Conference practices worth stealing

I've been attending a lot of conferences lately. Really a lot. It's been wonderful. I've learned a ton, met some incredible people, and made a bunch of new friends.

Every conference I've been to has it's unique and special flavour. Each one has been different. Each one did a few clever things worth stealing (like an artist).

I want to highlight a few things that I've seen work really well in different places. My hope is that this article will give community organisers ideas worth trying.

Disclaimer: I've been to quite a few conferences and life has been very full this year. I might miss something or someone important. I'll do my best not to. If you think I missed something please ping me and I'll update the article. Or, even better, respond - it would be good to hear what other people think is worth stealing and building on.

The focus of this post

I want certain things out of conferences, you might want different things.

I get a lot out of watching the conference talks. The talks and tutorials bring people together, they give us a focal point.

For me, the real magic happens around the talks. The hallway track is golden. The human connection, conversations and side-quests do a lot for me. I do have a few things to say about the talks and formal agenda, but I'm mostly focusing on the in between parts.

Without further delay...

Orientation session

Conferences are weird. There are all sorts of funny words like "sprints" and "CoC". People who are new to a community are very unlikely to know their way around all the different things, or what to pay attention to.

DjangoConUS runs an orientation session at the start of the conference, just before the opening remarks. This is powerful because it sets the tone of the conference for new people, it describes the culture, and explains how a person can get the most out of things.

For example, if in-person attendees aren't reminded about the conference Slack or Discord then they wont be likely to benefit from it. A good orientation session adds leverage to many other things.

Make the PacMan bigger

This is something I first heard about at a lightening talk at PyConZA. I have since heard about it all over the world. I think it is also mentioned in the DjangoConUS orientation session.

Socialising is hard and scary and we all know it. We're in this together. Many of us self-identify as socially awkward and anxious. Myself included. It's hard to approach a group of people and break into a conversation that's already happening.

There's a hack for that.

The idea is that if you are standing in a circle of people and having a conversation then it's good to explicitly leave a gap in the circle (so the shape is more like a PacMan than a circle). This makes it easier for new people to physically slot in and join the conversation. And it's a signal to tell people that they are welcome to join.

Discord or Slack

Many conferences make use of some kind of chat app during and before the conference. This is useful even for in person events. I've seen some conferences use these things well, and others for who this is an afterthought.

These things can be very powerful for coordinating a bunch of different things. For example, if an attendee wants to organise an open space or sprint then it's useful to have a place to post messages, and to check what is going on.

This can also be a place to ask for and coordinate volunteers.

To use these things well, it't important to reduce friction and to have a good signal to noise ratio. If attendees struggle to join, or if there are an overwhelming number of channels, then it's not that effective.

Less is more.

Outings channel

I first saw this at DjangoConUS. I also had a great time with this at EuroPython.

It's quite a simple little thing: If you are using Slack or Discord then make a channel where conference attendees can make and share extra plans. Folks can get together and do things in the mornings before the conference or after the day is done.

I've met all sorts of lovely people and gone on all sorts of side quests and adventures through this kind of thing. It's great because it fosters connections and makes things special and memorable.

If you are using Discord then a "forum" type channel works best.

Travellers channel

If many people are travelling to the conference then it is useful to have a place where travellers can ask questions and share tips. Again, this is a very simple thing to set up. I've found it very helpful.

Sprints

I suspect that most people reading this will know what a sprint it. For those that don't here we go:

A sprint happens after the conference. It's usually a day or two long. During a sprint, conference attendees are invited to show up and contribute to different open source projects.

I've seen these go well and badly. When they go well:

• they are announced, promoted and explained during the conference
• people are invited to volunteer to lead sprints on different projects. Django fellows might lead a sprint to help people contribute to Django, and folks with smaller open source projects might craft some "beginner-friendly" tasks so they can get some extra hands on deck
• there is a good space set up - folks have enough space to do the work
• it's fairly quiet so people can focus - there should not be too many announcements
• coffee

Learning Sprint

This is a shameless plug.

Sometimes people don't attend sprints because they are new to software development and feel a bit intimidated by the whole thing. And sometimes newer developers show up in order to learn and then seek out a project that they can learn on. Sprints are not optimised for these situations.

At DjangoConUS 2024 I ran a thing called a "Learning Sprint". It went super well. The idea was to make a place for learning and get people to build their own stuff while working through a tutorial covering specific skills.

It was really well attended and folks were super focused for the most part.

The learning sprint focused on getting people to build a CRUD application using Django, TailwindCSS, HTMX, AlpineJS and Playwright. It's a solid stack of tools and folks make some cool things.

The learning sprint was the first "teachathon" run by the Guild of Educators. This is a new project, I announced it fairly recently.

Here is a link to the content we went through. If you find it useful please tell me about it :)

The only weird part about this is that it feels like a workshop or tutorial and many conferences host those before the main event, and charge money for them. So I'm not 100% sure about the best way to run these.

DjangoGirls and HumbleData run teaching events alongside conferences so this might turn into another one of those. But the focus of this teachathon was on more advanced skills.

The plan is to make more of these things.

Networking and connection

One of the things I really loved at EuroPython was the networking. There were 2 really big open spaces that I took part in that I want to highlight.

The one was a PyLadies event. I hadn't interacted much with PyLadies prior to the event so it was a good way for me to see what they are all about (I have since joined the PyLadies community and recommended it to a few people).

Another one that was great was a community organiser open space. That was powerful. We had a lot of driven people from all over Europe and the world, who were keen on sharing the lessons they had learned and the problems they were facing. I learned a lot and was able to share a few things I had picked up during my adventures. It was a very supportive, connecting environment. It left me inspired.

Open spaces and focused discussions are powerful. We are a community of communities. It's helpful to make space for people to connect around what matters to them and to allow people to listen in on conversations that need to happen.

A slack or discord setup allows people to self-organise.

Socials

EuroPython has a strong social game. There were a few extra social events planned in the evenings. Some of the events were things you could just show up at, and some stuff was more organised and required that folks buy tickets.

I think this was a good way to do things - if you organise a big social thing after a conference then that can be a lot of effort, and not everyone will come. So including that kind of thing in the regular ticket price is likely to lead to waste.

Name badges with sticky ribbons

The first time I came across this was at DjangoConUS.

When conference attendees go to the registration desk at the conference then they are given a rectangular name tag on a lanyard. They are then given a bunch of ribbons to choose from. The ribbons have some words printed on them such as "first time attendee", "speaker", "community organiser", "sponsor" and suchlike.

Attendees select the ribbons that describe them and stick them to their badges. It's great because you can get an idea of where people fit in at a glance once you get used to the colours.

If you are struggling to picture this, take a look here.

Talk proposal coaching and feedback

This one comes from my home PyCon - PyConZA. When a person applies to do a talk or tutorial then a human will read their proposal and give them feedback. That feedback will be constructive, the goal is to improve the proposal. Sometimes this takes a bit of back and forth.

This helps people improve their CFP game.

1. If a proposal isn't quite good enough, it isn't simply rejected. Someone can help get it over the line
2. If a proposal is not appropriate at all and gets rejected, there are details about why. It's not a simple rejection email

The guy who runs this process comes from an academic conference background and does it because he found academic conferences to be unsupportive and overly critical.

This is a big workload, very big. I can't suggest everyone take it on with the same amount of vigour as the PyConZA team, but I do think it is worth considering. How might you 80/20 it?

Speaker coaching

First time or inexperienced speakers can often benefit from a helping hand. I've seen a few conferences offer speaker coaching and support.

I had a good experience at Esc@pe 2023: I was invited to pick a time slot for an online call. When I joined the call there were a few pretty hardcore people there. I walked through my presentation and they gave some solid feedback. It was a clean and simple mechanism.

Other than that I have only had bad experiences:

I once signed up for speaker coaching and was assigned a mentor. The mentor ignored my emails and never attempted to reach out.

Another time I signed up as a speaker mentor, and the person I was meant to be helping ignored my emails and never attempted to reach out.

I do think these things can go well and can be very valuable, but it's worth thinking through the mechanisms. Humans are a bit chaotic sometimes. Scaffolds and guard-rails are nice.

Local food

I've been to a few conferences in different parts of the world. Some places put effort into exposing attendees to the local culture. Local food is a great way to do this.

A few highlights:

• PyCon Italia: Of course Italy is known for it's food
• PyCon Namibia: The speaker's dinner was at a local restaurant where we ate a variety fo traditional dishes. It was an adventure.
• DjangoCon Africa 2023 had local caterers preparing the conference lunch, every meal was interesting

What stands out for you?

I'm sure I missed something. And I'm sure that different people value different things t me.

What conference mechanisms stand out for you? What do you think is worth stealing (like an artist)?