Our rake in preparing a hardcore conference

Three years ago I didn’t have experience in holding conferences. From important memories - it was how I once fell asleep on someone else’s report, because there was frank captaincy. It was around this time that an understanding came to me that my conference for developers would be megahardcore and without jambs on reports.

I must say that I, like the team formed in the process, were incredibly lucky with the lack of experience. Now, when at least four times it was possible to make konfu as I wanted, I can say - on average, everything in the sphere is not doing what the developer needs. The reason is simple: conferences usually hold Eychary to recruit new people. And order them to external agencies. Agencies recruit speakers without a system, not understanding what it will be all about.
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Prehistory

Actually, we must start over. So, conferences are needed for three things:
1. Sell to the assembled product of the organizer, showing in practice that it is needed.
2. Build as many new developers as possible (in the realm of Java, there is a real shortage of people with experience).
3. Or try to teach someone after all, bringing together smart people together. The last time I read about this in Chertok was in the book “Rockets and People”, when Soviet rocket engineers had to exchange knowledge, ideas and best practices.

Naturally, I wanted a third one. But this idea has one fundamental flaw - money. On average, if there are no sales after the conference, or there is no plan for recruited captured heads, there will be no payment. All one way or another, go to minus or roll into unformat. If you think that the conference really pay off tickets - you just never tried. Tickets are really expensive. More precisely, how. When you sold 1000 tickets to participants in your past conferences - yes, everything will be fine. If not, you'll have to look for other funding.

Solution hard problem

The team and I decided to narrow down the conference area only to Java developers and only to those who really learn, and do not go to the conference to relax from the office and receive papers. And they immediately began to prepare hardcore hardcore - so that not a word about all sorts of business topics, without educational programs and snot.

The idea was that a clear and understandable product with the mechanics of “paid money — gained knowledge — raised the level — began to earn more” —the coolest. The fact is that the average Java developer has a lot more money than is needed for a quiet life, but not enough for something serious. And to understand how to make a sharp leap to the next level is difficult, because we need very specific knowledge that gives smart guys working in banks, HIoads, and so on. It turns out that those who think about development will easily change 5-10 percent of the monthly salary to a ticket, if it benefits.

We were right, but more on that later.

The second important point was that headhunting, of course, was also. Only its meaning is different. We realized that the developers are pecking at the task. If you tell about the complexity of the highload in detail, tomorrow there will be a dozen resumes of optimizers, even if there is no vacancy. Although whom I cheat, there are always vacancies on highload projects. So, provoking even just getting knowledge in the right field, we created a stream of employees to our sponsors. Because as I wrote the other day , the market is small. In Russia - a dozen large companies, and each has its own specialization. And the salaries are good there, and the tasks are unique. Naturally, upgraded developers go there. And not immediately, but in fact - we are creating an ecosystem that contributes to this. Digging irrigation canals, if you like.

Fortunately, they understood and gave us money. When we saw the result, it became clear that we are really dragging on the Java theme. If you think about it, there is no place to get such knowledge anymore - IT-specialists in life are not the most sociable people, there are no special courses, other conferences are not hardcore. We hit right on the bull's eye. The surprise was that a couple of large companies bought three dozen tickets for their own. The record was set by Deutsche Bank, who bought 82 (!) Tickets to its employees in April of this year. They went straight to us really for advanced training! It was a clear success.

Errors

Naturally, since we are not an agency, the understanding of the organization and, most importantly, logistics, was vague. At first it turned out to be very sideways - but it turned out that even the queue to the dining room is, of course, uncooperative, but it is more than covered by the correct information part.

We collected detailed feedback from every conference and analyzed every word of the participants. From the past of the Joker from the manual parsing of feedback, we got 294 performance proposals, which were in terms of preparation. I will show important points.

Reviews and their processing

“In general, the impressions are very positive. There is little PR of its products, and more useful information (unlike some well-known conferences). Differentiation of reports is also good. I would like to see something like this in Moscow. ”This is a summary of the last year’s Joker conference. In fact, we immediately grasped what we wanted to convey - the conference is good, the difference is visible immediately, and this makes our conferences leaders in one of the parameters. And we are fighting for the parameter of utility.

“Personal gratitude to the organizers and owners of the wonderful rarities of the gaming industry. Good memories were revived and made to be surprised! ” - there was an old iron at the conference: both prefixes like Dendy and old PCs. Approximately half of the participants started with this. Warm lamp nostalgia. Everything is at home - it is immediately clear that ours are for our own.

“I liked the food in principle, I didn’t like the crush at the (sic!) Left stand with coffee and snacks. We should have somehow better sent the people. ” - yes, this is our mistake. We didn’t think it would be a zergrash for food. If there was an experience, everyone would understand in advance. And here they were recolled - but not enough and noticeable. Someone here did not even have time to drink coffee. We paid attention to the preparation, understood how best we can.

“Sandwiches are not for vegetarians!” - also due to inexperience. There are no vegetarians among us.

“There was no final beer. This is very bad. ” This is bad, but we will not do anything about it. The final beer is in the near Pauliner in the same hotel.

“There was not enough cold drinks (juice or water).” - a fact, they did not think about water during the reports. Corrected.

“I liked a lot more JavaOne's. Keep it up. ”There were a lot of comparisons between Joker and JavaOne, and all in our favor. As they say, no comment.

“The halls are closer, registration could also be made quicker” - registration is always a sore problem of organization. We tried, but the cork is still small. They figured out how to do better.

“Of course, I did not pay for the ticket myself, but still. Make tickets for 200 rubles cheaper, which will not include stupid merch. Well, I do not need 100,500 mug, T-shirt and package. Let's save nature, everything. ” - some people praised merch, some scolded. But seriously, all this is necessary, otherwise there will be more negatives. In the hands of something must remain, we checked.

“It was inconvenient to move inside the conference - this is the main remark.” - the navigation was redone. Also an old conference problem - we did not think that many people would not be able to walk in groups.

“Often the interesting lectures for me coincided in time. I had to skip some. ” And “ Four streams are too much. There were situations when three interesting reports appeared simultaneously. Alas, you can only go one. ” There’s probably to be happy, but there’s also a reason to think. We post videos for all participants. Let's talk about it more clearly.

“You guys are great. Do not let the community stall. In my opinion, now Peter is the only city that is able to hold independent conferences and gather people. ” - Corrected, we made the JPoint 2014 in Moscow. We think about Novosibirsk.

“The girls (registration, microphone delivery, etc.) were absolutely useless and walked with an expression like,“ What do you want from me?! ”
And immediately others, in the spirit of: "Girls - peach))."

“The organizers are great. There was no downtime, no serious technical overlays. Everything was clearly in the schedule, which is very good. ” - in fact, there were overlays, but they were fixed very quickly. Cleverly, there shouldn't have been any at all, but we have found many rakes for the first time.

“Evening out the level of speakers - some were excellent, some were heaving, apparently there were few runs” - they changed the work with the speakers a little, switched to the Call for papers system, toughened the review. But they will still hesitate - some of them are pulled out of our favorite sweaters and set up in the same room with real people. This can be a shock to the habit, and there is no place to get the habit - instead of backend specialists at other conferences, PR people usually stand.

“Start and end in cycles of simpler reports.” In the morning and late in the evening, the information is already hard to perceive. ” - After dinner, now we are trying to put something half-light. In general, there must be thinking.

“Badges are better to do bilateral and BIG, with a name written in large font” - yes, and then acquaintance with the girl begins with looking at the boobs.

“I liked that Luxoft betrayed the bears. My friend had a birthday that day and I gave it to her. She was very pleased)))) “ - the bear came in handy. But, you see, in this case, Luxoft would be better to give out laced lingerie. Dude, did you get the idea? A year has passed, her birthday is soon again.

“On the official website there was no information about Unconference. And where was (for example, on Habré), too much attention was paid to drunk. It’s dumb to show such a supervisor. ” - we didn’t even think about that.

There were, of course, reviews that we did not close. For example, such: “It would be possible to give a small description to each report in the program. Perhaps it would become a little more, but it would be possible to understand what the report is (a review of technology, just a discussion on the topic, practical advice or something else). ” We just did not have time to correct, we’ll do it for the next conference.

In short, this night we finished closing those nearly three hundred improvement tasks.

Reports

The most important part of the work was to monitor the level of the reports. Such things in Russia almost do not do, or do by eye. We are ranking the speaker on 15 parameters: from ratings in the questionnaire to the number of mentions of this report in social networks, links to it, video views, and so on.

Naturally, the audience felt in the hall. Naturally, they took into account all the feedback on the report and the speaker. By the way, anonymity has really helped - after all, IT people are not shy about chopping the uterine truth, even if it is not the most pleasant. Was it boring or stupid in some places? So it is written! But, of course, sometimes it was so that someone had a revelation, someone - to argue, and someone already just a kindergarten.

Other cities

We were asked a lot of videos - not everyone could come to St. Petersburg, and it was much more convenient for many to connect online so as not to leave the house. We repent, but there was no broadcast on the past Joker.

Now it is. The price of an online ticket is the usual: the knowledge is the same, but there is no merchandise and gifts in the package. But - there is a delivery of a certificate of participation in the conference. With him, in general, a separate story - it turned out that he is very much needed and is quoted at interviews by many companies. In addition, we still post the video: the video will be available to the participants of the online broadcast the very next day.

Actually, here. New Joker is already on Monday, and I tried to lay out our experience in advance, so that you can immediately see what we want and what we have been through. Fidbek already with knowledge of history and the rake will be very useful. And if you are doing conferences yourself, forgive me for walking through the corns of the sphere.

Minute marketing
Ordinary tickets we have literally a few pieces, and most likely, they will disassemble today. But there are online, and they by definition do not end. They cost you a day or two of your work. Inside - all Joker 2014 reports: broadcast and then - access to the archive and certificate by mail. If in doubt, take a look, I promise it is worth it. I will not like it or it will be too hardcore - I will return the money on the first letter.

Here is a list of reports.
Here you can buy access.

If you know another typical rake of ordinary conferences - please tell us. Now we are unlikely to change something big, but for the future it is useful.