Week 3 Review

This week wasn’t very productive for conference organizing. My dad was visiting for Memorial Day weekend and we installed gutters and rain barrels on my house. I was still able to get in an informational interview thanks to Spike Ilacqua of Rocky Mountain Ruby and some small tasks here and there.

Interview with Spike Ilacqua

I got a ton of good insight out of my interview with Spike Ilacqua. He has been organizing Rocky Mountain Ruby for a couple years and also had never organized a conference before 2023 so he could remember what it was like to be in my shoes now. Here are a couple quick takeaways, but definitely watch the whole thing for more.

• Check out Blue Ridge Ruby (reach out to the organizers)
• Reach out to Andy Croll
• Set up an LLC
• Offer to list company as sponsors if they pay for speakers travel
• LinkedIn is a good marketing avenue
• Reach out to podcasts early
• Get volunteers (I was thinking of doing this alone)

Here is the full interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqysuaDYMnA

Conference Checklist/Timeline

I am still trying to figure out the best way of doing this but I have started on my checklist/timeline. It is rough and not very complete right now but I hope to improve it over the next couple weeks (and throughout the entire process). I also need to figure out how to display it on the site somehow. Not sure the best format.

Conference Name

I have pretty much decided on calling the conference Blastoff Rails. It is fun and different and that is what I want the conference to be. It is also the only name I have thought of that has a domain name available. Lol. So anyway, now that I have a name I need to get the theme nailed down (I think something along the lines of business and rails or entrepreneurship and rails?) and get a site up so I can start talking to potential sponsors.

Next Week

I am going to be volunteering at an airshow next weekend so my working hours on conference stuff will be limited. I am setting small goals to account for that.

• Work on Timeline
• Reach out to a venue I am interested in
• Figure out how I am going to set up conference blog and conference site, start on that
• Get one more informational interview