WEBVTT NOTE This file was generated by Descript 00:00:02.066 --> 00:00:03.876 CJ: Welcome back to Build and Learn. 00:00:03.876 --> 00:00:04.656 My name is CJ. 00:00:05.348 --> 00:00:08.468 Colin: And I'm Colin, and today we are talking about submitting talks to 00:00:08.468 --> 00:00:13.018 conferences and maybe a little bit of what happens once you get your talk accepted. 00:00:13.647 --> 00:00:14.157 CJ: Awesome. 00:00:14.757 --> 00:00:18.657 So I, we've both spoken a lot. 00:00:18.717 --> 00:00:21.687 I don't know, like I feel like both you and I have kind of like gone in. 00:00:22.587 --> 00:00:24.777 We've done talks at a lot of different places. 00:00:26.077 --> 00:00:27.067 But mostly meetups. 00:00:27.067 --> 00:00:32.257 I think both you and I have like shared the stage at several 00:00:32.287 --> 00:00:34.147 meetups in Reno for sure. 00:00:34.207 --> 00:00:36.925 But yeah, like you recently spoke at Rails conf. 00:00:36.925 --> 00:00:37.915 I'm excited to dig into that. 00:00:37.915 --> 00:00:42.415 But before we get into Rails Conf and submitting talks to conferences. 00:00:43.075 --> 00:00:47.185 I watched yesterday, I watched the Laracon online conference. 00:00:48.090 --> 00:00:51.090 Which it was like a 10 hour video basically on YouTube. 00:00:51.600 --> 00:00:55.470 And when I started watching it, they, they didn't have the chapters 00:00:55.470 --> 00:00:57.870 in the description, so I was like kind of just scrolling through 00:00:57.870 --> 00:00:59.026 and watching as much as I could. 00:00:59.026 --> 00:01:01.985 And gosh, Laravel has some really cool stuff that Rails just 00:01:01.985 --> 00:01:05.025 does not have, or does not have like, first class support for. 00:01:05.054 --> 00:01:07.534 So yeah, there was a bunch of really cool stuff. 00:01:07.615 --> 00:01:08.185 Colin: That's interesting. 00:01:08.185 --> 00:01:12.385 So is that how they, did they have a in person version or was it just online? 00:01:12.713 --> 00:01:14.813 CJ: It was all online this time, as far as I can tell. 00:01:15.113 --> 00:01:15.533 Yeah. 00:01:15.568 --> 00:01:16.940 Have you played with Laville at all? 00:01:17.282 --> 00:01:22.412 Colin: I have not, My only PHP experience is WordPress and I think 00:01:22.412 --> 00:01:26.072 I need to fix that because I've heard really good things about it. 00:01:26.096 --> 00:01:28.928 . So I think it's, I'll have to check out that video and maybe zoom through 00:01:28.928 --> 00:01:30.518 some to some of the interesting parts. 00:01:30.787 --> 00:01:34.417 CJ: Well, there's a really great thing that they announced during 00:01:34.417 --> 00:01:38.099 the like keynote that Taylor gave, and that is this Laravel bootcamp. 00:01:38.679 --> 00:01:43.919 So at bootcamp.laville.com, there is like a, a guide that you can walk through. 00:01:44.594 --> 00:01:48.704 And you basically rebuild Twitter and chirps and stuff, but it uses 00:01:48.704 --> 00:01:53.194 inertia js, which apparently has support for both Rails and Laravel. 00:01:54.804 --> 00:01:59.548 and it's kind of hot wirey , where you basically kind of like render something on 00:01:59.548 --> 00:02:03.448 the back end with the inertia library and then you can pick it up on the front end. 00:02:03.748 --> 00:02:07.283 But the bootcamp it takes like an hour and a half or so to run through it, 00:02:07.283 --> 00:02:12.143 and you go from scratch to kind of like knowing how to do basic crud with laville. 00:02:12.233 --> 00:02:13.006 So yeah, it's fun. 00:02:13.126 --> 00:02:13.586 It's cool. 00:02:13.586 --> 00:02:15.068 It's, it's so wild to see how. 00:02:15.818 --> 00:02:19.658 They have builtin, they have this thing called Mail Hog that will like 00:02:19.718 --> 00:02:21.398 intercept mail that's going out. 00:02:21.457 --> 00:02:22.879 And you don't have to use a gem for that. 00:02:22.879 --> 00:02:27.979 They also have tooling for all of these event notification things, not just email. 00:02:28.017 --> 00:02:31.492 They've got like builtin Yeah, builtin pubsub builtin tooling for 00:02:31.492 --> 00:02:33.502 authentication with Laravel Breeze. 00:02:33.502 --> 00:02:39.112 And so yeah, it's, it's, it's fun to play around with and just see, you know, where 00:02:39.962 --> 00:02:41.962 Laravels got cooler stuff than rails. 00:02:42.877 --> 00:02:44.587 Where Rails really shines. 00:02:44.617 --> 00:02:47.947 Cause there's definitely some developer experience things that Rails has that 00:02:48.017 --> 00:02:49.607 that Laville is missing out on still. 00:02:49.612 --> 00:02:51.435 But yeah, it's kind of fun to compare and contrast. 00:02:51.887 --> 00:02:52.427 Colin: That's cool. 00:02:52.637 --> 00:02:55.187 Yeah, this is gonna be a little bit weird cuz this episode's 00:02:55.187 --> 00:02:56.507 not gonna come out for weeks. 00:02:56.557 --> 00:03:00.752 But this weekend is also a rails hackathon around like 00:03:00.752 --> 00:03:02.702 kind of hot wire focused themes. 00:03:03.242 --> 00:03:06.692 So I'm thinking about just kind of hacking on something, not necessarily 00:03:06.692 --> 00:03:11.012 competing as much as just I haven't touched anything hot wire or. 00:03:11.337 --> 00:03:13.287 Turbo frames or any of that kind of stuff. 00:03:13.287 --> 00:03:17.517 So it sounds cool, but I haven't even touched that before I even start 00:03:17.517 --> 00:03:21.426 looking at things like inertia and I love how a lot of the stuff that's 00:03:21.431 --> 00:03:26.046 happening in the development world is going back to like just html, you 00:03:26.046 --> 00:03:28.036 know, on the wire, which is great. 00:03:28.126 --> 00:03:28.476 So, 00:03:29.009 --> 00:03:29.639 CJ: Totally. 00:03:29.699 --> 00:03:30.209 Yeah. 00:03:30.260 --> 00:03:31.730 Yeah, like the, I think. 00:03:33.305 --> 00:03:36.765 , That hackathon was like Rails, hackathon or something. 00:03:36.917 --> 00:03:38.697 Colin: Yeah, it's railshackathon.com. 00:03:38.747 --> 00:03:43.817 So they'll probably, I think Chris from Go Rails set this up for potentially 00:03:43.817 --> 00:03:46.703 having future hackathons, but you know, maybe we'll talk about it 00:03:46.703 --> 00:03:48.003 in a future episode, how it went. 00:03:48.003 --> 00:03:52.045 I've got a few ideas for things to kind of tinker with just as learning 00:03:52.067 --> 00:03:53.987 exercise, and we'll see how that. 00:03:54.825 --> 00:03:55.215 CJ: Cool. 00:03:55.305 --> 00:03:55.455 Yeah. 00:03:55.455 --> 00:03:58.185 It looks like at the very bottom of that landing page too, you can sign up to 00:03:58.190 --> 00:04:01.075 get notified about future hackathons. 00:04:01.095 --> 00:04:01.425 So, 00:04:01.527 --> 00:04:01.997 Colin: Yeah. 00:04:02.038 --> 00:04:02.518 CJ: Nice. 00:04:02.548 --> 00:04:02.788 Yeah. 00:04:02.788 --> 00:04:07.858 Turbo, like turbo and stimulus and like all of the hot wire stuff. 00:04:08.383 --> 00:04:09.893 Has been really interesting. 00:04:09.898 --> 00:04:13.693 I definitely don't feel super, super comfortable with it yet. 00:04:13.795 --> 00:04:17.845 And I know there's a lot more to it, but it definitely is, seems pretty powerful. 00:04:17.965 --> 00:04:18.325 So 00:04:18.437 --> 00:04:20.627 Colin: Where might you learn more about those things? 00:04:20.947 --> 00:04:21.297 CJ 00:04:21.405 --> 00:04:24.255 CJ: yeah, stimulus or, I mean, I don't know if you wanna watch my YouTube channel 00:04:24.255 --> 00:04:25.605 about me stumbling through this, but 00:04:26.597 --> 00:04:29.177 Colin: Well, I was kind of, kind of setting you up there for media 00:04:29.177 --> 00:04:33.647 conference you might go to, or if someone gives a nice talk on it might 00:04:33.652 --> 00:04:35.597 be a good way to, to jump in there. 00:04:35.925 --> 00:04:36.405 CJ: Oh yeah. 00:04:36.405 --> 00:04:40.335 Well, I mean, so there, I think there's probably lots of talks about stimulus 00:04:40.335 --> 00:04:46.115 and hot water , but yeah, if you want to come to Ruby Comp in Houston in November, 00:04:46.565 --> 00:04:48.158 that is gonna be that'll be really fun. 00:04:48.428 --> 00:04:51.008 There's actually a couple different versions of Ruby Comp happening. 00:04:51.008 --> 00:04:53.528 There's a Ruby Comp Mini that's mid-November, and 00:04:53.528 --> 00:04:54.338 then there's a Ruby Comp. 00:04:54.476 --> 00:04:57.836 Like the, I dunno, the bigger one is happening end of November, which like 00:04:57.866 --> 00:05:03.337 surprisingly, I got a talk accepted to . So yeah, super, super pumps to go talk 00:05:03.337 --> 00:05:07.782 about how we generate client libraries at Stripe specifically like the Ruby 00:05:07.782 --> 00:05:11.982 Client Library, but others I think I, I did like a super short lightning talk at 00:05:11.982 --> 00:05:14.052 one of the dev reno meetups about this. 00:05:14.714 --> 00:05:17.114 Colin: You did and you kind of melted everybody's brain. 00:05:17.114 --> 00:05:21.041 So I am very excited to see the video of this talk when it comes out. 00:05:21.057 --> 00:05:26.337 Why then, let's just to jump into the topic, like why are you looking to talk 00:05:26.337 --> 00:05:30.177 about that at Ruby Conf and maybe what are the general reasons that someone 00:05:30.177 --> 00:05:32.547 might want to speak at a conference? 00:05:33.791 --> 00:05:37.736 CJ: So, yeah, that's a, I mean, for me, It's, there's like a 00:05:37.736 --> 00:05:38.966 whole bunch of different reasons. 00:05:39.446 --> 00:05:42.596 For my job, it's important that I go and speak at conferences. 00:05:42.746 --> 00:05:46.256 As a developer advocate, we want to make sure that people are aware 00:05:46.256 --> 00:05:50.036 of Stripe, and so as part of that, I can go and speak at conferences. 00:05:50.042 --> 00:05:53.602 I'm also just really, really excited about the tooling that we have for 00:05:53.942 --> 00:05:58.402 SDK generation and because it's this private internal thing that we use. 00:05:59.817 --> 00:06:01.917 It's not open source and it's not public. 00:06:01.922 --> 00:06:05.637 It's really hard for me to go and like scream about it from the rooftops and 00:06:05.637 --> 00:06:09.327 like tell people about it without being able to go speak about it in public. 00:06:09.327 --> 00:06:12.942 So it's a thing that I'm really excited about and. 00:06:13.897 --> 00:06:17.737 I think it's also like a tool that we've learned a lot of lessons 00:06:17.737 --> 00:06:20.990 from that hopefully the community can pick up and learn from. 00:06:21.057 --> 00:06:23.787 And then there's like also selfish reasons, right? 00:06:23.787 --> 00:06:27.117 Like, I want, I, I want people to like come and watch my YouTube 00:06:27.117 --> 00:06:29.997 channel and like, know about the stuff that I'm putting out. 00:06:29.997 --> 00:06:33.068 And so yeah, like growing an audience, but what were some of the reasons 00:06:33.068 --> 00:06:34.525 that you did your talk at Rail? 00:06:35.772 --> 00:06:39.402 Colin: Yeah, so I think for me it's a lot of just sharing like what I've learned. 00:06:39.402 --> 00:06:42.762 So I think we'll talk about it a little bit more, but you don't necessarily have 00:06:42.762 --> 00:06:48.552 to be like a super senior or expert in your field to do one of these talks. 00:06:48.557 --> 00:06:51.642 It's more of like, Hey, we had this problem. 00:06:52.272 --> 00:06:53.322 This is how we fixed it. 00:06:54.087 --> 00:06:57.837 Hopefully, you know, whoever washes that talk will now, you know, 00:06:58.017 --> 00:06:59.577 be able to, to learn from that. 00:06:59.577 --> 00:07:03.117 And so you know, sharing hard one learnings and then, yeah, like I think 00:07:03.207 --> 00:07:07.617 similarly meeting other people, I would say like if you're intimidated 00:07:07.617 --> 00:07:11.187 by introducing yourself to people, getting up on stage and giving a talk 00:07:11.187 --> 00:07:16.697 is going to make people know that like, CJ's giving a talk on this thing. 00:07:17.117 --> 00:07:19.577 If you didn't know CJ before, now you know cj, right? 00:07:19.577 --> 00:07:22.817 And so people might come ask you questions afterwards and it's 00:07:22.817 --> 00:07:23.897 just a good, like jumping off. 00:07:23.987 --> 00:07:27.917 At the same time, if it's your first conference experience, probably just 00:07:27.917 --> 00:07:31.757 go and see how it is and watch the talks and, and figure out like if 00:07:31.757 --> 00:07:32.927 this is something you'd wanna do. 00:07:32.927 --> 00:07:36.981 But yeah, I think like it's pretty rewarding to get up and be able to share 00:07:36.981 --> 00:07:39.591 something that you've been working on, especially if it's something you've 00:07:39.591 --> 00:07:41.121 been thinking about for a long time. 00:07:41.121 --> 00:07:43.881 Like, you know, the SDK generation for you for. 00:07:45.006 --> 00:07:48.666 I've been dabbling in integrations and APIs for so long, and I feel 00:07:48.666 --> 00:07:51.576 like it's all like trapped in my head and I needed to get it out. 00:07:51.576 --> 00:07:54.426 And, you know, there's only so much I get to talk about it at work. 00:07:54.522 --> 00:07:57.642 So, you know, maybe it's, you know, being able to have other people listen 00:07:57.642 --> 00:08:02.262 to me and, and learn something from it because it's, you know, 10 plus 00:08:02.267 --> 00:08:06.007 years of APIs that we can hopefully share that with other people. 00:08:06.007 --> 00:08:09.836 And you know what's really cool too now is that there are getting more and 00:08:09.836 --> 00:08:12.266 more niche conferences for this thing. 00:08:12.266 --> 00:08:16.438 There's like open API spec conferences where we can geek out on the spec 00:08:16.443 --> 00:08:20.998 itself instead of like more high level stuff all the way down to SaaS 00:08:20.998 --> 00:08:24.988 and MicroConf and language specific or framework specific conferences. 00:08:25.198 --> 00:08:28.411 So I think those are all pretty exciting to, to check. 00:08:29.159 --> 00:08:29.699 CJ: Totally. 00:08:29.729 --> 00:08:30.209 Totally. 00:08:30.214 --> 00:08:31.469 Yeah, I think so. 00:08:31.559 --> 00:08:33.029 Yeah, we definitely have similar. 00:08:33.534 --> 00:08:35.754 Overlap in terms of why we wanna speak at conferences. 00:08:36.174 --> 00:08:41.274 I think one other reason that I've heard is that if you're a super small startup 00:08:41.334 --> 00:08:47.484 and you're looking to hire people, then I've often seen CTOs go and give talks to 00:08:47.484 --> 00:08:53.004 help build the brand around or like build like yeah, the talent, the engineering 00:08:53.004 --> 00:08:56.394 talent brand, so that then people are like, Oh whoa, that's super cool. 00:08:56.394 --> 00:08:58.044 I wanna go work for that person. 00:08:58.096 --> 00:08:59.596 Cuz they're doing really interesting work. 00:08:59.903 --> 00:09:02.603 Colin: Yeah, I would argue that's the case even for Stripe, right? 00:09:02.603 --> 00:09:07.613 Like when I see Shopify or Stripe or certain companies talk about how they 00:09:07.643 --> 00:09:13.463 things work inside, you know, even if it's not a public gem or a public service, some 00:09:13.463 --> 00:09:16.913 people are, you know, you'll be like, I wanna work with stuff like that, right? 00:09:16.913 --> 00:09:18.713 Like, I wanna work with people like that. 00:09:19.073 --> 00:09:21.053 And so it can really help with that. 00:09:21.053 --> 00:09:23.423 I know we did that pretty early on at Orbit. 00:09:23.423 --> 00:09:25.553 We had some orbiters speak at conferences. 00:09:25.553 --> 00:09:27.983 I think we had some people at Sin City, Ruby and Ruby. 00:09:28.047 --> 00:09:31.294 And yeah, it definitely gets the company out there as. 00:09:32.707 --> 00:09:37.357 CJ: So how did you pick the topic of build versus buy and Yeah, 00:09:37.357 --> 00:09:38.347 like how did you narrow in on. 00:09:39.414 --> 00:09:41.095 Colin: Yeah, so this is an interesting one. 00:09:41.100 --> 00:09:45.564 So if you're looking at applying to a conference, they will normally 00:09:45.614 --> 00:09:48.134 announce a cfp, so a call for proposals. 00:09:48.794 --> 00:09:52.364 And in that they typically will list a bunch of themes. 00:09:52.874 --> 00:09:57.254 And so I think most people will pick a topic that they care about and then 00:09:57.254 --> 00:09:59.624 they'll shop it around to conferences. 00:10:00.249 --> 00:10:03.429 I went the other way around and I took the themes and I 00:10:03.429 --> 00:10:06.069 developed a talk for the themes. 00:10:06.519 --> 00:10:08.649 So you can do both, right? 00:10:08.649 --> 00:10:10.959 Like you have this SDK generation talk. 00:10:11.649 --> 00:10:15.519 You can go figure out which conference has a theme that fits that, and then apply. 00:10:16.424 --> 00:10:20.174 Or you can apply for like the miscellaneous track or you know, maybe 00:10:20.174 --> 00:10:22.994 go find an API or SDK conference, right? 00:10:22.994 --> 00:10:24.914 That would make the most sense for it. 00:10:24.914 --> 00:10:27.974 But the challenge with that is now you're gonna be up against a 00:10:27.979 --> 00:10:30.944 bunch of API SDK generation talks. 00:10:31.424 --> 00:10:36.644 And so for me, I, you know, my build versus buy talk was more 00:10:36.644 --> 00:10:39.074 specifically I was trying to do build versus buy on rails. 00:10:39.074 --> 00:10:44.534 And why rails is like specifically helpful for going the build route. 00:10:45.104 --> 00:10:45.794 And. 00:10:46.484 --> 00:10:50.184 There was a theme at Rails Conf this year on switching , like switching 00:10:50.184 --> 00:10:54.114 costs or switching from A to B or migrations, things like that. 00:10:54.114 --> 00:10:58.864 And it didn't end up being in that track, but that's kind of how I pitched it. 00:10:58.885 --> 00:11:02.365 And I'm actually not sure technically what track it ended up in, but. 00:11:02.403 --> 00:11:05.116 I've found that it's helpful to go backwards from there, especially if 00:11:05.116 --> 00:11:07.336 you're not sure what to talk about. 00:11:07.450 --> 00:11:07.570 CJ: Hmm. 00:11:08.120 --> 00:11:08.600 . Totally. 00:11:09.470 --> 00:11:09.710 Yeah. 00:11:09.710 --> 00:11:10.100 I think. 00:11:11.270 --> 00:11:13.640 Build versus buy is like a really valuable, it's like 00:11:13.640 --> 00:11:16.880 it's valuable no matter what language or ecosystem you're in. 00:11:16.880 --> 00:11:20.240 And so it was, I like that you, Yeah, put a spin on it that 00:11:20.240 --> 00:11:21.590 was like rail specific too. 00:11:21.595 --> 00:11:25.075 And were able to speak to the tools that you were using inside of Rails 00:11:25.495 --> 00:11:27.577 that helped you with your decision. 00:11:27.607 --> 00:11:28.657 So that was cool. 00:11:28.971 --> 00:11:31.221 Colin: Ruby Conf have like a list of themes? 00:11:31.744 --> 00:11:32.464 CJ: they did. 00:11:32.522 --> 00:11:33.777 I don't remember what they were. 00:11:34.627 --> 00:11:38.347 Colin: But you already had a sense of like what you wanted to talk about or like, I'm 00:11:38.347 --> 00:11:40.627 sure you have a list of potential talks. 00:11:41.510 --> 00:11:44.954 CJ: Yeah, so that's what I was gonna mention was that for for 00:11:44.954 --> 00:11:48.864 a lot of folks that I know, they will build several different talks. 00:11:48.884 --> 00:11:51.614 Maybe they'll have like three talks that they go and give, and they're 00:11:51.614 --> 00:11:57.004 gonna give those for the next 18 months, and then they will craft CFPs. 00:11:57.734 --> 00:12:03.554 That will sort of just be like a small bend on the like, or like a different take 00:12:03.554 --> 00:12:07.954 or a different angle on the talks that they've already got canned and so swyx. 00:12:08.008 --> 00:12:12.896 So yeah, if you find swyx on Twitter, he's got a whole process where he'll 00:12:12.896 --> 00:12:16.436 like really quickly submit to just tons and tons of conferences by this. 00:12:17.891 --> 00:12:21.371 But yeah, I, I've had this idea in the back of my head about talking about 00:12:21.791 --> 00:12:23.681 these, this SDK generation stuff. 00:12:23.711 --> 00:12:27.611 And so I've actually submitted a similar talk to like go conference, like 00:12:27.611 --> 00:12:29.414 Gopher Con and it didn't get picked up. 00:12:29.744 --> 00:12:32.448 And I've, in fact, I've like submitted this same talk to like 00:12:32.448 --> 00:12:35.238 a bunch of conferences and no, it was never picked up by any of them. 00:12:35.298 --> 00:12:38.921 So I was excited when it was finally picked up by by Ruby Con. 00:12:39.401 --> 00:12:40.057 And yeah. 00:12:40.057 --> 00:12:44.778 So here were the different themes hidden Gems giving back with Ruby. 00:12:45.933 --> 00:12:51.273 Bringing your backgrounds with you off the beaten path and navigating systems change. 00:12:51.783 --> 00:12:56.313 And I think I tried to categorize this one as like off the beaten path because 00:12:56.313 --> 00:12:58.173 it is like a weird thing that we're doing. 00:12:58.221 --> 00:12:58.581 So 00:12:59.107 --> 00:12:59.527 Colin: Nice. 00:12:59.947 --> 00:13:03.397 Well, and I would say you, you also don't have to do a talk that's super 00:13:03.397 --> 00:13:06.757 technical, like especially if you want to get your feet wet with your first talk. 00:13:07.207 --> 00:13:11.197 And you, I, I'm gonna just say like if there's a lot of imposter 00:13:11.597 --> 00:13:14.167 syndrome that comes up when submitting a talk, when writing a talk. 00:13:14.171 --> 00:13:18.267 At Rails Conf, there were a lot of really great talks about developer happiness, 00:13:18.267 --> 00:13:23.727 wellness, productivity, the kind of quote unquote, I wouldn't like soft skills, but 00:13:23.727 --> 00:13:25.797 they're like, Just as important, Right? 00:13:25.797 --> 00:13:27.717 That makes us an engineer, right? 00:13:27.717 --> 00:13:30.687 It's thinking about what we're doing when we're not coding. 00:13:31.977 --> 00:13:34.377 taking care of our tools and, and all of that. 00:13:34.797 --> 00:13:37.859 And then you have on the other side of the spectrum, you know folks who are 00:13:37.859 --> 00:13:42.653 doing like literal ruby archeology Will Link, will link to, to Schwad's talk in, 00:13:42.653 --> 00:13:46.613 in here as well on that, where it's like he's trying to replicate what Ruby and 00:13:46.613 --> 00:13:52.253 Rails looked like back in 2011 on a, you know, a digital ocean server, running 00:13:52.253 --> 00:13:55.733 the same versions of everything back then and seeing what, what was there. 00:13:55.738 --> 00:13:57.893 It's like that doesn't have to be what your first talk. 00:13:58.913 --> 00:13:59.273 Right. 00:13:59.273 --> 00:14:01.853 If there's something that you're really interested in, something you're excited 00:14:01.853 --> 00:14:06.983 about, or maybe that you uniquely just know a lot about, maybe you went super 00:14:06.983 --> 00:14:10.313 deep on something that was really meant to just be a paragraph in some 00:14:10.313 --> 00:14:14.333 docs somewhere, but you know way more than that, then that's like a great 00:14:14.333 --> 00:14:16.613 place to start looking for your topic. 00:14:16.721 --> 00:14:20.411 Typically when you submit, what kinds of things do you have to submit 00:14:20.411 --> 00:14:22.801 for your talk to be considered? 00:14:23.394 --> 00:14:25.344 CJ: Yeah, so everywhere is a little bit different. 00:14:25.377 --> 00:14:30.567 But the, the main, the main piece of this is called an abstract, and 00:14:30.657 --> 00:14:32.727 I think usually this is also what. 00:14:33.552 --> 00:14:37.777 Ends up in sort of like the the schedule or the pamphlet or whatever 00:14:37.777 --> 00:14:42.757 that goes out to attendees and also is what sort of attracts people to attend 00:14:42.757 --> 00:14:44.047 the conference in the first place. 00:14:44.407 --> 00:14:49.567 And so your abstract is like a short, it's not tweet length, but it's, it's a short. 00:14:50.437 --> 00:14:54.337 Description of what someone would get out of the talk when they come to it. 00:14:54.397 --> 00:14:59.020 And usually that's like where a lot of folks focus their efforts when they're 00:14:59.020 --> 00:15:01.259 trying to craft one of these submissions. 00:15:01.259 --> 00:15:04.933 But you might also have more detailed descriptions and more detailed 00:15:04.933 --> 00:15:09.103 outlines that would cover, like, okay, here's an actual, like, bulleted 00:15:09.133 --> 00:15:13.003 list of all the topics I'm gonna cover with like, an estimate of how 00:15:13.003 --> 00:15:17.473 long each one's gonna take and the, you know, what attendees can expect. 00:15:18.433 --> 00:15:23.938 No, after watching the talk and oftentimes they're usually like anonymized too. 00:15:24.268 --> 00:15:28.138 So they ask like, please don't, you know, add any information that would 00:15:28.598 --> 00:15:33.508 identify you or your company or whatever as part of the submission details. 00:15:33.508 --> 00:15:36.748 And then they'll be like another section that's like, what is your, your bio, 00:15:36.753 --> 00:15:40.348 your like speaker bio, where then you can say like, Oh, you know, here's why 00:15:40.348 --> 00:15:42.351 I'm qualified to to give this talk. 00:15:42.451 --> 00:15:42.781 Colin: Yeah. 00:15:43.591 --> 00:15:43.771 Yeah. 00:15:43.771 --> 00:15:46.651 Even in that blind selection, you know, they'll usually ask like, 00:15:46.651 --> 00:15:48.031 what's your speaking experience? 00:15:48.031 --> 00:15:51.811 And I don't think that they're necessarily looking for you to be a pro speaker. 00:15:51.811 --> 00:15:55.291 They just want to know like how much help you might need. 00:15:55.335 --> 00:15:58.967 Cuz some conferences are really good at giving you support through this process. 00:15:58.972 --> 00:16:03.317 Like with Rails Conf, I was invited to a Slack channel with the other speakers. 00:16:03.677 --> 00:16:06.467 People, you know, would have conversations in there about, you 00:16:06.467 --> 00:16:09.582 know, Slide questions format, right? 00:16:09.582 --> 00:16:11.922 There's all these little technical things that you gotta get down. 00:16:11.922 --> 00:16:15.342 Is there gonna be a monitor to see your slides on? 00:16:15.342 --> 00:16:17.812 Is are you gonna have a remote to click through? 00:16:17.839 --> 00:16:20.629 Do you need to bring those things yourself if you rely on those things? 00:16:20.629 --> 00:16:22.939 So like there is a little bit of support there. 00:16:22.975 --> 00:16:26.258 But even in that, like how much experience do you have, you don't necessarily 00:16:26.258 --> 00:16:30.608 wanna disclose who you are, which I actually think allows more new speakers 00:16:30.613 --> 00:16:35.255 to get into into the, the market, the business, the whatever, , right? 00:16:35.260 --> 00:16:38.225 Like more people to get into the circuit, the speaker circuit, because. 00:16:39.110 --> 00:16:41.900 It can be obvious, like you said, someone shops around the same, 00:16:41.900 --> 00:16:43.040 talk to all these conferences. 00:16:43.040 --> 00:16:45.650 You might see the same kinds of names popping up at, at, 00:16:45.920 --> 00:16:47.150 at conferences everywhere. 00:16:47.660 --> 00:16:50.930 And when they do a blind selection, they're picking based on the 00:16:50.930 --> 00:16:52.654 topic, not by by the person. 00:16:53.134 --> 00:16:56.674 And they're definitely, like, I've run events, they're definitely thinking 00:16:56.674 --> 00:17:00.077 about what's gonna get people to buy a ticket to this conference in addition 00:17:00.082 --> 00:17:04.197 to some rounding out of themes and like beginner, intermediate, advance 00:17:04.197 --> 00:17:06.687 type themes as well, so that you can. 00:17:07.737 --> 00:17:10.617 Folks new to Rails, going to Rails Comp, having talks that they 00:17:10.617 --> 00:17:12.049 can feel really comfortable in. 00:17:12.049 --> 00:17:14.419 And then maybe you've got those intermediate and advanced ones where they, 00:17:14.719 --> 00:17:18.799 they'll go and they now see like what they can kind of reach for or, or grow towards. 00:17:19.687 --> 00:17:20.447 CJ: Yeah, totally. 00:17:20.447 --> 00:17:25.182 I think the The fact that it's blind and like, no, actually, just knowing that 00:17:25.182 --> 00:17:31.152 the abstract is going to be used in order to sort of sell tickets, that also is 00:17:31.157 --> 00:17:35.562 a good motivation for you to be like, Okay, how can I make this abstract really 00:17:35.622 --> 00:17:40.907 interesting and like exciting instead of being like, You know how to do for 00:17:40.907 --> 00:17:42.587 loops in Ruby or something like that. 00:17:42.827 --> 00:17:47.087 You can make it really fancy, like spin yourself around on a, you know, like on 00:17:47.087 --> 00:17:50.897 a Ferris wheel and like, let's go for a trip to learn about how to loop through 00:17:50.897 --> 00:17:52.867 the universe with blah, blah, blah. 00:17:52.867 --> 00:17:55.727 It's like, you really, really gotta, it's like a sales pitch, right? 00:17:55.727 --> 00:17:57.287 Like for people to come, 00:17:57.824 --> 00:18:00.169 Colin: That's a very ruby specific or ruby rails. 00:18:00.169 --> 00:18:03.019 I feel like that a lot of the talks have a lot of fun in their 00:18:03.079 --> 00:18:04.759 either titles or their abstracts. 00:18:04.815 --> 00:18:08.281 I'm blanking on who, who I can think of, but there was like a, how GitHub 00:18:08.281 --> 00:18:10.751 builds GitHub using GitHub talk. 00:18:10.868 --> 00:18:15.057 This was like in 2011 or something that was just like, that one stands out to me. 00:18:15.057 --> 00:18:19.343 I think like some tips here for writing that abstract is I would check 00:18:19.343 --> 00:18:21.583 out a website called speakerline.io. 00:18:22.103 --> 00:18:26.033 It's where anyone can submit their abstracts and their descriptions 00:18:26.033 --> 00:18:28.713 and then they note whether or not it was accepted or not. 00:18:28.726 --> 00:18:30.706 And then that way it's a little bit of. 00:18:31.786 --> 00:18:34.456 There's a bias, like confirmation bias in that like, this is 00:18:34.456 --> 00:18:35.866 what I did and it got accepted. 00:18:36.256 --> 00:18:40.441 So it doesn't necessarily mean that's gonna work for you, but what I did, I 00:18:40.446 --> 00:18:44.821 read through a bunch of speaker lines, kind of got a sense of like what a 00:18:44.821 --> 00:18:47.041 lot of the accepted ones kind of do. 00:18:47.041 --> 00:18:50.701 Like the description on the outline needs to follow an arc, a story, 00:18:50.701 --> 00:18:52.111 like a beginning, middle, and end. 00:18:52.111 --> 00:18:54.961 And remember, you only have a certain amount of time for your talk. 00:18:54.961 --> 00:19:00.112 So if it's a 30 minute talk, you can't shove every single thing into it. 00:19:00.571 --> 00:19:02.731 And you need to think about what your takeaways are gonna be. 00:19:03.091 --> 00:19:05.971 And then I would watch past talks from the conference that you're 00:19:05.971 --> 00:19:07.651 applying to just to see like. 00:19:09.721 --> 00:19:14.431 again, the topic content, but like what do a lot of the talks feel like 00:19:14.521 --> 00:19:16.321 and try to go backwards from there. 00:19:16.321 --> 00:19:20.641 So taking the theme, the past talks, the speaker lines, and then like those 00:19:20.641 --> 00:19:24.691 components of the cfp, and you're making a sales pitch for yourself at that point. 00:19:25.542 --> 00:19:26.172 CJ: Yeah, totally. 00:19:26.177 --> 00:19:28.602 I think the other, there's a bunch of other resources 00:19:28.607 --> 00:19:31.696 too for reviewing CFPs and. 00:19:32.491 --> 00:19:37.471 I think for all, I like submitted tons and tons of talk submissions and like almost 00:19:37.476 --> 00:19:39.031 all of them were rejected or denied. 00:19:39.031 --> 00:19:41.101 And so like, I was like, what am I doing wrong? 00:19:41.101 --> 00:19:43.231 Like, why is no one, why is no one picking this up? 00:19:43.561 --> 00:19:45.991 And I think there's a lot of reasons for that. 00:19:45.991 --> 00:19:51.391 But I would say, I think this talk that was accepted, part of the reason why 00:19:51.391 --> 00:19:55.231 I was accepted was that I had a lot of people look at it with me and give me 00:19:55.231 --> 00:19:58.951 feedback and help me like craft it and. 00:19:59.208 --> 00:19:59.508 Colin: Yeah, 00:20:00.361 --> 00:20:03.601 CJ: It was definitely like when I was on my own, I was missing certain things. 00:20:03.601 --> 00:20:07.111 So in the same way that you might have someone review a resume before you send 00:20:07.111 --> 00:20:11.521 it in to apply to a job, you, it's, it can be helpful to have other people look 00:20:11.521 --> 00:20:14.581 at your stuff and make sure that it looks nice and tight before you send it out. 00:20:14.655 --> 00:20:21.810 And along those lines, wnb.rb they have like a pretty amazing crew of 00:20:21.810 --> 00:20:23.970 people who will review your talks. 00:20:23.970 --> 00:20:24.870 So if you're part of. 00:20:25.530 --> 00:20:28.260 Group, they've got like slack channels and everything to help 00:20:28.265 --> 00:20:30.306 review each other's talk proposals. 00:20:30.786 --> 00:20:34.018 So did you, did you have anyone look at yours before you submitted to Rails Comp? 00:20:34.970 --> 00:20:39.020 Colin: Yeah, we have like a little informal process of like, I'll share 00:20:39.020 --> 00:20:42.470 in our Slack like, hey, the CFP is open if anyone wants to submit. 00:20:42.500 --> 00:20:47.540 And so then like a few of us pulled together some, some CFPs and we, 00:20:47.900 --> 00:20:51.530 What I think I did first was I like had really, really short like 00:20:51.530 --> 00:20:54.530 one-liners and I was like, Which one of these things would you go to? 00:20:55.160 --> 00:21:00.170 And then whichever one they voted on most was the one that I focused on writing out. 00:21:01.175 --> 00:21:06.185 And then just did a Google Doc on that and then had people comment on that. 00:21:06.185 --> 00:21:07.445 And I think that definitely helped. 00:21:07.445 --> 00:21:13.385 Cuz my original talk idea was a little bit more, it was like how developers 00:21:13.390 --> 00:21:14.855 develop themselves or something like that. 00:21:14.855 --> 00:21:18.635 It was like a little bit too, It was good talk I thought, but like more for 00:21:18.640 --> 00:21:22.525 like a developer wellness conference than a, Than like it wasn't Rails specific. 00:21:22.530 --> 00:21:22.805 Right. 00:21:22.805 --> 00:21:25.505 So that one would've been a little bit harder. 00:21:27.270 --> 00:21:29.660 Then, then something that had rails in it. 00:21:30.620 --> 00:21:31.131 But yeah. 00:21:31.131 --> 00:21:33.561 So when you do that, do you just do a Google Doc or is 00:21:33.561 --> 00:21:35.271 it one of these other tools? 00:21:35.944 --> 00:21:38.254 CJ: Yeah, Google Doc and then ask people for comments. 00:21:38.254 --> 00:21:41.303 We actually do this also with like all of our other content. 00:21:41.303 --> 00:21:45.203 And in the previous episode of Build and Learn here, if you go back to 00:21:45.473 --> 00:21:50.692 Build and learn.dev/nine, maybe slash 10 we talk about doing or like 00:21:50.692 --> 00:21:52.642 creating content for developers. 00:21:52.842 --> 00:21:56.532 And so this is actually like another form of content for 00:21:56.532 --> 00:21:58.542 developers is giving some talk. 00:21:58.992 --> 00:21:59.922 Like, or, or like, yeah. 00:21:59.922 --> 00:22:02.232 Submitting to a conference and then also giving the talk. 00:22:02.237 --> 00:22:05.585 And so yeah, for a lot of, or for all of the other formats of content 00:22:05.585 --> 00:22:08.585 that we create for developers, we also have the whole team kind of 00:22:09.035 --> 00:22:10.685 jump in and try to share feedback. 00:22:10.685 --> 00:22:15.325 And it's, it's really interesting because, Everyone on the team has a unique 00:22:15.325 --> 00:22:19.405 perspective and a lot of unique experience that they can bring and be like, Oh, hey, 00:22:19.405 --> 00:22:23.125 have you heard of this library that's related to this talk that you're giving? 00:22:23.130 --> 00:22:25.795 Or have you seen this weird, funny meme about it? 00:22:25.800 --> 00:22:26.566 Or yeah. 00:22:26.626 --> 00:22:30.286 So that's, it's, it's a really valuable workflow and we actually 00:22:30.286 --> 00:22:34.268 use Google Docs for people to come and comment on the content, and 00:22:34.268 --> 00:22:36.608 then we use Jira and inside of Jira. 00:22:36.953 --> 00:22:40.253 For each piece of content, if someone reviews it and gives you 00:22:40.253 --> 00:22:43.703 feedback, they mark themselves as reviewers and we reward. 00:22:44.363 --> 00:22:47.342 And yeah, like people will get credit for all of the things that 00:22:47.342 --> 00:22:49.952 they've reviewed also, not just the stuff that they've created. 00:22:49.952 --> 00:22:53.762 So there's people on the team who just give tons and tons of feedback 00:22:53.767 --> 00:22:55.502 and review and edit and help people 00:22:55.984 --> 00:22:56.914 Colin: takes a lot of work. 00:22:57.242 --> 00:22:57.722 CJ: Totally, 00:22:58.144 --> 00:22:59.901 Colin: It's like reviewing poll requests, 00:23:00.129 --> 00:23:01.329 CJ: Exactly, exactly. 00:23:01.334 --> 00:23:01.750 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:23:01.779 --> 00:23:03.867 So it's like kind of the same weight that we would give to 00:23:03.867 --> 00:23:05.067 someone for reviewing a pr. 00:23:05.067 --> 00:23:07.077 They can instead review a talk. 00:23:07.177 --> 00:23:07.667 Colin: Nice. 00:23:07.734 --> 00:23:13.777 Yeah, so episode nine, so build and learn.dev/nine, you can check that out. 00:23:13.777 --> 00:23:18.067 Does is creating other developer content, does that, have you found that it's 00:23:18.067 --> 00:23:22.927 helped you in this process of applying to, to talks like you're already writing 00:23:22.927 --> 00:23:27.367 scripts for YouTube videos and things like that, so like, When it comes time, 00:23:27.367 --> 00:23:30.877 and we can always do another episode on like, okay, your talk has been accepted. 00:23:30.877 --> 00:23:31.597 Now what do you do? 00:23:32.047 --> 00:23:36.397 But like, has it helped you in writing the CFP or you know, because 00:23:36.397 --> 00:23:37.687 most of these are blind selection. 00:23:37.687 --> 00:23:42.847 I assume that like, you know, being known on the Stripe Docs videos is probably 00:23:42.847 --> 00:23:44.677 not necessarily getting you through here. 00:23:44.677 --> 00:23:47.677 As, as you mentioned, you've been denied plenty of times, 00:23:47.682 --> 00:23:49.117 but like, has that helped? 00:23:49.970 --> 00:23:52.569 CJ: so I think it is, it's helped a little bit. 00:23:52.618 --> 00:23:54.838 For the past couple years I've focused a lot on video. 00:23:55.573 --> 00:23:59.623 And I was maybe writing an intro script, outro script, and sometimes I 00:23:59.623 --> 00:24:02.534 would write a script, but most of the time I was just kind of riffing or, 00:24:02.534 --> 00:24:06.224 you know, to use a bulleted outline and go through and just build stuff. 00:24:06.644 --> 00:24:08.864 The thing that I've, I think has helped the most is this year I've 00:24:08.864 --> 00:24:12.074 been super intentional about trying to improve my writing and like doing 00:24:12.074 --> 00:24:16.868 more articles and blog posts and even like tweeting more and you know, doing 00:24:16.868 --> 00:24:18.788 shorter form LinkedIn posts and things. 00:24:19.403 --> 00:24:22.163 I read this book, and if you haven't seen, I would, I like 00:24:22.163 --> 00:24:23.393 super highly recommend this. 00:24:23.393 --> 00:24:27.413 It's called On Writing Well, and we can link to it in the show notes, but it 00:24:27.413 --> 00:24:33.773 is really, really excellent in terms of being concise, getting your point across, 00:24:34.163 --> 00:24:39.173 and it, it has a lot of tips and tricks for basically just non-fiction writing. 00:24:39.233 --> 00:24:39.696 So 00:24:39.727 --> 00:24:42.037 Colin: This is different than Stephen King's on writing. 00:24:42.590 --> 00:24:42.920 CJ: Yes. 00:24:42.920 --> 00:24:43.310 Different. 00:24:43.657 --> 00:24:43.897 Colin: Okay. 00:24:44.977 --> 00:24:46.297 also highly recommended. 00:24:46.777 --> 00:24:49.117 Well, maybe a little bit more fictional based, I think. 00:24:49.580 --> 00:24:53.540 CJ: Yeah, this one is from Williams as Zinser Zinser. 00:24:53.637 --> 00:24:54.127 Colin: Nice. 00:24:55.117 --> 00:24:55.447 All right. 00:24:55.447 --> 00:24:56.977 Yeah, we'll include a link to that. 00:24:57.757 --> 00:24:58.147 Awesome. 00:24:58.147 --> 00:25:01.207 Well, yeah, as you mentioned, like, you know, you've submitted a lot of talks. 00:25:01.207 --> 00:25:02.677 They haven't all been accepted. 00:25:02.677 --> 00:25:06.997 I think that experience was a little bit harrowing for me. 00:25:06.997 --> 00:25:13.717 It's like I literally did the whole like get feedback from my, you know, 00:25:13.717 --> 00:25:19.477 colleagues, from friends, and then I just decided I wasn't gonna submit and. 00:25:19.565 --> 00:25:20.225 CJ: Oh really? 00:25:20.287 --> 00:25:23.467 Colin: Yeah, like at the 11th hour, I like, I think I got an 00:25:23.467 --> 00:25:26.557 email or a tweet that was like, submissions close in an hour. 00:25:26.557 --> 00:25:30.967 And what's cool on the real CFP thing is they show you a graph of submissions 00:25:30.967 --> 00:25:34.049 over time which is like kind of daunting as well, where it's like, 00:25:34.049 --> 00:25:35.399 okay, no one's really submitted yet. 00:25:35.399 --> 00:25:36.299 And I'm like, Oh, this is easy. 00:25:36.304 --> 00:25:37.319 No one's hardly submitted. 00:25:37.649 --> 00:25:41.549 And by the admit, by the deadline, like you, everyone is crafting 00:25:41.549 --> 00:25:42.929 and perfecting their pitch. 00:25:43.379 --> 00:25:44.669 Everyone just is submitting at the last. 00:25:45.629 --> 00:25:49.079 And so I was like, you know, like, you know, getting that rejection 00:25:49.079 --> 00:25:52.319 and when we say denied or rejected all these things, like it can feel 00:25:52.319 --> 00:25:55.889 a little bit harsh even though they don't know who you are and all of that. 00:25:56.429 --> 00:25:57.779 And so I was like, You know what? 00:25:57.779 --> 00:26:00.929 I don't think this is a good enough talk and I just wasn't gonna submit it. 00:26:00.929 --> 00:26:04.169 And I think it was like literally the, the, within the last hour, 00:26:04.229 --> 00:26:05.159 I was just like, You know what? 00:26:05.159 --> 00:26:06.029 I'll push the button. 00:26:06.029 --> 00:26:07.739 Worst they can do is say no. 00:26:09.599 --> 00:26:10.799 And then you just wait. 00:26:11.159 --> 00:26:14.729 Once you submit, you wait and eventually you'll get an email whether 00:26:14.729 --> 00:26:16.859 or not it was accepted or rejected. 00:26:18.268 --> 00:26:18.478 CJ: Yeah. 00:26:18.478 --> 00:26:19.918 It's funny to look at the chart now. 00:26:20.038 --> 00:26:23.008 There it's just like, you know, little, little, like some people 00:26:23.308 --> 00:26:25.378 are obviously like procrastinators. 00:26:25.378 --> 00:26:29.098 As soon as the CFP opens, they submit, and then there's a couple throughout, 00:26:29.158 --> 00:26:34.078 and then a giant spike like in the last day, right before submissions closed. 00:26:34.078 --> 00:26:37.633 So okay, so you, you were considering not submitting, Was that, do 00:26:37.633 --> 00:26:41.143 you think it was like a imposter syndrome thing or like you weren't 00:26:41.148 --> 00:26:42.583 super pumped about the actual talk? 00:26:43.590 --> 00:26:46.050 Colin: No, I was definitely excited about the talk, but it, it was kind of, 00:26:46.840 --> 00:26:50.860 I will say as much as we just said, like watch a bunch of talks, check out speaker 00:26:50.860 --> 00:26:55.060 line, like the more you do that, you start to think like, am I this person? 00:26:55.060 --> 00:26:58.600 Like, am I as good to be on this list of speakers and things like that. 00:26:58.600 --> 00:27:00.220 So it was a little bit of imposter syndrome. 00:27:00.251 --> 00:27:02.111 You know, I knew that I could talk about the content. 00:27:02.111 --> 00:27:07.901 The problem was that like the CFP doesn't capture, you know, not being 00:27:08.441 --> 00:27:11.471 identified as to who you are or like your experience and all that kind of stuff. 00:27:11.861 --> 00:27:13.331 It's really easy to see. 00:27:14.236 --> 00:27:17.746 Are they gonna fully understand what I'm pitching here anonymously? 00:27:17.793 --> 00:27:19.217 Because it wasn't the full talk. 00:27:19.217 --> 00:27:22.307 It's like a bulleted list at best. 00:27:22.607 --> 00:27:26.237 That I think was, I, I'd actually should go back and see what, how different 00:27:26.237 --> 00:27:28.097 the talk turned out from the outline. 00:27:28.607 --> 00:27:30.587 But the abstract was pretty close. 00:27:30.587 --> 00:27:32.717 That was what ended up in the, in the. 00:27:33.122 --> 00:27:34.442 The website, like you mentioned. 00:27:34.832 --> 00:27:36.092 So that didn't really change. 00:27:36.092 --> 00:27:40.832 But yeah, it was just probably nerves and imposter syndrome. 00:27:40.862 --> 00:27:44.042 This was like, like you said, we've done a bunch of talks at meetups. 00:27:44.102 --> 00:27:48.032 Meetups feel pretty low stakes, so like, if you want to get practice 00:27:48.037 --> 00:27:52.122 at this, like take your talk to a meetup and get feedback on it there. 00:27:52.193 --> 00:27:53.953 I didn't do that with this one, but I've. 00:27:54.563 --> 00:27:59.153 Lots of meetup talks lots of ignite talks, which are like very, like stand 00:27:59.153 --> 00:28:01.703 upy and like off the cuff type of talks. 00:28:02.303 --> 00:28:05.702 And and then this one, and I, you know, submitted it the last 00:28:05.707 --> 00:28:08.301 minute thinking there's nothing, no way this is gonna get approved. 00:28:08.781 --> 00:28:10.281 And it actually got accepted. 00:28:10.401 --> 00:28:14.479 And so this was my, my first CFP submission, which I think 00:28:14.479 --> 00:28:17.599 is not gonna be what most people experience, like your first one. 00:28:18.887 --> 00:28:19.007 CJ: It's 00:28:19.129 --> 00:28:20.179 Colin: Probably is not gonna get approved. 00:28:20.239 --> 00:28:22.006 But yeah, it was a good experience for me. 00:28:22.904 --> 00:28:23.144 CJ: Yeah. 00:28:23.174 --> 00:28:26.756 I, I was, I mean, I enjoyed the talk and I I thought you were. 00:28:27.311 --> 00:28:30.701 Like more than qualified to give that exact content. 00:28:30.761 --> 00:28:32.021 And I thought it was really good. 00:28:32.021 --> 00:28:35.291 So if you are listening and you haven't seen it, you can, I 00:28:35.291 --> 00:28:36.371 think you can go online right? 00:28:36.371 --> 00:28:37.091 To YouTube. 00:28:37.241 --> 00:28:37.421 Is 00:28:37.528 --> 00:28:37.948 Colin: Yeah, we 00:28:37.991 --> 00:28:38.861 CJ: they up on YouTube? 00:28:39.118 --> 00:28:39.838 Colin: We'll do some, 00:28:39.851 --> 00:28:40.691 CJ: Yeah, we can link to it, 00:28:41.038 --> 00:28:41.608 Colin: we'll link to it. 00:28:41.608 --> 00:28:43.048 But I appreciate that. 00:28:43.138 --> 00:28:47.291 Yeah, and I'm just saying like that is like, don't let that stop you. 00:28:47.291 --> 00:28:51.373 But also don't expect that your first one will be, Approved, right? 00:28:51.373 --> 00:28:55.753 Like I need to app apply to more to just get that little bit of 00:28:55.758 --> 00:28:57.883 exposure therapy to being rejected. 00:28:57.930 --> 00:29:04.560 But I've actually found it kind of difficult to find CFPs before they close. 00:29:04.710 --> 00:29:09.240 Have you found any good ways of doing that or finding CFPs in general? 00:29:09.683 --> 00:29:11.473 CJ: yeah, there is a couple of newsletters. 00:29:12.283 --> 00:29:16.303 Receive about developer relations and like in the bottom they'll 00:29:16.303 --> 00:29:18.043 have a block with all the CFPs. 00:29:18.110 --> 00:29:21.398 And then there was also I wanna say CFP land. 00:29:21.475 --> 00:29:27.235 Yeah, CFPLand.com is another like site where you can just go and 00:29:27.265 --> 00:29:29.005 search for upcoming proposals. 00:29:29.545 --> 00:29:32.195 So yeah, it's tough because sometimes a conference will 00:29:32.195 --> 00:29:34.355 be in nine months from now. 00:29:35.075 --> 00:29:38.345 Their CFP is open now for like a couple months, and then other 00:29:38.345 --> 00:29:41.165 times the conference will be happening next month and their 00:29:41.165 --> 00:29:43.325 CFP is just now opening right now. 00:29:43.685 --> 00:29:46.565 And so it kind of really depends on, I think, the maturity of the 00:29:46.565 --> 00:29:51.343 conference and you know, like how big the conference is and how much time 00:29:51.343 --> 00:29:55.303 they take to review conference, like talk submissions, et cetera, et cetera. 00:29:55.303 --> 00:29:57.929 So yeah, it can be, it can be kind of like, it'll, it'll 00:29:57.934 --> 00:29:59.159 creep up on you basically. 00:29:59.159 --> 00:30:00.579 Like if you wanted to go to. 00:30:00.602 --> 00:30:03.842 Like, let's see, so Rails Comp is in the end of, or Ruby Comp is in the end 00:30:03.842 --> 00:30:09.902 of November, and I think CFPs closed in August or something like mid August. 00:30:09.902 --> 00:30:14.432 So that'll give you like, kind of a sense for Ruby and Rails Comp, but in other 00:30:14.499 --> 00:30:18.265 yeah, in other language or framework communities, it's gonna be different. 00:30:18.475 --> 00:30:18.895 So, 00:30:19.857 --> 00:30:20.337 Colin: Nice. 00:30:20.517 --> 00:30:24.507 Yeah, I had heard that there used to be a CFP email newsletter and it looks like 00:30:25.007 --> 00:30:27.657 CFP land might have taken that over. 00:30:28.107 --> 00:30:29.127 That's super useful. 00:30:29.194 --> 00:30:32.224 Mostly like you just said, knowing what is even out there, like there 00:30:32.224 --> 00:30:33.904 are some niche conferences that. 00:30:34.489 --> 00:30:36.259 You know, maybe you build up to as well. 00:30:36.259 --> 00:30:40.609 Like for me, jumping straight to Rails Comp also feels like the weirdest one. 00:30:40.609 --> 00:30:44.689 Like I feel like there's definitely smaller like, regional conferences 00:30:44.689 --> 00:30:47.599 that I could've like built that up. 00:30:47.599 --> 00:30:49.159 But again, they don't know who you are. 00:30:49.164 --> 00:30:51.169 So like submit, right? 00:30:51.289 --> 00:30:54.949 If you, if you don't submit, you're not gonna even be put in the running for it. 00:30:54.949 --> 00:30:56.179 So definitely do it. 00:30:56.243 --> 00:30:59.333 It helps you build that muscle, so I highly recommend it if you're 00:30:59.333 --> 00:31:02.489 trying to like get really good at a certain topic or even be known 00:31:02.489 --> 00:31:04.139 as being good in a certain topic. 00:31:04.139 --> 00:31:06.197 It's definitely good for that. 00:31:06.197 --> 00:31:10.084 And it'll definitely make you look good when, when you know, review cycles 00:31:10.084 --> 00:31:11.404 and things like that come around too. 00:31:11.897 --> 00:31:12.417 CJ: Right. 00:31:12.422 --> 00:31:13.277 Yeah, I was thinking about that. 00:31:13.277 --> 00:31:14.807 Like going back to the top of the show. 00:31:14.807 --> 00:31:14.897 I. 00:31:15.512 --> 00:31:16.622 We bounce around a lot. 00:31:17.372 --> 00:31:19.984 , we don't like, say super focused, but going back to like why you 00:31:19.984 --> 00:31:20.824 would speak at a conference. 00:31:20.824 --> 00:31:24.364 Oh, if you're a CTO and you're trying to build your talent brand to hire 00:31:24.369 --> 00:31:28.123 people who are at the conference, another reason would be to get hired. 00:31:28.183 --> 00:31:32.383 Like, Oh, go demonstrate your skills so that people want to hire you. 00:31:32.383 --> 00:31:37.003 So if you, maybe you're a junior and you're Yeah. 00:31:37.008 --> 00:31:43.063 Like you're looking for, A job and you learn something and you wanna 00:31:43.063 --> 00:31:46.933 share that with people and it's gonna demonstrate your skills and you can 00:31:46.933 --> 00:31:50.473 like go give a talk about it at a meetup or go give a talk about it at 00:31:50.473 --> 00:31:54.373 a regional conference, and that'll be recorded and put online and that really 00:31:54.378 --> 00:31:56.563 helps improve your, your dev brand. 00:31:56.593 --> 00:32:01.123 And it kind of also like helps you skip certain interview stages 00:32:01.363 --> 00:32:04.723 because you're not going in as like a completely unknown quantity. 00:32:05.428 --> 00:32:09.268 The hiring manager has watched your talk about whatever concept 00:32:09.268 --> 00:32:10.748 that you've presented on before. 00:32:10.755 --> 00:32:13.125 Especially if you wanna get into developer advocacy. 00:32:13.425 --> 00:32:16.555 I've seen a lot of people asking like, Oh, how do I get into advocacy? 00:32:16.560 --> 00:32:17.265 How do I get into dev? 00:32:17.805 --> 00:32:22.905 It's like, well, you can kind of go and create content on your own and 00:32:22.905 --> 00:32:25.122 then that will speak for itself and 00:32:25.188 --> 00:32:26.773 Colin: There's no gate keeping around that. 00:32:27.222 --> 00:32:27.822 CJ: Exactly. 00:32:27.827 --> 00:32:28.422 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:32:28.422 --> 00:32:32.252 And when I, when we're interviewing or looking at candidates for advocacy 00:32:32.257 --> 00:32:35.202 positions, I definitely like will go and look at their Twitter. 00:32:35.202 --> 00:32:37.182 I'll go look at their previous talks. 00:32:37.187 --> 00:32:39.222 I'll go look at their YouTube channels, et cetera. 00:32:39.582 --> 00:32:41.682 And so, yeah, I mean, I don't know. 00:32:41.802 --> 00:32:46.182 That's, yeah, it could be a, a way that you get a job basically. 00:32:46.798 --> 00:32:47.218 Colin: Totally. 00:32:47.428 --> 00:32:47.698 Yeah. 00:32:47.703 --> 00:32:51.448 There I've been listening to this podcast called Staff E, like 00:32:51.448 --> 00:32:53.848 for staff engineer type content. 00:32:53.848 --> 00:32:57.922 And then they have a whole website called staff edge.com, but they talk a lot. 00:32:58.082 --> 00:33:01.862 Like having a brag sheet, and this is like that thing where maybe it's 00:33:01.862 --> 00:33:05.732 not the actual resume, but it's the list of things that you use. 00:33:06.797 --> 00:33:11.927 Either make the case for a promotion or getting hired at a new company. 00:33:11.927 --> 00:33:16.427 Or maybe when you do give a talk and they ask for your bio, you 00:33:16.427 --> 00:33:17.744 now have things to pull from. 00:33:17.744 --> 00:33:19.091 So that can be super helpful. 00:33:19.481 --> 00:33:23.831 And honestly, like one line link to YouTube talk replaces like a 00:33:23.831 --> 00:33:25.241 whole paragraph on your resume. 00:33:25.241 --> 00:33:26.291 Like that is great. 00:33:26.291 --> 00:33:27.071 You can just link. 00:33:28.504 --> 00:33:29.314 CJ: Yeah, totally. 00:33:29.374 --> 00:33:29.824 Totally. 00:33:29.929 --> 00:33:30.349 Cool. 00:33:31.423 --> 00:33:32.953 Colin: Thanks for listening to Build and Learn. 00:33:33.311 --> 00:33:36.072 CJ: In the next episode, we're gonna talk about getting hired, we're gonna talk 00:33:36.077 --> 00:33:40.145 about engineering levels, and we really want you to tune in if you're thinking 00:33:40.145 --> 00:33:42.215 about starting your next developer role. 00:33:42.514 --> 00:33:46.114 Colin: As always, you can head over to build and learn.dev to check out all the 00:33:46.114 --> 00:33:47.884 links and resources in the show notes. 00:33:48.334 --> 00:33:50.014 That's all for this episode folks. 00:33:50.074 --> 00:33:51.184 We'll see you next time. 00:33:51.744 --> 00:33:52.338 CJ: bye friends.