Tag Archives: conference

20 Nov
2009

Conference Biography Help

I’ve been updating my conference details recently, in order to submit my talks for php|tek in Chicago (the call for papers closes on Monday – get your submissions in!). One thing which I struggled with is my biography, I used to have a paragraph which sort of said “Lorna is a PHP Developer and involved with PHPWomen”, and I used that same entry for every conference for a year or more. However, just like speaker photos, biographies do date. I’ve taken on more responsibilities at work and I’ve been doing more things in the community as well so it was time for a refresh.

I’m quite happy with my new bio:

Lorna Jane Mitchell is a senior developer who speaks, writes and blogs on a variety of technical topics. At Ibuildings she runs the PHP Academy, meaning she’s involved in managing and coaching trainers, hosting seminars and conferences, building a training programme and representing Ibuildings within the PHP community. Lorna is the Editor-in-Chief at Ibuildings techPortal and blogs regularly at lornajane.net. In her spare time she is the European Representative of PHPWomen and is an organiser of the PHPNW user group and conference.

Getting This Far

To get to this point, I started with a list of things I should include. My job, my blog, my community activity, my technical interests. There’s definitely scope for including unexpected information here, I’m seriously thinking of adding my knitting hobby into this paragraph!

I then turned my points into sentences, and emailed the result to a few people to read. Even if you’re secretly hoping someone else will write your bio for you, its often easier for them to criticise something you have written than to start from scratch themselves. I always take this approach even when I know I’m probably making a hash of it, if I’m asking for someone’s input, I take the time to attempt it myself and send them the result. I’m enormously grateful to everyone who has reviewed my biographies and talk proposals, and I’m always happy to do the same for others when I can find the time.

Proofreaders can pick up spelling mistakes and help you put your best foot forward, it might be embarrassing to write about yourself but is it more or less embarrassing than having a lame biography printed in a conference programme?

03 Nov
2009

PHP Barcelona 2009: Round-Up

I spent the last few days in sunny Spain at the PHP Barcelona conference as a speaker. Happily the most reasonably-priced flights gave me some time while I was there to get into the city, I was very keen to see it because I haven’t been before. The trip was made much more enjoyable by our gracious hosts who transported us between the venue and hotel most nights (and it was a very nice hotel too!) and arranged a speaker dinner that I thoroughly enjoyed.

The conference itself was excellent – I spoke about “Working with Web Services” which is basically an overview of everything you need to know to be able to consume web services. The slides for that are online at http://www.slideshare.net/lornajane/working-with-web-services.

I also saw some great talks from the other speakers there, some were people I often see at conferences, others were familiar names, and yet more were people I’d never heard of but I certainly learned a lot from all these groups. One thing that struck me was that the majority of the conference talks were in English – my experiences from looking at these events in southern Europe is that they tend to be held in the local language which of course makes them much less useful to me. This event was predominantly in English, the introduction and (most of) closing session were in English, and most of the talks were too. Whether this signifies a shift in the culture of technical events in Spain or whether this was simply a nice decision by the organisers I’m not sure.

I also made it out into the city which was beautiful. When I publicised my trips, so many people sent me information about their favourite places to go, trips to take and so on that I dubbed Barcelona “city of memories”! I didn’t make it to very many of those this time around but I’ll definitely return to the city in the future – its simply breathtaking.

Parc Guell

Congratulations to the organisers – I’m looking forward to the event in 2010 ;)

13 Oct
2009

PHPNW09: In Conclusion

Last weekend was the second annual PHP North West Conference, held at Manchester Conference Centre and attended by 200 people. We kicked off our weekend on Friday night, with a pre-conference social in a pub near to the conference venue. There wasn’t really enough space but it contained geeky things and sold actual beer, which seemed appropriate. Saturday morning saw the delegates arriving bright and early, ready for our Keynote from Kevlin Henney “The Uncertainty Principle”. He had a whole room full of developers laughing along with him in the early morning – what a great session :)

Next up it was my turn to speak – speaking at a conference that you’re also organising and doing the paper selection for has been a bit of a strange experience, I’d never say “never again” but both things detracted from the other slightly. My talk was “Passing the Joel Test in the PHP World”, which is a re-take of the Joel Test, adapted for web development – its a nice opportunity for me to get some of my thoughts across on a range of best practices and the slides are available online. Once I began speaking and my nerves got out of the way, I almost enjoyed myself – I got some great questions from people in the bar in the evening as well, hopefully I’ll be giving that talk again some time. We used joind.in to allow our attendees to leave feedback – they were great and the comments are still coming in. I was blown away by the feedback on my own talk however – conference organisers please take note!

The rest of the day was a whirl of organisation, chatting with people in the hallway, and catching a few bits and pieces of talks – I did see more talks this year than last year though which I was very pleased about. At the end of the day we had a session with some content from our premier sponsor Microsoft, a whole bunch of giveaways, and I was able to take the microphone once more to thank the organisers, particularly Jeremy and his team from Solution Perspective Media – after which it was time to party. The food was excellent all day, and Sun had put money behind the bar which took us almost all night to drink, they definitely financed some sizeable hangovers!

This year for the first time we also had an informal day on the Sunday, this was something I was deeply involved with organising and I think it went pretty well. Arriving ten minutes before the start time to find speakers, attendees, and a venue with the cafe already open was a welcome surprise before 9am on a Sunday morning! The five speakers that morning were a mix of experienced speakers, new speakers, core PHP topics and a few allied technologies. Plenty of people dropped in to hear a session or two and explore MOSI through the morning, I think it was a nice addition to the schedule.

All that remains is to extend a huge thanks to our speakers, helpers, sponsors and of course the attendees – if you were there I hope you had a great time!

29 Sep
2009

PHPNW09: Weekend of PHP and Fun

Having just put the finishing touches to the schedule for PHPNW09, I’m realising just how excited I am about this event coming up in less than a fortnight. This is the second year we’ve run the event, and its bigger and better than last year – and I know what a great crowd to expect! We kick off in Manchester on Friday 9th October for a pre-conference social, with the main event on Saturday and follow this, naturally, with another party! Since so many people are there for the weekend we’ve also taken some conference space for Sunday morning and begged a few more speakers to hang around and share their knowledge with those people who are staying for the weekend. (The Sunday speakers get no speaker package and they were all very gracious about having their arms twisted … we can’t thank them enough!)

The full schedule is now published with both Saturday and Sunday sessions now published along with timings for each. Although this is a local conference with a budget ticket price and organised by volunteers, the lineup would not look out of place at any other event on the PHP calendar – and we’d like to thank all the speakers that submitted talks to us, regardless of whether we managed to find time in the schedule for them. The submitters, the speakers, the helpers and the attendees are what makes this conference what it is – and I can’t wait! See you in Manchester :)

25 Sep
2009

Speaking at PHP Barcelona

I’m delighted to announce I’ll be speaking at the PHP Barcelona Conference in October. This is a new speaking topic for me, although I’ve been working and blogging in this area for a while, with a talk entitled “Working with Web Services”. Its a very technical session looking at different types of services and the tools available for working with them. We’ll also delve into overviews of how these services actually work and how we can troubleshoot when things go wrong. I’m really excited about writing and delivering this talk topic, and equally excited about my first trip to Barcelona and meeting lots of new people in the PHP community in Spain. If you are going – hope to see you there, come and say hi :)
22 Sep
2009

Lame Excuses for Avoiding Conferences

At the moment I am getting to quite a few conferences, as a speaker, as an organiser, and sometimes as a plain old attendee. I get so much from these opportunities to learn from experts in their various fields, meet people in the flesh whose blogs I read or whom I know from IRC. I also hugely value the opportunity to socialse and build personal connections, and to be a bystander for technical conversations between leaders where I understand most of the words but can barely follow the flow. I can quite appreciate that different people come to conferences for different reasons, but I cannot accept that people actively avoid conferences because they think its not for them – and the reasons for this, from people who have never been to a conference, are wild and varied. Most are based on misconceptions and I’d like to take the time to examine some of these.

I won’t know anyone

This situation will persist until you go to a conference and meet some people! Then, you’ll know some people at the next event. When I went to IPC in Frankfurt in 2007, I knew nobody but while I was there I met Derick, Sebastian and Zoe … and these three are now conference friends wherever I go! Lots of people at conferences are there on their own and will be happy to chat to you and find out who you are.

Its too expensive

While I’m lucky enough to have the support of my employers, Ibuildings, to send me to at least a couple of conferences per year, I’ve worked for plenty of other organisations that didn’t invest in their people. I think this is unforgivable but the reality is there are plenty of us in this situation. If you are paying your own way to these events I can appreciate that $1100 (~700 GBP) plus international flights plus a week in a hotel in Silicon Valley can seem pretty expensive if you want to get to ZendCon. But there are cheaper and closer conferences are available for most of us – so do your homework and get to something you can afford, even if you don’t do it every year. I’ve yet to get to a conference where the cost outweighed the benefit so in my view this excuse is invalid.

My employer won’t pay

No, well, see previous point. This is true for plenty of people and while I don’t have any numbers on people paying their own way – they do exist and they almost invariably move on to work for employers that do invest in their future. Do this for you, not for them.

I might have to talk to people/strangers

This is the excuse I hear the most often, or a variation on this. Actually you don’t have to talk to anyone if you don’t want to. I went to an event last year and introduced myself to a guy who said “Hi, I’m James. I don’t have any social skills” and proceeded to say nothing further (his name may or may not have been James, I can’t really remember). To be honest I didn’t really think anything of it. Conferences are firstly about the technical content so if you want to come and get the technical sessions and then disappear again – that is your call. I can’t agree this is a good idea but there is absolutely no pressure to be the life and soul of the party, and in fact if you want to sit in the corner and mutter to yourself that is also fine … we’re all geeks after all! Nobody will judge you, in fact if you don’t talk to anyone probably nobody will notice you – just COME and you might be surprised :)

I haven’t been to a conference

Why not? Pick an event you like the sound of, join in the preconference hype (more about this in my post about making friends at a conference) and see how it goes. If you hate it, then don’t go to another. But don’t stay home immobilised by lack of experience, you’re missing out :)

Avoiding Conferences

Getting to a conference costs time, money and effort and if you don’t want to invest any of those things in your professional development then I respect your decision. However if you think you’d like to attend something, but you don’t know what to expect or you have concerns about what is expected of you, then try to put those fears aside and dive in! I think I’ve covered the things I hear most often – what excuses do you hear from conference-avoiders?

04 Sep
2009

Speaking at PHPNW09

I have experience of PHP conferences from all possible angles – as an attendee, as a speaker and as an organiser. At PHP North West this year I will be taking this to new heights and combining all three roles into a single one-day conference. I have a speaking slot at the event entitled “Passing the Joel Test in the PHP World”, which I’m very excited about. Its a talk that I think brings together the best ideas from a general software engineering world and puts them into the context of PHP development. If you’re wondering what the Joel Test is, then you can read about it on wikipedia.

Having spoken at a few different events now, some local and some quite high-profile PHP conferences (OK, so php|tek – the event of the year!), I’m really delighted to be bringing my ideas to the local conference that I help to organise and attached to a user group full of bright and interesting people. The experience of launching a call for papers, submitting my own abstracts, and then trying to figure out where it fits in when evaluating the CfP was a bit split-personality but with Jeremy’s input we decided this was a good fit – and I’m looking forward to delivering it!

The event itself is in Manchester, UK on Saturday 10th October and there is only one week remaining on the early bird ticket price!! So all those people who think its ages away and you’ll sort out arrangements nearer the time – you have been warned. The schedule is world-class (quite literally, these speakers do speak right around the world), and the price is pocket money (50 GBP + VAT until 11th September). As well as the technical content you get a fun weekend in Manchester, plenty of social activity, there’s more geekery happening the following day and all attendees get a 12-month subscription to php|architect magazine to keep them learning all year long. Now you’re persuaded – you can buy you tickets here and let me know to expect you!

PHPNW is the highlight of my year – I hope to see you there :)

28 Aug
2009

PHPNW: Schedule and Crowd-Sourcing

Plans for the second annual PHP North West conference (Manchester, 10th October) are coming along rather nicely, so I thought I’d share an update and some headline news. First of all – tickets cost 50 GBP + VAT. This is about 57 euros or 81 dollars. I don’t know where else you can buy conference attendance for that kind of money, we even have concessionary prices for students, OAPs, anyone else who can persuade us they deserve it. So – buy your tickets and come join in the fun!

Since I last posted here we also published the schedule. We were overwhelmed by the quality of the call for papers and there are some cracking sessions, excellent speakers, and lots of overlap between the two! Already grumbling can be heard about good sessions which clash with one another … which is rather a wonderful problem to have :)

Finally, this year PHPNW is expanding and has added an informal schedule on the Sunday morning since we know lots of people will be staying over. This will run from 9 til 1 and we’ve put out a call to ask what people would like to see on the schedule. So far a few regulars have already made themselves heard and we’re looking forward to seeing the outcome of crowd-sourcing a schedule in this way! The Sunday event is at Museum of Science and Industry, which a fun place to go for geeks and, like the morning event, is free entry!

Hoping to see lots of you there at the conference this year – last year’s event was brilliant with an excellent atmosphere, and this year looks to be better again. I can’t wait :)

03 Aug
2009

5 Ways to Make Friends at a Technical Conference

These are my top tips for getting along and meeting new people at a technical conference.

Take an extension cable

Conferences are notorious for having too few and too short power leads, and everyone needs to recharge laptops, especially in hands-on sessions like tutorial day. Having an extension cable will make you instant friends as you bring power to more people.

Join in the pre-conference hype

Follow the nominated twitter tag and log into the IRC channel if there is one. Find out who is staying in the same place as you or arriving at the same time, arrange to travel together or meet for a pre-conference drink to break the ice.

Attend the extra-curricular events

Don’t think for a moment that when the official schedule ends, you are off-duty for the night! Find out about any social activities going on – and if there is an informal track such as an unconference, make sure you attend, or even participate. This is a great opportunity to meet more people and see more talks in a much less structured environment.

Take business cards

Or if you don’t have that kind of job (or even if you do!) get some moo cards to take with you so you can pass on your blog/email address, name and twitter details to people you want to stay in touch with after the event.

Stay an extra day

The party starts when the conference ends, so hang around for 24 hours or so and join in :) Especially for the speakers (whose rooms are paid for) and those travelling internationally, there’s no need to rush off straight away. Some of the best times I’ve had at conferences have been after the main event.

Keep in touch

Write up your experiences on your blog (do you have a blog? If not, this is a great place to start) and tag it appropriately. Comment on other people’s and stay in touch with the new friends that you made at the conference.

OK, so technically this is six ways to make friends, but I won’t apologise for that :) What’s your top tip for conference attendees?