2024 Q3 Event - Speakers and Format

[allella]

Notes

• Review our talk submissions that came in through the official form.
• See earlier Speakers & Format Planning issues for other ideas for speakers and past context.
• The pilot notes contain potential speakers, and potential future speakers / ideas / topics.

Confirmed Speakers

• 10 mins | Caleb McQuaid | Encore! Encore! | A brief introduction to a new, scalable backend framework.
• 15 mins | Brian Kennedy | Project-based IaC, You're Doing IaC Wrong | Part 2 - Tools and Quality
• 5 mins | Heather Bowes | Running a House Off an Electric Car | My demonstration of running several appliances at home during Hurricane Helene off my base model Tesla without voiding the warranty.
• 10 or 15 mins | Barry Jones | Story Points are Pointless, Measure Queues | A fun lightning talk version of his recent blog post

Rough Schedule

6:00 - 6:20 — Food
6:20 - 6:25 — Welcome and Intro to Sponsor
6:25 - 6:35 — TBD
6:35 - 6:40 — Break and Brief Community Announcements
6:40 - 6:55 — TBD
6:55 - 7:10

• Break
• Community Breakout Conversation

7:10 - 7:20 — TBD
7:20 - 7:35 — Break
7:30 - 7:45 — TBD
7:45 - 8:00+ — Social and Ice Cream Bars

Tasks (In-advance)

• Reach out to speakers who have previously expressed interest and invite them to fill out the Talk Submission form.
• Post a call for speaker / talk submissions in #community-organizers directing people to fill out the Talk Submission form
• If needed, post a call for speaker / talk submissions in #general or #random a week or so after posting in #community-organizers
• Offer lightning talks to organizers of groups which are on hiatus or which have low attendance
• If needed, ask community partners to promote the call for speakers to their relevant audience
• Have a backup speaker for when someone is sick or can’t make it.
• Advise speakers to come with proper video adapters to connect their laptop via HDMI
• TODO Consider grading the talks on skill / knowledge level: newbie, intermediate, advanced and having a mix of different levels
• (Jim has a template) Connect with speakers over Slack to share details (audio / video setup, share Wi-Fi details, time slots, attendee expectations (like expecting people to come and go during the talks), video recording, where to park and how to enter the building
• Ask if speakers need any special equipment, like power cords, whiteboards & markers, podium, audio speakers, time clocks, projector
• Suggest that speakers come early to test Wi-Fi, video, and other connections

Tasks (At the Event Venue)

• Take a photo of the space before hand so things can be put back where they were
• Prepare the conference rooms (move the white tables to the empty hall past the men's room at OpenWorks)
• If opening the partition in the conference room
  • Get Jim Ciallella to help, or else contact the security desk for help, as the wall requires special know-how and has been damaged in the past by unskilled folks messing with it.
  • WARN people about putting their fingers in the seams
  • WARN people to move the TVs away from the wall before folding the wall
• Position and erase whiteboards
• Confirm audio / video / internet is working for the presenters
• Double-check that the presenters brought proper HDMI to Laptop adapters
• Turn on TVs and set to the correct “source”
• Remind speakers to test the HDMI and do a dry run to make sure they have what they need

[allella]

Scary Story Talks Idea

On the scary stories, I reached out to DC864 yesterday to see if they would be willing to curate 1 or 2 talks of about 5 minutes and we'd put something like "conjured by DC864" on the schedule if they do that.

Luke said he'd run it by the organizers. If they don't do something, then we can do a more general call.

I figured their people would have good stories and that it was worth outsourcing the task, and partnering with them we might get some new attendees out of the woodwork.

Regular Talks

• We have a talks submission form and I've reached out to two of the new speakers yesterday.
• The talk submissions form results can be shared as needed / requested. Green highlights in the sheet means they have previously done a talk.
• Brian and Paul have already given talks, so I wanted to start with new speakers first.
• We could still do a call for speakers, but it may make sense to wait a few days to see if the new speakers commit, since if they do, and if DC864 commits to stories, then we'd have more than we need for this go around

[allella]

I've reached out to a few of the speakers submissions for people have haven't talked yet and have not received replies.

Jen Bauer with UPWiSE mentioned wanting to mention their group, so we might consider adding them to some announcement time or a 5 minute talk if they want it.

[allella]

Caleb McQuaid has committed to a 10 minute talk on Encore! Encore!- A brief introduction to a new, scalable backend framework.

Heather Bowens submitted two talks based on threads from this week on the HG Slack.

I added about 6 talk ideas from the Fall 2023 list.

[allella]

@sirbeep did you want to do your part II of your talk at the HG Nights in October?

We have a number of potential talks, so no problem if you want to punt until a future date, but we can put you on the schedule if you confirm.

[sirbeep]

hmm.. what was part 2? Atlantis setup maybe.. I've got the example repo, I should be able to make presentation pages in the next few weeks.

[allella]

@sirbeep we had the following talk submission

"Project based IaC, You're doing IaC wrong. Talk 2, Tools and Quality A continuation of Talk 1, which covered applying software development best practices to IaC which covered Design and compartmentalizing. Today we cover Tools and Quality. "

No problem if you want to do that talk at a later date.

[sirbeep]

Yup! That’s it. Tools and Quality. IE, using Atlantis. I have just a little to do and can present it.

[allella]

@sirbeep Alright. Do you want to confirm for a 15 minute slot on Oct 29?

[sirbeep]

You bet. I'll be there.

[allella]

Alright, we have 4 speakers set for the upcoming HG Nights.

[allella]

@calebmcquaid @sirbeep @brightball and @musicalheather

Here's a proposed schedule for HG Nights. Please share any thoughts or concerns.

6:00 - 6:25 — Food
6:25 - 6:30 — Welcome and Intro to Sponsor
6:30 - 6:40 - Caleb
6:40 - 6:45 - Break
6:45 - 7:00 - Barry
7:00 - 7:15 - Break and Community Breakouts
7:15 - 7:20 — Heather
7:20 - 7:30 — Break
7:30 - 7:45 — Brian
7:45 - 8:00+ — Social and Ice Cream Bars