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The Most Accessible Deserted Island Conference Ever

Published: July 20, 2020, 9:30 a.m.

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How many virtual conferences and events have you attended recently? Now compare that to the amount of time you\\u2019ve spent playing video games during the past few months. Not giving too much away, Patrick and I would probably agree that we\\u2019ve spent more time on the latter. With screen time dominating our lives and in-person gatherings largely on hold, how can we rise to the challenge of bringing communities together in accessible, refreshing, and fun ways?\\xa0

In this episode of Community Signal, principal developer advocate\\xa0Austin Parker\\xa0shares how he used tools like Twitch, OBS, Discord, and yes,\\xa0Animal Crossing: New Horizons, to throw a deserted island conference like no other. Austin doesn\\u2019t expect every conference from here on out to be hosted in the video game, but he does hope that the pandemic and his experience with\\xa0Deserted Island DevOps\\xa0encourages all of us to think outside of the box when it comes to creating experiences for our communities. In his words: \\u201cYou don\\u2019t have to be an expert, you don\\u2019t have to be a master event planner. You don\\u2019t need $10,000 to go rent a ballroom at the Sheraton. You can make something that\\u2019s engaging, and creative, that people like, and people will come and listen to it. You can share knowledge and you can build a community using stuff that is either free or fairly inexpensive.\\u201d

Austin and Patrick also talk about:

  • Pros and cons of in-person and virtual events
  • The moderation tools, volunteers, and code of conduct that helped make Deserted Island DevOps happen nearly seamlessly
  • How Austin grinded to get enough bells to pull off the conference

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If you enjoy our show, please know that it\\u2019s only possible with the generous support of our sponsor:\\xa0Vanilla, a one-stop shop for online community.

Big Quotes

How has the pandemic changed work for developer advocates? (2:30):\\xa0\\u201c[Because of COVID-19], we\\u2019re in a world where there\\u2019s this antipathy or bias against large-scale events for the foreseeable future. And maybe not even on a month\\u2019s time scale, on a multi-year timescale, we really have to rethink what does it mean to be part of a developer community? \\u2026 How do you build events and get people interested in events that don\\u2019t take you out of your normal routine?\\u201d \\u2013@austinlparker

Going virtual with attention to accessibility and inclusivity (7:53):\\xa0\\u201cVirtual events as a longer-term strategy are actually really good. It\\u2019s very accessible. There\\u2019s a ton of people due to whatever reason, because of where they are in the world, because of a disability or because it\\u2019s unsafe, or due to their gender or sexuality, in-person events aren\\u2019t welcoming. A virtual event can be much safer for people to attend and much more accessible and egalitarian than these $5,000 hotel and plane and then $2,000 ticket [conferences].\\u201d \\u2013@austinlparker

Moderation as a continual practice (23:36):\\xa0\\u201cModeration is never going to be 100%. It\\u2019s never going to work 100%. [There will always be] the fallibility of technology and of people. Getting close enough is the goal and just fixing any mistakes we find along the way.\\u201d \\u2013@patrickokeefe

A few tools and a little creativity can go a long way towards creating memorable experiences (34:44):\\xa0\\u201cThe future I see [for virtual events] is one where people are using very easy-to-access prosumer tools in order to create unique experiences and build communities around those. It\\u2019s less [about using\\xa0Animal Crossing\\xa0like I did] and more you don\\u2019t have to be an expert, you don\\u2019t have to be a master event planner. You don\\u2019t need $10,000 or $20,000 to go rent a ballroom at the Sheraton. You can make something that\\u2019s engaging, creative, and that people like, and people will come and listen to it. You can share knowledge and you can build a community using stuff that is either free or fairly inexpensive.\\u201d \\u2013@austinlparker

About Austin Parker

Austin Parker\\xa0has been solving \\u2013\\u2013 and creating \\u2013\\u2013 problems with computers and technology for most of his life. He is the principal developer advocate at\\xa0Lightstep\\xa0and maintainer on the\\xa0OpenTracing\\xa0and\\xa0OpenTelemetry\\xa0projects. Austin is the host of\\xa0On-Call Me Maybe\\xa0and co-author of\\xa0Distributed Tracing in Practice, published by O\\u2019Reilly Media.

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Transcript

Your Thoughts

If you have any thoughts on this episode that you\\u2019d like to share, please leave me a comment,\\xa0send me an email\\xa0or a\\xa0tweet. If you enjoy the show, we would be so grateful if you spread the word and supported\\xa0Community Signal on Patreon.

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