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SledgeConf Retrospective

I envisioned SledgeConf as a tiny in person conference, inspired by https://briancasel.com/tiny-conferences/. I hoped to hold one sometime in 2020, but was focused on some other projects. After the pandemic shut everything down the idea of holding it remotely seemed pretty achievable. So I took my original plan for a 2 day event and tried to launch a 2 day virtual event. 

Marketing and promotion were the two sticking points for SledgeConf, my audience is not very large and I’m not any kind of event promoter. In the end only one of my friends agreed to present at the remote conference. I considered canceling the event, but I had already taken a day off from my job so I went ahead with the ‘conference’. 

In the end we had two presentations and 7 people in total for SledgeConf. 5-10 people was the idea for the in-person conference and 7 worked well for a intimate casual setting. I also think that 2~ talks is the right number for an online conference. Watching presentations on your computer wears you out pretty fast and by the end of the second presentation I was worn out.

My costs were super low, only a basic zoom subscription. So despite being much smaller than hoped things worked out pretty well. Several attendees expressed interest in another SledgeConf. I’m thinking of holding a ‘Winter Sledge*Conf’ this winter. The plan would be to just have 2 talks and get everyone more lead time.

SledgeConf Schedule

August 7th 2020 

3-5pm PST

4-6pm MTN

Times in Mountain below

4PM: Sean Michael  : Micro Frontends

4:50: Break

5PM: Nicholas Sledgianowski : Business Intelligence Publishing Pitfalls 

5:50: Closing discussion 

Sign up to the Mailing List for the zoom link when we start.

Who should present at SledgeConf?

SledgeConf is a remote ‘tiny conference’ focused on the software industry and software development. Anyone is welcome to present on our three themes “Software, Consulting and Teams”. 

See our article below on the SledgeConf themes.

SledgeConf Request for Talks and Themes guide

Do you need to be a software engineer to present at SledgeConf?
No, you don’t need to be a software engineer or even able to code to present at SledgeConf. We just ask that your topic be pertinent to the Software industry. 

Do you need to pay to submit or present a talk to SledgeConf?

No, submitting and presenting talks is free just email a 3-5 sentence summary of your talk idea at my email. nick@sledgeworx.io

Do you need to pay to attend SledgeConf?

No, attending SledgeConf is free for individuals. Depending on interest, we may offer paid corporate pass with extra benefits. 

What equipment do you need to present a talk at SledgeConf?

To present you will need a device that can run the Zoom application and has a microphone so you can talk and answer questions. A smartphone could work, but we would need to test it ahead of time. If you don’t have the equipment needed to present, but have a great talk you want to present, reach out to us and we can try to coordinate something in Seattle. 

What is the process to presenting a talk at SledgeConf?

The process is slightly ad hoc at this point. The first step is to send me an email saying that you are interested in presenting and giving a short 3-5 sentence summary of your talk idea. I will get back to you within a day or two with my thoughts on the talk. You might be asked to modify your talk slightly if we already have a talk on that subject or it doesn’t clearly match one of our themes. 

Once we have agreed on a talk topic, and depending on what slots we have left, you can pick whether to do a full 50 minutes of talk and Q&A or to do a lightening talk with 5 minutes of presentation and 5 minutes of questions. 

SledgeConf Request for Talks and Themes guide

We are open to talk submissions for SledgeConf 2020. Please apply today. To apply please email me at nick@sledgeworx.io with a 3-5 sentence summary of your talk.

SledgeConf is a remote tiny conference (https://briancasel.com/tiny-conferences/) debuting August 7th and 8th 2020. So far our survey of whether people preferred weekdays or weekends is a flat tie, so we are doing both. There will be up to six 50 minute presentations and six lightening talks spread across two days of festivities. 

The themes for this years conference are Software, Consulting and Teams. Proposed talks should apply to at least one of these themes. The conference is targeted towards software engineers but talks from outside the industry are welcome if they apply to at least one of the themes. 

Software is a pretty large theme. Talks in this category can range from software tutorials, “Integrating full text search in Rails with Postgres tsvectors” for example, to discussions of industry wide issues. A talk on wastewater management in the Bahamas would not be appropriate unless the focus was on the software used. 

Consulting is our second theme in 2020. Talks in this category will cover issues software consultants and agencies, large and small face in their business. A great talk might be “How I found my niche as a React.js charting consultant”. 

Teams is our final theme for SledgeConf 2020. Most software is developed collaboratively and how we do that is a major part of our work. Talks in this category cover the organizational issues involved in building software. A great talk might be “Begging, Borrowing and Stealing our way to consistent data collection for estimates at $Company”. 

To submit your talk please email me at nick@sledgeworx.io with a 3-5 sentence summary of your talk subject.

Ex.

Hey, Nick, I’m interested in presenting at SledgeConf 2020! My idea for the talk is Integrating full text search in Rails with Postgres tsvectors. My project deepeats is a food ingredients discovery tool and we had an interesting time integrating full text search especially when supporting image uploads of ingredients list.

Thanks,

Example Person

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Recruiter spam of underpar jobs

As your career progresses recruiters will start to spam you with lower quality jobs. I’ve had weeks where I was messaged on linkedin about a job several times per day. Normally that would be great, except most of these jobs would be worse than the job I already have. 

I’m not looking to make a downward move in my career. At some point I might start a startup or take a position as a cofounder, but otherwise I’m looking to move up in my career. Meaning that I am looking for jobs that are higher paying and higher responsibility. Not jobs that are lower paying and require less skill than my current job. 

Why do recruiters spam these lower quality jobs? Honestly, I think they are just spamming them in general without reading people’s profiles at all. Recruiters are paid on commission and there really isn’t any penalty to them for wasting people’s time other than Linkedin charging them for premium. But its not like I’m going to have a moment of weakness, respond to one of these contract for hire java developer positions and then accept an offer for half of my current pay. 

For now the solution is probably to block these recruiters on Linkedin.