(as long as you bring good people)
If you’re organising an event, the most important thing to do is to get good people to come. Everything else is a bonus.
Even if everything else goes wrong: Even if you lose the venue or you don’t show up, then the attendees will still make a good event happen because they’ll all be there together. They’ll go to a pub or a park or something and they’ll share stories and talk and do things together. They don’t need you.
As an organiser, your job is to improve this naturally-happening phenomenon and to make it smoother and easier. It’s important to know that you’re not starting from scratch.
This learning is a learning I learned from Arne during some of the mentoring he gave me as part of the buildup to my talk at Heart of Clojure. It’s something he told me.
You could see it reflected in the conference itself (which Arne organised). You could tell that the conference was built around the idea that it was— that we were all there to come together and interact with each other and learn from each other. Or as Arne put it in his opening intro:
“Come alive!”
The conference took place across two venues. There was a nice walk between the two of them, and when you did that walk, you ended up walking past many other conference attendees, easily identifiable by the big colourful glowy green badge around their necks. Saying hello to everyone you walked past was a nice / cheesy / wholesome activity to do and it gave you an easy way to start serendipitous conversations.
The second space was open, with plenty of space to sit around, crash, hang out, meet people, do stuff. Most conferences I go to are too stuffy and serious for that sort of thing, but not this one!
You didn’t feel bad for spending time chatting either. Normally, spending time in the “hallway track” means missing talks. But at Heart of Clojure, there were hearty gaps between sessions to give you enough breathing room to take the time you needed.
The thing that surprised me most was the schedule. Everyone has access to it via a custom built web app. That part was pretty normal. The crazy part was that anyone could add new sessions to the official schedule in the app: Anyone!
Anyone could add a session to the official schedule, which felt completely crazy to me. I couldn’t believe they trusted people to do this. I mean, I guess there was some approval system or something, for abuse and stuff? But it was more about the artistic control that the organisers were willing to part with. By letting anyone change their conference’s plan, they let go of control. They made space for someone else.
I think some people would say, “That’s just an unconference” and I would say “No it’s not”. Unconferences are when there’s no schedule at all and it’s a free-for-all. Everyone creates the unconference together from scratch. And yes, I guess that’s similar in some ways. But Heart of Clojure felt much higher stakes than that.
There’s nothing to lose in an unconference.
In Heart of Clojure, there was a fully crafted plan, planned with care and attention, and then that plan was given to you as a gift that you’re entrusted with.
By creating a—
I can safely say that Heart of Clojure was by far better than any other conference I’ve ever been to, and I’ve been to a lot. It was the best by leaps and bounds.
I see the same ego-death-style organising from Daniel here in the London live coding scene.
He seems like a really reluctant organiser to me (in a good way). He organises events because he wants to attend them, so that means he’s always trying to boost other people to take things into their own hands.
It seems to be working!
Sometimes there’s a bit of a culture clash, where some people don’t immediately get or understand the attendee-led approach. I’ve seen many people accidentally volunteer themselves into doing a job by complaining that it’s not done.
“I don’t think this table should be here. It should be over there instead.”
Okay then.
It’s a bottom-up approach. As an individual living— As an individual within a larger community, you are one atom that could potentially help, if only you’d give your best effort and get involved.
You can’t do it all! But you can make one small bit of space for someone else.
Move that one table! Make room for one more!
Host that event! Help that beginner! Make that connection! Let go of control! Make room for one more!
This should be obvious.
Back to the wikiblogardenite.
Or read my binned first drafts that didn’t make the cut:
in preparation for my first keynote, I got some mentoring from Arne, and there was— there were many things he—
Many things Arne said stuck with—
I learned a lot of things from those small doses of mentoring. One of the lessons I learned was—
Arne said many— Many of the things Arne said—
heart of clojure changed me and my outlook on what a computering event could and should be. it made me more hopeful.
the influence started way before the event even began. it began with the short but sweet mentoring sessions I got from Arne.
I learned many things from those sessions and I’m still unpacking them all: Struggling to write about them one by one.
Here’s one of those learnings:
You just need people.
This is what Arne told me. He told me there’s a lot of stress with organising a big event like Heart of Clojure, or any other conference or meetup or gig or whatever.
Yes, it’s very stressful. There’s lots to do, loads to arrange, and plenty to get wrong (or right). IT’S BIG and scary and it can feel like a lot is riding on your shoulders— resting on your shoulders.
But here’s the thing:
As an organiser…
Even if you do NOTHING—