RubyConf Oceania - Expression of Interest

[Luke Chadwick]

Hey Everyone,
I discovered, in a discussion last night at the Sydney Meetup,
that there has never been a Ruby/Rails Conference in Australia. I find
this to be sad, and want to rectify the situation.

I am happy to take a hand in starting to organize an event if there is
interest in actually seeing it happen.

To get the ball rolling, can I get a show of hands who would attend a
RubyConf in Sydney?

Regards,

Luke

[Keith Pitt]

*raises hand*

--
Keith Pitt
Web: http://www.keithpitt.com
Twitter: @keithpitt
Skype: keithpitt
Phone: +61 432 713 987

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby or Rails Oceania" group.
To post to this group, send email to rails-...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rails-oceani...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rails-oceania?hl=en.

[Julio Cesar Ody]

My suggestion: create a poll/form on Wufoo and send the link around.

For instance, I'd go depending on a number of factors, such as
location, time of the year, number of participants, and who's giving
talks.

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby or Rails Oceania" group.
> To post to this group, send email to rails-...@googlegroups.com.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rails-oceani...@googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rails-oceania?hl=en.
>
>

--
http://crazyhollywood.org

[Ben Schwarz]

I see no point in such an event. This has been discussed on a number of occasions (maybe search the list). 

Having said that, I don't have to come :) 

[Gareth Townsend]

I would attend one in Melbourne!

*dons flame retardant suit*

[Richard Forster]

I'd be interested.

 

Richard Forster

[Andrew Grimm]

At the talk last night, I think 90% +- 10% of people put up their hands when asked if they'd attend a conference.

Andrew

[Luke Chadwick]

Your response is exactly why I picked a firm location of Sydney. I
have nothing against Melbourne, but I need to know whether you and
anyone else from Melbourne, Brisbane, etc would come here. If I'm to
start organizing the event it would need to be local so that I can do
the leg work.

[Luke Chadwick]

Hey Ben,
I did have a quick look through previous discussions before I
posted, and I believe that you had shown interest in the past (in
perhaps even organizing the event). I'm curious as to why you now
don't see a place for a formal conference with booked speakers, in
addition to Railscamps.

Regards,

Luke

[Jonathan Clarke]

Luke,

+1 for me and I'd say that many others would come who are not from ruby backgrounds.

Regarding location, if you organize it, you set it to happen wherever you like; benefits of being an organizer. 

[Ben Schwarz]

Personally I think that there are enough Ruby related happenings
locally and overseas to keep me satisfied. Its pretty much as simple
as that.

I think logistically it would be very difficult to organise such an
event here in Australia. Overall, I'd estimate that you'd be able to
fill ~ 250—300 seats if you were to go on such an endeavor.

The conference would have to consist of many international speakers,
as your local (AU) attendees would see the same local speakers at
every single ruby meetup.
This is a symptom of both the Melbourne and Sydney ruby groups—The
same people speak on a regular basis.

Like I said, I don't have to come along, I'm not going to sit back and
say "it wont work, its stupid" because I think what you're doing is
awesome. A small percentage of people put back into the community, so
I'd like to wish you best of luck. If I can help, let me know.

[Pat Allan]

As Ben's pointed out, this isn't the first time the topic has been raised... I'm often quite vocal about it, so apologies to those who've heard me go on about this before, but here's a few things to consider:

* Putting on a Rails Camp is a lot of work. Putting on a conference is a level beyond that. Who is going to pay for your time? I definitely think whoever runs the conference (and don't try and do it yourself - you need a small team!) should be paid at least something for putting it together, but conferences are also most certainly not money-making ventures.

* Speaking of Rails Camps - we have two of these each year. Granted, they're a little different, and not everyone's cup of tea, but I think it's still worth asking: why do we need a conference? I'm not saying we definitely don't need one, but just want to get the thinking laid out.

* Many regional conferences are quite informal affairs - something I feel Rails Camps cover quite neatly. So, if a conference was to happen, I think it should be a grand and special event - more like a FutureRuby or NordicRuby than a RailsConf. Great food, catered parties, quality speakers. Especially if we want to attract overseas speakers and attendees. This is not the cheap path, though.

For what it's worth, I've gotten to several conferences over the last few years, and FutureRuby was far and away the best one. Happy to expand further on why if anyone's truly interested.

* There are a lot of Ruby and Rails conferences around the world already. Europe had four in May! Yes, we are pretty remote, so most of us don't get to these conferences often (or at all), but the same will apply for those outside of Australia who we'd like to have come along to our conference.

* The previous point is important because a good part of the Australian Ruby community see each other regularly as it is, via monthly meets and Rails Camps. We've got a pretty amazing community here, and I want to share that with the world - but it's not going to be easy.

I don't want to put an end to these discussions, because I think there's great potential for an amazing event, and I'd love to help out, but I'm also wary that with regular Rails Camps, we've got community events kinda covered already, and want to make sure there's a need. And, should this happen, I just think the target from the start should be to run something a cut above normal. Hell, a cut above great.

--
Pat
e: p...@freelancing-gods.com || m: +614 1327 3337
w: http://freelancing-gods.com || t: twitter.com/pat
bounce: http://trampolineday.com || skype: patallan

On 09/06/2010, at 10:48 AM, Luke Chadwick wrote:

[Eaden McKee]

I would come over from NZ.

[Luke Chadwick]

Hey Pat, Ben,
Thanks for your input. I'm at least abstractly aware of what I'm
signing up for, and have had a hand in organizing large 1000+ people
church events before.

I do feel that we should have a mix of both respected International
Speakers and Local Speakers, and that it should be an event not to be
missed.

After I get this expression of interest, I will move forward with
organizing a team of people, and more importantly getting a feel for
exactly who/what/when/howmuch people are interested in.

This is more just a 'Do you want me to bother starting to organize
that level of event'

Regards,

Luke

[Ryan Bigg]

I am interested in attending this, and maybe even helping out. As Pat suggested, it's going to be a much different beast to organising a Railscamp.

 It'd be great to finally have a conference-sized event down in Australia even just to try it out to see what it's like.

Ryan Bigg / Radar

[Andrew Grimm]

For the benefit of those who didn't fly to Sydney for RORO,
http://www.slideshare.net/agrimm/railscamp-lousy-tshirt-draft was the
NeoOffice slideshow that I gave last night (more or less). Conferences
are mentioned on page 11. The talk I gave at Railscamp itself is at
http://www.slideshare.net/agrimm/does-railscamp-scale

Andrew

[Gareth Townsend]

Just to clear things up, that was a yes.

[Pat Allan]

You didn't answer my question, though ;)

Why do we need a conference?

--
Pat

[Korny Sietsma]

Another point to ponder (that has also been raised before, but is worth re-raising IMHO) - what technologies would such a conference cover?  And related to this, what would you call it?

The "Rails" community now includes a lot of people who do very little Ruby on Rails - or even if they use it to pay the bills, it's not necessarily what makes them enthusiastic.  It's a useful brand for the community, and I wouldn't consider renaming RailsCamp to anything else, but a conference is a bit different, as you want (presumably) to attract speakers and attendees from outside the core community.

You could do a "Ruby" conference, but then would you include:
- Node.js / CoffeeScript / other neo-javascript stuff
- Mongodb / Couchdb / other NoSQL stuff
- Html5/Css3/Browser-land stuff
- Iphone / Ipad / Icrutch / Android / Other phone stuff
- Erlang / Clojure / Ioke / F# / Go / Other poly-language stuff

I guess you could restrict it to Ruby/Rails - but I for one would love a conference that covers a bit more.

Yow! is the closest fit we have, but it's kind of pricey for the average developer.  (Still looks awesome - take a look at the speakers http://yowaustralia.com.au/melbourne/speakers/index.html )

- Korny

--
Kornelis Sietsma  korny at my surname dot com
kornys on twitter/fb/gtalk/gwave www.sietsma.com/korny
"Every jumbled pile of person has a thinking part
that wonders what the part that isn't thinking
isn't thinking of"

[Clifford Heath]

I would attend one, but I'd recommend you investigate the cost of
attracting international speakers before you go too far. At one point,
RubyCentral was offering to help fund or to underwrite such an event,
so you could ask them. They'd at least have an idea of costs, even if
they aren't will to help pay them.

Clifford Heath.

On 09/06/2010, at 10:48 AM, Luke Chadwick wrote:

[Luke Chadwick]

- Because there are plenty of people that can't justify the ~5k
minimum required to think about going to one overseas.
- Because It is important to provide people access to (some) the best
Rubyists in the world.
- Because there is no good reason why we shouldn't have one.

[Nicholas Faiz]

+1.

The idea has been discussed in Melbourne quite a bit (as Ben Schwarz
said). In the interest of fairness and representing community, it
shouldn't default to being in Sydney without a discussion. I'd be
interested in an Oz conf. in general, though.

[Nicholas Faiz]

Ah yes, the Melbourne/this discussion has occurred before argument has
been put well already.

On the other hand, I went to RubyConf India recently, and could ask if
some of the people who organised that might have any tips for you.
Might be worth doing. I enjoyed it a great deal, but saw that the
conference was the result of many sleepless nights on the part of
those who put it together.

Cheers,
N.

[Pat Allan]

First two points are good ones. With regards to pricing, it's worth noting that a high-end conference (which is what I think this should be) will cost $700 or more, so factoring in travel and hotels for everyone not in the host city, it's still an outlay of $1k+ for most.

[Luke Chadwick]

Hi Nicholas,
I had defaulted to Sydney because I am volunteering to do the leg
work. If there is someone in Melbourne prepared to take on the massive
task of organizing it then go right ahead (and I'll be signing up to
attend and possibly help). We need somewhere to start, and I don't
think arguing about the location is the way to begin.

If there was a Ruby Conference in Sydney, would you come?

Regards,

Luke

[Luke Chadwick]

Which is still a lot better than that amount plus
airfares/taxes/gambling in Vegas.

I do feel that if we're going to do this we should go all out, but that's
jumping ahead, we're talking abstract 'do you want it' at this point.

[Pat Allan]

Oh, agreed - I just wanted to make sure everyone understands it's still going to hurt the wallet a little.

--
Pat

[Ryan Bigg]

I would sooner part with $1k to experience a conference in Australia than $5k to go to an international one. The next time I'd be forking out that much again would be when I move off this island. But what's that saying? "A fool and his money are easily parted"?

Ryan Bigg / Radar

[Andrew Snow]

On 09/06/10 13:45, Ryan Bigg wrote:
> I would sooner part with $1k to experience a conference in Australia
> than $5k to go to an international one.

A local conference also makes it easier to convince employers to pay for
your attendance.

- Andrew

[Nicholas Faiz]

Hi Luke,

I might come, it depends on how the conference looked (it's
theoretical right now).

I was raising the point of the host city as a real issue of interest
(in past discussions about conferences, too, not just this one),
rather than a point of argument. If you manage to organise such a
conference then I imagine it's up to you to make such a call.

Best,
Nicholas

On Jun 9, 12:48 pm, Luke Chadwick <luke.a.chadw...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Nicholas,
>     I had defaulted to Sydney because I am volunteering to do the leg
> work. If there is someone in Melbourne prepared to take on the massive
> task of organizing it then go right ahead (and I'll be signing up to
> attend and possibly help). We need somewhere to start, and I don't
> think arguing about the location is the way to begin.
>
> If there was a Ruby Conference in Sydney, would you come?
>
> Regards,
>
> Luke
>

[Daryl Manning]

Me. I'll also put up a hand to help organize (if I'm not booted out of the country post-election... =] ).

D

[Jason Warner]

I would be interested, but I will actually have to be in the country
to do it (moving to Adelaide in late August).

To Korny's point below, I am still active in the "ruby" and "rails"
community not because of either ruby or rails (I still program in
both) but because I tend to get exposed to other interested tech from
the community. I first learned of Erlang (which I am using to build a
massive system for my current employer) from a rails user group some
years ago. My first exposure to NoSQL (before someone lamely called it
NoSQL) was a rails group and even iPhone and now iPad.

Those are the things that keep me coming back to the Ruby and Rails
communities, not the latest updates to Bundler or the latest test
framework...Just my 2 cents.

jason

> > "Ruby or Rails Oceania" group.> > To post to this group, send email torails...@googlegroups.com.
> > > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to>rails-oceani...@googlegroups.com<rails-oceania%2Bunsubscribe@goog legroups.com>
> > .

> > > For more options, visit this group at
> >http://groups.google.com/group/rails-oceania?hl=en.
>
> > --
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups

> > "Ruby or Rails Oceania" group.> To post to this group, send email torails...@googlegroups.com.
> > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to>rails-oceani...@googlegroups.com<rails-oceania%2Bunsubscribe@goog legroups.com>
> > .

[Korny Sietsma]

I should probably have clarified - I'd most likely come to such a conference (even in Sydney!), but I'd be influenced by (1) the cost (depending on the stinginess of my employer!), (2) the quality of the speakers, and (3) the range of topics (i.e. if it was just "here's a nifty Rails3 plugin" I might take a pass :)

- Korny

On Wed, Jun 9, 2010 at 10:48 AM, Luke Chadwick <luke.a....@gmail.com> wrote:

Hey Everyone,
    I discovered, in a discussion last night at the Sydney Meetup,
that there has never been a Ruby/Rails Conference in Australia. I find
this to be sad, and want to rectify the situation.

I am happy to take a hand in starting to organize an event if there is
interest in actually seeing it happen.

To get the ball rolling, can I get a show of hands who would attend a
RubyConf in Sydney?

Regards,

Luke

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby or Rails Oceania" group.

To post to this group, send email to rails-...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rails-oceani...@googlegroups.com.

For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rails-oceania?hl=en.

[Anthony Richardson]

Here's a little input from having organised conferences with international speakers.

We found most speakers were happy to speak for free as ling as you covered all expenses.

You can also get a larger company to donate their employee and pay expenses for them. I could see approaching Engine Yard to fund one of there employees (they have a few desirables) to be a speaker in return for "exposure" and as a nice free holiday for said employee.

We used to have a single day conference, one track with a dinner, but then do an identical one day in another city (the next day). Maximises the speaker without extra work for them (the same presentation twice). Hugely less expensive for attendess (can fly in and out same day) doesn't take much to organise the same conference in two cities over one city.

Regards,

Anthony Richardson

[Ben Sand]

Keen to go.

Happy to share my experiences in raising sponsorship.

Too many current commitments to help organise.

Thanks,

Ben Sand

[Daryl Manning]

Pat is right BTW... this is a lot of work. But, I still think it's a worthy endeavour and chances are you can also loop in people from NZ as well (flight is closer than Perth... =] ). 

When RailsConf Europe was cancelled, someone put their hand up to create Rails Underground in London, which IMHO was actually a better conference at the end of the day thatn the RailsConf Europe that had been in Berlin the year before.

I've forgotten the guy's name (google is your friend) but he had a nice presentation on how to bring together your own conference and would probably be happy to give the wisdom of his experience. At least when I talked to him he was really open to sharing.

ciao !

Daryl.

To post to this group, send email to rails-...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rails-oceani...@googlegroups.com.

[Geoff Hodgson]

Hi Luke
I would attend.
Geoff

On Wed, Jun 9, 2010 at 10:48 AM, Luke Chadwick <luke.a....@gmail.com> wrote:

Hey Everyone,
    I discovered, in a discussion last night at the Sydney Meetup,
that there has never been a Ruby/Rails Conference in Australia. I find
this to be sad, and want to rectify the situation.

I am happy to take a hand in starting to organize an event if there is
interest in actually seeing it happen.

To get the ball rolling, can I get a show of hands who would attend a
RubyConf in Sydney?

Regards,

Luke

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby or Rails Oceania" group.

[Pat Allan]

It was Mark Coleman <m...@rkcoleman.co.uk> who ran Rails Underground. I'm sure he'd be happy to offer some pointers.

--
Pat

[Mikel Lindsaar]

Hi Luke and all,

I am over speaking at RailsConf at the moment, and I bought this up with several people here (vendors) about hosting a RailsConf in Australia.... funny that this thread should come up at the same time.

So yes, there is definitely interest to send people over, and yes, I can help out organising it.

Mikel

[Cauê Guerra]

I would attend as well

[Luke Chadwick]

Thanks Pat,
I'll see about shooting him across some questions when I have a minute.

Regards,

Luke

[Julian Doherty]

Would attend. Assuming there's drinking involved? There's gonna be beer right?

[Chris Douglas]

Why not create a fund to attract only the best speakers from other
locations to talk in each state.

If we raise a few hundred we could invite speakers from interstate to
come along.
If we raise a few thousand we could invite speakers from overseas come
along.

We could start a Super Speaker Beer Tax SSBT (one gold coin in the jar
for every beer you have) at the at the next meet up and see how we
go.

I've sat through too much dribble at conferences to spend my money on
subject matter has been covered in a free screencast or by local
speakers already. And there are already great networking events.


On Jun 10, 10:31 am, Julian Doherty <julian.doherty...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Would attend. Assuming there's drinking involved? There's gonna be beer
> right?
>

> On 10 June 2010 06:21, Luke Chadwick <luke.a.chadw...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > Thanks Pat,
> >    I'll see about shooting him across some questions when I have a minute.
>
> > Regards,
>
> > Luke
>
> > On 9 June 2010 21:39, Pat Allan <p...@freelancing-gods.com> wrote:
> > > It was Mark Coleman <m...@rkcoleman.co.uk> who ran Rails Underground. I'm
> > sure he'd be happy to offer some pointers.
>
> > > --
> > > Pat
>
> > > On 09/06/2010, at 3:50 PM, Daryl Manning wrote:
>
> > >> Pat is right BTW... this is a lot of work. But, I still think it's a
> > worthy endeavour and chances are you can also loop in people from NZ as well
> > (flight is closer than Perth... =] ).
>
> > >> When RailsConf Europe was cancelled, someone put their hand up to create
> > Rails Underground in London, which IMHO was actually a better conference at
> > the end of the day thatn the RailsConf Europe that had been in Berlin the
> > year before.
>
> > >> I've forgotten the guy's name (google is your friend) but he had a nice
> > presentation on how to bring together your own conference and would probably
> > be happy to give the wisdom of his experience. At least when I talked to him
> > he was really open to sharing.
>
> > >> ciao !
> > >> Daryl.
>

> > >> On Wed, Jun 9, 2010 at 2:20 PM, Jason Warner <jasoncwar...@gmail.com>

> > > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to...
>
> read more »

[Pat Allan]

I'd much prefer holding the event in one location - I'm not sure if we'd get the numbers to justify having it in two or three cities. Depends what the goal is, though...

But I'm just a fan of having a whole stack of awesome people in one place, generally.

--
Pat

> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rails-oceani...@googlegroups.com.

[glenn gillen]

On Jun 9, 3:08 am, Pat Allan <p...@freelancing-gods.com> wrote:
> Why do we need a conference?

Because I'm always looking for a valid excuse to come home from
London, which follows on to...

On Jun 9, 3:22 am, Luke Chadwick <luke.a.chadw...@gmail.com> wrote:
> - Because there are plenty of people that can't justify the ~5k
> minimum required to think about going to one overseas.

And there are plenty of people that can (contractors, those running
their own business, etc.) but would prefer if they could somehow
justify a holiday to the tax man as a "business expense".

I think if you position it right, a conference in Australia could be
very popular with a lot of international attendees. To that end, may I
suggest Melbourne towards the end of Spring Carnival/Melbourne Cup? ;)

--
Glenn
http://rubypond.com/

[Pat Allan]

> On Jun 9, 3:22 am, Luke Chadwick <luke.a.chadw...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> - Because there are plenty of people that can't justify the ~5k
>> minimum required to think about going to one overseas.
>
> And there are plenty of people that can (contractors, those running
> their own business, etc.) but would prefer if they could somehow
> justify a holiday to the tax man as a "business expense".
>
> I think if you position it right, a conference in Australia could be
> very popular with a lot of international attendees. To that end, may I
> suggest Melbourne towards the end of Spring Carnival/Melbourne Cup? ;)

Oh definitely - playing the holiday+conference angle will be a great selling point, and so we really want to hold the conference sometime in or around summer. I would push more for February, as Rails Camp is mid-November.

--
Pat

[plus2]

or Manly in Feb... all the kiddies have gone back to school but
there's still plenty of summer left :D

[Keith Pitty]

I've been watching this thread with interest and have been pleased to see the enthusiasm. However, I feel the need to temper this somewhat by presenting a view of how much work is involved in organising a conference.

Having been part of the organising committee of the Open Source Developers' Conference held in Sydney in 2008, I know how much work is involved. If you're going to undertake this without the help of professional conference organisers (which obviously adds to the cost) be prepared for many, many hours of effort!

With that dampening note out of the way, let me offer some positive suggestions:

* establish an organising committee with at least the following roles and/or sub-committees:

- Conference Chair
- Venue
- Program
- Treasurer
- Publicity
- Sponsorship

* draw upon the experience of other local tech conference such as Linux Conference Australia and PyCon Australia (being held later this month in Sydney)

* aim to schedule the conference so that it doesn't conflict with Rails Camp (May and Novermber), RailsConf US (May or June), RubyConf US (November) and Ruby Kaigi (July or August)

* schedule the conference in the Australian summer so that it is more attractive to international speakers and attendees

* aim to secure two high profile international keynote speakers, one to open the conference and one to close it

* aim to secure an entertaining keynote speaker for the conference dinner

* aim for concurrent streams (I'm guessing two would be about right)

* include an hour each day for lightning talks

* allow time for BOFs (Birds of a Feather sessions) - e.g. the obligatory beer BOF

* aim to establish the organising committee well in advance of the conference (if the conference were to be held in February 2011 I would suggest that the organising committee needs to be established in the very near future)

So I encourage those who have responded enthusiastically to the prospect of RubyConf Oceania to think about what's involved in organising such a conference and suggest to Luke in what capacity they are prepared to help.

Regards,
Keith

[Mark Gandolfo]

+1 for me.

The Gold Coast would be a great venue ;)

[Luke Chadwick]

Hi everyone,
Just wanted to thank you for your feedback so far.

Because I think the feedback has been excellent, and the need is
certainly there, I have committed myself to moving forward with
organizing the Ruby conference.

I will be sending out other emails to get suggestions and help with
details like possible venues (and if you know them, costs, etc).

To get started, I will also be doing research as to the best time of
year to hold the event (February has be suggested) and who you'd
ideally like to see presenting.

If you do want to be directly involved in helping to organize the
event, please feel free to contact me and we'll arrange a first
'RubyConf' team meeting, be it in person or teleconference if there
are people from other locations.

I'll leave the longer emails till after work.

Regards,

Luke

---
email: luke.a....@gmail.com
phone: +61402203606
twitter: @vertis

[Ryan Bigg]

If it matters, I spoke with Jose Valim yesterday and he asked if there was any conferences planned in Australia. Told him there may be, and he seemed to express interest in coming but did mention that the flights were expensive. If we were to get Jose and some other core members there it may heighten the appeal of the event.

Good to hear you're moving along with it Luke

February sounds best to me too.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby or Rails Oceania" group.
To post to this group, send email to rails-...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rails-oceani...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rails-oceania?hl=en.