Conferences

A few days ago, I randomly tossed this out on Twitter without context:

Technical writing requires assuming the reader is simultaneously highly intelligent and utterly ignorant, without making them feel like you think they're utterly ignorant.

That shit is hard, yo.

Someone asked for ideas on how to achieve that goal, and it seemed like a topic worthy of discussion so here we are.

Technical writing is not for Dummies

I would expand the statement above a bit, actually. Good technical writing requires:

Someone messaged me recently to say he had just been selected for his first-ever conference talk, and since the talks of mine he'd seen in the past were so inspiring he wanted to know if I had any advice for new speakers. Since flattery will often get you somewhere, I offered the following advice. I figure it's generic enough that I should share it more widely. :-)

Continue reading this post on PeakD.

Being a conference organizer is hard. Like, seriously. Aside from the obvious logistics, and the not-at-all-obvious logistics, you're in a position to create a social gathering, not just a technical one. That comes with a lot of baggage and challenges, many of them often competing and incompatible, that need to be balanced. One in particular is ensuring that the speakers are an eclectic lot that are representative both of the community as it is and as you want it to be. That can take a lot of work.

Earlier this year the organizers of the PHP Central Europe conference (PHP.CE) approached me and asked me to submit sessions for the PHP.CE conference in Dresden this October. I rather enjoy speaking at conferences so I of course did so, and this past week they announced their speaker selections, including me with 2 sessions.

Unfortunately, some fellow speakers pointed out that their speaker selections for this year included zero women. There were numerous speakers with 2 sessions (myself included) or a workshop and a session, but no women at all.

Continue reading this post on SteemIt.

Earlier this week a fellow PHP public figure tweeted saying that I write great session proposals for conferences. After I finished blushing I reached out to him and we talked a bit about what it was he likes about them. (Whatever I'm doing right, I want to know to keep doing it!)

Based on that, I figured it would be educational to dissect how I go about writing session proposals for conferences and hope that conference organizers don't catch on to my tricks. :-)

As 2014 draws to a close, I look back at the year and realize... holy crap I traveled a lot! I hadn't actually done a fully tally yet, but here's the full rundown:

Sunshine PHP - Miami, FL - February

• Open Source, PHP, and PIE (Keynote)

Drupal South - Wellington, New Zealand - February

• Presenting Drupal 8 (Keynote)

Florida Drupal Camp - Orlando, FL - March

• Drupal 8 Module Development: The Crash Course

MidCamp - Chicago, IL - March

• Drupal 8 Module Development (Training)
• Drupal 8 Site Building (Training)
• Presenting Drupal 8 (Keynote with Jeff Eaton)

Museums and the Web - Baltimore, MD - April

• Drupal 8 Module Development (Training)
• Drupal 8 Site Building (Training)

Lonestar PHP - Dallas, TX - April

• Eating ElePHPants (Keynote)

Drupal Association Webinar - Online - May

• What to Expect from Drupa 8 (for developers)

php[tek] - Chicago, IL - May

• Functional PHP
• What to expect from Drupal 8 (for Developers)

DrupalCon Austin - Austin, TX - June

• Functional PHP
• The Road to [Drupal] 8.1
• Q&A Panel with Dries and Drupal leaders

Refactor::Chicago (User group) - Chicago, IL - May

• Functional PHP

Nomad PHP (User group) - Online - June

• Functional PHP

Crafting Code Tour - Minneapolis, MN; Milwaukee, WI; Cincinnati, OH - July

• The PHP Renaissance

Design 4 Drupal - Boston, MA -July

• Design Systems, Drupal, and Beautiful Synergy

Twin Cities Drupal Camp - Minneapolis, MN - August

• Design Systems and Drupal

Madison PHP - Madison, WI - September

• Functional Programming

DrupalCon Amsterdam - Amsterdam, The Netherlands - September

• Drupal 8: The Crash Course
• Managing Complexity
• A Decoupled Drupal with Silex

Symfony Live - New York, NY - October

• A Decoupled Drupal with Silex

Higher Ed Web - Portland, OR - October

• Multi-Headed Drupal

BADCamp - San Francisco, CA - November

• Multi-Headed Drupal

php[world] - Washington, DC - November

• A Decoupled Drupal with Silex

In all, I flew 64,082 miles (103,130 kilometers for the metric fans in the audience), presented 29 times, with 13 distinct presentations at 20 conferences and user groups across 3 continents, and spent 82 days on the road (not counting non-conference travel). You know what that means?

It means I created about 10 metric tonnes of carbon pollution.

Let's be honest, I spend a lot of time at conferences. Over the past 2 years or so I've averaged more than one speaking engagement at a conference per month, including a half-dozen keynotes. I've also helped organize several conferences, mostly DrupalCamps and DrupalCons. I'd estimate conferences make up more than a third of my professional activity. (Incidentally, if someone can tell me how the hell that happened I'd love to hear it; I'm still confused by it.)

As a result I've gotten to see a wide variety of conference setups, plans, crazy ideas, and crazy wonderful ideas. There are many wonderful things that conference organizers do, or do differently, and of course plenty of things that they screw up.

I want to take this opportunity to share some of that experience with the organizers of various conferences together, rather than in one-off feedback forms that only one conference will see. To be clear, while I definitely think there are areas that many conferences could improve I don't want anyone to take this letter as a slam on conference organizers. These are people who put in way more time than you think, often without being paid to do so, out of a love for the community, for learning and sharing, and for you. Whatever else you may think about a conference or this list, the next time you're at a conference take a moment to find one of the organizers and give them a huge hug and/or firm handshake (as is their preference) and say thank you for all the work that they do.

Well, I've gone and done it. I've managed to setup my most intense conference schedule to date. This fall I will be appearing at no less than five conferences, speaking at least four of them.

If you're into Stalking Crell, here's where you'll find me around the globe this fall.

Ah, the spring. So many things happen in the spring. Snow melts. Flowers bloom. The Easter Bunny sells cheap chocolate. People set their clocks ahead in an attempt to confuse their pets. It is also the start of conference season in the northern hemisphere, which means flying about the country talking about Drupal. This year is especially busy, with 10 presentations in 4 cities so far. (Possibly more to come.)

Here's where you'll be able to stalk Crell in the coming weeks: