Obie Fernandez

Rails Summit Conference recap

That's me, delivering the closing keynote of the conference

Favorite parts of the conference

Here's a quick list of my favorites parts of the conference...

• The Brazilian (and Argentinian) "Raileros"... Simply awesome and super-enthusiastic bunch of people and I was so glad to be part of their special conference.
• The reception that my keynote talk about the "Hashrocket Way" got. I had a ton of attendees tell me afterward that they were very excited about adopting some of our Agile techniques and practices in their own operations.
• Pounding the tables, clapping and singing "We Will Rock You" along with what felt like another 100 conference attendees packed into a sushi restaurant in downtown Sao Paolo.
• Getting to spend quality time getting to know Dr. Nic and Chad Fowler, whoops I mean Chad Erik
• The look on my lovely Desi's face when she saw my presentation slide promoting DevChix at the end of the keynote. :)

Keynote Recap

I'm going to give this talk again this year, so I'm not posting the slides (which were mostly pics of the Hashrocket crew anyway). My 60 minute talk spanned the range of Agile practices that we use at Hashrocket, organized by the principles of the Agile Manifesto.

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools.

Among several other core practices, Hashrocket is a pair-programming shop primarily because we believe that pairing is a key way of emphasizing and leveraging the productivity of our people in effective ways. I spent a lot of time explaining how pairing works and its benefits.

Working software over comprehensive documentation

As Bryan says, "Test all the f*cking time!" There are other ways to put this principle into practice too, having to do with the test technology that we use.

Customer Collaboration over contract negotiation

Onsite customer is important, and our location on the beach in Florida plays into our ability to attract people to come work at our office. I also introduced some ideas about visual design, and when you should do design work on a project, that isn't necessarily what you would expect from a believer in extreme programming.

Responding to change over following a plan

I showed off Pivotal Tracker and spoke about how we use it. I also talked about the importance of standup meetings and how to do those effectively.

I can't recommend Pivotal Tracker enough for Agile teams. You should go sign up and try it for free.

Boston Venue Rocks! (Pro Ruby Conference Series: Part 2)

As Dan Croak of Thoughtbot pointed out in the comments of my last post, there's also one major attraction to the Professional Ruby Conference that I didn't mention: Boston

The conference is at a killer location at the Sheraton downtown. It's right in the center of action, is close to a ton of great stuff in a great city. Boston's extremely walkable, and the subway is cheap ($1.25 a ride). Even cabs aren't bad because the city is so compact.

I'll be there and willing to play hometown host to any visitors looking to experience the city. Looking forward to this conference a lot.

Register now for Voices That Matter: Professional Ruby Conference and use discount code PRNOBIE for a $200 discount!

Voices That Matter: Professional Ruby Conference (Part 1)

I'm headed up to Boston in mid-November to do something I've never done before: chair a technical conference! The event is hosted by my publisher, Addison-Wesley as part of their support and promotion of my Professional Ruby Series.

Before going any further, I have to address something that some of my friends have given me flack for, both privately and on twitter: the name of the conference sounds snotty.

Voices that matter? SRSLY? Does that mean people not speaking at the conference don't matter? (Actually, that name is used for more than just this Ruby conference.)

My publisher might kill me for this, but I have to admit that I had reservations about the name at first also. It might not always come across online, but in person I'm actually a pretty humble guy about my accomplishments and outlook. SRSLY! So plainly put, it was only once we started getting our speakers lined up that I was able to put my concerns aside and start getting enthusiastic about the conference and what we're going to accomplish with it. I hope you will also, which is a big part of why I'm writing this now.

First of all, I have to tell you about the format of the conference, which I take responsibility for defining. Normally, the AW conferences are multi-track, with 45 to 60 minute talks. I said: "No way. That sounds awful!".

RubyFringe, originally uploaded by Leftist.

RubyFringe sealed the deal for me on one-track conferences. Technical conferences should be kept small in attendance, have just a single-track, and short talks. Short talks are especially important, since all topics are not equally interesting to everyone in attendance (or god forbid I fuck up and invite a boring speaker) as long as talks don't go beyond 30 minutes then we're safe from completely going off the rails.

In fact, we're following as much of the advice given by Pete Forde in this blog post as possible, starting with the following:

• 30 minute talks are superior, and questions should be discouraged
• 150 attendees, 20 speakers, and 30 volunteers is the perfect intersection between big and small
• you do not need sponsors!
• you should charge real money for your event, your attendees will thank you because it will be worth going to
• make sure women play a leading role in organization and speaking
• single track is totally the way to go, because it keeps people together and allows an ongoing narrative

Women are definitely playing a leading role in organizing the conference. The inimitable Barbara Gavin is the conference organizer. She's got a huge spirit and is very experienced with this stuff. Debra Williams, my editor and familiar face at Ruby conferences, has a prominent role in hosting the conference too.

I hope you join me in Boston for what promises to be an exciting conference. The registration information is here and in the following installments of this little blog post series I'll start covering some of the exciting speakers and topics that we have lined up for you.