An overview of the issues to consider when running any kind of developer event, whether that be a full blown conference to a simple technical meetup.

1. So you want to run a developer
event, are you crazy ?
by John Stevenson
@jr0cket

3. My Experiences
the last 5 years in the community

5. Open source
workshops
- Using Ubuntu Linux
- Poster design
- Video Editing
- Desktop Publishing

6. University outreach

8. Organised my
first coding
dojo
Organiser for the
ClojureX conference,
ClojureBridge London,
London Clojurians,
& logo designer

9. Atlassian

10. Salesforce / Heroku

12. Inspiring others

13. Diversity in Tech

14. Why do you want to run an event ?

15. What are the motivations ?
Motivations
● For a company
● For the community
● Your own interest
What does success look like
Think about why you want to run an
event.
- what will be considered
successful?
- what do you want to avoid?
- who are the stakeholders?
Company success
- awareness, api / product use,
hiring new staff, engaging
existing staff
Community success
- growing the community in
numbers & capability
Individual interest
- you want to learn, meet people

16. What is the Event about

17. If you build it, they will come...

18. If you don’t build it,
they won't come

19. Things to do...
to help the event be successful
Describe why people should attend
● say who its for or who will be attending
● say what people will gain from it
● include feedback from past events
Promote the event effectively
1. use social media networks & contacts
2. create a meaningful hashtag & put it
everywhere
3. go to other events and talk about your
event
4. look for media partners who can spread
the word in their networks

20. Provide detailed
location information

21. Visualise
the
schedule

22. Make all the things
visually appealing
beware of your own bias
though...
beware of expensive
print costs too…
not everyone loves
purple...

23. Code of
Conduct
&
Under 18’s
Policy

24. Work out your budget early
What are your costs for
- venue, food, advertising, swag, extra wifi, video screens / tv, etc.
- speaker hotels / travel, speakers dinner
- diversity fund for those otherwise unable to attend
Plan for contingency
- last minute sponsor drop-out
- unknown expense
- event more popular than you planned

25. Give your sponsors clarity & options
What are you willing to allow sponsors to do ?
What are you definately not going to allow them to do - ie. product pitches
Provide several tiers of sponsorship packages in a very clear document / pdf
- include reasons why sponsors should sponsor you!
Include a menu of options and encourage sponsors to get in touch and share what they
would like to do
- Atlassian sponsored one event and paid for all the event staff to wear an Atlassian
t-shirt. This helped the organisers & attendees as well as the sponsor

26. Healthy
food
options,
please

27. I love Raspberries
Have more Raspberries at your event
and I will come :)
Finding something simple that your
audience will love will improve
attendance and return visits.

28. Things to avoid
unless you like stress
Personal Life upheavals
● don't change jobs
● don't move house
● don't take a holiday whilst organising
Organisational challenges
1. don't try and do this alone
2. don't leave everything until the last
minute
3. don't do it alone, seriously!!!
Even if this is your job, find
someone else to help you and
delegate like crazy

29. Doing the event again? Have a Retrospective
What worked
What didnt work so well
What should you do more of
What should you do less of
Document as much as you can, so it's easier next time!

30. Thank you
@jr0cket
jr0cket.co.uk