Week 4 Review

This week was another week with limited conference productivity because of weekend plans but I am still happy with what I accomplished. I did an interview with Jeremy Smith of Blue Ridge Ruby, set up an LLC, and reached out to a few prospective venues.

Interview with Jeremy Smith

I had a very inspiring talk with Jeremy and he gave me a lot to think about. A couple things that stood out to me:

On delegating tasks to other people when organizing a conference (or doing anything difficult really) he said, “I think that works really well when you know what the job is to do. But if you’ve never done the job and you haven’t seen it done well, how do you even know what needs to be done?” This is something that I have really been struggling with. I know I will need help but how to get that help and have it be effective is tough for me (a sign I need to build this skill obviously).

Make marketing materials for other conferences! He put out mailers with custom made stickers on them on tables at Railsconf (maybe) and people picked them up! This is something I can definitely do.

When talking about getting sponsors the first time, especially when you don’t have a network to tap into, he said the best advice he got was: “…brand or the conference itself is not what you are selling, you are selling you.” This is a great point. Because I don’t have a history of organizing conferences or a wide network or social media following, the sponsors are really taking a chance on me. I need to convince them that I am the one that will make the conference successful, not the other way around. Ask the sponsors, “What do you need from me to make this successful?”

One thing that he thinks made a big impact on him and the conference itself was the period at the very beginning where he gave people the chance to get on the mic and say something positive that happened to them in the Ruby community. That sounds so cool. I really want to steal this for my conference.

LLC Setup

I filed my articles of organization with the state of New Mexico and got an EIN number from the IRS so that I can set up a bank account. I have done this process once or twice before and it is always stressful. I am afraid one false step or misunderstanding can get me in trouble with the government and ruin my life. That is probably a bit dramatic but it’s how I feel. Anyway I used ChatGPT to work through a lot of the more stressful parts so it probably hallucinated a few things and I am probably in trouble with the government now.

Venues

I pretty much have my heart set on a specific area in Albuquerque that I think would be perfect for the conference. It has a bunch of food options within walking distance and also a bunch of museums and local artist shops that I think would be cool for attendees to check out in their spare time. I reached out to a couple different places to see if they could accommodate us and only one has gotten back to say that they are too small. I did reach out on Friday afternoon though so I am not surprised by the lack of response so far. I will try again next week. I have a feeling that the hotels in the area can do a conference sized event but price will be a big factor. Probably more expensive to do it with them. We will see.

Next Week

• Reach out to venues again
• Get social media going and release this project to the world
• Get one more informational interview
• Work on Timeline