Welcome to Nordic Rails!
Carl-Johan Kihlbom
for quite some time now I've wanted a Swedish Rails conference. There
are two main reasons for this:
1. I've been to all three instalments of RailsConf Europe, and while
they've been very good in some ways, I think their basic format is a
bit flawed. More on that later.
2. I think there's a lot of potential in the Swedish Rails community,
but the current situation with small local user groups with infrequent
meetings isn't ideal.
There's a lot that can be improved.
At this year's RailsConf Europe I met a lot of great people from
Norway, Finland and Denmark (and Sweden of course) and realised that
it would be great if we could all gather to learn from each other and
enjoy each other's company. Thus the ideas for the Nordic Rails
conference started to crystallise.
What I envision is this:
A small conference that focuses on the social aspects. The sessions
could be single track to give everyone a shared experience, maybe
branching out to double track if there are highly focused
presentations that might not appeal to everyone. Most of all I would
like to provide all attendees a place to meet, chat, drink and hack
together. The sessions ideally offering topics for discussion rather
than teaching API calls.
The conference should probably take place in Göteborg, ideally
situated between the Scandinavian capitals. Beginning of 2009 might be
a good time period. End of January maybe?
I've talked to a couple of other organisers of regional Rails
conferences, and I think I've got a pretty good idea of what needs to
be done. If you would like to help, either by offering feedback or
something more hands-on, that would be great.
I've also talked with DHH, who will be living in Sweden at the time,
and he's very open to the idea. Hopefully that means he'll consider
being our keynote speaker. But as I mentioned, the sessions aren't the
most important part, the attendees are.
Anyway, this was a quick post just to get the ball rolling. Please
invite anyone you think will be interested in helping make this one of
the best Rails conferences ever. I look forward discussing this a lot
more with all of you in the coming months.
Best regards,
Carl-Johan Kihlbom
Rails Mentor / Newcode
Jarkko Laine
And thanks for getting the ball rolling! I've been thinking about a
regional Ruby conference for the Nordic region for quite some time but
haven't yet found the time or energy to make anything happen.
Here are a couple of ideas I've gathered during lots and lots of km's
on the trails:
* Circulate the venue. We have four countries really close to each
other, with good (and inexpensive) flight connections to everywhere,
so while I think Göteborg is an excellent place to start, I don't
think being geologically in the middle of the region has a lot of
value. A flight to everywhere in Scandinavia takes max. about an hour
anyway. I think having both a central organizing group (á la Ruby
Central) to handle the recurring things and a local organizer like
Göteborg and Tampere Ruby User Groups taking care of the yearly event
would help to keep the conference fresh and make everyone feel they
have a stake in the event.
* Maybe Ruby rather than just Rails. Not meaning to bash Rails at all
here, but what I want to get from events like this is inspiration, and
that would be easier if the topic would be a bit broader (even
embracing other talk topics such as functional programming/erlang
etc).
* Euruko 2009 will be "in the first quarter" of the year, so maybe
coordinate with them so that the two won't clash.
* I'm all for intimate and small, rather than very commercial and big.
I think both the original RubyConf and Euruko are great examples of
conferences where the admission isn't a hurdle for anyone (I think
Euruko was €20 last year). I'd like the conference be something that
the attendees feel belongs to them, the community, rather than some
commercial entity. That doesn't of course mean we shouldn't have
sponsors (you can't really keep the price that low without them), but
that the conference doesn't feel like a money-making machine for
anyone. I think that's the requirement for getting the Ruby Central
regional conference grant as well.
That's it for now.
Cheers,
//jarkko
Carl-Johan Kihlbom
> Hey CJ,
>
> And thanks for getting the ball rolling! I've been thinking about a
> regional Ruby conference for the Nordic region for quite some time but
> haven't yet found the time or energy to make anything happen.
>
> Here are a couple of ideas I've gathered during lots and lots of km's
> on the trails:
Thanks for helping out Jarkko!
> * Circulate the venue. We have four countries really close to each
> other, with good (and inexpensive) flight connections to everywhere,
> so while I think Göteborg is an excellent place to start, I don't
> think being geologically in the middle of the region has a lot of
> value. A flight to everywhere in Scandinavia takes max. about an hour
> anyway. I think having both a central organizing group (á la Ruby
> Central) to handle the recurring things and a local organizer like
> Göteborg and Tampere Ruby User Groups taking care of the yearly event
> would help to keep the conference fresh and make everyone feel they
> have a stake in the event.
I think this is an excellent idea. I for one would appreciate the
opportunity to see more of the nordic countries. I've never been to
Finland for example. But I think Göteborg is a good start.
> * Maybe Ruby rather than just Rails. Not meaning to bash Rails at all
> here, but what I want to get from events like this is inspiration, and
> that would be easier if the topic would be a bit broader (even
> embracing other talk topics such as functional programming/erlang
> etc).
I've thought about that, but my reasoning is this: Rails is a bigger
"brand" than Ruby right now I think, and attaching the name of the
conference to that will probably help get enough attendees. That
doesn't mean that the content has to be Rails specific. I'd prefer it
if we have more general content that would appeal to Rails programmers.
What do you guys think? We could still change to Nordic Ruby if people
feel that would be better.
> * Euruko 2009 will be "in the first quarter" of the year, so maybe
> coordinate with them so that the two won't clash.
Thanks, I'll look into that.
> * I'm all for intimate and small, rather than very commercial and big.
> I think both the original RubyConf and Euruko are great examples of
> conferences where the admission isn't a hurdle for anyone (I think
> Euruko was €20 last year). I'd like the conference be something that
> the attendees feel belongs to them, the community, rather than some
> commercial entity. That doesn't of course mean we shouldn't have
> sponsors (you can't really keep the price that low without them), but
> that the conference doesn't feel like a money-making machine for
> anyone. I think that's the requirement for getting the Ruby Central
> regional conference grant as well.
I definitely agree. From what I heard from the Scotland on Rails guys,
organizing a regional conference is a really bad money-making scheme
from the time you put into it. So I appreciate all the help I can
get :-)
/ CJ
Marcus Ahnve
focused one.
Even though I agree with the reasons for running a small conference, I
am also toying with the idea to ask the people behind Scandinavian
Developer Conference if it would be possible to add a Ruby track to
it, and organize it for them. Bad/good idea?
Cheers /Marcus
pekkaj
> focused one.
> Even though I agree with the reasons for running a small conference, I
> am also toying with the idea to ask the people behind Scandinavian
> Developer Conference if it would be possible to add a Ruby track to
> it, and organize it for them. Bad/good idea?
organizers to help us out :)
Cheers,
Pekka
Carl-Johan Kihlbom
>> I agree with Jarkko that a Ruby conference is preferable over a Rails
>> focused one.
>
> Same here.
So I guess we agree that the content should focus on Ruby, not Rails.
Does that also mean that we change the name to Nordic Ruby?
>> Even though I agree with the reasons for running a small
>> conference, I
>> am also toying with the idea to ask the people behind Scandinavian
>> Developer Conference if it would be possible to add a Ruby track to
>> it, and organize it for them. Bad/good idea?
>
> Sounds very good to me. It would be nice to have experienced
> organizers to help us out :)
That sounds great, but I think it's quite separate from this. I'm
looking for a small, focused conference. I'd love it if we had both
though.
/ CJ
Ola Bini
> On Sep 9, 2008, at 10:28, pekkaj wrote:
>
>
>>> I agree with Jarkko that a Ruby conference is preferable over a Rails
>>> focused one.
>>>
>> Same here.
>>
>
> So I guess we agree that the content should focus on Ruby, not Rails.
> Does that also mean that we change the name to Nordic Ruby?
>
on Ruby, too.
>
>>> Even though I agree with the reasons for running a small
>>> conference, I
>>> am also toying with the idea to ask the people behind Scandinavian
>>> Developer Conference if it would be possible to add a Ruby track to
>>> it, and organize it for them. Bad/good idea?
>>>
>> Sounds very good to me. It would be nice to have experienced
>> organizers to help us out :)
>>
>
> That sounds great, but I think it's quite separate from this. I'm
> looking for a small, focused conference. I'd love it if we had both
> though.
>
simply because going it alone will dilute the efforts. It's hard to make
a conference, and not that much time to work with either.
Cheers
--
Ola Bini (http://olabini.com)
JRuby Core Developer
Developer, ThoughtWorks Studios (http://studios.thoughtworks.com)
Practical JRuby on Rails (http://apress.com/book/view/9781590598818)
"Yields falsehood when quined" yields falsehood when quined.
Henrik Nyh
>
> On Sep 9, 2008, at 07:05, Jarkko Laine wrote:
>> * Maybe Ruby rather than just Rails.
>
> "brand" than Ruby right now I think, and attaching the name of the
> conference to that will probably help get enough attendees.
A simple way to get both would be to brand the conference something
like "Ruby and Rails". Though perhaps mentioning Rails at all in the
name would give it more focus than desired.
marius
> A simple way to get both would be to brand the conference something
> like "Ruby and Rails". Though perhaps mentioning Rails at all in the
> name would give it more focus than desired.
fools. Not using the Rails name for the conferences didn't seem to
keep people from attending; in Oslo there were more than 100 attending
the conference (don't know the number in Denmark).
There was an Agile conference in Oslo last fall (there will be one
this year too) which consisted of lightning talks and open spaces
exclusively. This way, there were ~ 70 presenters and about twice as
many regular attendees, which gave a very high degree of
participation. Also, limiting the presentations to 10 minutes made the
pain of chosing the wrong presentation less … painful … it doesn't
matter that much if it's only for 10 minutes.
Regards,
Marius
Carl-Johan Kihlbom
> Trifork arranged two conferences earlier this year, both called Ruby
> fools. Not using the Rails name for the conferences didn't seem to
> keep people from attending; in Oslo there were more than 100 attending
> the conference (don't know the number in Denmark).
Nordic Ruby it is then.
> There was an Agile conference in Oslo last fall (there will be one
> this year too) which consisted of lightning talks and open spaces
> exclusively. This way, there were ~ 70 presenters and about twice as
> many regular attendees, which gave a very high degree of
> participation. Also, limiting the presentations to 10 minutes made the
> pain of chosing the wrong presentation less … painful …
I think that's a great idea, although maybe a bit extreme. I
definitely want to have space for lightning talks though. It might be
interesting to try the Pecha Kucha format as well.