Annoucing "The Art Of The Con" And Retiring From Tech Conferences
zedshaw.com
zedshaw.com
Adrian and I really don't need the hassle, running 44Con is a whole year's effort to organise and plan for a 2 day event. If we hear of speakers being dick we'd probably cut them a little leeway for minor dickness but if what Zed asserts is correct we'd treat them the same as anyone else in that sort of situation.
And I say this as someone that has no doubt been a dick and done stupid things at conferences. We don't need cards or tons of specific house rules, we just need the basics enforced better to make the event better for everyone.
[1] - http://www.44con.com/
As such, can you give concrete examples (actual, not hypothetical) of "dickish" behaviour that has been dealt with in this way?
* Comments of an inappropriate sexual nature about people at the conference - warning
* Getting stupidly hammered and talking about things that you most certainly shouldn't to people you really shouldn't talk about it with - PNG'd
* Getting stupidly hammered, getting rowdy and threatening to hit people - PNG'd
* Bringing a huge entourage without telling us - Speaker PNG'd
* Sending a recruiter in to put cards on every seat when they have no association with the conference - PNG'd the whole company except people we know are coming as them, not representing the company
* Offering to run a party, then stringing us along and lying to us about what you're going to do, then pulling out at the last minute and getting caught lying about the reasons why - PNG'd
* Bumping into someone, then acting dickishly towards the person they bumped into when the person being bumped into says excuse me - Warning
Bear in mind that the definition of being a dick is down to the organisers and crew and may change at any point in time. If you don't like it, it might not be the conference for you.
The big problem I have is that people tend not to tell us stuff at the time so often we only find out months after the event. I am (and all of the crew are) more than happy to sort anything out that needs our intervention, so if you've come to a 44Con and see someone being a dick, please tell the crew and ask them to sort it out.
Just realised, for those that don't know, PNG meant Persona Non Grata - i.e. banned from attending in future or having any association with the event.
Also, what is BubbleConf, and why haven't the disinvited Zed Shaw? Curious.
Steve Holden is known throughout the Python and Django worlds as a stimulating speaker with a broad knowledge of computing generally and Python in particular. Steve has been on the board of the Python Software Foundation since 2004, and served four years as the Foundation's chairman. His latest venture, The Open Bastion, produces technical events and conferences including DjangoCon US, ApacheCon US, Cloudstack Collaboration Conference and ApacheCon NA.
In short, a prominent/instututional Python guy who organized the last few djangocon.us conferences, and who's recently branched out into event management specializing in tech conferences.
As for what went down at djangocon.eu, no idea...
Because once you have a conference you have to deal with feminist dogmatic gynosaurs, ducks, bloggers, community backlash, mainstream print filling their idle pages with judgement on your efforts, and basically a regret for even thinking of doing something good in the first place.