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Changemakers
Welcome to the Changemakers Podcast. I'm Gavin Tye, CEO at Six Sides. This podcast is about sharing stories of changemakers out in our communities. We wanna help give people inspiration. That's really the mission from this podcast to help people believe or see that they can make change and take actionable steps to do that in whatever their community they belong to.
Gavin Tye:Today, I'm speaking with Michael Dorinda. He's the director and organizer of Laricon AU, which is a developer conference that's run every November here in Australia. If you are not technical, very similar to me, you've probably never heard of LaraCon. Although he runs a technical conference, this conversation is about helping build a community or bring a community together in Australia and help people not be so isolated working in their homes. He's got some great stories around some lessons that he has learned along the way, how he manages volunteers, and some great community impact stories over his time of ten years in the Laravel community.
Gavin Tye:If you like this podcast, please consider giving us a rating and sharing it. Thank you. Michael Dorinda is one of the people behind Australia's Laravel community. Over the past decade, he's helped create a place where thousands of developers don't just learn new skills, they build friendships, find mentors, launch careers, and discover a sense of belonging. Michael, welcome to the Changemakers podcast.
Michael Dyrynda:Hey. Thanks for having me.
Gavin Tye:Mate, just a quick question that we always start off is, what does community mean to you?
Michael Dyrynda:It's a good question. I mean, community is the the sense of, like, coming together. Lots of lots of people in our community especially talk to each other all the time. It's the Laravel community is is very social in terms of communication through the lens of code, if that makes sense. Yep.
Michael Dyrynda:It's a very community driven framework for building software. And so there's there's lots of communication around the code and things like that. But LariCon itself, whether that's Australia in November or it's The United States in a couple of weeks that I'm flying over or it's Europe or it's the the smaller events in Japan and and The UK, It's just it's a really good opportunity to get together with friends that you've met through the Internet. Like, it's it's that old adage that, you know, you you kind of meet these people online and and and you pick up, you know, every twelve months when you see them at these events as though and not a day has passed. Like, they're really good old friends.
Michael Dyrynda:Yeah. So that that community aspect is just, you know, the coming together and and sharing face to face and and and hanging out, which is really exciting for, you know, those of us in this community, of course.
Gavin Tye:So, mate, for people who don't know what Laravel is, give us a breakdown of what it is for many of the people here aren't developers. Right? So Mhmm. What is Laravel?
Michael Dyrynda:So Laravel is a framework of prebuilt blocks, I suppose, you would say, that that we as software developers can then use to build effectively anything for our clients, for the companies that we work for, for our own projects that we're building. It it comes with so many different tools out of the box. So in some some communities, in some circles, you have to, you know, put all of these pieces together yourself, authentication, database connection, talking to other APIs. Like, if you wanted to talk to Twitter or LinkedIn or whatever else, all of these other things are kind of like you bespoke that you pull in and and build from scratch each time. Whereas Laravel gives you all of these bits and pieces combined, and then you just use what you need for any project.
Gavin Tye:Yeah. Right. And how did you become involved with it?
Michael Dyrynda:I think it was well, it was a number of years ago now, probably around 2010, I think, first discovered it. '29 2009, 2010, where I kind of saw it at the job that I was working at. And this was around the time that open source and GitHub, which is a a platform for collaboration, like a community for software developers effectively, was starting to become very popular. And as I was looking for tools to kind of help with the software development that we were doing at that job, I I stumbled upon Laravel in its, like, early version one, version two days. And it wasn't until a couple of years later that I actually started using it, but it just it clicked.
Michael Dyrynda:There was just something about it. Like, I'd looked at other frameworks around that time, and they didn't make sense to my brain back then Yep. When I was still fairly green to to software development. But there was something about Laravel and just the way that it was put together that made sense to me. And so I've I've been using it for probably about thirteen or fourteen years now.
Gavin Tye:Yeah. Okay. And so what is your role in the Laravel community in Australia for for those who not don't know you?
Michael Dyrynda:Yeah. In the in the community in Australia, my role is is really as as host, as director, I think is the technical term for the the Australian chapter of the LARACON conference.
Gavin Tye:Okay.
Michael Dyrynda:So I I emcee it. I organize it. I put together all the speakers. We've we've expanded the scope of that process this year a little bit as well to involve more people, you know, really involving the community, really.
Gavin Tye:Yeah. And so why did you why did you think that the Laravel community needed an Australian event?
Michael Dyrynda:When when I was starting out and and kind of getting into the world, I was in a very different place financially than than I am now. And even now, it's it's crazy with the the price of of travel and flights and accommodation and all of this kind of stuff. For someone in Australia to go to LARACON US in Boston or to go to LARACON EU in Amsterdam, it's just it's it's a huge expense for a short period of time. The conference is two days. You spend two days flying to The US and back either either way.
Michael Dyrynda:So you've either gotta be in a position to take that time off work for, you know, a week or two to make a proper holiday of it. If you've got family, it becomes a more difficult proposition to to take the whole family with you for for those things. I, for example, am banned from going to Laracon EU until I'm in a position to take the whole family because I can't go to Europe without taking my wife. So it was really just just a way of having this pocket of Australia, really the whole APAC region, so Australia, New Zealand, Southeast Asia, to to kind of have somewhere more local to experience what LaraCon was all about and to to bring all those people together. So I I just emailed the creator of the Laravel framework back then and was like, hey.
Michael Dyrynda:You know, it's it's a, like, a real pain in the butt to to fly to The US for a two day event. Would you be open to the idea of, like, me hosting something in Australia? And it took me something like two years to actually do that once he said yes. But I'm I'm glad that I did finally do it, and we've been doing it. This year will be our sixth LariCon AU.
Gavin Tye:Yeah. Right. Wow. So it's I guess that you would have started really small. Like, the community wouldn't have been what it is now because I was lucky enough to attend Laracon last year, and it was amazing.
Gavin Tye:Like, the the production that you put on is top notch. I think that's your actual you might have a a unique skill in that sense. I know you don't think it. But Thanks. How did you start?
Gavin Tye:What, like, what were the grassroots of building that community? Like, how did how did you go about that?
Michael Dyrynda:I I mean, I was very fortunate in that I didn't really have to build the community because the the nature of Laravel itself is that it it kind of brings its own community. And so this is just really giving the people an opportunity to come together physically in person and and spend two, three days this year for the first time together and just sharing what we love. You know? The the framework, the the software that we build, the way that we go about things. There's a lot of energy around AI, which I think is kind of permeating through all industries, not just our own.
Michael Dyrynda:I think we're probably front and center in the software development space in terms of what that looks like. But, yeah, just like, I was very fortunate to have that community in place already, and it was just kind of giving them something somewhere to be able to attend. And so the the first year we were in Sydney, I think it was 200 people, 230 people or something like that that attended the first one in Sydney back in 2018, and it's kind of grown from there.
Gavin Tye:Yeah. Okay. Like, I I guess I can learn anything, almost anything online today. Why do you think they're they're traveling to meet in person continuously over the eight years?
Michael Dyrynda:Look. Well, like I said at the start, it's it's really just because it's getting the opportunity to hang out with friends and kind of ensconced with the the guise of of work, really. You know, you can you know, I'm I'm I'm obviously not a an accountant. Get your own financial advice, but it it can be considered a a personal development expense so that you can, you know, get get around that at tax time. But lots of businesses and their people to to kind of get them to learn.
Michael Dyrynda:No. You know, anyone can learn how to write software or anyone can vibe code software these days. There's there's like an art form still to software engineering and and knowing what to do and what not to do and and, you know, finding out when or when we shouldn't do something.
Gavin Tye:Yeah.
Michael Dyrynda:And coming together puts you in a room with other people doing similar things that are experiencing the the same kind of anxieties, joys of of the current environment. And just seeing the the people on stage talking about their own journeys and sharing their ideas and giving you something that you can kind of take away and and bring back to work on on Monday. You know, something that you hadn't thought about in a particular way or something that you didn't know existed that that you connect with and go, hang on. This this is actually really useful to us. So being able to kind of facilitate that for people coming in.
Michael Dyrynda:You know, as you say, we we can learn anything, and we can effectively build anything, but still understanding the right way of going about it, which is is is still an important thing these days. I know that, you know, less technical people can can build things, but there's I think on the horizon for us, there's going to be a lot of work in terms of actually productizing and cleaning up and making scalable and sustainable this software that, you know, lots of founders people that have always been I've not had any direct experience, but you've always seen the founder, you know, the guy that wants to start their own business or the girl that wants to start their own business, and they've got this idea and it's gonna be the next big thing, they can now build that thing with the tools that are available. That they have that product vision, but they don't necessarily have the skill. Like, at at a point, if that becomes popular and it starts to break down, there's there's a there's a point at which those tools are not gonna fix those goals. And that's where the practitioners come in that have been doing this for twenty years that understand when and why just by looking at something that it's not gonna kind of make it.
Michael Dyrynda:So, yeah, there's and and for people that are starting out that way, being exposed to those kinds of people that have been around the block a few times Yeah. Is is really helpful as well. So it's it's all it all just keeps coming around the circling around that Laravel framework.
Gavin Tye:Yeah. Because I see lots of because you can stand up. Anyone who does without software experience can stand up a, like, a reasonable prototype. Right? But if if you do get traction, setting the right foundations, and it's just nowhere near that from what I understand.
Gavin Tye:And, having a technical cofounder in Mitch, has been invaluable for that. Right? So and look, I I also think there's a in a industry where developers are more prone to work alone from home and isolated from people, I do think that there's an intangible there of connection and things like that, right, which you briefly mentioned on on at the start.
Michael Dyrynda:Yeah. Yeah. I think I so, like, I work from home. I have a team here that I see every couple of months, but I I work from home. It's it's fantastic from the point of view that I can be around my family.
Michael Dyrynda:I can drop my kids off at school. I can pick my kids from school. They don't have to go to ash and things like that. But for for many of us, especially on the backside of of COVID, lots of people ended up going to work from home, and and many of us have continued to do so. And some some businesses are now saying, you know, come back to the office or come back two days a week or or or things like that.
Michael Dyrynda:So, you know, whilst we are you know, there's always the the meme of, like, the developer that sits in the dark room by themselves or in the basement or whatever else. You know? But we are introverted or extroverted. We're still human beings, and believe it or not, we still need human connection.
Gavin Tye:Yeah. Oh, look. I agree a 100%. Like, I could not work from home before COVID. And now since 2020, change of role, change of circumstance.
Gavin Tye:I've been at home the whole time. Even now, we've had to move because we had too many dark rooms in the house and it was depressing over the long term. So you probably can't see in the background, but we've got a lot of grass here now. So they're trying to make sure we look after ourselves. Yeah.
Gavin Tye:What do you think makes someone feel like they belong to the to a community?
Michael Dyrynda:I mean, I I think it's having something in common with the other people in that community. That's where having Larivot at the center, you know, makes that that connective tissue. But you find out that so many of these people have other things in common with you. We're seeing at the moment now with the World Cup on, like, you wouldn't expect developers to be into sport. The people people back their countries in through these events.
Michael Dyrynda:Even, you know, music is huge in in like, lots of developers have got music in their blood. I do a an event not an event, a podcast with our speakers each year where we talk through musical tastes and and, you know, how that kind of blends. And everyone has got a story. They played guitar. They played drums.
Michael Dyrynda:They played keyboard. They played brass instruments. Like, music is very connect it's it's having things in common and and realizing that these people that do the same thing day in and day out that you do behind your computer in your office at home going, oh, these these are my friends. Like, as I said, you you meet up with these people once every twelve months in person, and and you just pick up where you left off because you've got something in common with them. Any event, I think like, if you're going to industry events in other industries, you're going there with people that have very similar life experiences, very similar tastes, very similar hobbies, having something that you can talk about outside of that central thing.
Michael Dyrynda:But the central thing is what what gets you there in the first place.
Gavin Tye:Yeah. Yeah. Sounds like you intentionally designed LariCon to create those situations.
Michael Dyrynda:Yep. Yeah. We I mean, networking is is a huge focus for us. If you're coming together for two days, it's one thing to sit in this the auditorium and and watch the talks, and we and we try each year to put on a really good cross section of talks across different not just Laravel specific things, but all of the kind of bits and pieces that hang off the edge. Building a product, shipping a product, scaling a product, all of these things, there's different angles.
Michael Dyrynda:Even the the teams that are building the products is something worth considering. So there's there's a lot of cognitive load on people to sit in the room and listen to these talks for two days, so we try and break them up. But then the networking, you know, we we we do something the night before the conference to get people, you know, to catch up with old friends. Go to the the pub. We run a quiz night on the night before the conference.
Michael Dyrynda:We have our, like, flagship networking event the night of the conference. We have a a a more chill event on the the end of the conference. So we give people plenty of opportunity before, during, after the conference to kind of, you know, catch up, to reminisce, to talk about the day, to to share their energy of this thing that they just learnt perhaps for the first time or something they're excited about trying when they get back to work on Monday. So, yeah, it's it's a it's a it's more than the technical talks. And, well, like, we record the talks and we put them online.
Michael Dyrynda:So there's there's a school of thought that says, well, I can watch the talks anyway. I don't have to go to the event. But it's the it's the actual human connection that's that's the real benefit is why, you know, I jump on a plane for twenty eight hours to go to the other side of the world to to go and catch up with these friends in The US because it's, you know, impractical for everyone to travel all over the world all the time. So you make the most of it whenever you can.
Gavin Tye:Yeah. Are there things attendees probably don't notice that help make your event feel more welcoming?
Michael Dyrynda:Think so. I think
Gavin Tye:You seem to be very measured and very calculated in lots of things that you do, and it doesn't like, I think there'd be a lot of things that most people would miss.
Michael Dyrynda:Yeah. I I definitely think there are things that miss that that get missed. There are there are things that we do, like, behind the scenes that that no one notices that just, you know, until you until it's presented to you after the fact, you don't really think about it. You know, every every year, we we regroup with our the staff at the theater, and we talk about, you know, what worked, what didn't work. They've got notes.
Michael Dyrynda:Like, when I come back to them, it's like, this didn't work with catering. We need to find a way to make, you know, getting people in easier. We need to you know, all of these things that that you don't consider. And, like, we see feedback. We hear feedback all across different mediums, whether it's, you know, solicited direct feedback, which we did last year, which was actually really, really helpful, whether it's stuff that you see online that you wish you didn't see, but you have to take, you know, a couple of days to really look behind the intent and see what was there.
Gavin Tye:So Shoot shoot the don't shoot the messenger here. The message is Yeah.
Michael Dyrynda:That's right. Yeah. And and it's like, you know, the initial read is like, what what do you know? But then you you go back a couple of days later and you're like, okay. There's some actual things in here that we can address.
Michael Dyrynda:And and, you know, it's constantly evolving. It's not not resting on you know, we had a good good event in 2024. That doesn't mean we have you know, we run it back and we do it the exact same thing in '25. And and this year, we've done something very different again. So, you know, it's it's a it's a matter of, like, listening to the feedback whether you like it or not.
Michael Dyrynda:You know, some things are just spiteful or mean just for the sake of being mean, but sometimes there's there's some really good stuff in there. Yeah. And and you take that away, and and you have to build on it each year. You know, there was some feedback that we took on board to to help us put together a more robust, a more complete program this year. You know, getting more people involved from the community to help select the talks for this year, making even submitting the talks more difficult, which you would think is is a bad thing for people submitting the talks.
Michael Dyrynda:But adding just a little bit of friction into the process and and really helping people submitting the talks to hone their message and to really think about what they're going to present ends up being a net positive for everyone because the speaker can stay on track. They're not gonna, like, this is what I submitted, and this is what I presented on stage are going to be the same thing. We have these conversations. Even I mean, you talk about community of of the attendees, but the community extends to the speakers. Once we have selected all of our speakers, we get all of our speakers into a an online chat, and they are connected from the moment they're selected until the moment they, you know, they take the stage, and they they feed off of each other.
Michael Dyrynda:There's banter in there. There's all kinds of weird conversations that happen sometimes, the discussions about Tim Tams and mint slices and things like that that have been literally going on for years as as these speakers come in and out of the fold. But just just having everyone connected kind of I think we do things very differently in terms of the way that we actually put on the event. You go to any other technical event, any other industry event, I would say is very much the same where people I either submit to to speak at these events or they or they're invited to speak because they're a well known person. Whereas we try and bring not necessarily well known people, but people that have got interesting stories to tell, people that can talk about real world trade offs that they've made, people that can give you something to take back to work.
Michael Dyrynda:And I think doing it this way and then connecting through through the two days, grouping these talks together, saying that these are all different perspectives centered around the same kinds of topics. It it just feeds into all of these little things that until you've experienced it and until you're thinking about it in retrospect, you don't really understand.
Gavin Tye:Yeah. Yeah.
Michael Dyrynda:But it I I feel that it it makes for a more cohesive event and and certainly a more impactful event.
Gavin Tye:So you the LaraCon or Lara Australian Laravel communities post is centered around the LaraCon AU in November. How did you stay engaged with the broader community throughout the year? Do you have a strategy for that?
Michael Dyrynda:It's an interesting one. We've we've tried different things over the years. There's usually, like, a big uptick leading into November and a little bit of, like, the other side of November, but it it kind of just falls off. Yep. There's there's there's smaller events that happen.
Michael Dyrynda:I know Perth has had them in the past. We have them in Adelaide every two months. Melbourne and Sydney are a little bit similar in terms of they do it every two or three months. Brisbane comes and goes, which is interesting because it's like the epicenter of of Larracon Australia. So there's nothing that that I do specifically.
Michael Dyrynda:Like, I'm not keeping that community connected in between the LARACON events. But I certainly feel over the last couple of years since we've come back from COVID that there's been more connection between events between people, but there's there's still more to be done. We've got avenues. I just think, like, after the event because we do it in November, you hit December, Christmas, New Year, and then people kind of drop off, and then it's hard to start that machine up again until February, March.
Gavin Tye:Yep. Yeah. Okay. Is there ever a point that you wondered if it's worth continuing, like the doing the events?
Michael Dyrynda:Yeah. I've I've definitely thought, you know, do we do it every year? Do we make it every two years? Which I think is a bit I I've never wanted to stop, but I've always got to the other side of of Valarico, and I'm like, I'm gonna take some time off now, and I just need to reach out. But I get, like, a week into it.
Michael Dyrynda:I'm like, alright. I'm already thinking about next year. How do we improve? What do we improve? What do we change?
Michael Dyrynda:What do we keep the same? I've already got dates for 2027. So but, yeah, it's
Gavin Tye:Yeah. Right. In the blood.
Michael Dyrynda:It's a it's a it's a constant, and it ebbs and flows. It's not like I'm working on these events for twelve months straight. You know, I've got a day job. I work full time. It's just I pick this stuff up when I can.
Michael Dyrynda:So it ebbs and flows. You know? End of January through February, there's a lot of work with our branding team, lemonade agency that does, you know, all the branding. So we we revisit it every year. What's this year's theme?
Michael Dyrynda:What's this year's focus? It's a whole new design. It's a whole new footprint. We're trying to kind of standardize standardize on some elements so that we don't have to completely start from scratch every year. And every year, we think we've got, like, this is the this is how we're gonna do it, and then it changes by by February again anyway.
Michael Dyrynda:So and then it quietens down, and then it picks up again kind of around April, we launched the website. May, we start putting out details. And then by June, we've kind of announced all of the speakers and and gotten tickets on sale. So even this year was different in that regard. We would we would pick pick the speakers up front, but then we would announce them over a period of time.
Michael Dyrynda:Yep. This year, we kind of just did the whole thing at once. We said, you know, tickets on sale June 1. Here is the speakers lineup, like, every speaker. Here is the full schedule.
Michael Dyrynda:Here is all of the talks, all of the titles, all of the like, we just did everything. We're like, you you will make an informed choice this year about what's what's happening. You don't have to guess into September. You know, what's this talk about? We and it's happened in the past where we get, like, a good talk title.
Michael Dyrynda:That sounds really good. And then you you inevitably, someone is feels misled or they did you know, they thought it was gonna be one thing and it was something different. So this year, we we made a very concerted effort. This was through the friction of the of the submission process as well to make sure that, like, we will have that information available from day one.
Gavin Tye:Okay. And how how was the result? Is it have you seen a different result from last year?
Michael Dyrynda:No. I hate ticket sales. It's the worst part of the entire thing. Because it doesn't matter what you plan or how you think it's gonna happen or what impact it will have. You know, we're doing it this way this year, and it's gonna have a huge like, it doesn't matter.
Michael Dyrynda:People will buy tickets when they buy tickets. People have been to the event. They understand what it is, I think, and they they kind of come to it knowing like, there's there's obviously the fans, you know, the super fans that buy the tickets straight away. There's people that will trickle in. I thought a couple of years ago, we'll get in early before end of financial year.
Michael Dyrynda:People can use up those budgets before end of financial year. They can you know, the the tax benefits and whatever else where they apply, you can make use of that straight away when you're filing your taxes in in July. Didn't didn't matter. Didn't make a difference. Lots of businesses buy tickets August, September because they're still locking up budgets.
Michael Dyrynda:Yep. So I don't know. I I hate the ticket sales process. I hate I hate sending the emails. I hate all the social media.
Michael Dyrynda:I hate the constant because from my perspective, it's like, oh, I'm doing this again. From from the consumer perspective, you know, you you are active on LinkedIn. You you'd know this. Like, I will log in to LinkedIn, and it's like, look at this great post from such and such, And it's from, like, three weeks ago. I'm like, what?
Michael Dyrynda:I don't I don't understand how these algorithms work. I just want the content that my people are subscribed to see. I just want them to see it. Yep. And you don't know when they get this information what is gonna tip the scales in okay.
Michael Dyrynda:Today today, this is the piece of information that gets me to buy the ticket. Don't know. There's there's no rhyme or reason to it. I've been asked by other LariCon organizers, like, what email did you send that drew the biggest response? Said, I don't know.
Michael Dyrynda:It's it might not it might it might not even be right away. It could be a week later they see the email. I I'm and I say this as someone who will, like, leave an email in my inbox. I'm like, I'll read that later. And then I've got emails in my inbox from May that I haven't read.
Michael Dyrynda:You know? So
Gavin Tye:Do you know what you should you know, like, the WWE and all that kind of stuff, they do a relaunch. Like, you should do instead of posting your website, you should do a a launch, like because it's an exciting theme that you come up with every year. You do a big webinar, invite people in, and then give them a discount on the like, turn it into a production in itself to get people hyped up. Yeah. There you go.
Gavin Tye:That's it. Take that one for the bank. Mate, every great community has people quietly working behind the scenes. Like, how important are volunteers to to you?
Michael Dyrynda:Hugely important, especially so the main volunteering that we that we have is to get people into the venue on day one. It's a big big piece of work. So that starts kind of the day before the conference when we're all the volunteers get together at the theater. We're packing bags. We're setting things up.
Michael Dyrynda:We do swag for all of our attendees, so it's a matter of making sure that everyone that is contributing to those swag bags has got their stuff in place. And then we we stack it all up on tables and we put know, it's a production line. This goes in the bag. This goes in the bag. This as it all goes down the line.
Michael Dyrynda:And that usually takes a couple of hours. We've got a really good set of volunteers that rotate in each year, and we're very appreciative of them. And then it's like registration day, which we only do on day one. If you've got a if you've a ticket, it's a ticket for the whole conference. So if you get a badge on day one, you you can come in on day two.
Michael Dyrynda:We don't have to check anything again on day two. And it's just each year, we try and refine this process, and we think that we've solved it. And each year, we have shown some other reason why we haven't solved it or something that we thought would solve it caused the problem in a different way. But the volunteers are fantastic. They they really help make that process as smooth as we can possibly make it.
Michael Dyrynda:And this year, you know, we're trying a different process again. And one of our volunteers, Rocco, that's that's been through all of all of our events has helped out. He's he's got an event conflict, so he's gonna be away this year. So we're gonna have to shuffle things around and and hope for the best a little bit. But, yeah, it's just we're we're doing things differently.
Michael Dyrynda:We're hoping that this year, it will move the needle. We're not expecting it to solve everything, but we're hoping that it moves the needle in the right direction. And I think we have a good approach, and it's just a matter of making sure that we've got the volunteers on board. And and it's hard because you can we communicate with them. But everyone's got lives, jobs, and things like that.
Michael Dyrynda:And so when they come up, it's like, all this information is in my head, and I know how we wanna do it. And it's like getting it through not, you know, getting it communicated in such a way that everyone's on the same page. But when you're volunteering, you're like, oh, I don't know. I have to go and ask. And then, you know, you gotta go find Michael.
Michael Dyrynda:So we've gotta figure out a way to streamline that.
Gavin Tye:Yeah. Right.
Michael Dyrynda:But, yeah, the volunteers, they get they get some cool swag, and they're like, you can wear your volunteer shirt until you're not volunteering, and then that's yours. Keep it wear it wherever you want. So Yep. Yeah. Big big bit of work on the morning of and then relax and enjoy the conference after that.
Gavin Tye:Yeah. What have you learned about leading them? Like, leading volunteers?
Michael Dyrynda:I think it's I think it's important to have a few trusted people that you can kind of delegate certain aspects to. You know, swag is one aspect. Check-in is one aspect. And then it's you know, once you have those people in place, it's kinda like just making sure that this is this is the one thing I need you to focus on and just get around doing that. Because whilst registration is happening and all of that, I've gotta go and get ready to the MCA event.
Michael Dyrynda:And I would I would like to not be in a position to have to do all of this stuff. And last year, it kind of came to a head where I had some other stuff happening outside of the conference that I I let a couple of things slip. And so, you know, conversation with my loving and supportive wife, we know we we talked about delegating aspects this year. So she's taken over a lot of the social stuff. She's taken over organizing hotel discounts and accommodation offers and things like that.
Michael Dyrynda:She's taken over all of the socials. So she's organizing the quiz night, the the social events this year, which is which has been a load off. It allows me to focus on other areas. Yep. And and just, like, delegating some of those other aspects as well in terms of, you know, how are we gonna effectively disseminate swag and how are we gonna get people in the doors.
Michael Dyrynda:We've got people in place to to do that this year. And and same with even the committee for selecting talks this year. You know, I brought in four other people that have been part of the community in in different aspects at at different stages of their own journeys in terms of software development and just to kind of diversify and delegate and, you know, improve the experience as a whole.
Gavin Tye:Yeah. Okay. Now how do you measure whether OneEvent or LariCon has been successful?
Michael Dyrynda:Well, we've we've sent out, like, NPS surveys in in years gone by, which was just, you know, an anonymous one to 10, I think it is, provide, you know, a text area that I can do feedback if they wanna provide any additional feedback, which has had mixed reviews. Like, we generally score fairly well across the board, which is which is pleasing. Last year, I kinda went one step further and went through our through our email platform. I just emailed everyone that attended. A plain text email.
Michael Dyrynda:No branding. No nothing. Just like, this is from me to all of you. Reply to the email if you wanna give feedback. And we got some really thoughtful feedback that way.
Michael Dyrynda:And people are I think people can still be very honest in that feedback. But even though the the name is now attached to it, I don't think the anonymous feedback is quite as good as something that you're putting your name to. Yeah. But, yeah, we're we're doing a lot more this year to see, like, who's coming back year on year. Like, if people are coming back to the events, I I would consider that to be successful in terms of, you know, repeat customer
Gavin Tye:Yeah.
Michael Dyrynda:For for lack of better terminology. But just, like, the feedback that you see from people, you know, when they're posting on LinkedIn or they're posting on x on their social media that, you know, they're telling people that they had a great time, that it's I hear from speakers that it's their favorite event that they've spoken at. I hear from attendees that it's their favorite event that they like, they look forward to it. They mark it on their calendars each year when the dates come out. Some people use it as, like, their annual holiday.
Michael Dyrynda:You know, these kinds of things are really really rewarding to hear that people are centering an aspect of their lives around coming to this event each year. Yeah. So success is you know, we try and break even each year. Everything that we we bring into the conference, we try and put back into the conference. It's not like a profit making exercise or anything like that.
Michael Dyrynda:We we just we genuinely want for I genuinely want for attendees to get their money's worth Yeah. And to really enjoy the experience and to talk about it to their friends and colleagues and that, you know, the person that decided, oh, I'm not gonna come this year or the person that, you know, I had a baby this year, so I couldn't come, you know, to to really fuel that FOMO. You know, I have people unsubscribe from the the newsletter telling me, no. I I can't deal with the FOMO because I can't come this year.
Gavin Tye:Are are there any stories from attendees that remind you why you do it?
Michael Dyrynda:Well, believe it or not, your cofounder Mitch is is a really good story.
Gavin Tye:Okay.
Michael Dyrynda:I think I think Six Eyes doesn't ex I mean, you know, obviously, you and he have done a huge amount of work since that first version that he kind of put together for us. But I think Six Eyes doesn't exist in in the way that it does now, if not for the community. If Mitch didn't put his hand up to say, wanna give this talk, and then for him to then come and say, I want to build this app, and I've got this really cool idea. Like, I think that just doesn't happen. I've I've used her as an example a few times over the years, but Jess Archer, who who works at Laravel, her first ever conference was LaraCon AU back in 2018.
Gavin Tye:Okay.
Michael Dyrynda:And back in 2018, she was like one of, you know, a hand one hand of female attendees at LaraCon and just to see the growth of of female attendees from there. Not not because we did it, but Lara Bells, which is a a sub part of our community, like to see that growth through the work Zuzana's done. But to to go back to Jess, like, she attended her first ever conference with LaraCon AU in 2018. And then in 2019, she wanted to to speak. She submitted a talk, and I said, I don't think this is the talk that that you wanna give.
Michael Dyrynda:Like, I think this is very niche. I think this other idea that you've got is much better. And so she she presented that talk. And on the back of that talk, you know, it puts you on the map in terms of community awareness. And so she had met the the creator of Laravel on on the back of that and then ended up, you know, applying for a job at Laravel.
Michael Dyrynda:Then she's now, you know, one of the engineering leads there working on on one of the Laravel products and has built a team around her to to do that. You know, that kind of stuff is really cool to hear. And we hear it a lot.
Gavin Tye:Yeah. I agree with the story with Mitch. It's one thing to do the talk, which is he put a lot of time into it. I think it was the reaction from the community and the support that the community gave him and the feedback of it that made him go, oh, hang on, there's something here. Right?
Gavin Tye:I think from that talk, because it was event kid back then, he said he got ninety five five star reviews in Google, like on Apple. Right? And that it's unheard of. And he's like, hang on a second. This is proper something here.
Gavin Tye:And there's been a lot of evolvement from then, but yeah, you're a 100% agree. It would not have been anything without that initial spark from Laracon. So So is there one story that perfectly captures what the Laravelle community is all about, notwithstanding Jess and Mitch's story?
Michael Dyrynda:I mean, not their story specifically, but I think that style of story is something that we we hear in our community all the time. And not just us in Australia, but all around the world. It's reinforced. It's it's led from the top down by the the framework creator. Sure.
Michael Dyrynda:He's always encouraging people to to build things and ship things. And and the amount of times that, you know, you see people responding in comments and tweets and replies and things like that saying that, you know, Laravel changed my life, It's it's that kind of impactful thing. It's it's lifted people out of poverty. It's it's done all this kind of stuff. And that's not like the community specifically.
Michael Dyrynda:But, you know, sometimes coming to these events is the spark that that starts that that trajectory. You know? Yes. You can you can learn the framework and you can build with the framework. But until you're surrounded by the people that are also building with the framework and doing that kind of stuff, you know, Mitch wouldn't have got the the the reviews.
Michael Dyrynda:He wouldn't have got that reinforcement, and he wouldn't have gone on to, you know, partner with you to build this thing. It's it's that style of story that the community reinforces it, but it's really this has has changed my life because I turned up to this thing, because I made these friends, because I started these ventures. There's a number of those stories where people have come to the event, met with someone who, like, these ideas that they talked about resonated, and they ended up going to build something
Gavin Tye:Yeah.
Michael Dyrynda:Or create something or start a a business or or ship a product or you know? It's it's just that's the kind of community that it is.
Gavin Tye:Yeah. Do do you think communities will become more important as technology advances and AI becomes more prevalent?
Michael Dyrynda:I think so. Last year was a very interesting year because it was still very much in its infancy. You know, Claude only came out in February or whatever it was of 2025. And so everyone was in this panic that this is gonna change the world, we're not gonna need developers, and we're not gonna you know, this is gonna take over all of this stuff. And by the end of last year, I think everyone became much most people, not everyone.
Michael Dyrynda:I think most people became much more reasonable about what the limitations of AI are Yep. And where humans are still needed. And, like, it's it's getting better. It's certainly a lot better than what it was eighteen months ago, but I still think if you're going to make something that matters, that is going to be sustainable, you still need to have people. And people only exist you know?
Michael Dyrynda:Yes. There are some outliers that are good on their own, but people people need people. We are a social
Gavin Tye:Yeah.
Michael Dyrynda:Being, us humans, and we we need other people as much as we like to sit in our caves on our own. You you and and going to these events is really interesting as well because at the end of the at the end of the event, you're exhausted. Like, you're exhausted. It's been talking and moving and engaging, and your brain has just been on for days. And you're like you get to the end of it, and you're kind of a little bit miserable because it's like, oh, no.
Michael Dyrynda:It's over now. But you still got all of this energy on Monday because you've got all these ideas, and you've met with all these people, and you're picking up all of this stuff. So, yeah, I think human creativity is still going to be fueled by human connection, I think.
Gavin Tye:A 100. Yeah. I think we're always better you know, one plus one equals four in in some cases. Right?
Michael Dyrynda:Mhmm.
Gavin Tye:Now if someone wanted to build a community around the passion like what you have, where should they start?
Michael Dyrynda:Start small. There was ten years ago, fifteen years ago, before I started this adventure, there was some members of the community that they said if there is not an event in your area, if there is not a meetup, if you don't know who the organizer is, then the organizer is you. And you've gotta start. Like, don't put it off to next week or next month. It's like, get the word out.
Michael Dyrynda:Find the people. Start the thing. There's a prominent member of our community right now, Aaron Francis, that says something along the lines of, you know, just do the thing. Like, putting yourself out there increases your luck surface area. If you don't start the thing, you won't see, you know, where it goes.
Michael Dyrynda:We we've seen many of these things. So, yeah, if you wanna if you wanna build a community, find find your people, find where they congregate online, connect with them, start a Meetup. I mean, meetup.com's become a I think it's largely become a a difficult thing for someone to start something on. It used to be really good for discovery, but it just when it got taken over, the price went through the roof and lots of people left it. So it it's hard.
Michael Dyrynda:But if you can find your people and find your community, then just start. You know? Even when we started our local PHP meetup, it was me and, like, three guys from work and a couple of other people that happened to find out about it. And we just started at the pub. We just went.
Michael Dyrynda:We just had a chat. There was no formal meetup structure. There was no talks. There was no slides. We just got to know each other.
Michael Dyrynda:Just hang out, shared ideas, common, you know, common hobbies and things like that, and it and it grew from there. Yep. And, you know, it then end ended with well, it started then really with that meetup, and then it became this national thing. Yeah. So you just gotta start the thing.
Gavin Tye:What do you think what do you think the is the biggest mistake most people make?
Michael Dyrynda:Not not starting the thing. It it's like it's just it's just having no belief. Like, it will take don't get me wrong. It will take time. I think we're in exceptional circumstance just because this is a it's a local chapter of a much bigger thing.
Michael Dyrynda:So it will take time. You know, the first meetup might only be three or four people, and then it might be six people, and then it'll be 10 people, and then it'll be a different 10 people the next time. Yeah. And it might drop back to five. You know?
Michael Dyrynda:It's just people's lives are busy. And so maybe like, don't think you can do something every month initially. I think that's too hard. Especially, like, now people around my age, you know, thirties and forties, They've got families. They've got kids.
Michael Dyrynda:They've got jobs. They've got other commitments. They've the kids' commitments mostly, you know, club soccer and things like that. It's it's hard. And and before you know it, a month has gone by and it's like, oh, it's the meetup again.
Michael Dyrynda:I I you know, it's gotta be it's gotta be consistent, but it can't be too frequent. And it depends on on on what that community is as well. Like, some others might find that a monthly cadence works. So, yeah, find the cadence and and just persist, really.
Gavin Tye:When we were when we were younger, I'm sure you're the same is a month would be so long. Now it feels like a week, like, with everything going on. Where do you see the Laravel community in Australia in five years, and what excites you most about it?
Michael Dyrynda:I think I think we're well positioned just with this, like, new era of software development and AI and agentics development and things like that, the framework and the opinions and its, you know, constructs really make it a very useful tool for that kind of development because it doesn't have to guess. It's like, this is these are the guardrails. This is how how we build with these tools. And it's and it's always been like that. And so that means that it's it's good to use it.
Michael Dyrynda:And I think we're gonna see more people coming into the community just because, you know, when you ask how do I build this, there's, like, three options really that the AI will throw you away. And Laravel, at the highest levels, is really trying to make it as easy as possible to go from idea to something that you can send a link to someone and have them use it. Yeah. That whole it was always the vision when the when the thing started. And so they've they've, like, really come a long way into realizing that complete end to end cycle in the last two years, really.
Michael Dyrynda:And so I think we're gonna see a lot more people coming into the community that maybe have never written software, that are not twenty year old, you know, twenty years of experience in software engineering. They're just like, I've got this idea, and I built it with Claude. And what do I do now? So there's gonna be lots of opportunity to connect with those people. So I think, you know, we've still got a number of years.
Michael Dyrynda:Five years? I don't know. Like, maybe other industries you could you could draw that bow and say, you know, I'm gonna be over there in five years. I think for us, it's hard it's hard to say where where we'll be in five years because we're you know, as I said earlier, we're much closer to this AI generation, and so we're much more impacted by how much it's changing. So we're just along for the ride.
Michael Dyrynda:But I think we'd we'd we'll definitely see growth in the people coming into the community.
Gavin Tye:Yeah. So if people wanted to connect with you and attend LaraCon, where would they find information on it, mate?
Michael Dyrynda:We're on LinkedIn at LaraCon AU. We're on x at laraconau. You can find me, Michael Dorinda, on both of those places as well. We've got a mailing list. You can check out the website at laracon.au or laracon.com.au.
Michael Dyrynda:Yep. But, yeah, LaraCon dot a u is is where we're at. So all the information's there. As I said, make all your decisions. I don't know how much overlap there would be between your your typical audience for this podcast and and what we do, but we're very welcoming to everyone no matter where they are in their Laravel journey, their programming journey, product journey.
Michael Dyrynda:I mean, we've had product founders come to LaraCons and meet with people, agencies, software developers, know, you and Mitch kind of thing. So, yeah. Anyone and everyone, we we welcome. Some things will be for you on stage. Other things won't be.
Michael Dyrynda:We we try and cover for everyone in terms of the the whole software development cycle. So not not I mean, it's predominantly technical, but there'll be something for most people related to that software cycle.
Gavin Tye:Yeah. Okay. Mate, it's Changemakers is about people making a difference in their community. And one thing that I've picked up from this conversation today is it's your passion and drive and wanting to contribute. The community has seen you carry the torch for a long period of time.
Gavin Tye:You seem to be carrying too many things at once and your wife has identified that and is helping you light the load a bit, you can do it for another ten years. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for being on podcast and yeah, I look forward to coming to the conference, I think, this year.
Michael Dyrynda:So Yeah. Hopefully, we'll see you there.
Gavin Tye:Yeah. No worries, mate. Thank you very much.
Michael Dyrynda:No worries. Thank you.
Gavin Tye:I hope you enjoyed that podcast. Michael is clearly passionate about the Laravel community is having a massive impact. His passion and drive is what's seen him through, these last ten years and contributing to the, Laravel community with LaraCon AU. So thank you very much. Hope to see you next time.
Gavin Tye:Please consider giving us a rating on your favorite podcaster. Thanks.