Charles Max_Wood:
hey. Welcome back to another episode of the Ruby Rogues Podcast This week. On our panel, we have Mark Lockleer.
Mark_Locklear:
Hello from Ashville
Charles Max_Wood:
We also have Jeremy Smith,
Jeremy_Smith:
Everybody,
Charles Max_Wood:
have we had both of you on before? I know. we've had one of you on before.
Jeremy_Smith:
I have been on before. I think it was maybe last last year, some time earlier, maybe
Charles Max_Wood:
Yeah.
Jeremy_Smith:
a year ago. Eh,
Mark_Locklear:
And this is. this is apparent number three for for me I did when I did learning Rails Five for Riley. I think we talked about that then
Charles Max_Wood:
Oh
Mark_Locklear:
and
Charles Max_Wood:
nice.
Mark_Locklear:
then. I
Jeremy_Smith:
Nice.
Mark_Locklear:
think I did the developer story. My, my, my developer story.
Jeremy_Smith:
Cool.
Charles Max_Wood:
Yeah.
Mark_Locklear:
Is there
Charles Max_Wood:
yeah.
Mark_Locklear:
an
Charles Max_Wood:
I haven't
Mark_Locklear:
award
Charles Max_Wood:
done
Mark_Locklear:
I
Charles Max_Wood:
those
Mark_Locklear:
get?
Charles Max_Wood:
in a while.
Mark_Locklear:
Is there an award I get or something I can put on my
Jeremy_Smith:
Uh,
Mark_Locklear:
wall for
Jeremy_Smith:
uh,
Mark_Locklear:
number three or
Charles Max_Wood:
I don't know.
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah, you. should you make that happen?
Jeremy_Smith:
Goes
Charles Max_Wood:
Yeah,
Jeremy_Smith:
in the
Charles Max_Wood:
I
Jeremy_Smith:
suggestion
Charles Max_Wood:
should hand
Jeremy_Smith:
box.
Charles Max_Wood:
out awards.
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
I'm working on setting up suggestion box right now, actually for people who want to suggest guests or topics. But yeah,
Jeremy_Smith:
Oh nice. yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
well, we'll give you an award of. I've been on almost as many times as D. H. H.
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Jeremy_Smith:
Nice.
Charles Max_Wood:
But yeah, you guys are organizing a conference and Valentino thought it was a good idea to have you on to talk about it and I thought Oh yeah, I've got a ton of questions And then he bailed on me, so I
Jeremy_Smith:
Uh,
Charles Max_Wood:
get asked my question.
Jeremy_Smith:
uh.
Charles Max_Wood:
M.
Jeremy_Smith:
That's perfect.
Charles Max_Wood:
yeah, well, well, um, organizing a conference is something that I've wanted to be perfectly honest. I've done probably ople dozen online conferences And so anyway, I'm I'd love to just dive in and you know we can talk about what some of the differences are, but also just yeah, where the idea came from? Things like that. I think I think Valentino sent me a copy of a tweet or somethin. You guys want to
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
talk
Jeremy_Smith:
we can.
Charles Max_Wood:
about where the idea came from and then we
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
can kind of just work from there.
Jeremy_Smith:
sure,
Mark_Locklear:
Jeremy.
Jeremy_Smith:
yeah,
Mark_Locklear:
go
Jeremy_Smith:
I can
Mark_Locklear:
ahead.
Jeremy_Smith:
start with that mark. Um, so let's see. So our conference is called Blue Ridge Ruby. It's in Ashville, North Carolina. It'll be June, eighth and ninth. That's a Thursday, Friday, and it's a two day single track conference will be ten speaking slots. M. Ashville is a fantastic mountain town in western North Carolina. great beer, great Food, lots of music, lots of outdoor activities and we're planning in addition to the conference to have some optional weekend stuff that people can stick around and do as well, and a big part of it is certainly learning and getting you know. just making professional connections in the conference, but also just making friends and having
Charles Max_Wood:
Uh
Jeremy_Smith:
time with
Charles Max_Wood:
huh,
Jeremy_Smith:
people in a cool town. And Ashville's one of my favorite places. I actually live in our South Mark lives just outside of Ashville, It's fantastic. Lot of people come to Ashville for know vacations. or it's a huge, like wedding destination and it's just a great town, so I feel like it's a perfect place to have a have a small regional conference.
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah, my role was
Charles Max_Wood:
Nice.
Mark_Locklear:
just really. My mind is one to support Jeremy. He, we followed one another on. We followed on another on Twitter and he sent out of tweet. You know about a year ago or so now, and just you know, Ask what people thought about. You know. putting on a conference in Ashville And you know I'm sort of like. I'm sort of like you, jock. I thought about it before, but I'm like there's just no. There's just no way I want to go there and I'm not tied in. Although that's probably an excuse. More more than the truth, I'm not. I feel like I'm not just tied in to the community. You know, I've got an eight year old daughter and so like, a lot of conference stuff stopped for me around that time in addition to covid, So really those things are excuses more than anything. But certainly, when I saw Jeremy's Tweed, I immediately set a tweet back and said Hey, I'm here to help in any way you can, or anyway I can. And so After a few months he contacted me again. We did a zoom chat. He came into town. We talked more. and so that's that's sort of what brought us to where we're at Now.
Charles Max_Wood:
Nice. Well, I have to say that when I first got into programming and Ruby, M, there was a local conference called Mountain West Ruby Conference
Jeremy_Smith:
Okay, yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
was put on by Mike More. He just lives twenty minutes half hour from here. And yeah, it seemed like there were a lot of the regional conferences and I don't know if it was Covid that changed it. It feels like it was kind of
Jeremy_Smith:
Hm,
Charles Max_Wood:
slipping off A. You know that
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
there
Jeremy_Smith:
tapering
Charles Max_Wood:
were fewer and
Jeremy_Smith:
down
Charles Max_Wood:
fewer of them. Yeah,
Jeremy_Smith:
a little bit. I actually have been looking at, you know, Ruby conferences Dot Org. If
Charles Max_Wood:
Uh,
Jeremy_Smith:
you go back
Charles Max_Wood:
huh,
Jeremy_Smith:
and look at past conferences, they start in twenty fourteen. That was the highest number at forty nine. If you just look at the total listings they had, They had forty nine
Charles Max_Wood:
Right,
Jeremy_Smith:
listings of conferences, or then, that might be even just like one day, one day, events and stuff, But as a rough
Charles Max_Wood:
Hm,
Jeremy_Smith:
measure, there's forty nine and twenty fourteen and it's kind of tapered off Since then, but not like even so right before Co, but it was still, I think in the forties
Charles Max_Wood:
Oh, really,
Jeremy_Smith:
Lo. yeah, I think it might have been like forty, but then yeah, twenty, nineteen, twenty twenty. they've been really down, and then even twenty twenty two. And so I'm hoping that things picked back up, but it definitely like it just took a beating from that, you know, so I think, and I've even wondered if it's kind of like you know all these I don't know about in your area, but we had like all these cool restaurants and things clothes
Charles Max_Wood:
M.
Jeremy_Smith:
during Covid, they just never came
Charles Max_Wood:
yep,
Jeremy_Smith:
back. You know the ones that are like, You're hoping they make it. You know they just start and you hope they
Charles Max_Wood:
Hm,
Jeremy_Smith:
make it And then you know they get T boned by it and then they just can't can't survive, And
Charles Max_Wood:
Right,
Jeremy_Smith:
I almost feel like The. there's so many things that got lost in that and there's like there needs to be this energy that kind of come back in and bring that back. and there's a loss. Obviously,
Mark_Locklear:
What?
Jeremy_Smith:
Restaurants is like a very minor loss right so in big picture in conference S also like nothing. Nothing is definite, devastating as what a pandemic is. But, but in terms of like there are all these other, there are all these other losses too, And conference
Charles Max_Wood:
Right,
Mark_Locklear:
Hm?
Jeremy_Smith:
is one of them, and I think coming back maybe a year ago, I, I've never been to a lot of conferences really, But it was a year ago that I really decided
Charles Max_Wood:
Hm,
Jeremy_Smith:
I wanted to like. I needed to. I wanted to, and it was worth it to me to to re invest that way. Kind of going to like four different conferences for Ruby and Rails in twenty twenty two,
Charles Max_Wood:
Right,
Jeremy_Smith:
And I had such a great time by the end of the year. I was like I got to do that like. I just, I've got to do something like this. I want this for other people and there might be some conferences that just don't come back, but I'm hoping other ones will take their place and I'm hoping more
Mark_Locklear:
Hm?
Jeremy_Smith:
and more people will kind of step up to make them happen because I think it's really important for our community.
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah, you know, I think that's a good point, Jeremy. There is a vacuum somewhat now, right, I think with, and I mean that's across the board, not just conferences, but whether it's restaurants. Other places in the economy too, so I'm hoping well,
Charles Max_Wood:
Hm,
Mark_Locklear:
I'm hoping we're going feel some of that that that void by having Blue Ridge Ruby, and the fact that you know we've Jeremy and I've talked about this sum that you know. in the southeast. Of course, Ruby
Jeremy_Smith:
Hm.
Mark_Locklear:
on Rails has been to Atlanta, there there, they will be there this spring, and then they were there Years ago, But there's not a regular sort of Ruby or Rails Focus conference in the Southeast anywhere, so I think I thought it was an opportunity to sort of feel feel that void, too,
Charles Max_Wood:
Hm,
Jeremy_Smith:
There
Charles Max_Wood:
yeah,
Jeremy_Smith:
used to be like ancient city, Ruby,
Charles Max_Wood:
yep,
Jeremy_Smith:
Um, but that hasn't been around for a while, and like the Rolley area, the Research Triangle areas like really big, but I don't think they've ever had a Ruby conference, So like if you think about big cities in our area, Atlanta, Rolly, Durham, Um,
Mark_Locklear:
Charlotte.
Jeremy_Smith:
Jacksonville. Yeah, they're They're just you're not seeing any conferences like that and people. I'm sure there are people. There are ruby doves here. I know there are. Um. Yeah, so it's good to have. It's good
Charles Max_Wood:
Hm.
Jeremy_Smith:
to have something down here.
Charles Max_Wood:
Yeah, I have to say that I feel some of that I've been actually doing a bunch of coaching. You can go apply. You get. you can apply for coaching, and then the way it works as I, I do like a half hour session with you just to see if I can help you out. and then we talk about options, but I've talked to whole bunch of people and they're trying to figure out how to move their career ahead. You know, how do I become a senior developer? How do I get a raise? How do I find a better job? How do I Stay current on what's going on? Things like that and a lot of it is. sort of well, Some of it you have to stay current on some of the ideas that are out there, which conferences are really great for M. and then the other one is is you have to go out, meet people right,
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
because the way, the way that you find the good jobs is you find the good developers who love their job and you go work with them.
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
I
Jeremy_Smith:
yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
mean in a nutshell, Right and so and most of those people are Ple showing up to the conferences
Jeremy_Smith:
Right,
Charles Max_Wood:
and I've been telling people you know, Yeah, find a confreneyou. can go to, but I've also been people telling people to go find meat ups, And that's the
Jeremy_Smith:
Hm.
Charles Max_Wood:
other thing. That's the other end. That has. really. Just. it's been rough for people
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
end.
Jeremy_Smith:
big time.
Mark_Locklear:
Hm,
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
So I feel that To M. so yeah, I love the idea. I think you guys need to put one out here in the mountain West as well, because
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
I miss them. I've been to a ton of conferences. A lot of the bigger conferences have actually so like Microsoft and stuff. they've paid me to. well, not paid me, but they paid my way
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
in my Airfaren
Jeremy_Smith:
Hm.
Charles Max_Wood:
hotel to come out to conferences
Mark_Locklear:
I,
Charles Max_Wood:
and interview people at the conferences. So I've
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
been to a bunch, but the regional ones are just. They're way more fun because
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
you, you meet somebody and you run into him in the hall later and you know
Mark_Locklear:
Hm
Charles Max_Wood:
it's not seventy five lion people, so
Jeremy_Smith:
That
Charles Max_Wood:
yeah,
Jeremy_Smith:
really
Mark_Locklear:
that,
Jeremy_Smith:
hit me this past year, so I never really understood that, but this past year I went to to Jason Sweats, Sin City, Ruby,
Charles Max_Wood:
Uh,
Jeremy_Smith:
He did it like
Charles Max_Wood:
huh,
Jeremy_Smith:
a H. Maybe at one time conference in Las Vegas.
Charles Max_Wood:
Yeah,
Jeremy_Smith:
Uh, pretty
Charles Max_Wood:
I found
Jeremy_Smith:
small
Charles Max_Wood:
out about
Jeremy_Smith:
they were.
Charles Max_Wood:
that after he did it, because it's a
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
four hour drive, five hour drive from
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
here.
Jeremy_Smith:
it was great. I, I saw that and I was like, Oh, I'm doing this and I went and it was. maybe I don't kno. Forty five fifty people. Something like that. I don't remember final numbers, but it was. It was small. I met most everyone there and had great conversations with so many people and a lot of people that I wanted to meet. You know people I've been following on Twitter for years that I always wanted to have a conversation with. I got a chance to have that conversation. Then I go to rails confidence over a thousand people, And
Mark_Locklear:
Hm,
Jeremy_Smith:
you know everyone's in masks and you can't tell if that's the is that the
Mark_Locklear:
Hm,
Jeremy_Smith:
shopified group over there in a
Mark_Locklear:
hm,
Jeremy_Smith:
circle you know Like, Can I go talk to them? Can I even break in? You know where do you go
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Jeremy_Smith:
right? It's so much easier in that
Mark_Locklear:
yeah,
Jeremy_Smith:
small conference to find people to talk to and stuff like that. And if I had started by going to a really big conference, I probably would have stopped. It would have been. It's just really
Charles Max_Wood:
Yeah,
Jeremy_Smith:
overwhelming. But
Mark_Locklear:
Hm,
Jeremy_Smith:
because I made so many friends at the first conference, you get to the big conference and then you've got a bunch of people to say hi to again Like hey, I just you know, we were just talking like a month or two ago. Great to see you again, you know, and then you've got Another group to join. And for me, like as an introvert, that was like so helpful. it was just so helpful. So for people that are either first time conference goers introvert, if you don't have a group to go with, going to a smaller regional conference is probably a better bet. Like you, it's not going to have the glamor of a really big conference, but you will more likely have good conversations you know. Make friends that you know. Will you know? continue? you know, friendships that can conti You an
Mark_Locklear:
M,
Jeremy_Smith:
um.
Mark_Locklear:
M.
Jeremy_Smith:
beyond just acquaintance. And and so I feel like that's that's the angle. That's that's that's my tip for for new conference goers And it was also the thing that I like. I just wanted to be able to provide other people like that's. I want that same experience for other people.
Mark_Locklear:
Chuck.
Charles Max_Wood:
Right,
Mark_Locklear:
I'm curious to hear I love that idea and I hadn't thought about that. Now it's now. it's making me think I'd love to do something like that at Blue Ridge Ruby. Of this idea of either interviewing or interview prep, what does that look
Charles Max_Wood:
Hm,
Mark_Locklear:
like at a cot? Is it generally just knew Debs, or do you find that even more experienced folks like the idea of having career counseling Slash? I don't know. What does that look look like?
Charles Max_Wood:
Right. Well, the interviews that I've done or the podcastthis podcast interviews?
Mark_Locklear:
Okay. that's
Charles Max_Wood:
Um,
Mark_Locklear:
okay.
Charles Max_Wood:
but yeah, you know, I mean the slight misunderstanding. I actually like that idea because a lot of people are especially newer people.
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
They just don't know what to expect or how to trap or anything like that. And so you know, if you had kind of a new programmers track or a new programmers? Hey, we're gonna. We're going to throw on these Tra sessions or an evening session at a restaurant
Mark_Locklear:
Well,
Charles Max_Wood:
or something where Yeah,
Mark_Locklear:
I'm
Charles Max_Wood:
you
Mark_Locklear:
thinking
Charles Max_Wood:
have
Mark_Locklear:
about
Charles Max_Wood:
somebody.
Mark_Locklear:
even
Charles Max_Wood:
just
Mark_Locklear:
a space.
Charles Max_Wood:
basically say hey,
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah, I'm thinking about a space. We set
Charles Max_Wood:
Yeah,
Mark_Locklear:
off to the city, Jeremy, where we, either you know we could do it during lunch time or in between sessions. So that's that's something we can. That's something we can explore and see Because
Jeremy_Smith:
That'd
Mark_Locklear:
I
Jeremy_Smith:
be
Mark_Locklear:
can
Jeremy_Smith:
cool.
Mark_Locklear:
say. I'm curious, certainly for New Davis, but I wouldn't be surprised if there be more experience. folks that, because oftentimes maybe you're you're not afraid to ask technical programming type stuff, but people are more reluctant often to About career counseling, so
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah.
Mark_Locklear:
sort of things.
Jeremy_Smith:
yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
Yeah,
Jeremy_Smith:
interesting. yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
Yeah, definitely, I love that idea for sure. but yeah, for the podcast interviews they usually just assigned us a room.
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
The micro soft ones. They had Richard Campbell from Dottnetrocks podcast, actually doing the organizing as to which experts we would have the opportunity to talk to and stuff like that, And he was pretty good about knowing which topics we wanted to cover. So But yeah, so so let's say that I decided I want to revive a Mountain West Ruby conference. Now Mike owns the rights to the name. He's not going to let me
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
use that. I already asked him right, so I'm
Jeremy_Smith:
yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
going to name it something else, but let's say I come up with, you know, the best Salt Lake City Ruby conference in the world. You know, whatever I'm going to call it. I mean what do you do now? right?
Mark_Locklear:
Well,
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah, it's
Mark_Locklear:
I'll jump in real quick and then then and then I'll let Jeremy take over. I'll say Find you know that there's the first follower video that's out there, So I would say, If you're the one that wants to put on the conference, find find the first follower and that that's been my. My role here is that I feel like I'm Jeremy's first follower. Here was his idea, but he has been
Charles Max_Wood:
Uh,
Mark_Locklear:
really.
Charles Max_Wood:
huh,
Mark_Locklear:
He's been really gracious about bringing me in letting me handle sir, certain things, but not not like too too much. so I would say find a sort of find. a partner in crime would be the first step.
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah. Definitely would concur with that Like Mark. it would be really hard. Like putting on a conference is really stressful. It just really like it's one
Charles Max_Wood:
Hm,
Jeremy_Smith:
of the most stressful things I've done. Maybe I just don't do a lot of stressful things. But this is up there with house renovation for me and that was over ten years ago and I'm you know, like this, that's what I'm relating this stress to, and I kind of knew it was going to be stressful like you knew I knew it would be. But like having somebody else to say It's going to be all right. We're gonna figure this out. You're going to be okay. Yeah, that you know, like whatever the decision is, we're going to work through it. That is so helpful. I need that for sure, and I can imagine a lot of other people would do. Um, maybe if you already are a pretty good decision maker and you know, don't question your you know own decisions, or like you know, you've got a thick skin and you can kind of handle lot of either criticism or not worry What people are going to think. Maybe that's a ittle bit easier. but for me that's definitely like weighing on me. Like in in a big way, Like I work. I'm a consultant I work with Uh, you know, small, uh companies building their
Charles Max_Wood:
Hm,
Jeremy_Smith:
rails apse, I'm used to focusing on one client and how they
Charles Max_Wood:
Right,
Jeremy_Smith:
what they care about, and all I have to do is make this one person happy with a conference. You've got to make like hundreds of people happy, and you don't Where the unhappiness is going to come from. Like what are you going do? Wrong? That's going to. really, you know, like either upset people or hurt people's feelings, or really like, put people out in different ways, And it could be. it could be just their perception, but it could also be your bad decisions, you know, like, or just things that just happen randomly that yo're gonna have to deal with, so all of that is just like Yeah, All that to say, like it's stressful. It's really great to have a partner and I'm really glad for Mark. So yeah, that's definitely step a.
Mark_Locklear:
That and
Jeremy_Smith:
Um,
Mark_Locklear:
then I'll follow up. Jeremy can talk more about this too, Is the you know, getting sponsors has been the next thing for us. I mean, Jeremy's really stepped up up here, and I mean, essentially
Charles Max_Wood:
Hm,
Mark_Locklear:
he's sort of footing this thing out of pocket. At least he's made the commitment to to do it. now. The hope is that he won't have to. That's been the next step for us is. and I'll just say one more thing on that than Jeremy. You can talk more about it, but along with that
Jeremy_Smith:
M.
Mark_Locklear:
we've brought in, we've got a pretty strong developer community here in Ashville again. as Jeremy said, It's sort of a vacation Nation, but there's a lot of remote. Debsadthere's. not a lot of big tech.
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah,
Mark_Locklear:
Although there are a lot of tech folks here, We've got
Charles Max_Wood:
Right,
Mark_Locklear:
a local slack. We've got a local slack team and there probably a few hundred folks in there Now. Not all those folks are active, but anyway, we've recruited a handful of local folks that are inside that slack team and sort of broad brought them in to help out as volunteers and think things like that. So big part of what we're spending our time doing is reaching out to sponsors, whether it's over Twitter. Other Email, um,
Jeremy_Smith:
Hm,
Mark_Locklear:
Debs, who are Rails and Ruby, folks who work for companies that have other Rails folks you know,
Charles Max_Wood:
Hm,
Mark_Locklear:
try having those folks contact rips in their company to see if they can get sponsorship. So that's that's been a big, big part of our focus.
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah, and related
Charles Max_Wood:
Right,
Jeremy_Smith:
to that like a big part of that is if you're just starting a new conference, You are trying to build credibility with people if they don't know who you
Charles Max_Wood:
Hm,
Jeremy_Smith:
are, And you know I've been pretty relatively unknown. You're you're asking companies. Well, you're asking anybody, like the attends, the sponsors, the speakers, Every, everyone's having to trust you. Um, and so at least for me that was like, Okay, how do I? How do we represent ourselves And how do we kind of build? build trust with sponsors who are going to you know, hopefully help us With with the bills and attends, who are going to have to put down money to come. There's so many things like that, so yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
Right,
Jeremy_Smith:
I think a big part of it is like doing a good job with your branding. And like that was one of the first things I was focused on. Um. I do a lot of design work. So I built the built the site, but I focused heavily on that to make sure there was a high level of quality that people could feel, and Um, because, to kind of make up for the fact that no one knows who I am. So if you know, like if conferences are all about details, then showing people right off the bat that we're detailed oriented really matters. I think
Charles Max_Wood:
Hm,
Jeremy_Smith:
so. that's another piece of it. But then also like you're because this is new. We're basically selling ourselves. You know,
Charles Max_Wood:
Right,
Jeremy_Smith:
trust Jeremy and Mark to do this well and not screw it up and we're really going to try hard. But if you don't know us and we're just like Brand on the internet, you know. it's like. What is that? So that's I mean. that's a big part of it. That's Why it's important to even talk to you right now about this. Because
Charles Max_Wood:
Hm,
Jeremy_Smith:
that's kind of what it is like. Please trust us. We want to put on a great thing you know. for our community. It's hard where working at it, but it will require trust. There's you know. It's not like rail scoff where you don't need to. You may not even know who the organizers are, but you know just
Charles Max_Wood:
Right,
Jeremy_Smith:
you know. it's been running for years right, and of
Charles Max_Wood:
Hm,
Jeremy_Smith:
course they're going to do a great job and I'm being somewhat facetious. Obviously, you know, organizers super Portant, and they do have a huge impact, but there's already a brand reputation that's built for long running conferences that we just don't have. So if you're starting something, you're selling yourself in a lot of ways to people. you have to market yourself.
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah, I would say quick too, Is you know? Yeah, it's up to us. you know, you know, Jeremy and I do make it great, but I would tell others who plan to come. You're going to help make great, too right. you're going to come and
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah,
Mark_Locklear:
yeah, you will be attending the sessions, but between sessions after sessions, and if you stay and do other things during the week end where working on trying to plan events that folks can go to, But the part the participants are going to help make things special too.
Jeremy_Smith:
Absolutely, it reminds me of that story, Stone soup. I think about this that story all the time. you know.
Charles Max_Wood:
Hm,
Jeremy_Smith:
you know at. I'm talking about. Yeah, it's like you kind of create the container, but everyone else? Really, they are the ones that make it happen right. We're creating a space in a container and hopefully doing a good job of taking care of all the details so that when people show up all the magic can happen, all
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Jeremy_Smith:
the really
Mark_Locklear:
yeah,
Jeremy_Smith:
good stuff can happen
Mark_Locklear:
yeah, I mean
Jeremy_Smith:
and that
Mark_Locklear:
to me, it's
Jeremy_Smith:
requires people.
Charles Max_Wood:
Yeah,
Mark_Locklear:
yeah, to me, Jeremy, too. it's like we're creating. Hopefully we're creating the environment so the magic can happen right. We're not actually going to create
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah,
Mark_Locklear:
the magic, but we're going to facilitate that and
Jeremy_Smith:
yeah,
Mark_Locklear:
hopefully we create an environment where other folks can you help make the magic app.
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah, exactly.
Charles Max_Wood:
Yep.
Jeremy_Smith:
I've got a bunch of other random advice if you're interested.
Charles Max_Wood:
Well, one thing that I've been wondering about because
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
you know running the online conferences effectively right, you just set up your streaming talks. You put it out there. I've also done a summit where I pre recorded all of the talk and
Jeremy_Smith:
M.
Charles Max_Wood:
basically they were. They weren't talks. They were interview. So I interviewed a bunch of experts. It was on podcasting, not on programming, but you know, So you put that out there and you know kind of done right. So then you Pay any speakers who wanted to get paid. Um, and then you're off to the races and that, that's another thing that I'll ask you about in a minute. But you know finding a venue a lot of times the Venus want you to like book a certain number of hotel rooms if you're doing a hotel catering, blah, blah, blah, like, how do you arrange something like that Mountain West Ruby conference. Just contact. They did it in the solid library, and so they avoided a whole bunch of that stuff. But it was a rather small venue was the trade off, And so they filled it the top every time because they would sell every seat in that auditorium and they probably could have filled it two or three times over the room.
Mark_Locklear:
Well,
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah, so my
Mark_Locklear:
I'll jump in and give give Jeremy
Jeremy_Smith:
go ahead,
Mark_Locklear:
hard time real quick. Jeremy wanted a super nice venue. There was going to be no public library anything like that. And and it is, though it's really a cool venue. it's generally used as a. You know, there's a lot of good independent music that that's in Ashville, so the venue is often used as a sort of music venue. But go ahead, Jeremy and tell them more more about that.
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah, I was really. I had my heart set on this theater. So there's this Masonic temple. If you go to the blue Ruby Dot com, you'll see a picture of the inside. Let's got this fantastic, really beautiful theater in this historic building, and so kind of had my heart set on that. I feel like that spaces like that do matter do make a really big difference. I don't know. Maybe it would have been better to go with like a cheaper easier one, but I felt
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Jeremy_Smith:
like that would be a rad one to do so, But yeah, so Venue is definitely important around venue. I would recommend M finding a venue that has everything that you need, like chairs and a V, if you can. If the venue supplies all that, that makes a lot of things easier. Um, Also, what was I going to say?
Mark_Locklear:
Food
Jeremy_Smith:
I
Mark_Locklear:
was,
Jeremy_Smith:
mean, that's
Mark_Locklear:
you know,
Jeremy_Smith:
one of
Mark_Locklear:
I'll
Jeremy_Smith:
the first
Mark_Locklear:
jump
Jeremy_Smith:
things
Mark_Locklear:
in
Jeremy_Smith:
that you
Mark_Locklear:
real.
Jeremy_Smith:
were going to do.
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Jeremy_Smith:
Oh
Mark_Locklear:
I'll
Jeremy_Smith:
yeah,
Mark_Locklear:
jump
Jeremy_Smith:
food.
Mark_Locklear:
in real quickly.
Jeremy_Smith:
thanks.
Mark_Locklear:
Food was another issue. I mean, the nice thing about this location is right downtown there, ton of eating spots. So does that, and
Charles Max_Wood:
Yeah,
Mark_Locklear:
also just just to to Jeremy's point about you know having a venu where a lot of the logistics are taking care of. like you know, I'm I'm a part time instructor to local community college here, and we sort of considered that, but a lot of that would have been left up to us to try and organize the spaces and the chairs This Then were the Masonic temple. That going to be in that there? I mean, that's basically what they do that they've got a full time person there who you know does the scheduling sets all that up, And then they've got staff who does all those things for you. So the nice thing about choosing to venu like that is that we can focus on speakers and the text stuff and all those things and know that you know the logistics. As far as the space we're going to be in chairs. The a B stuff soun All all that stuff is going to be to taking
Charles Max_Wood:
Hm,
Mark_Locklear:
care of force.
Charles Max_Wood:
Yeah, that makes sense.
Jeremy_Smith:
We also
Mark_Locklear:
It
Jeremy_Smith:
decided
Mark_Locklear:
ended,
Jeremy_Smith:
not to do lunch. I guess yeah, that was the food thing. That was like one of the big thing when I've looked at other conferences. That's one of the highest cost they have, and also one of the things that people either complain about or that doesn't come through the way they wanted to, So it's like highest risk his cost, and in
Mark_Locklear:
And
Jeremy_Smith:
our
Mark_Locklear:
I think
Jeremy_Smith:
case
Mark_Locklear:
a cheap,
Jeremy_Smith:
like,
Mark_Locklear:
cheaper or free load location that we would have looked at would have been would have definitely been outside of town somewhere. so that would have meant
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah,
Mark_Locklear:
woe would have had
Charles Max_Wood:
Yeah,
Mark_Locklear:
to take care of that. We would. He had to take care of that.
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah,
Mark_Locklear:
And also I mentioned the travel part too, that when you're no hing about being downtown Ashville close to hotels and lodging, so ideally
Charles Max_Wood:
Yep.
Mark_Locklear:
folks who were coming in from out of town, they can fly in. They can take and a shuttle or an over from the airport into town, and then they can spend really all of Of their time there. They can walk from their hotel to the
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah,
Mark_Locklear:
venue so that that takes care of that piece of things too.
Charles Max_Wood:
Yeah, we had that with Mountain Restart conference as well. they didn't provide any meals, but it was downtown Salt Lake at the library, and so there was a ton of stuff for people to go eat at A, and stuff, And then one of the other benefits is that Matt is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints,
Jeremy_Smith:
Oh
Charles Max_Wood:
who
Jeremy_Smith:
yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
head quarters season Salt Lake.
Jeremy_Smith:
that's right.
Charles Max_Wood:
And so there were a couple of years where Mike essentially planned the The conference right around the churches General Co Onference,
Jeremy_Smith:
M.
Charles Max_Wood:
And so Matt was more than willing to come out because they helped him with the travel, and then he could come out for the religious services and then
Jeremy_Smith:
Oh,
Charles Max_Wood:
go
Jeremy_Smith:
that's funny.
Charles Max_Wood:
back
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
and so
Jeremy_Smith:
that's smart.
Charles Max_Wood:
right And so there they are. There are definitely reasons. but Yeah, for the food. Yeah, just having it downtown that worked out great and so people would just go do their thing and then come back.
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah, yeah, that that takes care of a huge aspect. You know, all the different food requirements that people have, and just yeah, Potential for complaint or just issues around food. Yeah, just being able to eliminate a lot of that. we'll still have like drinks and snacks. but it won't be the same way. you know. Won't be the same
Charles Max_Wood:
Yeah,
Jeremy_Smith:
scale and won't be as as stressful Hopefully around that part. Another thing that I'd recommend. or at least it was a surprise to me. When we first launched the site. We didn't have a c. f. P. open. I thought we were going to have to kind of just go around and beg speakers to come,
Charles Max_Wood:
Hm,
Jeremy_Smith:
And we are we Asking a few speakers that we want to personally invite, but almost immediately people are saying, Where's the C F P? Do you have a C f P? Open? and I was like, Oh, I guess we have to have a c f P. Like, and then, sure enough, we're getting a lot of great like C f P. Like talk proposals. It's been fantastic. Been
Charles Max_Wood:
Right.
Jeremy_Smith:
really happy about it. We've got another. Let's see we close in a week. and but we've already got. We've gotten plenty of really great proposals, so I'm very happy about that and that's One thing I would have done right from the get go instead of waiting, and I just didn't. I didn't know that that would be one of the easier parts. Um, it's not.
Charles Max_Wood:
What did
Jeremy_Smith:
It's
Charles Max_Wood:
you
Jeremy_Smith:
not
Charles Max_Wood:
use?
Jeremy_Smith:
Google forms.
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Jeremy_Smith:
I mean, yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
I've done that.
Jeremy_Smith:
yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
I, so I was trying to put
Mark_Locklear:
eh,
Charles Max_Wood:
on an online Ruby conference and an online Java Script conference, And the issue I ran into, I tried to use the Ruby Central C, F, P, F.
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
and it just started acting up on Herocoup for no reason, So
Jeremy_Smith:
Oh, dang
Charles Max_Wood:
you
Mark_Locklear:
Yes,
Charles Max_Wood:
know, Like the simple thing, I've done Google forms in the past works fine
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah.
Charles Max_Wood:
right
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
because it puts it into a spread sheet. So then
Mark_Locklear:
yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
you just add your, you know, Let every You vote on it, who is going to vote
Jeremy_Smith:
M.
Charles Max_Wood:
on it,
Mark_Locklear:
M.
Charles Max_Wood:
and then you pick your tax,
Jeremy_Smith:
yeah,
Mark_Locklear:
Yep,
Charles Max_Wood:
or if you're the one picking all the talk, then you just tell people they're accepted.
Jeremy_Smith:
Right, yeah, I know, I think it's going to be a mix. Um, there's a certain
Mark_Locklear:
M.
Jeremy_Smith:
aspect. I don't know. Speaker selection is such a tricky thing. There's so many aspects
Charles Max_Wood:
Hm,
Jeremy_Smith:
that you want to get right with it.
Charles Max_Wood:
Right,
Jeremy_Smith:
I want our volunteers to be a part of the process. Um, but at the end of the day will end up being I think, Mark and I, just you know, our decision about who who those you know final slots go to, and we're trying to get a hit of wide range Of interests of diversity and backgrounds, even of experience with speaking like it matters to get some some speakers that everyone knows because people like
Charles Max_Wood:
Right,
Jeremy_Smith:
Oh, some, and so speaking, I'll go. but
Charles Max_Wood:
Right,
Jeremy_Smith:
it's
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Jeremy_Smith:
also important to have speakers that are are new to know newer to speaking. I want to. We want to elevate voices and new voices, and like, so trying to get that right, especially if it's a single track that actually feels. Really. I thought that was going to be.
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Jeremy_Smith:
I thought that would be it would. I thought we, just we're going to be. You know, begging to get ten slots filled. Now I'm thinking, Oh man, how do we like balance this really well and get you know, Get this variety in the in the ways that are going to be most beneficial To attend these to the speakers themselves into the Ruby community. Um, so it's a good. It's a good problem, but it's still a hard problem. and uh, yeah, it's challenging. That's one of the definitely challenging part of it.
Charles Max_Wood:
Yeah, yeah, Absolutely one thing that I've run into as well is Some of the speakers that we reached out to for the conference. You know before before the C, f, P kind of fell apart on us. was, Um, some of them wanted to be paid and
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
so trying to figure that out, and okay, you know, where's this money going to come from? You know, is gonna come out of ticket sales, or we're going to have sponsors and just going to have to eat it. And so that was another
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
thing. I do. You run into that
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
a lot or
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah, so I
Mark_Locklear:
Kay,
Jeremy_Smith:
asked a round a bunch about that, M. and so to be clear, we've got ten speaking stouts, but no, um, uh, oh, my gosh. I just blanked on it. Um,
Charles Max_Wood:
He notes?
Jeremy_Smith:
no key notes. Thank you. I just blank on
Mark_Locklear:
Hm,
Jeremy_Smith:
the word. We're not going to do any key notes. Keynotes Are they usually okay? So at least
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Jeremy_Smith:
from what I've learned in the Ruby
Charles Max_Wood:
Yeah,
Jeremy_Smith:
community
Charles Max_Wood:
key
Jeremy_Smith:
C.
Charles Max_Wood:
notes
Jeremy_Smith:
notes,
Charles Max_Wood:
are usually the one you paid for
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah, and
Mark_Locklear:
yeah,
Jeremy_Smith:
so they range from the people I've talked
Mark_Locklear:
M.
Jeremy_Smith:
to. They range from two thousand up to five thousand. What I've heard. I've heard numbers in that range, and right now like I've got a base line budget that I have to hit to be viable and I just could not commit to that kind of you know that kind of money.
Charles Max_Wood:
M.
Jeremy_Smith:
So I already
Charles Max_Wood:
Hm,
Jeremy_Smith:
knew I wanted to do some kind of honorarium for speakers.
Charles Max_Wood:
Right,
Jeremy_Smith:
M. And so I looked at like what Ruby Coff is doing And and they do. I went to Ruby Coffmenni. They did a five hundred dollar onorarium
Charles Max_Wood:
Hm,
Jeremy_Smith:
and that seemed I talked to some other people said. Yeah, that's sort of typical, so I'm committing to that. I want to make that doesn't even cover. I know doesn't cover traveling
Charles Max_Wood:
No,
Jeremy_Smith:
accommodations for a speaker. So that sucks and I hate that, but I want to at least make some effort. There need some base line of commitment to say we really appreciate you. You're doing great. Thank you so much, but I couldn't go to the next level of. also, you know, uh, doing key notes at that level of expectation And I don't want to like. I don't want to ask someone to do something like that for free.
Mark_Locklear:
M.
Jeremy_Smith:
You know like that's. That's just what the expectation is. So I felt like the best thing to do this time around, at least was to kind of just leave it out. Maybe maybe if we, you know, maybe if it's different next time, maybe we could add that, but that was a way to some of our expenses. At least.
Charles Max_Wood:
Yeah,
Mark_Locklear:
Hm,
Charles Max_Wood:
Yep, absolutely. it's interesting not doing the keynotes Um on the remote conferences. I mean, we kind of did
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
it, but I would usually just kick it off with my best known speakers and round the day out with another well known speaker,
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
and without
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
necessarily calling it a keynote, and
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
typically their talks didn't follow, because the key notes also tend to follow
Mark_Locklear:
yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
a certain four, met and cadence. and
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
since their
Mark_Locklear:
Eh,
Charles Max_Wood:
talks were more just the hey, this is a technical talk about a thing. I'm
Mark_Locklear:
eh,
Charles Max_Wood:
doing that that worked out great.
Jeremy_Smith:
I am looking. Think we'll be looking for some talks that might be bigger picture. like more Ruby, community related, or things
Charles Max_Wood:
Hm,
Jeremy_Smith:
like that that could start
Mark_Locklear:
Hm.
Jeremy_Smith:
an end to kind of frame. Hopefully,
Mark_Locklear:
Oh
Jeremy_Smith:
you know some framing talks that kind of set the stage for what we want and kind of close things out in in a good way. But
Charles Max_Wood:
Yeah,
Jeremy_Smith:
even if we have a lack of that, there's an opportunity for Mark and I to. Hopefully it's a small conference. Hopefully we get a chance to kind of set the stage as well for what we hope The two days to be, you know, and what we hope this this space will be for people. So
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah.
Jeremy_Smith:
I think
Mark_Locklear:
I mean
Jeremy_Smith:
that can you know
Mark_Locklear:
something
Jeremy_Smith:
kind of fill that.
Mark_Locklear:
aspiration always is sort of like. I like the idea of having an aspirational talk, you know as a either starting or a book in to a conference, so we'll see in back. We've already got some. We're looking at some of the talks. The submissions that we've got some that that might, That might work for that. so I think even in the absence of a key key note will store, will still be able to sort of have
Charles Max_Wood:
Right,
Mark_Locklear:
that you now have those starting in the ending, talk, sort of sort of fit Fit within that context,
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
Yeah, so I mean, we've kind of talked a bit about like venue and and honorariums and things like that, So um, at the end of the day I'm a little curious what does your budget look like Or how how would I figure out what my budget should look like?
Jeremy_Smith:
I,
Charles Max_Wood:
Maybe as a better question, right,
Jeremy_Smith:
I'm going to pull up my budget because I can't remember where my numbers are.
Mark_Locklear:
He has a hundred thousand dollars that he's going to commit to it now.
Jeremy_Smith:
M.
Charles Max_Wood:
Oh man, I wish
Jeremy_Smith:
No,
Charles Max_Wood:
I had rich friends
Mark_Locklear:
No,
Charles Max_Wood:
like Mark
Mark_Locklear:
he does
Charles Max_Wood:
does.
Mark_Locklear:
not now, man,
Jeremy_Smith:
No, definitely not okay. So I right now my base, so I have a base line budget that doesn't cover things like video production, swag,
Charles Max_Wood:
Right.
Jeremy_Smith:
um, banners and decoration. things like that. but my base line is and this also doesn't, so I need to figure out I'm still working on event insurance. That's a thing I need to tackle here shortly. I don't know what that's gonna even look like. I'm kind of scared to find out, but venu, um, lanyards drink, snacks, speaker, honorarium Speaker, dinner and logo and branding work. I'm looking at around sixteen, seventeen thousand, Um. for that, Um,
Mark_Locklear:
And we should check.
Jeremy_Smith:
and
Mark_Locklear:
You
Jeremy_Smith:
then
Mark_Locklear:
know
Jeremy_Smith:
my stretch goals.
Mark_Locklear:
well, I was gonna say we should check with the venue about the insurance thing. Jeremy in thought about that, but lots of times and
Jeremy_Smith:
No,
Mark_Locklear:
you may
Jeremy_Smith:
they
Mark_Locklear:
have
Jeremy_Smith:
did recommend
Mark_Locklear:
already
Jeremy_Smith:
it. Yes, they recommended they had a U. a place to get insurance.
Mark_Locklear:
Okay, So we
Jeremy_Smith:
However,
Mark_Locklear:
we do need.
Jeremy_Smith:
so one of the tricks is, we're also doing these Saturday activities and
Mark_Locklear:
M.
Jeremy_Smith:
we're saying Hey, Come you know, come hike with us. you know, to a to
Mark_Locklear:
There
Jeremy_Smith:
a waterfall,
Mark_Locklear:
could be a lot
Jeremy_Smith:
or
Mark_Locklear:
that there
Jeremy_Smith:
come
Mark_Locklear:
could be a
Jeremy_Smith:
to
Mark_Locklear:
lot. liability
Jeremy_Smith:
the built more house with us that. Yes, so I've got to figure those parts out. I don't know what what to do about that yet. I would hope I wish that that. didn't They worry about that, but I've got to figure that out and make sure that we're we're
Mark_Locklear:
Sign
Jeremy_Smith:
going to be
Mark_Locklear:
a waver.
Jeremy_Smith:
okay on that. I think that
Charles Max_Wood:
Yep,
Jeremy_Smith:
helps. That definitely helps.
Mark_Locklear:
No, yeah,
Jeremy_Smith:
I don't know that it will
Mark_Locklear:
yeah,
Jeremy_Smith:
be enough. But
Mark_Locklear:
yeah,
Jeremy_Smith:
yeah, so that's that's kind of what I'm looking at. and then like video production is going to be seven to eight grand. You know,
Charles Max_Wood:
Hm,
Jeremy_Smith:
we keep adding other things, so I really would like to do video production, but as yet we don't have the ticket sales or the sponsors to cover that, So I need
Charles Max_Wood:
Right,
Jeremy_Smith:
to hit our base line, and if we get the sponsors that we need, or have the ticket sale that we need, well, we'll be able to do that. That will be my next thing. So it's more like almost like stretch goals we've got like the space
Charles Max_Wood:
Right,
Jeremy_Smith:
level. And as long as we can do, you know X above that, I'll do the next level. but you know I'm committing to the base level even at a, you know a potential loss, and hopefully not, I don't. I don't think it will be that way. We're still like three months out and I feel like we've had good feed back from people online from From, you know, speakers from attending, and that sort of thing. So, um, but that part is still is scary.
Mark_Locklear:
And like that, you know
Charles Max_Wood:
I bet.
Mark_Locklear:
having the budget in place and having those stretch goals has been like. I've used that sort of as a marketing tool for some of the sponsors that I'm talking with some of the larger,
Charles Max_Wood:
Hm.
Mark_Locklear:
some of the larger companies that the support Ruby and Rails. I've used friends. that the video part, You know, I've made that specific plea that hey we we. We don't have video recording in place at the time, but you know if you will, if you will be a ruby sponsor for us than we can. You know we can negotiate. either have your you Go on some of the video or you know, so I've sort of used that as a pitch to try and try and get you know high higher level sponsorship.
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Um, I've also
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
talked to people that have run conferences that have had, so, for example, you said Swag Right is one of the things that you didn't have in there and I've I've had people say you know, I let the sponsor sponsor the swag or the sponsor sponsor the lanyards or whateve?
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah, I'm okay with some of that, but there's also certain things that I feel a little bit, maybe all about like. I want it to be done in a certain way or like,
Charles Max_Wood:
Hm,
Jeremy_Smith:
So I want to make sure, like if we do shirts, I have a certain way. I want to do shirts,
Mark_Locklear:
Because
Jeremy_Smith:
and
Mark_Locklear:
I see,
Charles Max_Wood:
Right?
Jeremy_Smith:
I'd rather not
Mark_Locklear:
I had a wild
Jeremy_Smith:
delegate that
Mark_Locklear:
wake
Jeremy_Smith:
to somebody
Mark_Locklear:
idea.
Jeremy_Smith:
else.
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah, see, I had a wild wack idea about church, Chuck and Jeremy was like, No, shut that down right quick.
Jeremy_Smith:
I don't.
Charles Max_Wood:
Yeah,
Jeremy_Smith:
Ah, I don't mean to be that way, but
Mark_Locklear:
No,
Jeremy_Smith:
there
Mark_Locklear:
no,
Jeremy_Smith:
are some things
Mark_Locklear:
I'm just
Jeremy_Smith:
that I want to
Mark_Locklear:
giving you
Jeremy_Smith:
like.
Mark_Locklear:
a hard
Jeremy_Smith:
I feel
Mark_Locklear:
time.
Jeremy_Smith:
a little bit in all about.
Mark_Locklear:
Yea,
Charles Max_Wood:
Yep.
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
So yeah, I mean, those are kind of the things that that. I'm just like I don't. I don't know how to do. Um, but the other thing is is, I'm also aware that there are a lot of other aspects to this that I I don't know about. So so yeah, so what are some of your other tips tricks? Random thoughts that you know, somebody might be going. Hey, you know, I want to organize this conference and they're gonna. They're going to run into this wall if you don't warn them off.
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah, if it's your first time, Uh, don't uh, don't commit yourself to a block rate for a hotel, Um They with? If you want to do, if you want a hotel block rate, you're going to be committing yourself probably to eighty percent capacity. So If you, if people don't come and fill, that, you will be paying the rest of that bill. So if you're on a budget, just don't do it. Just tell people hear the good hotels to go to Give them a couple of options and let them pick. It's not people. don't. People would rather have like one hotel that one hotel at everybody is gonna be at. But and they would like you know, hopefully like a discount. but it's just that's really difficult to pull off if you're on a on a shoe string budget. Um, I think it really helps to use Twitter for promotion. Um,
Charles Max_Wood:
Uh huh,
Jeremy_Smith:
that has been really big. and if you're not using Twitter already than you probably want to be using it. Well, Head of starting a conference so that you have a network to tap into and I'm not, I'm not. I don't have a huge network, but it's better than it was even a year ago, and I think that's really helped also
Charles Max_Wood:
Hm,
Jeremy_Smith:
if you're going to conferences. A lot of a lot of the people that I met and made friends with at conferences have been very supportive and very uh, just been very encouraging and helpful in promoting this conference. So go to conferences. make lots of friend, And tell your friends what you're playing to do. And I've just found that so many people are supportive of that. That has been one of the biggest encourage. Encouraging aspects of it is just how many people are? Um, Just like backing you up on that kind of stuff
Charles Max_Wood:
Hm,
Jeremy_Smith:
and wanted to see. See things like that go well and that that's meant a lot. and so do that ahead of time, So that you're you're ready and have have those people you know to to lean on and to Ask for help from the market. Yeah, the marketing of promotion is a huge is a huge thing, and again it goes back to people are having to trust you and so don't hide behind a brand when it's just you, be the be the person that's making those connections to speakers and to sponsors and everybody else.
Mark_Locklear:
And and
Jeremy_Smith:
M.
Mark_Locklear:
doing,
Jeremy_Smith:
and I don't know
Mark_Locklear:
dude,
Jeremy_Smith:
if I said this already, but
Mark_Locklear:
I was going to say just doing doing what we're doing. Now we did the We did the Ruby on Rails Podpodcast a couple of weeks ago, But getting the word out
Charles Max_Wood:
Hm,
Mark_Locklear:
that that sort of free promotional stuff that you can do the you know it's time, but it doesn't cost anything to do.
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
Right,
Jeremy_Smith:
now we really appreciate that. That's That's a huge thing like being able to talk about what we're doing in the community. Twitter is a great place, but obviously like bein ble to come on, Ruby Rogues is like a fantastic way to be able to tell other people about what we're doing, So yeah, absolutely
Mark_Locklear:
And then I'd say having a team too. We've got like we again. We've uh, you know, Jeremy reached out to focus on Twitter. There was a bunch of response there, and then again, our local, you know group to we. We've got a handful of folks, so we've got a little weekly. We've just sort. we've got a standing. We've got a standing weekly, meeting it in place on Fridays, where, even if there's not something specific we're gonna talk about, we'll just take thirty minutes and check in there. get up to date on any Any sponsors that folks might be contacting if there's any issues. That again, it's a good spot for. If Jeremy is trying to make some heavy decisions about things, it's just a good sounding board for him to be able to say. Hey, I was contacted by this person about that. What do you guys think
Charles Max_Wood:
Hm,
Mark_Locklear:
about it? So feels more like a team rather than just maybe you know either Jeremy by himself or even just myself and
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah.
Mark_Locklear:
Jeremy. Having you know three, four or five folks, there feels
Charles Max_Wood:
Hm,
Mark_Locklear:
more like we've got a team in place.
Charles Max_Wood:
Yep,
Jeremy_Smith:
I would also say like I don't know how other conference organizers do this, but you got a budget regular time every week to work on this. I've been tracking my time so far in February, and I'm coming in around eight to ten hours a week on average for the conference, and maybe that will taper down. I don't know if it will, but that's where I'm at right now and it was probably higher when I was working on building the site and getting those things set up, so
Charles Max_Wood:
Right,
Jeremy_Smith:
um, it takes a good amount of time. Thankfully, I do like fractional retainer contracts. One of one of the retainers I had just wound down. I wasn't planning to fill all my capacity and just you. I was planning to budget like ten hours a week from here till June to work on this, and thankfully I can do that. I don't know how you do it if you have a full time job and like a family and stuff like that.
Charles Max_Wood:
Right,
Jeremy_Smith:
Thankfully, I can like. I have this during my work day, you know, budgeted through, you know, through June, And can kind of do that. but yeah, make sure that you've got enough time to commit to it or figure out a way to you. Now split that with other people and that sort of thing. But there's so many little decisions like there's so many. Like just surprising things that keep coming. You know like you think it's like Okay, we've got this one thing set. But then there's just like a million decisions behind that like you set the venue. But then there's a million decisions about which tables to use for this. You know, the sponsor area and You know, like going through all the details around their wife and their Av set up, and like just so many things right. So it's just surprising and having enough margin in there so that you, when those things hit you, you've got capacity for it. I think it's really important. Um, and for me like I am a big picture person and to do details, which I do, for you know, like build web, Ap. So like you've got to be detailed, ranted in that sense, but I'm big picture in Ted. Do detail as well. I have to keep going back over the details over and over and over again,
Charles Max_Wood:
Hm,
Jeremy_Smith:
and that's the way I've got to do it, which is why it's really helpful to have a weekly stand up Mark was talking about. We basically sit down for thirty minutes and say what's happened this week. What are we working on And that's being able to go through those details over and over again. helps me make sure I'm not losing anything, because you know I've already been surprised by a couple of things was like, Oh, I didn't think about that, so that's just going to happen. So the more you go over it, the btteryou're. going to be catching all those little details And then you need the capacity to like to be able to respond to those. The other
Mark_Locklear:
Oh
Jeremy_Smith:
thing, That's that's really difficult for me. thinking about just a work mentality. Most of my day as a developer is spent in deep work. You know, I don't have a lot of meetings. I don't have a lot of emails. or unless I get on slack. if I can stay off. I don't. I'm not involved a lot of conversation so I can get
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Jeremy_Smith:
a lot of deep. You know, work done on projects. But this aspect has been like so many little things right, So many. Like, Uh, connect with this person over Twitter. D. M. email this person back. Oh, I need to respond to this someone just like me. you know, like all these different things, and it's all these little conversations that you're trying to move just inches further right you can't ever. There's
Charles Max_Wood:
Hm,
Jeremy_Smith:
all these open loops and you can't close them all.
Mark_Locklear:
Hm,
Jeremy_Smith:
They just keep going back ground. You're just like moving the ball forward a little bit for each one of them. So you're changing context all the time and that is really challenging. like. I find that to be really draining. Ex. Sting. Um, so I'm not getting as much deep work as I normally get. And
Charles Max_Wood:
Hm,
Jeremy_Smith:
but it has to be done. It's just it's a very different kind of work than I'm used to doing. Um, so just now, that's what you're getting into. I guess
Mark_Locklear:
Hm.
Charles Max_Wood:
Yep, Cool.
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
So
Mark_Locklear:
Oh,
Charles Max_Wood:
what are you working on now? Like what's what's next?
Jeremy_Smith:
Oh, current stuff. What are we looking at? One of the big things is sponsorships continue to work on That That that opens the doors for many other things. You know.
Charles Max_Wood:
Right?
Jeremy_Smith:
like I've got. I've got somebody who I want to do our video stuff. But we, we need the sponsors ahead of that there.
Charles Max_Wood:
Right.
Jeremy_Smith:
So there are things like that that have to be done. Our c. F P closes next Wednesday. We need to work the next couple of days to figure out how the how to include our volunteers in a way that makes sense. That is, Gives them an opportunity to have feed back into and into our review process and then plan that so that we can make our final choices and then go out, you know, to our speakers and say okay, Are you still good? Will this work for you? And then you know I have all of that done and then start announcing, So we're planning to announce speakers starting March fifteenth, So we've got two two weeks in there to know. Make our selections speak, you know, talk to the speakers. make sure they're on board and then start announcing them. And
Charles Max_Wood:
Yep,
Jeremy_Smith:
that's also when our early bird registration closes, March fifteenth, So there's quite a bit to do between now and then and then. I imagine that is also going to be another kind of big push in terms of our ability to start doing more marketing and stuff like that, Because it's hard to. It's harder to have things to say until we know who our speakers are and what their topics are. But as soon as you have that, you have a lot more to say on social media or in email, news letters, and that sort of thing, so We'll be able to. We'll have more content available to start marketing that, either to the people that are attending or people that might attend. Um, So we've got that will be a big push. then,
Charles Max_Wood:
Good deal. Um, I guess
Mark_Locklear:
Oh
Charles Max_Wood:
the other thing that I've run into is sometimes I with the remote conferences. I've actually had to postpone a couple of them because
Jeremy_Smith:
Hm.
Charles Max_Wood:
I set the time line too short to launch them.
Jeremy_Smith:
Hm.
Charles Max_Wood:
So
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah.
Charles Max_Wood:
and in the past I just put it up and it would all kind of come together, But it looks like it seems like it's more work now to make it run. so I'm wondering on your, and like how
Mark_Locklear:
Oh,
Charles Max_Wood:
being where you are now, how far out would you schedue The conference like if you're looking at doing a conference and you're like I want to run it as soon as possible.
Mark_Locklear:
M.
Charles Max_Wood:
Would you wait six months, three months, eight months, ten months?
Jeremy_Smith:
I would say minimum six months,
Charles Max_Wood:
Okay,
Jeremy_Smith:
I don't, I mean, and this is still my first time. Maybe
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Jeremy_Smith:
it's easier than you like, if you're a first time, or maybe if you've
Charles Max_Wood:
Yeah,
Jeremy_Smith:
done this before and you have everything
Mark_Locklear:
yeah,
Jeremy_Smith:
kind of set. But the first time you're like, Oh, how am I going to do this? How am I going to do that? How are we going do this like it's all these brand new challenges you got to solve for the first time right. There's a bunch of stuff
Mark_Locklear:
My
Jeremy_Smith:
that. if we did it again, especially if we use the same venue, it would just be it would
Charles Max_Wood:
Hm,
Jeremy_Smith:
fall into place right
Mark_Locklear:
Hm.
Jeremy_Smith:
so. But if it's your first time, boy, you've got to Into decisions ahead of you. You probably need
Charles Max_Wood:
Yeah,
Jeremy_Smith:
six months
Mark_Locklear:
And I
Jeremy_Smith:
and
Mark_Locklear:
mean, really.
Jeremy_Smith:
you need
Mark_Locklear:
really
Jeremy_Smith:
people.
Mark_Locklear:
almost
Jeremy_Smith:
you need
Mark_Locklear:
eight.
Jeremy_Smith:
to build awareness.
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah, you know, really almost eight months.
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah,
Mark_Locklear:
Because I guess
Jeremy_Smith:
that would probably
Mark_Locklear:
we
Jeremy_Smith:
be
Mark_Locklear:
started
Jeremy_Smith:
better.
Mark_Locklear:
talking. I mean, we started talking back. And when was that of October, November, something like
Jeremy_Smith:
It
Mark_Locklear:
that,
Jeremy_Smith:
was like, Yeah, October, November,
Mark_Locklear:
and then
Jeremy_Smith:
something like
Mark_Locklear:
January
Jeremy_Smith:
that. Ah,
Mark_Locklear:
is when we really. I think we, we got together and chatted, you know, right after the first year and we sort of decided to sort, said. Okay, Yeah, we're goin to definitely do it. I said okay, Yeah, I'm definitely going to support you. So that was the sixth month mark, but Really it was you know we were. We
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah,
Mark_Locklear:
were sort of making some plans and having conversations about bait prior to that,
Jeremy_Smith:
That might be
Charles Max_Wood:
Yep,
Jeremy_Smith:
different if it was a one day event Or you know, if you didn't have other aspects like that like you know, But if it's if it's two days there's hotel. There's travel people on site. You know, lots of speakers. If you need sponsorship, all those things just add a lot of extra time.
Charles Max_Wood:
Yeah, I'm also wondering like, is there? is there somebody you're getting advice from to start and run a conference or
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah, maybe I didn't say this already, but yes, uh, talked to other conference organizers. I have talked to a bunch of people. talked to Andy Croll, Jason Carns, Jim is rof, Emily Samp, just talked to Tod Lewis, who does all things open and rally, talked to him this week. Every time I talk to somebody knew, I get something like something new out of
Charles Max_Wood:
Right?
Jeremy_Smith:
it. So every person has this different perspective and they remember. You know, they remember different keys or bring up something that was different, and every time I've learned something valuable that I really need to know, so I think that's huge. I've been so thankful to all the organizers who've been willing to give me like thirty minutes to an hour of their time like that's been so helpful. It's also so there's the knowledge side of. There's also the sort of the emotional support side of it, which is like you're doing great. You're going, You know you're you're. this is, we've did it. You're gonna. you're going to be okay. You know that, kind of just like the support around like it's going to be all right. You're doing a brave thing. This is. this is hard. You're going to get through it. That. really? That really helps. I really. I personally need that. that's very reassuring. especially when you know, Get focused on one one specific problem that I'm like. How are we go Figure this out? Like this is so stressful. No other people have figured it out and that their support if really matters. so I definitely recommend reaching out to people if you know them, especially, but I found even people that I didn't really know very well were really were willing to talk to me and that was that's been. Yeah, just such an encouraging thing.
Charles Max_Wood:
Hm, makes sense. Um, Man, we've already been talking for an hour,
Jeremy_Smith:
Uh, uh,
Charles Max_Wood:
So if people want to come to Blue Ridge Ruby conference or if they want to volunteer or speak, or you know
Mark_Locklear:
Oh
Charles Max_Wood:
how do they? how do they connect with you guys?
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah, Blueridge Ruby dot com, Let's sit. We've got a good
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Jeremy_Smith:
amount of information. Not speakers listed yet.
Mark_Locklear:
yeah,
Jeremy_Smith:
That will be three more weeks. but
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Jeremy_Smith:
the venue, the town kind of the basic about the conference. Where to where to get a hotel? Travel all that kind of stuff Is there? We've got early bird ticket sales right now for two forty nine. That's until March fifteenth. You can also there, submit to our c. F. P. That's until Next week next Wednesday. Don't know when when this episode will drop, But we're closing March first, and then we'll announce speakers March fifteenth, And if you are, if you're interestin sponsoring, there's a sponsorship page with all our packages. Definitely want to connect with with you. If you are interested in that. What else
Mark_Locklear:
We
Jeremy_Smith:
am
Mark_Locklear:
also
Jeremy_Smith:
I thinking
Mark_Locklear:
have
Jeremy_Smith:
of? We also
Mark_Locklear:
scholarships.
Jeremy_Smith:
have. Oh yeah, yeah, we. we have ten first come for serve, Uh, scholarship tickets that we're making available to people you know, eduyouknweducational or people based on need. We'd love to see more, especially early rubies coming to the conference, So there's a place to apply for that And then we're also on Twitter and Ruby Social with the Blue Ridge Ruby handle.
Charles Max_Wood:
Yeah, cool. all right. Well, let's go ahead and go into our next segments. One segment we added. Since you guys have been on Um, is the self promo segment Um, and it's just hey, this is what I'm working on. The people should know about and we've kind of done that for the conference. But um, you guys are welcome to talk about anything else you guys are working on. I'm actually just going to jump in and go first. M. So two things that I've been working on and I'll keep it real short. One of them Is as I'm getting ready to actually launch my M. M, v P course. The most valuable programmer course, Um, and effectively, it's going to be a master class on how to get the most out of your career. And when I talk about getingthe most out of your career, Effectively when I talk to people who I think of it this level, they're getting paid really well to work on really interesting projects and they're in high demand and are recognized experts, Right And so that's what I'm going to teach you to do. I'm going to teach you how to get to that point. you know, and sure, I mean that you're going to have to do some work
Mark_Locklear:
M.
Charles Max_Wood:
to get that right. But I can show you a lot of the short cuts. You have to go figure it out on your own. Um, I'm probably
Mark_Locklear:
Oh
Charles Max_Wood:
going to sell it as I, because I'm I'm starting working on the course, but I'll probably do pre sales,
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
and based on whatever percentage I have done, you'll get it for that percentage of the full price, which is going to be. It's going to be high. Ticket, Of course, right, like a full on Bo camp, so keep an eye out for that. I'll probably tweet about it once I have the sign up page up, but that's one thing I'm working on and the other thing I'm working on is I've actually
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
put together a page for um episode
Mark_Locklear:
Oh,
Charles Max_Wood:
recommendations
Mark_Locklear:
yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
so you can come in and you can recommend a person
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
or a topic, or you know whatever right. You can ask a question you want us
Mark_Locklear:
yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
to answer on the show And then
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
you can also come if you don't have an idea, But you want to see what people are suggesting
Mark_Locklear:
Ye.
Charles Max_Wood:
you come, and you can uploate them. And so, uh, yeah, that's that's just
Jeremy_Smith:
This
Charles Max_Wood:
something
Jeremy_Smith:
was.
Charles Max_Wood:
that we're Um, I've had a lot of people ask me for that and so I'm putting that together And then I'm also launching the contapult your coding career. So I said too, and I gave you three. Um, and that that's a podcast
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
on the kinds
Mark_Locklear:
yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
of things I'm goin be teaching in that V P course, but
Mark_Locklear:
Oh
Charles Max_Wood:
effectively we're just going to answer questions that people have
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
Start out with questions I've been getting in my coaching calls right, and I'll just be a little bit hand wavy about who it is right, because I don't want to violate in his privacy.
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
But a lot of the questions are questions
Mark_Locklear:
yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
that I get from a variety of people,
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
And then I'll have a recommendation board for that as well, and you can come in and you can ask
Jeremy_Smith:
Yes.
Charles Max_Wood:
the question you want me to answer in the show. Um, and then occasionally I think I'll have some guests on that can talk about Publishing a book with a traditional publisher. Or maybe I'll have you guys on to talk about organizing a conference or stuff like that.
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
That's
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
what I'm working
Jeremy_Smith:
me, be cool.
Charles Max_Wood:
on. Either of you have things you're working on. You want people
Mark_Locklear:
yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
to know
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah, I've got something. So if you are into Rails and Indy business, my friend Jus Brown and I just started the India Rails podcast. Were
Charles Max_Wood:
M.
Jeremy_Smith:
this is my first time dipping my toes into a podcast. We just interviewed Joe Mazalotti Rails Debs last week. It was really great talking with him. It feels like we've gotten a lot of just a lot of great feed back from from the community so far, so if you're into like independent Business plus rails, this is kind of like. That's our scene. That's what we're going for. So we're on all the major podcasting platforms as well as India Rails Dot com.
Charles Max_Wood:
Cool.
Mark_Locklear:
I have a pet project that I started a couple of months ago, Have not done a ton of work, but I'm excited about the idea and if anyone would love to partner with me on that, I would be happy to have you work with me on it. It is the idea for it is, I'm a registered independent and I was thinking like, how do I know whether someone a politician is independent or not right? There's all these right leaning sites and
Charles Max_Wood:
M,
Mark_Locklear:
left leaning
Charles Max_Wood:
Hm.
Mark_Locklear:
sites. You can tell how concerned with someone else how liberal they are, but there's really no way to tell Like if someone's independent or not, And so that that was the sort of impetus for the idea. Pro pro Publica has a congressional a P. I, and you can pull all kinds of robust data from that, Every single bill that goes to the House and the Senate floor, All the discussion how people voted on it, and then there's all kinds of little, neat, little tit bits of data and things like like that there. So my, the idea is and I've toyed around with all kinds of names for a website. Are they Independent? Are you independent? So that's still so. If you feel if you work with me on this, you can help name the website
Jeremy_Smith:
M
Mark_Locklear:
that. That's one
Jeremy_Smith:
nice,
Mark_Locklear:
perk, but I've started. I've got the. I've sort of got the guts of a Rails app in place. I've started pulling data down. I've got sort of contest that go in and pull data into it. Ideally, I would have a design or somebody with a design sense. That's not one of my strong points, So certainly, if you are a front end person who knows some rails that that would be great to work with, so you can. Yeah, just reach out to me at Mark Lock Layer on Twitter.
Charles Max_Wood:
That's cool. I'm fairly politically involved. I just don't talk about it on these shows because we're talking about programming.
Mark_Locklear:
Usually Yes, it's usually good. good not to, And so and I'm not, you know
Charles Max_Wood:
Yeah,
Mark_Locklear:
to me this is pure
Charles Max_Wood:
No,
Mark_Locklear:
teck. but yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
yeah, but I think it's interesting you know, just from Yeah. from the point of view of Yeah, how independent are they Because I see the you know, the right leaning. You know people who evaluate folks, Basically saying these people are way extreme over here, and I see the left leaning folks do the same thing to people on the right. And so, and usually they don't have anything to back it up right. It's just like Oh you. And so it'd be interesting to. Yeah, here's the voting record. Here's the algorithm we're using Right And so then I can look at it and then go. Oh, I see what. I see what you're pulling in. I can see how you come to that conclusion. That's interesting right? so yeah, all right. let's go ahead and do picks. Now I always do a board game Pick first, so I'm going to pick a board game. This one is a little bit more complicated. I feel like the last handful that I've I have been. You know, fairly casual games that most
Jeremy_Smith:
M.
Charles Max_Wood:
people would play. This one is a pretty intense game. It's called Ark, Nova, Um, and effectively, what you wind up doing is your buying animals and stuff in your zoo, And I think last I played it last night with my friends and it took us like three hours to play it. So it's not for the faint of heart. Um, but it was super fun. It's It's just kind of involved. It takes a while to play it. Um. and yeah, so you're what you wind up doing as you wind up. Um, you kind of manage your turn and take different actions, and you put animals in the zoo. The animals have. Um, there are three tracks. there's the M. there's the prestige or the what is it reputation track? There's the conservation track, and there's the appeal track. And so you know, as you put the animals in the zoo, almost couple of them give you a peal, Some of them give you money that you used to, You
Mark_Locklear:
M.
Charles Max_Wood:
know,
Jeremy_Smith:
Oh,
Charles Max_Wood:
I
Mark_Locklear:
M.
Charles Max_Wood:
space in your zoo,
Mark_Locklear:
M.
Charles Max_Wood:
build space in your zoo for more animals. And anyway, I'm not going to go into play. but, but it's pretty fun and yeah, this is the second time through that I've played it the third time that I've started it and I really enjoyed it. So it is
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
three point seven, two weight Out of five on board game geek, and is telling people to is kind of where you get into the semi complicated
Mark_Locklear:
Oh
Charles Max_Wood:
game that a casual gamer would still play. And so
Jeremy_Smith:
Okay,
Charles Max_Wood:
when you get into games like this, it's the serious board gamers that want to have like thinking strategy. You know, intense game. Um, I also have to say that it's so tempting for me.
Mark_Locklear:
A
Charles Max_Wood:
I just write like a mobile app or something that keeps track of like all the tracks and everything else, so
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
that effectively,
Mark_Locklear:
yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
you know I can play on my phone and I can say okay, Um, you know, up
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
the M. I played this card and it would add, subtract, and tell me what else I need to do in order to make sure that I know what's going on, and you know, I can also tell it what I've done on my board, so that at the end of the, you know because the, There were a few times where we played something and then somebody would go. Oh, I missed this and this, and you know we'd always let him go back and do it, But yeah,
Jeremy_Smith:
M.
Charles Max_Wood:
it's
Mark_Locklear:
M.
Charles Max_Wood:
just because there were some complicated pieces to it, so I'm going
Mark_Locklear:
Oh
Charles Max_Wood:
to pick that another pick that I have is. I'm still doing seventy five hard.
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
Um about weeks ago, Had terrible stuff happened to in mine and so, and it's just wiped me out, so I had to start it over, But I'm two weeks in now and last week doing the work outs and everything. I actually lost four pounds and my body fat percentage went down by a percentage point, so I'm
Mark_Locklear:
M.
Jeremy_Smith:
Dan,
Charles Max_Wood:
pretty thrilled about that, so go check out seventy five hard. It's actually a self disciplined
Mark_Locklear:
h.
Charles Max_Wood:
program. It's not a weight loss program,
Jeremy_Smith:
Hm,
Charles Max_Wood:
but it's one of the side effects because you have to work out as part of your deal, So
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
I'm going to pick that has an app, The Apse life saver Because I would forget stuff. The first time I
Mark_Locklear:
yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
did it before Was the app and
Mark_Locklear:
Oh
Charles Max_Wood:
I completed it, but I had to remember everything every day and this time
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
makes it real simple to just do. Um, so yeah, so I'm enjoying that and there was a new episode
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Jeremy_Smith:
It
Charles Max_Wood:
of
Jeremy_Smith:
was
Charles Max_Wood:
Nineteen Twenty three and I'm enjoying that
Jeremy_Smith:
M.
Charles Max_Wood:
as well. And then there was something else I was going to pick and I, it's into a couple of books on Audible and so Let me just shout out about those real quick. The first one's called. Everything is figured out able by Marie Folio And it's It's awesome. Um, and it really made me think about just how many times I just give myself an excuse and a pass to not finish something or do something instead of pushing through and finding
Mark_Locklear:
Yah.
Charles Max_Wood:
a way to make it happen.
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
The other one is the power of one more,
Mark_Locklear:
yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
and that was by Ed Malet, and his Is more of the Do one more lap. Do one more push up. Do one more, you know, stick
Mark_Locklear:
Oh,
Charles Max_Wood:
it out for one more day when things are hard and you know there
Mark_Locklear:
Ah,
Charles Max_Wood:
are the different chapters go into like you know, one more style leadership, one more style, you know, exercise, one more style. And so he gives you examples of how it plays out in your life, and it really really inspired me. And so I'm enjoying that as well, and
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
I pick up the book because he was talking about some of these. I As on a call and this is my last pick. I've picked like six things. I'm sorry, but
Mark_Locklear:
M.
Charles Max_Wood:
this last
Jeremy_Smith:
Okay,
Charles Max_Wood:
one is he. So he and Andrew Frazella, who did the M f C E project podcast And now it's the relafpodcast the re launching M f c e O. But anyway he, he
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
has
Jeremy_Smith:
Yes,
Charles Max_Wood:
a podcast. Andrew Frazella is also the guy who put together seventy five hard. The
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
two guys together have put together is community
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
called Rat
Mark_Locklear:
So
Charles Max_Wood:
Syndicate. And what it is is it's a bunch of business people that get together. Usually
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
it's just Ed and Andy like answering questions and talking about some of these ideas. And so
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
I picked up the book because
Jeremy_Smith:
Yes,
Charles Max_Wood:
you know he was talking about some of
Mark_Locklear:
yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
the ideas and just
Jeremy_Smith:
Yes,
Charles Max_Wood:
casually mentioned that he had some of it in that book. So I listened to the book and it's awesome. Tally
Mark_Locklear:
Yes,
Charles Max_Wood:
planned on buying both of those books physically and notes in him. So anyway they're
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
terrific. I'll put links to all
Jeremy_Smith:
That's
Charles Max_Wood:
of it in
Jeremy_Smith:
cool.
Charles Max_Wood:
the show notes. but yeah, loving that mark. Do you have some picks? S?
Mark_Locklear:
I do have some picks I'm going to pick. I have two picks One is going to be and I think I think I bought this set based on a pick off this show many many years ago, but I thought I would just come back and come back around to a full circle. These are Logoftech twenty E head set. And what's cool about it is it's They're not. Blue Tooth is like the old school at two dot eleven. Um, you know
Charles Max_Wood:
Hm,
Mark_Locklear:
wireless connection. So what's great about it Is something? The sure. you're not going to walk away, But often if I'm in staff meetings or something like that and I'm not playing a huge role and I just need to be there and listen. I can mute myself and I can walk all around the house. I can walk downstairs and go put put clothes from the wash into the driver.
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah,
Mark_Locklear:
I can even walk out to the road and go to the mail box, so I don't know. I haven't really seen how far I can go before I lose
Jeremy_Smith:
Oh,
Mark_Locklear:
a connection. But if you're if you're child of the eighties and you had a wireless phone back then, it probably use that to Dot Eleven wireless standard. So that's one pick and then the other pick is. And surely someone has made this pick in the last couple of months, but I'm going to say that G. P. T. I, yesterday I had
Charles Max_Wood:
Hm,
Mark_Locklear:
the experience of I was having the issue with. I had a vagrant box that had mysqlloaded on it, and I've got Phpmadman on my local box, and I was trying to connect to this my s. q, l instance on this vagrant box, from P. H, P, or from from Phpmsql I simultaneously posted on stack overflow about the issue that I was having, and then I went into a conversation with chat, g, p T, and we went back and forth about ten times or so, but I chat g p. T helped me successfully solve my issue, and by then that was probably by the time I went back and looked on stack overflow, There was still not a response there. And so I feel like that. I feel for me. that feels like a milestone moment. So I would encourage folks. You know, Surely you've heard about it, but if you're not, you're not using that g, g, P. T, or least experiment with it. Try and see, but it's It's pretty impressive.
Charles Max_Wood:
Awesome, Yeah, I've played with it. Some definitely want to play with it more, because I've been doing quite a bit of writing and
Jeremy_Smith:
Hm,
Charles Max_Wood:
I don't know that I would use exactly what chat G
Jeremy_Smith:
Okay,
Charles Max_Wood:
P. T wrote, but I've
Mark_Locklear:
It's
Charles Max_Wood:
I've
Mark_Locklear:
a
Charles Max_Wood:
done
Mark_Locklear:
great
Charles Max_Wood:
a couple
Mark_Locklear:
start.
Charles Max_Wood:
of things with it and it gives
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
me a solid start. Yeah,
Mark_Locklear:
yep.
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah,
Mark_Locklear:
yep.
Charles Max_Wood:
and and then I can, I can
Jeremy_Smith:
I,
Charles Max_Wood:
go from there and I can say Okay, you know, this is more how I, you know I want my voice to come across, or how I would say it Loud and then typically I'm adding it and this is the story I would tell right
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
that chat. G, P. T can't pull out of my head.
Mark_Locklear:
And and
Jeremy_Smith:
I'm
Charles Max_Wood:
So
Mark_Locklear:
what's
Jeremy_Smith:
working
Mark_Locklear:
also
Charles Max_Wood:
loving
Jeremy_Smith:
on an
Charles Max_Wood:
that
Jeremy_Smith:
integration.
Mark_Locklear:
fun? I was gonna say. What's also fun. Chuck, When you do that, do it and then go back and add and do it in the voice of a pirate. And so that that sort of closes the loop on it.
Jeremy_Smith:
Uh,
Charles Max_Wood:
There we
Jeremy_Smith:
uh,
Charles Max_Wood:
go. pirate emails.
Jeremy_Smith:
Nice.
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah,
Charles Max_Wood:
Yeah, how about you, Jeremy. What are your picks?
Jeremy_Smith:
I got two picks. The first is a blog posts by Clive Thompson. It's called how I use r, s. s to re wild my attention, and I really love this idea of re wilding your attention instead of having it sort of tied down to a feed. Um, Using r s. S that way, it's kind of a throwback in some ways, but in other ways it's like a way to kind of get yourself weened off. maybe a little bit of All media and halgorithmic feeds, and so share the link for that And then also came across this site. It's a site with articles and a book that goes with its called Good services. The site is good Dot services, And you know I do consulting and development for people and I'm thinking about services a lot. and what kind of services I offer and how to package those well, and this site has in the book, I'm excited to get this book and read it, but already reading some of the articles has a really good insight into how to how to think about the service that you're offering. not just simply the task that you're doing, but how it's presented to Um, to your clients, to the people that would buy it, and how to design how to properly design an entire service, and thinking about it being a design challenge is kind of interesting. M. You have a lot of choices that you can make. You can kind of pick some defaults, but there are a lot of choices to make too. Either you know, make for better for worse for your clients. That experience for them so good good services looks really interesting. I'm already learning some good stuff from that excited to pick up the book
Charles Max_Wood:
Nice? All right, So last question, if people want to connect with you online where they find you
Mark_Locklear:
Jeremy, God
Jeremy_Smith:
For me. Yes, sorry, it's Jeremy Smith, Co, on Twitter and on Ruby Social, and my little one person Dev studio is called Hybrid, H, Y, B, r, D dot C, O.
Mark_Locklear:
And I am.
Charles Max_Wood:
A new mark.
Mark_Locklear:
I'm Mark Locklear, l, c, c, l, a r on most plat platforms, including Twitter, and my website is Lockleer, Dot me,
Charles Max_Wood:
All right, Um, well, I'm gonna go ahead and wrap us up. Thanks for coming. This was awesome.
Jeremy_Smith:
Yeah,
Mark_Locklear:
Thank
Jeremy_Smith:
that's
Mark_Locklear:
you, jock.
Jeremy_Smith:
great. great, thank you,
Mark_Locklear:
Yeah.
Jeremy_Smith:
Chuck. Ah, I appreciate it.
Charles Max_Wood:
All right. Well, folks hang in there until next time Max out.