rails conf as we 00:14:49.896 --> 00:14:55.236 go, but You know, maybe talking through a roundup of some of the things that 00:14:55.236 --> 00:14:59.916 you do for building community and and then yeah, in particular one of those 00:14:59.946 --> 00:15:03.246 obviously being closely related to events. 00:15:03.246 --> 00:15:07.386 So yeah, I don't know what are like, maybe the, the most important things 00:15:07.386 --> 00:15:11.406 people need to think about when building an audience and or community 00:15:11.406 --> 00:15:12.786 more than an audience For sure. 00:15:13.896 --> 00:15:17.076 Colin: Yeah, I think the thing that I've been seeing is that people really 00:15:17.226 --> 00:15:19.446 are craving community more than ever. 00:15:19.546 --> 00:15:23.476 Which is helpful because you can't really like fake this. 00:15:23.476 --> 00:15:25.306 You can't force people to come together. 00:15:25.306 --> 00:15:25.576 Right. 00:15:26.116 --> 00:15:29.806 And the sad thing about that though is that we used to have more developer 00:15:29.806 --> 00:15:35.916 conferences, more meetups, Like, honestly, even pre Covid, like 2010 to 2012 was 00:15:35.916 --> 00:15:38.586 like golden era of, of this stuff. 00:15:38.826 --> 00:15:40.596 I feel like things have changed a lot. 00:15:40.596 --> 00:15:43.246 Like I feel like I've been to Heroku events, there was just 00:15:43.246 --> 00:15:44.926 like a Heroku coffee event. 00:15:44.926 --> 00:15:46.096 It's like, yeah, we're not gonna have talks. 00:15:46.096 --> 00:15:48.596 We're just gonna have a Heroku coffee bar. 00:15:48.896 --> 00:15:49.456 You know? 00:15:49.456 --> 00:15:53.046 It's very, you know, San Francisco I guess, but, there's that intersection 00:15:53.046 --> 00:15:55.626 of developers and coffee that's like hard to ignore, right? 00:15:55.626 --> 00:15:58.716 They just knew that like a lot of our engineers enjoy coffee. 00:15:58.716 --> 00:16:02.376 We enjoy coffee, let's just host, take over a coffee shop and just 00:16:02.376 --> 00:16:04.176 have developer conversations. 00:16:04.506 --> 00:16:06.576 There's no tracks, there's no talks, things like that. 00:16:06.986 --> 00:16:09.546 And those I think are things that people remember and I think like that 00:16:09.806 --> 00:16:11.936 Rails Camp idea is a lot like that. 00:16:12.326 --> 00:16:14.486 We're not gonna do workshops and talks. 00:16:14.486 --> 00:16:15.416 Those will just happen. 00:16:16.001 --> 00:16:18.341 People will talk about what they're working on, but 00:16:18.341 --> 00:16:19.541 people are really craving it. 00:16:19.541 --> 00:16:19.751 Right? 00:16:19.751 --> 00:16:21.461 We saw that at Rails Conf this year. 00:16:21.641 --> 00:16:25.571 People flew from all around the world to come together when sure, we could 00:16:25.571 --> 00:16:28.181 talk at a Discord, but I wanna meet you. 00:16:28.186 --> 00:16:29.321 I want to go to dinner. 00:16:29.321 --> 00:16:33.791 I want to hang out around, you know, a meal and just chat about things. 00:16:34.181 --> 00:16:36.011 I'm not trying to turn you into a customer. 00:16:36.016 --> 00:16:38.241 I'm not trying to get you to work for me. 00:16:38.241 --> 00:16:42.021 Those kinds of things, those won't happen out of those situations, but 00:16:42.021 --> 00:16:45.811 they're not like a forced function that you're trying to make everybody do. 00:16:46.236 --> 00:16:46.476 CJ: Mm-hmm. 00:16:46.606 --> 00:16:51.676 You and I worked on a couple different local dev meetups 00:16:51.796 --> 00:16:53.386 when I still lived in Reno. 00:16:53.446 --> 00:16:56.746 We did Reno JS for a while and then we had the Dev Reno meetup. 00:16:57.526 --> 00:17:02.581 And when I think back, I think of you as being like the person 00:17:02.581 --> 00:17:05.041 in Reno who runs dev meetups. 00:17:05.071 --> 00:17:10.801 And so number one, like what is your motivation or like what is 00:17:10.806 --> 00:17:15.151 your underlying kind of like, inspiration for getting devs together? 00:17:15.281 --> 00:17:17.111 We're obviously we're not getting paid for any of it, right? 00:17:17.116 --> 00:17:17.931 It's all like, volunteer. 00:17:18.251 --> 00:17:19.121 So like what Yeah. 00:17:19.331 --> 00:17:21.361 For you, like what, what was your 00:17:21.541 --> 00:17:24.901 Colin: I do have, I have to sometimes wonder that myself, and it always 00:17:24.901 --> 00:17:30.121 comes back to like, if I was in San Francisco or a bigger city, you 00:17:30.126 --> 00:17:32.521 would have more of these communities. 00:17:32.981 --> 00:17:36.821 For us in Reno, we've just had a lot of people who will start a thing. 00:17:37.516 --> 00:17:40.276 And then realize that it's a little bit more work than they 00:17:40.276 --> 00:17:43.366 anticipated, or they're not being paid for it, so they stop. 00:17:43.906 --> 00:17:47.116 And for me it's just that, like, I want this community too. 00:17:47.206 --> 00:17:53.016 And so instead of hoping for somebody else to do it I like to give it, you 00:17:53.021 --> 00:17:54.326 know, some energy to, to make it happen. 00:17:54.726 --> 00:17:59.526 The tricky thing is, You know, I want to make sure that DevReno, like if I were 00:17:59.526 --> 00:18:03.996 ever not in Reno or if I didn't have the time to run it, how does it still exist? 00:18:03.996 --> 00:18:04.296 Right? 00:18:04.296 --> 00:18:08.736 It, it's not a good sign if, if when I stop doing it, it just goes away. 00:18:09.156 --> 00:18:11.476 And I don't think that we've gotten there with DevReno. 00:18:11.496 --> 00:18:14.646 I think that the, the big thing with DevReno is it's all languages, all 00:18:14.646 --> 00:18:16.856 platforms, all experience levels. 00:18:17.416 --> 00:18:21.286 Because when we did have Reno Js and Reno, RB and Reno DevOps and all these 00:18:21.286 --> 00:18:25.306 different meetups, people were really just like, oh man, we only got like three 00:18:25.311 --> 00:18:26.806 people to come to the meetup this month. 00:18:26.836 --> 00:18:28.426 It's just not feeling like it's worth it. 00:18:28.856 --> 00:18:31.466 But at the same time, when you hear people going into the meetups and 00:18:31.466 --> 00:18:34.886 they're like 50, 60, 100 people, they're like, man, I really wish like 00:18:34.886 --> 00:18:36.326 just four of us could go to lunch. 00:18:36.836 --> 00:18:41.036 And the thing is, it's like everyone then looks to me like, oh, can you organize 00:18:41.036 --> 00:18:43.106 developer lunches, and it's like, no. 00:18:43.106 --> 00:18:46.076 You know, everyone, go organize yourself. 00:18:46.741 --> 00:18:50.101 So we have the slack, we have, you know, meetup, we have Discord, we 00:18:50.101 --> 00:18:51.181 have all these different things. 00:18:51.961 --> 00:18:54.541 How do you get people to just go self-organized? 00:18:54.541 --> 00:18:56.101 And this happens at conferences, right? 00:18:56.101 --> 00:18:59.821 People end up going out to dinner and meals together and things like that. 00:18:59.826 --> 00:19:03.241 And it tends to be like, Hey, social plans, like who's gonna go do this? 00:19:03.801 --> 00:19:06.291 So for me, the motivation behind it is that I want to be 00:19:06.291 --> 00:19:07.971 a part of those things myself. 00:19:08.451 --> 00:19:13.431 I think it is hard to do them, even though from the outside they, they look easy. 00:19:13.961 --> 00:19:15.791 So it, it is a balance for sure. 00:19:15.821 --> 00:19:18.521 Cuz I don't want to become like a cruise director where I'm like, 00:19:18.941 --> 00:19:21.521 okay, at nine we're all gonna be going over here to do this. 00:19:21.521 --> 00:19:24.341 And then the moment you disappear, everything just grinds to a halt. 00:19:24.861 --> 00:19:28.366 CJ: Yeah, so I can't remember which podcast I was listening to recently, 00:19:28.366 --> 00:19:32.206 but it was some venture capitalists talking about their sort of rules of 00:19:32.206 --> 00:19:33.976 thumb about investing in companies. 00:19:34.006 --> 00:19:34.936 And I do think of. 00:19:35.461 --> 00:19:39.871 Any sort of event, conference, meetup, whatever, is almost 00:19:39.871 --> 00:19:41.281 kind of like a company, right? 00:19:41.281 --> 00:19:44.761 Like there, there is work to be done every single month. 00:19:44.761 --> 00:19:47.551 To get people together, you have to go set up the meetup thing. 00:19:47.551 --> 00:19:50.401 You have to make sure that the space is set up. 00:19:50.401 --> 00:19:53.311 You have to maybe get a sponsor, get food, get whatever, and. 00:19:54.316 --> 00:19:58.006 One of the things that the VCs were talking about was that they won't invest 00:19:58.011 --> 00:20:00.766 in companies that have solo founder. 00:20:00.826 --> 00:20:04.816 Like it has to be a real, real edge case for them to be open to 00:20:04.816 --> 00:20:06.496 investing in a solo founder company. 00:20:06.501 --> 00:20:11.236 Whereas if you have 2, 3, 4 founders, they're much more likely to invest 00:20:11.236 --> 00:20:14.986 because then you can sort of spread the workload a little bit more evenly 00:20:15.076 --> 00:20:19.036 and also, There's like just a higher probability it's gonna work out. 00:20:19.096 --> 00:20:23.056 And so I think in like the, the most recent iteration of Dev Reno that I was 00:20:23.056 --> 00:20:28.186 participating in, it was me, you and Andrew, nixdorf, like participating a lot. 00:20:28.726 --> 00:20:34.426 And so I guess like one big takeaway would be don't do it alone. 00:20:34.536 --> 00:20:36.256 Like don't try to stand it up alone. 00:20:36.616 --> 00:20:38.896 Colin: Burnout is real in communities too, right? 00:20:38.896 --> 00:20:42.706 So like, especially if you feel like it's a thing that you need 00:20:42.706 --> 00:20:46.966 to turn into a money making, you know, initiative, things like that. 00:20:47.346 --> 00:20:51.846 I actually want Dev Reno to be like, we want to open it up more and run it 00:20:51.876 --> 00:20:53.686 more like an open source project, right? 00:20:53.736 --> 00:20:56.616 There's no reason why it couldn't, especially for people 00:20:56.616 --> 00:20:58.056 who are early career developers. 00:20:58.446 --> 00:20:59.466 We need a website. 00:20:59.886 --> 00:21:01.566 We don't have one, right? 00:21:01.566 --> 00:21:05.466 It's the, the cobbler's children don't have shoes situation where it's like we 00:21:05.466 --> 00:21:08.406 have a bunch of developers, but we can't self-organize enough to just build a 00:21:08.411 --> 00:21:12.656 website, and I don't have preconceived notions of what that should look like. 00:21:13.431 --> 00:21:16.551 But I'm sure unfortunately there's a whole bunch of people who probably do. 00:21:17.031 --> 00:21:19.161 So maybe we can help shape it. 00:21:19.161 --> 00:21:21.771 But then maybe this is a great first project for a junior 00:21:21.771 --> 00:21:26.901 engineer to, to work with a mentor, do some prs, get PR reviews. 00:21:26.931 --> 00:21:29.751 It can be just a JAMstack site, doesn't have to be rails, whatever. 00:21:29.751 --> 00:21:29.752 Right. 00:21:30.381 --> 00:21:33.791 And we could, if we can scratch together some sponsors to help pay 00:21:33.791 --> 00:21:36.311 that person so they're not doing free work, then that's even better. 00:21:36.781 --> 00:21:41.171 Some people are happy to do this for the trade of mentorship and things, 00:21:41.171 --> 00:21:44.771 but if we can make it sustainable with sponsors, things like that. 00:21:44.771 --> 00:21:47.741 Like even the other week someone was like, oh yeah, you know, this 00:21:47.741 --> 00:21:49.211 would be much better if we had food. 00:21:49.211 --> 00:21:51.941 It's like, if we want food, we can make this happen. 00:21:51.941 --> 00:21:55.481 Like I'm sure we can get a tools company to sponsor, like, you know, 00:21:55.481 --> 00:21:59.201 let's get a honebadger, an appsignal, something like that to sponsor the 00:21:59.201 --> 00:22:03.371 meetup and, you know, and trade for, you know, pizza or whatever it is. 00:22:03.371 --> 00:22:05.921 But I don't think pizza's why people come to the meetup. 00:22:05.921 --> 00:22:07.391 So it's, it wasn't important. 00:22:08.186 --> 00:22:08.431 CJ: Right. 00:22:09.151 --> 00:22:09.481 Yeah. 00:22:09.481 --> 00:22:15.411 I think the for me, I remember wanting to talk to more people 00:22:15.411 --> 00:22:19.101 about Ruby in Reno and JavaScript. 00:22:19.101 --> 00:22:23.271 I, I mean, both Ruby and JavaScript I was super into and still am, and I 00:22:23.271 --> 00:22:29.661 felt like a lot of the devs that I had encountered from I G T or from like 00:22:29.661 --> 00:22:34.341 these more corporate places, Didn't want to talk about code in the evening. 00:22:34.341 --> 00:22:35.211 Like they weren't just 00:22:35.361 --> 00:22:36.141 Colin: They're just done. 00:22:36.441 --> 00:22:38.661 CJ: yeah, they just didn't seem as passionate about it. 00:22:38.781 --> 00:22:42.981 And I was like, okay, there's, let's create a space that. 00:22:43.641 --> 00:22:46.686 People can come and hang out and I can geek out with them. 00:22:46.686 --> 00:22:50.466 You know, like, I mean, at home, I'm not gonna geek out with my kids about this. 00:22:50.466 --> 00:22:54.296 And so, yeah, I think we, we have the same motivation that is just like, we 00:22:54.296 --> 00:22:57.986 want to create a place where we can hang out with other people who are 00:22:57.986 --> 00:22:59.366 interested in the same things we are. 00:22:59.936 --> 00:23:04.166 And I think at the, at the bottom or like at the end of the day, that 00:23:04.166 --> 00:23:07.856 feels like a really solid place to start from when you're thinking about 00:23:07.856 --> 00:23:09.806 starting a conference or meetup. 00:23:10.536 --> 00:23:10.871 Colin: Yeah. 00:23:11.471 --> 00:23:15.491 What are your motivations for like going to conferences or like do you 00:23:15.551 --> 00:23:18.411 do, is there a local community where you're at now for meetups and things? 00:23:18.956 --> 00:23:23.216 CJ: There is a bit of an online community, but I have to drive, I would have to drive 00:23:23.526 --> 00:23:29.416 about an hour to get to the more serious developer meetups, which I haven't done. 00:23:29.616 --> 00:23:32.296 I I need to do it just so like get out and, and do that. 00:23:32.296 --> 00:23:35.356 But Yeah, when it was in Reno and it was 10 minutes away, you 00:23:35.356 --> 00:23:38.626 know, just like popping offline and zipping down was pretty easy. 00:23:38.626 --> 00:23:40.546 But it's a bit more of a commitment. 00:23:40.546 --> 00:23:42.346 So I need to, I need to make the effort to go out and do that. 00:23:42.346 --> 00:23:47.056 But I, I did join a couple of like, online meetups that were just local people, 00:23:47.061 --> 00:23:51.356 but they hang out over Zoom and talk about Python or you know, whatever next 00:23:51.676 --> 00:23:53.646 JS thing that they're geeking out on. 00:23:53.646 --> 00:23:57.576 So there are definitely, there's definitely a, a community here that I 00:23:57.581 --> 00:24:01.746 have not like, sort of cracked into or been participating in as much as I should. 00:24:01.746 --> 00:24:05.736 But when it comes to conferences though, like bigger conferences, I think 00:24:05.736 --> 00:24:07.116 there's a couple different motivations. 00:24:07.116 --> 00:24:10.596 Like one is to see and hang out with my friends, and again, just to geek 00:24:10.596 --> 00:24:16.836 out about the, the same like tools and code and yeah, just kinda like be with 00:24:16.841 --> 00:24:21.456 like-minded people who are also passionate about the same technology that I am. 00:24:22.116 --> 00:24:26.406 I would say that, It's also a great opportunity to network and meet other 00:24:26.406 --> 00:24:32.506 people who are in the same industry, who you might be able to support with 00:24:32.506 --> 00:24:35.266 something that you know, or they might be able to support you with something 00:24:35.266 --> 00:24:41.576 they know whether that's a job or just a connection to a person at a company who 00:24:41.886 --> 00:24:45.456 might have some inside knowledge about something that you're trying to use. 00:24:45.666 --> 00:24:49.266 Yeah, it's also a way to get exposure to a lot of sort of the experts in 00:24:49.266 --> 00:24:52.386 the sort of giants in the space that you might not see oth otherwise. 00:24:52.496 --> 00:24:54.686 Colin: Well, and even at a conference, like I think, I'm not sure how 00:24:54.686 --> 00:24:58.346 many people were at Rails Conf, but the Ruby Conf tend to be smaller. 00:24:58.416 --> 00:25:02.346 Or you have these regional events like, and I'll give a plug for if you're on the 00:25:02.346 --> 00:25:07.656 East coast and you're into Ruby blue Ridge Ruby Conference is coming up in June. 00:25:08.026 --> 00:25:12.186 And that's being organized by Jeremy Smith and a few of his co organizers. 00:25:12.586 --> 00:25:15.796 But like those are the kinds of small Ruby meetups that I miss. 00:25:15.796 --> 00:25:18.466 The, the, there was the Mountain West Ruby conference. 00:25:18.471 --> 00:25:18.766 There was. 00:25:19.401 --> 00:25:22.701 I think the next Ruby Comp, the official one from Ruby Central's in 00:25:22.701 --> 00:25:24.951 San Diego this year, later this year. 00:25:25.051 --> 00:25:26.941 And just loved seeing that. 00:25:26.941 --> 00:25:29.791 I think the thing that was very interesting to see at Ros Comp this year 00:25:29.791 --> 00:25:34.081 was there were panels and discussions with Ruby Central around how can 00:25:34.081 --> 00:25:37.681 Ruby Central help you and vice versa. 00:25:37.681 --> 00:25:40.351 Like how, you know, what does Ruby Central need help with? 00:25:40.651 --> 00:25:44.317 Ruby Central runs Ruby Gems, they also run Rails Conf and Ruby conf. 00:25:44.337 --> 00:25:48.147 And so they're like, we wanna help you, but we also want help 00:25:48.207 --> 00:25:49.977 knowing like, like how can we help? 00:25:50.177 --> 00:25:52.937 You doing more conferences, more meetups, things like that. 00:25:53.297 --> 00:25:57.627 How do we help increase like diversity and, and inclusion at, in terms 00:25:57.627 --> 00:26:00.597 of are there time zones, are there countries, are there parts of the 00:26:00.597 --> 00:26:02.847 world that we're just not hitting it? 00:26:02.847 --> 00:26:04.347 Is this two US centric? 00:26:04.347 --> 00:26:08.518 You know, Rails Conf and Ruby Conf mostly happen here in the US but 00:26:08.523 --> 00:26:12.687 there's also a bunch of really cool conferences around the world that happen. 00:26:12.997 --> 00:26:17.557 In fact, The Rails Foundation is gonna be running Rails World which is 00:26:17.557 --> 00:26:19.417 gonna be an Amsterdam later this year. 00:26:20.137 --> 00:26:23.197 And I think the plan for that is to move it around the world, so 00:26:23.197 --> 00:26:24.577 it'll be like a traveling tour. 00:26:24.917 --> 00:26:28.217 You know, India does not have an official Rails conference. 00:26:28.222 --> 00:26:29.357 Same for Australia. 00:26:29.417 --> 00:26:32.237 And there's a lot of people in both of those countries. 00:26:32.237 --> 00:26:35.307 But it's a big commitment to go from Australia all the way to a rails 00:26:35.307 --> 00:26:38.867 conf in the United States, like for a week or whatever it looks like. 00:26:38.877 --> 00:26:41.247 It's, it's exciting to see cuz I think we've been hearing a lot of 00:26:41.247 --> 00:26:42.837 people talking about rails is dead. 00:26:43.227 --> 00:26:43.407 Right? 00:26:43.412 --> 00:26:47.097 We hear that I think at every, every year that someone decides to bang that drum. 00:26:47.517 --> 00:26:52.477 And part of it is getting new early career developers into the language, right? 00:26:52.477 --> 00:26:56.187 We can't just be hiring seniors and, and things like that. 00:26:56.187 --> 00:26:59.997 But I'm excited cuz like Ruby Central knows that, you know, blue Ridge, 00:26:59.997 --> 00:27:01.677 Ruby, what can we do to help them? 00:27:01.877 --> 00:27:03.557 Right, and what can we do to help? 00:27:03.977 --> 00:27:07.127 You know, de Reno is not Ruby specific, so it wouldn't make sense there. 00:27:07.127 --> 00:27:10.847 But if I wanted to get more involved, if you're a Rubyist and you want to 00:27:10.847 --> 00:27:15.167 get involved with Ruby Gems, like great material, if you're looking for 00:27:15.167 --> 00:27:19.487 a job for your resume, things like that, volunteering at conferences, it 00:27:19.487 --> 00:27:23.777 puts you on a stage similar to like if you're a speaker at a conference 00:27:24.227 --> 00:27:26.507 that helps you to meet people. 00:27:27.037 --> 00:27:29.647 And like you nailed it with hanging out with your friends. 00:27:29.677 --> 00:27:30.007 Right. 00:27:30.367 --> 00:27:33.457 For me, it was like a whole bunch of people that I knew on the internet. 00:27:33.877 --> 00:27:37.537 And now I can say we went to dinners together, we went on runs together, 00:27:37.537 --> 00:27:40.297 we did all this stuff together, and we have something more than just 00:27:40.297 --> 00:27:43.937 like Twitter conversations about work stuff that we can fall back on. 00:27:43.937 --> 00:27:45.017 And, and I think that's, that's huge. 00:27:46.112 --> 00:27:50.172 CJ: Absolutely, especially when building trust with these people who you know, 00:27:50.292 --> 00:27:54.402 you might want to go on their podcast or they might wanna come on this podcast 00:27:54.407 --> 00:27:59.442 or do a live stream together, or, you know, kind of, it, it deepens that, 00:27:59.652 --> 00:28:03.732 that trust in the relationship that you can continue to build on over time. 00:28:04.472 --> 00:28:07.382 There's also like so many conferences. 00:28:07.442 --> 00:28:10.472 I think one of the things that I was surprised by as a developer advocate 00:28:10.982 --> 00:28:16.232 was just the sheer number of conferences that exist across lots of different 00:28:16.232 --> 00:28:18.722 language, language specific things. 00:28:19.142 --> 00:28:23.192 There's also, you know, framework specific things, or even, I 00:28:23.192 --> 00:28:26.972 mean, like aws, they have like, or company specific conferences. 00:28:27.372 --> 00:28:29.592 And so we've got some that are listed here. 00:28:29.952 --> 00:28:33.552 And I think there's also a bunch of different websites that you can go 00:28:33.552 --> 00:28:37.992 to, but yeah, I mean, how do you find the conferences you want to go to? 00:28:37.992 --> 00:28:40.692 Do you have a subset that you kind of narrow in on? 00:28:41.082 --> 00:28:44.112 I know for me, I like going to Ruby Comp and Rails Conf 00:28:44.352 --> 00:28:46.002 cuz we get to go see friends. 00:28:46.302 --> 00:28:49.802 I also really loved going to MicroCon the year that I went to that. 00:28:49.892 --> 00:28:54.452 And then a, a long time ago I used to go to DEFCON in Vegas 00:28:54.782 --> 00:28:55.982 like many, many years in a row. 00:28:55.982 --> 00:28:56.672 That one was like a 00:28:56.672 --> 00:28:57.332 super fun, 00:28:57.452 --> 00:28:58.212 Colin: to go to Descon, 00:28:58.412 --> 00:29:01.852 CJ: it's just like a party, like huge, massive, wild party. 00:29:01.912 --> 00:29:05.062 And, and that's like another, another thing is that depending on 00:29:05.062 --> 00:29:08.152 the number of people that come, it can be wildly different experience. 00:29:08.157 --> 00:29:13.102 Like, you know, Ruby Comp is like, I dunno, 500, 600 people, whereas 00:29:13.102 --> 00:29:15.622 Defcon is like 10,000 or more people. 00:29:16.402 --> 00:29:17.452 So yeah, 00:29:17.617 --> 00:29:17.857 Colin: Yeah. 00:29:17.862 --> 00:29:19.447 And it's gonna be harder to find people. 00:29:19.447 --> 00:29:22.717 I mean, strangely, in a larger conference, it's harder to 00:29:22.717 --> 00:29:24.727 find small groups of people. 00:29:24.727 --> 00:29:27.757 Whereas like at a regional like Blue Ridge, I think Jeremy's 00:29:27.787 --> 00:29:29.857 aiming for like 150 people, right? 00:29:30.187 --> 00:29:33.577 And they're gonna go like Tube the river and go on a hike and 00:29:33.577 --> 00:29:35.707 like it's like awesome cuz you have this shared experience. 00:29:35.707 --> 00:29:39.337 Whereas a Defcon, it's like if you go post like who wants to go 00:29:39.337 --> 00:29:42.217 to dinner, it's probably gonna be like shouting into a void. 00:29:42.222 --> 00:29:44.857 Cause there's just less of that shared experience. 00:29:44.857 --> 00:29:46.142 There's just, too many people. 00:29:46.492 --> 00:29:49.252 So I take that into account like G D C Game Developer 00:29:49.252 --> 00:29:50.572 Conference is a good example. 00:29:51.052 --> 00:29:52.822 It's lots of languages, lots of tech. 00:29:53.182 --> 00:29:54.292 Huge conference. 00:29:54.322 --> 00:29:54.652 Right? 00:29:54.652 --> 00:29:58.552 And same with, I don't know if WWDC is as in person anymore. 00:29:58.552 --> 00:30:00.832 I think it's been more shifted towards online. 00:30:00.832 --> 00:30:03.842 But there's the conferences where it's a company speaking at you 00:30:04.162 --> 00:30:05.482 with all their specific stuff. 00:30:05.902 --> 00:30:08.872 Those ones, I think I'll watch the keynote online, like that's fine. 00:30:08.902 --> 00:30:11.122 I don't really think that that's the thing for me, but. 00:30:11.592 --> 00:30:15.732 The startup weekends, the micro confs, the people building stuff, 00:30:15.792 --> 00:30:17.142 and like those are really fun. 00:30:17.602 --> 00:30:19.492 So yeah, we'll definitely include a list here. 00:30:19.822 --> 00:30:22.552 There's definitely been a shift towards like, conferences around 00:30:22.552 --> 00:30:23.932 your language and business. 00:30:24.292 --> 00:30:28.232 So like rails, sass, micro comp less of like, we're gonna talk about the 00:30:28.262 --> 00:30:30.002 internals of Ruby and things like that. 00:30:30.062 --> 00:30:32.672 So kind of a little bit of everything for everybody. 00:30:33.142 --> 00:30:39.197 CJ: Yeah, there's even, I mean, all things open and that conference and G 00:30:39.202 --> 00:30:42.947 D C or I, I can't remember what it's called, but there's just a bunch of 00:30:42.952 --> 00:30:45.797 just general conferences too, which. 00:30:46.337 --> 00:30:49.967 Tend to happen in really fun, cool places like a water slide park or 00:30:49.967 --> 00:30:51.917 like, you know, Disneyland or wherever. 00:30:52.667 --> 00:30:53.777 So I don't know. 00:30:53.867 --> 00:30:57.457 Lot, lots of, lots of lots of opportunity to go out and meet people who are 00:30:57.457 --> 00:30:58.957 into the same stuff that you're into. 00:30:59.247 --> 00:30:59.467 So, 00:30:59.662 --> 00:31:00.112 Colin: Totally. 00:31:00.652 --> 00:31:00.832 Yeah. 00:31:00.832 --> 00:31:04.422 I think this episode is definitely a little bit of a, like a pallet cleanser 00:31:04.422 --> 00:31:06.372 from our more tech focused talks. 00:31:06.372 --> 00:31:12.277 But I think like the, the the CTA for everybody is to go look and see what, 00:31:12.427 --> 00:31:16.117 what developer community you have in your local area, maybe in your state 00:31:16.727 --> 00:31:18.607 if you can find something online. 00:31:19.467 --> 00:31:22.437 Or if you can get your company to send you to a conference. 00:31:22.467 --> 00:31:27.897 I think I've found personally doing CFPs, I think we did an episode on this a while 00:31:27.897 --> 00:31:30.687 back on like how to apply to be a speaker. 00:31:30.687 --> 00:31:32.367 It, it's just such a game changer. 00:31:32.367 --> 00:31:34.077 Going to a conference by yourself is one thing. 00:31:34.077 --> 00:31:36.537 Going to a conference as a speaker means that you're gonna have a 00:31:36.542 --> 00:31:39.997 built-in group of people who are gonna come ask you questions afterwards. 00:31:39.997 --> 00:31:41.347 You can go hang out and get lunch. 00:31:41.347 --> 00:31:42.037 Things like that. 00:31:42.037 --> 00:31:44.507 So I think it's a pretty important thing. 00:31:44.557 --> 00:31:49.477 This job being online is, is not just about the work and the code, it's 00:31:49.487 --> 00:31:53.417 developing friendships and getting to meet people and getting outside even. 00:31:53.447 --> 00:31:55.157 It's full circle to where we started. 00:31:55.547 --> 00:31:57.317 Do some, some tech forest bathing. 00:31:57.927 --> 00:31:58.347 CJ: Totally. 00:31:58.347 --> 00:32:00.687 And I do come home from conferences often. 00:32:01.107 --> 00:32:04.647 Well, number one, like the all day seeing people is tough for me as an 00:32:04.647 --> 00:32:07.647 introvert and I do need to like go back to the hotel room and recharge. 00:32:07.647 --> 00:32:10.917 But coming home from conferences, I definitely would always feel like 00:32:10.917 --> 00:32:14.427 this wind beneath my sails about like, oh, I saw so many cool things and met 00:32:14.427 --> 00:32:18.297 so many cool people that you know, you get inspired and motivated and. 00:32:18.647 --> 00:32:20.267 It's, yeah, it's invigorating. 00:32:20.297 --> 00:32:23.417 It's, I don't know, very different from forest bathing, but a 00:32:23.422 --> 00:32:24.557 different yeah, a different way to 00:32:24.912 --> 00:32:27.222 Colin: You might, you might have to go do some forest bathing 00:32:27.222 --> 00:32:29.082 after a conference just to reset. 00:32:29.327 --> 00:32:30.350 CJ: Yeah, totally. 00:32:31.083 --> 00:32:31.623 All right. 00:32:31.623 --> 00:32:33.403 I think that's the pod right there. 00:32:33.613 --> 00:32:37.330 So as always, you can head over to buildandlearn.dev to check out all the 00:32:37.330 --> 00:32:39.250 links and resources in the show notes. 00:32:39.633 --> 00:32:40.533 We'll see you next time.