Brandon Weaver Apr 29, 2023

One thing that is non-obvious to a lot of folks, and is the reason I'm not jumping to restart a conference over here:

They cost a _lot_ of money, and it's real easy to bankrupt the person hosting them if you're not careful.

My goal is to help build a sustainable ecosystem that can foster conferences for decades to come, not a few years until the current leads burn out.

I believe Ruby Central plays a crucial role in helping to make this a reality.

Show threadBrandon Weaver Apr 29, 2023

The other half of this equation are the people.

You have to have a critical mass of attendees to make a conference a reality, and that means consistently attended meetups and events to prove that mass.

You also need organizers and volunteers capable of leading that large of a group. It's not trivial to head up a 1500+ person conference, and we need to acknowledge that.

Show threadBrandon Weaver Apr 29, 2023

For me I believe this starts locally through meetup organizers, and organically grows from there.

Meetup organizers become local conference organizers over time, perhaps eventually even regional ones and expanding from there.

That takes time, and we need to cultivate and invest in those leaders.

Show threadBrandon Weaver Apr 29, 2023
I'm not saying it can't happen, but that we want this to be sustainable and carry on for generations beyond the initial organizers, and that investment is constant and ongoing.
Show threadNoel RappinApr 29, 2023
@baweaver so, one thing that happened in many places was that the original meetup/conference organizers burned out and for whatever reason there was no succession.
Show threadBrandon Weaver Apr 29, 2023
@noelrap Yeah, that's one of the biggest issues: there's very rarely a succession line or people ready to take up that mantel next.
Show threadsoaproot
@baweaver @noelrap I have observed that a "generation" in the context of an annual conference historically has often been about 7 years (Atlanta Linux Showcase, Golden Gate Ruby, probably others). Beyond that, "succession" in the sense of a seamless turnover of organizers and volunteers might be feasible but I'm not sure I have an opinion about that versus finding a whole new group (and somehow making it sufficiently easy for them).
Apr 29, 2023 at 4:17amWeb