Community Conferences under the Hood. Perspectives and Best Practices in Volunteer Organization

Speaker 1 [00:06]

All right. Hey. So far, my experience here at the conference has been nothing but amazing. And to me, the most amazing thing is that this is a conference that is run by volunteers. So what does it take to bring volunteers together to build a strong community like this one? An environment of authenticity, inclusion, and diversity. I'm so excited that for the next hour, we have four seasoned community organizers joining us to share their insights, experiences, and best practices in building and nurturing inclusive tech communities. And before I introduce them, I would like to remind you to please mute all of your devices and to share this talk with the world with the hashtags PyCon.de and PyDataBerlin. Now, in alphabetical order by their first names, we have Alexander Handorf. Alexander is responsible for data and artificial intelligence at a boutique consultancy in Germany. Alexander has been speaker and chair of various international conferences and is currently also a member of the steering committee of this one. He is a fellow of the Python Software Foundation and the EuroPython Foundation. Alexander is also a board member of the Python Software Foundation Germany and the EuroPython Society. In addition to all of that, he is currently building Pioneer's Hub, a non-profit to support tech communities. Welcome, Alexander. Florian Wilhelm. Florian is Head of Data Science and Mathematical Modeling at InnoVEX, an IT project center driven by innovation and quality, focusing its services on digital transformation. Here at PyCon DE and PyData Berlin, Florian volunteers as a program committee chair. Florian is not filling this important role for the first time. At last year's PyCon DE and PyData Berlin, Florian already gathered experience as a program committee chair. It is great that you're here, Florian, and I'm excited to hear about your learnings.

Speaker 2 [02:04]

Thank you.

Speaker 1 [02:09]

Lais Carvalho. Lais is an active member of the Python community. She was the first black female board member of Python Ireland and a core organizer of Humble Data, a nonprofit organization focused on mentoring underrepresented minorities on Python and data science. Currently, Lais is the only female board member of the EuroPython Society. Lais is a seasoned speaker and passionate about leadership and volunteering. Currently, she's a software engineer at Workday. Lais, in your biography on the event website, you state that one of your core values is kindness. It is kind of you to share your experiences here with us. Thank you. Thank you. And Valentina Scipioni. And Valentina, we're lucky to have you here on the stage because backstage you are really involved into making this event happen. Here at the conference, you serve as an on-site committee member and volunteer coordinator. Ensuring quality and reliability is something Valentina is familiar with from her job as a software engineer manager at Planet, where it is her responsibility to ensure the quality and reliability of the company's platform. Valentina is passionate about volunteering, and when she's not organizing, or probably even while she's organizing, Valentina is serving on the committee of the PyData Berlin chapter. Welcome, Valentina. Thank you. So now, dear panel, I'm curious and excited to learn how we can contribute to a more inclusive, diverse, and vibrant Python community through the effective organization of volunteers. Thank you.

Speaker 3 [03:47]

Thank you. That was an awesome introduction. Thank you very much. So we definitely, yes. Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Florian. And I suggest we skip the intros now. Basically, go to go. So, hey, why did you join? What made you join the community and contribute?

Speaker 4 [04:08]

Oh, wow. Just like that. Okay. Why did I join? It was actually 10 years ago, the anniversary where I discovered Pi Data Berlin.

Speaker 3 [04:18]

Berlin.

Speaker 4 [04:19]

And because I was always, I always been an aspiring data scientist and I was looking for meetups, etc. And I joined and I was then going every month and connected more and more with people and the organizers. But it felt it wasn't enough. I wanted to do more. I wanted to be all in. I wanted to give my active contribution and why you ask um I don't know it it feels for me it's fulfilling fulfilling to in general grow a community where people can connect to each other with each other and also help each other supporting each other networking maybe okay people maybe are there just to because they're looking for a job but still I helped also fellow colleagues former colleagues going into industry from academia because because of that so

Speaker 3 [05:27]

You just get to know people and good things happen. You meet nice people, good things happen. But I think it's really nice to say you felt, okay, I'm getting a lot from the community and I want to come back. And I think this is very important in this community. So, hey, community is give and take. Thank you.

Speaker 4 [05:46]

And it's also fun.

Speaker 3 [05:47]

yeah it's fun and you meet great people and so about great people that's Lais you're already smiling so what made you join

Speaker 5 [05:57]

I am one of the examples, actually, of the maxim that we all say, that I came for the language, I stayed for the community, because I came from Java. And the Java, I see loads of heads nodding, so you understand me. The Java community can sometimes be a little bit tricky to navigate, and I was learning. And I needed, I have had a little bit of contact with Python beforehand. And I wanted more. So I tried engaging with the Java community. It wasn't that easy, let's put it like that, to engage with people. So I decided then to find, well, Python community around me. And I started with PyLadiesDublin at the time. And I don't know if Vicky is going to get to see this, but Vicky was amazing. So thank you so much, Vicky, for running PyLadiesDublin and for being so welcoming. because that's how I got to get it.

Speaker 3 [07:00]

Inspiring people, let's get back to that later. So what made you join Soriano?

Speaker 2 [07:06]

So actually it was Ricardo, so the co-chair, yeah, but the longer story is, so I've, like, for at least 10 years, I'm a, yeah, I'm a frequent attendee at PyCon, PyData, Europython, and so I really, I really love the community. And then, like, two years ago, Ricardo just asked, so, hey, would you, together with me and Alina at that time, join as program chairs? And I thought, like, yeah, why not? And, I mean, maybe now is the time to give back. And for me, it was also about learning, right? Because normally you go to a conference, you see things you like, you see sometimes also things you don't like. so why is the program like that and not like that? And then I thought, okay, it's really nice to be now able to, in a team, to work together, to have some own ideas and bring them into the program. And also to have fun was already said. I mean, it's always working in a team is also a lot of fun. And you learn a lot how a conference like this is organized. And this is why I joined. and it was a really nice journey so far.

Speaker 3 [08:25]

Yeah, so you were curious, you looked behind the scenes, and I can actually, as a program chair from my own experience, I can say, yeah, you learn a lot because you see a lot of proposals, you have to make a lot of decision on things, on domains, you probably don't, you're confronted with new things, and I think that all was really valuable. So my journey actually started here at the BCC 10 years ago. There was EuroPython, PyData was, yeah, there was PyData as a satellite event, and there was this EuroPython society, and there was, the membership was free, there was a meeting in this room, and nobody wanted to be the auditor for EuroPython, which was auditing 10 invoices at the time, because it was the year when the EuroPython society transitioned to a new organizational model, so, okay, I think I can audit 10 invoices a year, and and if nobody else is up for it, yeah, let's do it. And half a year later, I was co-chairing as a program chair with a stranger, Alex Savio, I have never met him before, and other people organizing a 1,200-people conference in Bilbao on email. And I said, this cannot work. And we met each other in Bilbao the first time in person, and it was really great. and also the whole Python community experience, getting things done and being really helpful was just amazing. And also I got hooked ever since because I saw how other people from different backgrounds work and decide. And that was really nice. So I stayed on NeuroPython. On NeuroPython, things happened. Sebastian and Peter from Blue Yonder said, oh, let's bring PyCon DE to Karlsruhe, which isn't where I live, and said, do you want to help? Sure. And, yeah, and from there it goes, and this is how I joined this organization, and then I saw a lot. I was also attending PyData Berlin regularly, other conferences, but from the organization side, I thought it was always, like, great events, but I also saw, like, when you talk to people, there are some flaws, like, administrational flaws or things you have to really improve to make the volunteer and the contributor experience better, and this finally made me to decide okay join the Python software for one board because there we can also like build an organization to improve this to make stuff better yeah same for EuroPython I also eventually joined the board of EuroPython so I have many perspectives on organizations and common problems and I just feel what makes me stay on is also yeah I think it's not finished yet There's still work to be done and things to improve. And, yeah, I can only retire when I think it's finished or in hands that will finish it. So, yeah. Yeah, all right. Enough here. So let's start with Ron. What's the most engaging story ever, like, happening in your community work? So what made you think, okay, this really is worth all the free time and effort and nights contributing? What was like one feedback you had or experience you had that said, okay, it's really worth it?

Speaker 2 [11:58]

so I Think I really like working in a team so when you see that like the team dynamics is like really people helping each other and when you When there's a new task coming up and someone yeah, I'm gonna take this and you have this like flow feelings Okay, it's really it's really working and and everyone has this this one goal of of delivering a really nice program, a really cool schedule. So this is always what motivates me and what also gives me a lot of value back when I see, oh, wow, cool, we are accomplishing something here. And then, yeah, of course, it's also nice afterwards to get feedback of some people like, well, I really enjoyed this year's program and it was really worth it. And so this is...

Speaker 3 [12:50]

Is the work-to-experience much different than a day job?

Speaker 2 [12:50]

This is

Speaker 3 [12:54]

Is there a difference?

Speaker 2 [12:58]

Yeah, it's in a way it's I mean, it's a difference. We all do it in our spare time. Right. So it's it's sometimes, of course, can also be a little bit like stressful and you work in the evening and not everything goes as planned. But then you have these moments where I think, okay, it's worth it. So this is why I'm doing this for. And those are the moments when you really feel, okay, so you're connecting with the people in the team. And, yeah, you're working towards a goal. And it's really cool.

Speaker 3 [13:33]

So how about you, Valentina?

Speaker 4 [13:35]

I have a fun story. So I started as a conference volunteer in 2017 with the Pi Data Berlin conference. It was in a campus. And back then, I mean, we were not very experienced and many, let's say, obstacles were there. And there was this day where I don't remember what happened to the catering service, But so we had to assist in coffee breaks, making the coffee, bringing it. And at some point, I think the catering got sick or something. And I don't know. I just remember all us volunteers having to prepare lunch for the attendees. But the nice thing when you think about, you see, it's volunteer-based. It's all a community because everyone was engaged and wanting to help. Even attendees offered their help. So it's really like you feel the community. So it's amazing. It was fun. And yeah, you learn from this, of course, because you grow from this.

Speaker 3 [14:53]

Yeah, I mean, I just have to remember, you remember like the 22 conference we had here, it was the first conference after COVID, it was 10 days after all the COVID measurements dropped. So we had a lot of pressure on a very small team. What do we handle? There's no mask mandate anymore. Decide all this and check COVID certificates. and basically we were like preparing really late, we were actually preparing the opening slides an hour before down in the office on the other side and we were sitting in the office and suddenly why are people queuing up behind the building? I mean we had to queue around the BCC and we said oh my god we need to take action and I think it was just a great experience. We just went to registration, attendees that just had registered, we just said hey we need your help, this is the task you just have to check Is the COVID certificate valid? Give to people a wristband and then they can enter. And we actually started with like 20 minutes delay and totally made up for it. And it was like magic. Yeah. And I think that really keeps going. And I think another engaging story, apart from all the feedback and a positive feedback and a thank you that you receive in the community is last year I was on the train driving to the conference here and was talking to a colleague and just somebody else sitting across, and a person, oh, why are you talking about this conference? I know this, yeah, and I said, yeah, well, we're organizing it, and then he said, yeah, how are you? Why are you interested, are you attending? No, no, but I'm from Ghana, I watched the videos, and I learned from your talks from your conference, and now I'm machine learning engineer in Germany. So I said, wow, it's not like only theoretically working if we publish the videos and people give free education, it's actually working, and there's a real person sitting here, and it was just a coincidence. Yeah, and it's all these stories that make it engaging. So, what's your story?

Speaker 5 [17:01]

Well, I was thinking about this. There's so many stories. I can stay here all day telling you many of those. But I think at the end of the day, it's about empowering people to believe in themselves. Right, so that's it. I had, on my first time as a mentor at Humble Data, which is a workshop for beginners in Python and data science, I had an autistic mentee that could not deal with Jupyter Notebooks, he would look at Jupyter Notebooks and say, I don't understand, how do you do things here, I don't get it, what is this? I was like, okay, so this interface is not for you, what can we do, maybe let's try an IDE? And he's like, what is this? So we did the five-minute introduction to IDE, and he loved it. All of a sudden, I was like, okay, so to do this, and he's like, I understand. I don't need you anymore. Go. I was like, all right. Perfect. Wonderful. And we finished. I wasn't sure how to deal with this person because, well, as volunteers, we get there, we try and do the best we can at the job, and then, well, you know, luck. So we kind of plant the seed, and then he didn't say goodbye. We finished the workshop. It was fine. Two months later, I get news from someone else that knew this person and said that this person got an internship in data science. And the first contact they had with data science was at this workshop, you know, by telling me to go away because now he could deal with IDs.

Speaker 3 [18:43]

Ha, ha, ha, ha.

Speaker 5 [18:45]

And this is a great, I mean, for me, this is a great thing of, it's one of the great aspects of thinking that now this person can believe in themselves. And that's the reason why I come back.

Speaker 3 [18:58]

Believe in yourself. I think that's a very good point. What can you learn being contributing? Because I sometimes feel there's a lot of barriers in people's heads. Or if I look back, I was on this conference, imposter syndrome wasn't a thing 10 years ago. It was not known. Of course, psychologists knew it for a little bit longer, but the community wasn't aware and of course you think oh I'm just nothing I don't I'm just a really small wheel and I don't know things and what I learned here is to there's no stupid questions just ask and it doesn't matter on which level of programming skills you are you can have like a C Python super programmer explaining you how to intro and this is really nice but apart from engaging and awesomeness and great so what are obstacles we face so I know organizers we have a long list yeah maybe but also what are obstacles or what obstacles do we meet for example

Speaker 4 [20:23]

I can speak for the present moment. I've been also talking with people out during the conference and there is at the moment with the PyData Berlin meetups, for example, I see since COVID the community dynamics have changed. I was, for example, mentioning that during COVID a lot of meetups went online, PyData Berlin as well, but online we only lasted six months because then yeah we were not engaged anymore the most important part of meetups in conference for me personally but for many people is networking it's connecting to people uh sometimes during after the meetups we go have a beer all together right so to network even more to to to connect and then this was not there anymore and what i see now after covid a lot of those meetups like berlin was full of tech meetups and a lot of them those pages are just down those meetups don't exist anymore or some of them just keep the online format which again does not fit us and at pi data we still have our monthly meetup now finally in person again um but we see always we see different people than before covet yeah i know we we changed i think people people's priorities have changed right and so lately like we are also having troubles finding new new organizers like we wanted by data Berlin to grow the the committee the organizing committee but it's being a challenge right now yes

Speaker 3 [22:06]

right now, yes. What do you think has changed? Maybe meetup used to be after work, now it's 50, 60% off the couch.

Speaker 4 [22:14]

Yeah, probably because people work from home and they're like, oh, I don't want to go out now. I don't know, probably.

Speaker 3 [22:21]

But it's something we face, we like, okay, let's collect and then see how can we wrap up and engage people to help maybe. So, obstacles.

Speaker 5 [22:33]

For me, I think right now what I'm particularly struggling a little bit with is within the community organizations, the idea of the single point of failure, having one person who is responsible for many different things, not having a reliable chain of people that if there is one particular person that cannot do that thing, you can have a bunch of... Safety. Having a safety net and believing that if, well, let's say, I'm not necessarily talking about me in this particular circumstance, but let's say I cannot be there knowing that there is going to be people that will be able to do the job and deliver and not disappoint the community on the things that have to be done. So I think this mentality of how can I make sure that there is always someone there, how can I make sure that this thing gets done, for me, it's the biggest obstacle that I face on community work because you can't fire people, you know? It gets at me hard.

Speaker 3 [23:56]

So, what do you think, Florian?

Speaker 2 [23:58]

Yeah, I totally agree with what was said before. So, I mean, we are all doing this in our spare time. So one obstacle is to get people, like, motivated to kind of spend their spare time doing something for the community. And, yeah, in times where we all only meet via screen, it becomes less, like, less connected. And to really get people engaged and, yeah, to establish this feeling of this common mission. um that's that's that's hard and that can be um and also an obstacle sometimes because i mean yeah we all have our lives and it feels like the whole world is getting more and more stressful and things speed up and then how do you kind of get people to allocate their time for um for pi icon to to to organize a conference and yeah and what was also said yeah that's the volunteer aspect so how do you motivate people you cannot just say okay this is your task do it i need it until tomorrow evening and sometimes you need it until tomorrow evening and then in the end i mean it works most of the times but sometimes it doesn't work and then you do it yourself And this is it can definitely be hard at times because, you know, I mean, in the end, you're you're you're responsible for it. Right. And.

Speaker 3 [25:27]

But I'm really happy to, I think it's very important, you feel responsible, you feel responsible, whoever feels really responsible, and we need, yes, and sometimes, okay, it's volunteer work, people can leave and come and go basically any time, and we could use some more people who basically contribute and say, okay, I'm really responsible, I'm going to, we have to do this. Because the bad thing here, for example, with organizing a conference, I mean, software is easier. You can always say, oh, let's release four weeks later. This door will open on Monday of the conference, no matter what. And you have to really make ends meet if you fall behind because you cannot say, oh, we moved to conference. Can you change your plans, bookings, flights, four weeks, plans, life plans? It's impossible. and I think we could really use I really agree people who you can just rely on you get it done and I think one solution to that is give people room because I have I also worked in I would say unhealthy committees or structures where one person was basically being the boss and bossing volunteers around and of course there's a very strong idea how things have to work and I think one of the drivers also for me is you can create something there's the big power of creating something gives you something also your basically what note like say or getting finding a different approach you have to give people room and if you give people room they also pick up responsibilities But we really could use more people to say, hey, this is like a specific task or responsibility. And actually, I'm currently thinking a lot, and we are thinking in many organizations, how can we solve it? Because, of course, there's one approach to say, okay, guarantee some volunteer time, and we can also reimburse you financially. And you probably can work one day less because we need stability in our systems. Imagine this conference is 1,500 people. This is like a serious event. We cannot just let things fall apart. Like if one committee chair is unreachable or so. We have to be really reliable. We need stability in the system. And I think it's still, for me, I think it's really still hard and I would really appreciate any input and anyone who has experience in that. Where do you draw the line? because I think the first priority is the voluntary contribution and it's not like okay now it's all paid jobs and stuff because I think this wouldn't be like healthy but also like how can we help financially with prices with contributions to somebody who likes a project or another non-profit organization how can we help that people will also guarantee I will take the responsibility and I will I will pull this through until the end and it's because I think this is one of the pillars we have to work on but it's an open question it's a solution I think anybody has any ideas on that?

Speaker 5 [28:57]

I think there's several aspects on this, you know, like, for example, the people who profit with open source, right, who are the people who profit with open source, companies that are using open source to make a product and sell this product. I know, it's quite obvious, isn't it? I know. Imagine, I have to be here saying this. but then the big question here is how do we make sure that those companies then contribute in some shape or form back into the community because well you're making the money you should give something back right

Speaker 3 [29:32]

Yeah, we cannot terminate the licence, you can have it for free, especially in Germany it's very hard because it's really hard to budget actually.

Speaker 5 [29:44]

One way I can think of this would be, and the company I'm working for right now does this, but to a smaller extent, is why not to have an open source contribution day? Why not to have days in the year that you can give to your employees and they can contribute to open source? Either volunteering, being in the conference, sitting at a booth, giving money to buy tickets for other people that cannot afford to come here. because the people who profit the most from coming to conferences are the people who cannot afford the conferences. They're the newbies. So how do we make sure that we have a place for them? And also they are the people who can contribute the most because they have the time. And we have the money to pay for the tickets, but we don't have the time, you know? So maybe that's one way. There are several ways that I see we can tackle this problem, but, well, lack of money is also another problem, another big challenge that we face. So, I mean, this is my two cents, but we can talk about this the whole day, you know? Yeah.

Speaker 3 [30:47]

Yeah, it's an open talk. What's your take? We have the volunteers. Yeah. I think that's a really, really good approach. So maybe you want to share how we work with the volunteers?

Speaker 4 [31:00]

Yeah, we send out calls for volunteers, usually a few months in advance. And, yeah, actually, as I said, in the opening session, we have plays for 50 and we got double as much as applicants. So, actually, there are many people interested. But, yeah, it's also about going out, like, pitching, the call for volunteer, pitching here and there, like, on websites, on LinkedIn or Twitter or at our meetups. And, yeah, how do we work? Yeah, then we selected mostly people based on their passion, passion to give back, and also based on the diversity and inclusivity. So we, as the on-site committee, we were really selecting, like reading all the applications, the motivation, why do you want to volunteer, what is your contribution, and mostly also checking if the women and the represented groups, students, so all people with financial barriers, and those are also, yeah, the ones that are more enthusiastic, especially the students. As you said, they have more time. I mean, not saying that the students have a lot to study, yes, but...

Speaker 3 [32:25]

He will also give something back.

Speaker 4 [32:26]

back. Exactly, exactly.

Speaker 3 [32:27]

Exactly.

Speaker 4 [32:29]

And, yeah, and usually, yeah, this

Speaker 3 [32:34]

I think it's a very good approach because if somebody dedicates a day of volunteer to be a volunteer, they also get a full conference ticket. I think this is a good way of giving back and it's a priority on passion and I think, hey, it's an acknowledgement. Florian, any thoughts? You also work with a lot of people in industry and customers so how can we see them open source better because I never see it in the budgets I see very often meet people who would be totally up for open source they get it but then it's just not in the budget it's just not it's not there's no budget nobody can decide on fostering open source for example or in general other

Speaker 2 [33:26]

Yeah, so...

Speaker 3 [33:26]

Other perks or things we can give back.

Speaker 2 [33:32]

Yeah, so I think it's important to raise the awareness of open source and all the benefits we have within a company. And then, as you said, sometimes companies say, well, we give some days that you can spend on helping the community. But I also think that, I mean, we are really privileged. And I mean, we also benefit directly from open source, right? Otherwise, we would be all like programming with SAP or doing whatever. So, I mean, we all benefit from the Python ecosystem and from open source, and so I think we should take it also as our own responsibility to give back in our spare time. So especially when you have the time, of course, but it doesn't always have to be in the time, in your working time, right? So I think it should be somehow a compromise. I really like it when companies do it and say, okay, we support this, we also sponsor, and you are allowed to spend some time, some percentage of your working time on supporting. But I also think one should not only put this effort on the shoulders of the employer, but also on oneself, because we are all profiting of open source. So I think, yeah, we should think about, well, I can support here a little or there a little and yeah, and then give back.

Speaker 3 [35:07]

back yeah and actually to yeah

Speaker 2 [35:08]

Yeah.

Speaker 3 [35:09]

because I was painting a little bit black and white it's not in the much there are companies supporting awesome source and allowing work time on or sponsoring this conference thanks to all the sponsors once again and yeah so yeah you see we also have some some obstacles to face and we would love to if you have input or you if you want to help just reach out so enough complaining so but we don't want to see just like yeah so but let's little bit talk about what's what's actually the good side the impact of being volunteer driven like why i think i think like very often if you people meet people who come from different world like different conferences more like business conferences you see that they completely trump sometimes blow their mind because we work differently so what's What are the benefits of being volunteer driven? What makes the difference?

Speaker 5 [36:10]

They're gonna take this one for us

Speaker 2 [36:12]

yeah sure so i've never organized um like a like a commercial conference so i i don't know like i think you probably

Speaker 3 [36:20]

I think you probably have attended like a sales conference where you say, hey, you get a free ticket. We have 12,000 people in Frankfurt, in the Messe in Frankfurt, and free tickets. And then we have 200 talks. I mean, have you attended?

Speaker 2 [36:35]

Have you attended? Yeah, I've attended one big conference in London. I don't know what AI Summit, something completely... AI something, yeah. And I mean, those conferences, they feel in a way more like perfect, professional in the sense that everything is like bigger and better. But I think they're missing, they're definitely missing this warm feeling of community, right? So you would you talk there only to people who want to sell you something and maybe the food is better But then you come on the food. I like You pay 2,000 euro right for for those other like commercial conferences You really pay a lot and this also means that only people can go there where the company pays So there's no like sponsor ticket for people from various backgrounds who cannot afford maybe ticket so those conferences they feel completely different and there's always this aspect you go there you try to sell your product or you are rather in the customer position and people are always trying to sell you stuff and also the the talks are then way more shallow right because it's yeah here's a little bit but we don't want to really tell you but buy a broader buy buy our product and then you are fine so i i don't really like those conferences and um i think this um kind of community spirit we we come here because we want to um we want to learn something so i think the talks are way way deeper and people really want to share knowledge and then people come here to also um yeah to meet other people who are interested in technology and maybe this is something that that then unites everyone here that we we just share our knowledge and we like i mean we're all kind of techie people in a way so um yeah and just for me the the biggest difference um that it's just

Speaker 3 [38:43]

It just feels a bit warmer. I would argue the content here is very authentic. It's real use cases. People on different levels want to learn and share. But very often they say, oh, you have real content. I mean, we have real use cases, real help, very open. You can ask many, many questions. And also I think inclusion and diversity and getting other people in is very different. So, yeah, so volunteer-driven. I always say communities give and take. I like give and take, so engage people to give back. And also, but I think one of the big challenges or things to do is also like, hey, it's really easy to give back, by the way. For example, giving back, to go here, is lightning talk, can already be giving back. I mean, here, of course, many people want to give a lightning talk, but consider giving a lightning talk at a local meetup. And I think this is like an entry point. And I see very often our job as community organizers is to tear down the walls in people's heads. No, you can really do this. You're totally capable of this. And give people an outside perspective because sometimes people are a little bit hesitant and they very often see the shiny parts and if you deliver the shiny parts I mean in every talk I give my head tells me oh you could have phrased this better you could have said this better, you could have done this better oh yeah okay, again an average talk and people approach you, oh it was really great and also like to be to give people this perspective you might think I'm a great speaker but I don't feel like a great speaker when I'm up on stage so and just like give it a try and it's also maybe your brain only telling you because you're always we're optimizing we're trying one it's it's it's a pain if you want to deliver the best possible the the pain you always your brain always finds a way to do it better but also to to communicate this to people also tell them okay it's probably a different cask i mean and and and and you're capable and just do it and give people safety net so from like i think i the good plan last year was actually, when Florian and Ricardo were becoming program chair, I had a lot of mentoring to do because I was program chair before and we had a big handover, including spaghetti codes, throwing a little library out of that, so that's really nice, but it was also really good to have a deadline because I was going on vacation for one month to New Zealand, so I'm basically, I dropped off the radar and I really tried it was interesting because people always ask I joined the committees and then oh Alex what do you think but you have these eyes please give me a decision because sometimes people and volunteers try to avoid decisions and I always say oh that's my two cents but it's your call and then I gave some advice and from New Zealand when I watched what the community decided and the committee decided oh they didn't follow my advice, great they did something else and I think this is one of the jobs we are doing or that's my perspective handing over

Speaker 2 [42:11]

handing over it was a smart move going to it was a smart move of you just to like oh i would

Speaker 3 [42:17]

I would say we could argue it's a smart move, but maybe it was just a coincidence because in Corona we booked this flight to New Zealand, which was very affordable. But yeah, it worked really well. So what's the volunteers and other people bringing in? So what are things we can make people engage and also try things or just be more self-conscious? and also like, hey, just go for it. You can do it. I think sometimes it's like pushing new birds a little bit out of the net and then they can fly.

Speaker 4 [42:59]

Yeah, that's true. I mean, I think the only way to grow as personal grow is going out of your comfort zone.

Speaker 3 [42:59]

Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 4 [43:09]

But there's also the misconception that probably some people, it happened, like I talk with people trying to recruit more organizers and they say, oh, but I'm an introvert. But like, yeah, it doesn't mean you cannot help. I also, I never liked speaking on the stage. And yeah, I made you.

Speaker 3 [43:31]

I made you do it.

Speaker 4 [43:32]

I went out of my comfort zone. But it's not like this is my choice. It's not that you have to if you organize a conference or whatever. Everybody can take the task they feel more comfortable with, especially in the beginning. Like when I joined, I knew nothing about organizing a conference or even a smaller event like a meetup. But then you observe, you learn from the others, and you do the task that you can do in that moment. And the volunteers have also many tasks. There is the registration desk in the conference, right? The runners, some people are scared. No, what does the runner do? Like, yeah, nothing scary, right? Like, you just help out. Helping is the key, right? You help where needed. There is, we have tutorial registration. we have the room here

Speaker 3 [44:32]

with the room here. I think from some registration, one of the obstacles people might face, somebody's there, I have a ticket, there's no bad. How do you deal with that? Conference room.

Speaker 4 [44:43]

Yeah, there's always some unexpected thing happening, but that's where you grow because you have to be creative.

Speaker 3 [44:52]

And there's probably nobody to ask. Then you have to make a call because the conference needs to go. So what do you think, Lex?

Speaker 5 [45:02]

I think I'm going to repeat myself again.

Speaker 3 [45:06]

Ha, ha, ha.

Speaker 5 [45:07]

By saying that, again, for me, the main thing is empowering people to believe in themselves. So that goes for telling someone to give a lightning talk, because they can, because there's no big skill that you need to give a lightning talk. Telling people to, well, if they're comfortable writing code, by, well, make a PR, by fixing the website by doing whatever you're passionate about, you know? And I think at the end of the day, it's just about where we're talking about how to make them contribute. And the whole thing is, like, choose something you're really passionate about. Talk to someone who organises it. And, well, take ownership. You know? If you like to write, if you like social media, choose something social media related for you to do. If you like writing blog posts, write a blog post and say, I will write three blog posts and I will have three blog posts for you. That's great. If you take ownership of this, it also creates this bond of trust with the organisers and by creating this bond of trust, you get to, well, if you choose to, you get to grow and you get to learn more because it also takes a lot from us to onboard you and to teach you the things that you need to know. So if we see passion on whatever it is that you choose to do, I feel like it's even a bigger win-win.

Speaker 3 [46:44]

For everyone. I think they'll take ownership. Or the duocracy, which is very often we see happen in great conference teams. There's a duocracy. You channel back with a team. I mean, you ask for feedback, but you basically drive things and you have more like a control group. Because also, if you just do stuff on your own and write a ton of blog posts and never ask the team, it might probably also go in the wrong direction. But as you said, take ownership, channel back, And then people, I think the most important word was, yeah, trust. I mean, like, I trust Valentina blindly. I never have even the urge to check, okay, what's the one? Oh, no, that's perfect. Total trust. I can go to the conference. And, yeah, no, really. I say, okay, I probably ask, hey, do you need help, anything? But I know I can trust her and the on-site team to run ops during this conference. And this is, of course, a great relief because I can focus on, okay, if something really big comes up or also just talk to people and other people in the community here. And I think it's really important to build a team that trusts each other and you don't basically need to distribute work and responsibilities. Any thoughts on that? You also enjoy teamwork, you said in the beginning. Yeah. So.

Speaker 2 [48:12]

Yeah, so I think getting people committed, what kind of was said before, but I think there are many ways. Sometimes you have people who are not sure how they can even participate or what they could be helpful with. And then it's important to help those people find, like, okay, what are you able to do? What do you want to do? What are you passionate about? what you also said and then you um maybe have a like a like a session like a 101 session with a person like okay if you want to for instance like we're using talks we are using the help desk and answering so okay let me explain this to you and hey you could answer uh mails like that and you find the information there and this is this is one way um to help people who are maybe a little bit more introverts and are not sure how they can help um yeah i think other ways are sometimes um the um the trick uh yeah what's what alex what you said like you ask so okay we have this problem and i need help with this who's up for it and if you ask for help then sometimes people also like yeah sure i'm gonna help you and it's better than saying this task needs to be done who wants to take it or you directly say well this is a task and i know that you you are passionate about and why don't you take the task so there are many ways to get people more committed in in in helping and yeah i think this is

Speaker 3 [49:48]

I think it's always important to see the whole team sees the full picture because, to be honest, we have also some boring tasks, yeah? So, but if you see the whole picture and contributing and taking care of this boring task is contributing to the mission and making something awesome, that really helps. So, I was just informing of one moment. Do we have a coffee break or do we have lightning talks, right? Because I'm not allowed. Break? Okay, maybe so. What about questions? And we have, oh, yes, and let's make preference, and I think we can take a little bit of the coffee break to answer questions.

Speaker 1 [50:32]

Okay, then before we answer questions, thank you very much for the insightful panel Okay question number one from the audience what's the first thing you do to wind down after the conference is over no

Speaker 3 [50:51]

Oh, thank you for that question. Who wants to take it?

Speaker 4 [50:54]

I like it.

Speaker 5 [50:55]

I hide, I go inside, I dig a hole, and I go inside, and I do not get out for 24 hours. It doesn't look like, and it's something that most people actually feel really surprised when I tell them this, but I'm not really an extrovert, so it takes a lot of energy for me to actually engage and talk to people, and even being here. And after, well, Europython is seven days of conference, and it's incredible. But after seven days, there's nothing else I can think more other than being alone. So, yeah, digging a hole and hiding inside.

Speaker 3 [51:40]

Actually, it's similar because sometimes, I mean, your head. I mean, one learning, for example, at the conference is we have an engineer's mindset. And, of course, you always watch for every small detail you can improve. But I also learned this can also spoil the whole experience. So I thought, okay, if something really bad happens, there's enough people who will tell us from the network. And don't bother too much. of course, take notes on the details and we can always improve in the next year, but don't keep thinking, oh, next conference, we should do this, next plan and start to over-optimize because I'm listening just like people approach me at the conference oh, the conference was awesome, people say that, and so I said I also like turn everything off and try not to think about the conference any longer, just like to have this break because you can still work on after conference, you can keep going for two more weeks to work on after conference and potential improvements but maybe just let it settle, sleep it over and the optimizations you have in your mind two weeks after are probably also the relevant ones.

Speaker 4 [52:55]

Yeah, and we, I mean, speaking for myself as volunteer coordinator, actually, I think a few weeks after the conference we still want to do a drink all together, so we meet again, and that's awesome.

Speaker 3 [53:13]

Just go back to work. Why bother?

Speaker 2 [53:17]

I mean, I must say I'm a little bit in the unfair advantage, that's right. So the program committee is always kind of, before the conference starts, the actual stressful phase is already over for the program committee because like one or two months before we are like in the crunch phase, okay, let's get the reviews in, let's decide on the schedule and let's mail them and get back if they confirm or if they don't confirm and then the stressful phase is already over, so I'm really enjoying the conference because then you have the chance to look, okay, it worked or it didn't, but there's not much more to do, right? But still, as you said, I mean, one talks to so many people here and so after so much communicating, then getting back on the weekend and then taking it easy, staying at home or just go for a long run. So I really like running and not talking to people that much the next weekend. So this is kind of similar.

Speaker 1 [54:25]

Yes, thank you. We have more questions rolling in now that you announced we go into the coffee break What's the one thing? That you think could make the conference even better and here the person wrote I hope to get a different answer from each of you

Speaker 3 [54:41]

Oh, which conference? This one? Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 4 [54:50]

Good question.

Speaker 2 [54:55]

even better is that even possible

Speaker 3 [54:58]

Yeah, there's always room for improvement. But actually, there's nothing I would currently see, like a big point, which is not like tiny detail. I think one thing that could work better is we could add the beginner's day. We had the humble data in Jungle Girls Workshop this year. We never made a beginner's day before. This is something we could do. and if I'm allowed to say a second thought I'm also considering maybe moving tutorials to a day of its own because they are really very popular. This is something I think we could consider improving but as well, one more day of conference is workload on a team and also people in companies go to a conference for four days is even harder than going for three days.

Speaker 4 [55:58]

What about the seven days

Speaker 3 [55:59]

Seven days. Seven days. Yeah, I mean, it's a learning from Europe, two days trainings, three days conference, and then people said, my employer, they don't want to let me go for a whole week because they need to be there to work. It's not even about budget or anything.

Speaker 5 [56:22]

Okay, so I don't have a baseline for PyCon DE because this is my first PyCon DE. So I am going to use an example, something that I learned by talking to someone very nice over there today. So we're talking about the different things that we think, like the small things that conferences, community conferences especially, can do to make it even better for the people coming around. And I think, I'm not saying that PyCon D does not do it. I do not have a baseline to compare. But something that I heard from a visually impaired speaker is that we do a very bad job on having schedules that are compatible with screen readers, for example. This is one thing I wish we did better. um having something for kids to do uh we love kids at pycon we love kids at pycons we have child care at europython but having something for the kids to do so workshop for kids would be awesome uh again i don't know if we have this here but having a lactation room we have child care it's something we do have it yes we do awesome um it's something that is also interesting and having accessibility signage, having tampons in the toilet that is covered as well. These small things are for me things that actually make the community even stronger because you know you have a place. It might not be made exclusively for you, but you know you have a place and you have a voice. If you want to make it better, you can just say I want to make it better. Take me and I'll volunteer. That's it.

Speaker 2 [58:14]

If a meat would be Yeah, everything around the tooling but this is more like in the in the background, right? I mean Like working together with three talks and setting up the program so we are still doing too many things manually where I think we can optimize more and then have more time to Yeah to select the talks and so on but rather like on the conference I think so for me one of the biggest part is the social part on a conference like this and everything that would help to foster even more like people connecting and talking, I could imagine. So on one conference, what just comes to my mind is that I saw that there were special breaks where on each table was a certain funny topic and then people on the table would like talk about not just what did you listen to in the last talk, but had funny subjects to discuss and to even connect more people. And so around this, I think we could maybe improve even more to get more people talking to each other and maybe also some fun social games.

Speaker 3 [59:30]

Tear down walls again between people just connecting to others.

Speaker 4 [59:35]

Very nice. Yeah, I usually, we are getting even better every year because we learn from past year experiences, right? And now, this year, of course, we had some unexpected things happening, especially with tutorials. So, yeah, the idea is how to improve it, right? For example, yeah, PyData Berlin conference, when it was just by data was running one separate day for tutorial and two days of conference maybe that's not enough just having this format for bigger conference like this so one has to brainstorm but one thing it could be useful I heard like talking with people people want to decompress we have a quiet room but a napping room could be a nice idea I don't know.

Speaker 5 [60:30]

We will have a low-stimulation room in Miro Python, if anyone is thinking about joining. We learned with this one.

Speaker 3 [60:39]

Yeah, if you enjoyed this conference, definitely go to Europe. It's in July in Prague.

Speaker 1 [60:48]

Okay, I don't want to let you run over too much, but there's one question. I think it's a great question to wrap this panel up Can you go into more detail on how to create an atmosphere where people of different backgrounds feel welcomed to contribute?

Speaker 5 [61:04]

Ooh, do we have time for this?

Speaker 1 [61:07]

Maybe if you're quick.

Speaker 3 [61:08]

I think it's I think honesty and being authentic and being probably not hasty is one thing so I was like like listen take a breath because sometimes from a very different perspective you might not get the message in the first time because and let go sometimes try to let go of your own idea and lean in, I think that's what I learned because I would argue I'm a fast thinker. I can improvise, make plans really fast. And then that's what I learned was don't stick to this plan. Like listen to the others because there's likely or probably another person with a better plan or the group creates an even better plan bringing different perspectives in. so I think it's just like always like don't be like too convinced of yourself just lean back, listen open your mind and usually probably not while running the show but when we prepare the conference we have these five extra five ten minutes there's not so I think it's also like important when you schedule the meetings it should not be like you have to have a little open time and I think that's it really learn to listen to others also like different backgrounds and different language backgrounds formulations and this is something which I think is really important

Speaker 5 [62:50]

I agree, but I also think it differs a lot depending on the level of leadership that you are inserted on. So, like, for example, for the both of us, we're, you know, at board level. So we influence more by example than actually with action. You know, it's different for someone that coordinates volunteers, like Paloma. You would know how to say this much better than I could ever, but I imagine that for you, is much more about the communication skills and how you talk to people and what you say to them more than an example of how it is for us. On my side, what I try to do is to make sure that people have autonomy on what they decide to do. So we make sure that the leads for the different subgroups of the organization know that they are safe to make their own choices and if they want to chat with us, we're always that support but it's their choice and they have also to know that if they make an environment that people do not feel safe well then we're gonna have to have a really serious conversation about things but on my side I believe that direct and candid communication active listening and letting people do what they're passionate about and watching and supporting you know, it's the best you can do hope for the best

Speaker 4 [64:26]

Yeah, I totally agree

Speaker 5 [64:30]

Nothing else to add?

Speaker 4 [64:33]

In my case, like, learning by example, right, you said. That's how I personally, as I said, I started as a volunteer, conference volunteer, and I learned from my volunteer coordinator, right? And that's my style now. It's not because it has to be that style. I felt it was the right one for me, and I kept it, and apparently working really well. I mean, also, like, when I, there was one volunteer told me they shared.