 Yeah, I welcome everyone to Python organizers panel So I want to start with the question to the audience who knows that Conferences like these and basically all Python conferences are run by volunteers. No, sir. Oh Well, very good. That's good Because it would be like a first message message to many people who are new in the community because they probably don't know that yet so and Here's a few of European and organizers from from Asia like from over and When we had the idea for the panel it was hey, let's let's just talk about what's the organizer experience? Where we struggling what's why what's the motivation? Why are we doing it? What's driving what's enjoyable parts of that and have like and just like I think it's called fireside chat nowadays But we don't we don't have we only have a monitor as a fire here So so actually we see a fire here, but you don't know. Okay, so anyway So I would just like start with the question. So just go around. What's your motivation being an organizer? Okay, and maybe just like one one back just like in short introduce yourself and what what what's your contribution to the community? Thank you. I'm Jimena. I'm president from Python Spain I working very close with by ladies and I'm always Helping to organize conference like the picon s Well for this almost two years as a president of a community a picon community My commitment is with the diversity Was the thing that is more important to me I want to empower women to join STEM to go to an event and This kind of thing but just not with women because diversity is we know is a lot of more things Because for example young people need to come to these kinds of events because we need people that We need to rest in some point And this is my my motivation my let's think that I must appreciate about my work what my volunteer work with the community Hi, I'm nice to meet you all I'm Alessia and I come from Italy and As such I have been involved in the organization of picon Italy for the past seven years now and I the year later I started contributing to the organization of yours. I buy the European conference for a pattern in science And I've also involved with by conde only one year though when I was living in Berlin last year And my focus and helping the the conference has been mailing on financial aids and communication with the community so emails social events social network social networks and Let's say a general overview of of things My motivation has always been about the people Less let's say about the technical content of the conference because you can get technical content Every day online. It's super easy. But what it the difference between reading a book or Watching another person speak on YouTube and a conference is Holding a twerking that happens in the hallway track as they say So in a way As they say You come for the language, but you stay for the community. I am David. I'm from Portugal My history is a little bit strange at least I I've been using Django since 2007 and started attending Django cons in 2017 and At that time I realized that I wanted to give something back So I applied for Django con 2020 and I ended up ended up with more than I bargained for I actually ended up doing 2020 virtual 2021 also virtual and Finally last year Django con Europe in Porto happened By that time we since we were organizing Django con for three years in a row most of the Years were already in place. So we ended up with a bit of spare time and decided that one conference was Easy enough. So let's do two conferences. So we ended up bootstrapping Picon Portugal last year and it will happen again this year and During that time we also I think For some communities and Django con in particular here in Europe. We are also struggling a bit to find new organizers For those of you that don't know it Django con Europe is based in is basically any any team from any country applies for hosting Django con Europe it the The submission will be reviewed and eventually accepted and you basically get Django con Europe in your hands and You get all the knowledge from previous organizers You get all the support for for the community but what keeps Django con Europe going is people willing to to actually continue Django con Europe because traditionally it The Django con Europe Stays in a single country each year. So we are we are skipping around around Europe last year when the last year no this year during April we were having a Zoom meeting with the old organizers and new organizers in a new potential organizers and It I felt by the end of the meeting that people are still not Okay, I was going on but basically my motivation was to give something back Hello everyone, my name is Honza and I am I'm from the Czech Republic I Help the local Python community since the very beginnings of it. So that's over a decade. I think 2011 something like that and My original I've been I've been a Meetup organizer A part of the conference team by con CZ Now I'm on the board of the local nonprofit Which supports the local? local community I Did a lot of things rotating over roles as I've I've seen myself fit and My original motivation was that I wanted to come I liked Python as a language. I didn't know the language, but it felt like nice language I wanted to learn it but there was no Python meetup in my Town I would I could come to and learn And somebody told me that I don't need to know Python to organize meetups So I said, okay, that makes sense I just invite people to a pub and we will talk and that is what happened and then that continued for Five more years and so on then I rotated over the roles as I've seen myself fit where I was needed so on and The motivation then was that I realized that it's It feels good to do something which helps other people Hi, I'm Barbara. I've been part of the Czech Python community since 2015 I attended a Django girls workshop one day, and then I joined the meetups in Prague and then it was also the first year of PyCon CZ in the Czech Republic and How it happened was that the PyCon CZ team was posted on Facebook and they had a lot of typos in there and I was criticizing that or like I told them Hey, you've got typos in your social media posts and honza actually texted me like, you know what stop hating it and join the team so here I am today and the motivation to organize events is Or generally to join the community is you get to meet new people. We have a lot of fun I have to say that some of the people in the community are really my great friends and I always look forward to meeting them and Especially organizing the conference is that I really like to see a huge group of people at the end You know clapping and enjoying the atmosphere and then the after parties legendary, so That's my motivation, you know, you work one year for something that lasts one hour then but it's I love the hype and So yeah, so that's my that's my motivation and I'm really grateful to be here as well Hello, I'm team. I'm from Taiwan and Around local Taiwan meetups since 2013 and I also chairman of PyCon iPad at 2013 and The motivation I think like others At the beginning I think our city need meetup, but we don't have so I so I held it so I hold it so I held it and I want to learn something but make what make me happy is that people in this in that place can make friends with others and Also, so for their problem and the people together make better and better. That's made me happy Yeah Oh, thank you very much. So I joined actually your Python was my first your Python 2014 in Berlin And I saw that's this the EPS organization. Oh, yeah joining is for free Let's let's go there and then there was voting and nobody wanted to do auditor and I said I can do that and Three week three months later. I was running Conference in Bilbao with strangers on email, which I could never imagine possible and actually made all my co-organizers When the day we opened the conference And this was very enjoyable the Python community was new to me as well I thought and I'm always like for me to motivation is I think I like the cross-pollination you I was say in The Python community you can meet astronomers to web developers I think it's very the driver is like to to enable people to Cross-pollinate talk different angles and the diversity and see see all these different things. And yeah, then of course I was Many years of your Python program chair Trying to board or some current sitting board members. So I came back and Eventually things happen during your Python. So we relaunched or my condi So I'm part of that still the product together with pie data Berlin is by condi is by data Berlin currently I'm also one of the core organizers and eventually people tracked me into your sci-fi as well So yeah, and I'm also a board member of the German software station and my motivation is I think I like to program Even more, but I think what I can bring to the table is I know I have like for my background business contracts Actually, I actually my wife. I actually used to study the law. I didn't finish but still So I think the best thing my best contribution is building structures processes and being like this Reliable backbone for the community because this is just like my motivation because I think that's the best contribution I can get a bring bring to the community and enable others to thrive. That's and it's very enjoyable Like even after 10 years now That brings us to the next question, so What are the challenges? Well, maybe sorry, what are the challenges? And then just pick the next person. Yeah, I think One of one of the main challenges that we usually face is There is a lot of will to help so you often get lots of Submissions to to volunteer but sometimes and that's partly our fault because sometimes you don't Give enough information about the details of the volunteering people have their own lives and they simply ghost the process and Everything falls after that so one one of the hard thing is keeping everybody to the point and So one of the important things to to have in any group of organizers of any conference is a small core team that will be there from start to end and then Use all the help that we can for for the volunteer team because they are willing to help us But they have their own priorities and sometimes the conference is not on their minds and that's That's okay Maybe Yeah, this year the challenge was to restart Picon after the COVID break so the last check Picon was in 2019 so it's been four years and Everybody wanted Picon CZ to happen But then the energy was really low like people were just asking like will there be Picon CZ and I was saying yeah Well, let's do it. Oh, well, I don't have time and so on so to kind of like put the team together And kind of try to bring the energy so that we really do the organization We're really you know finish so we started in spring Let's say and normally check by conness in June So we had to move it to September because obviously we wouldn't be able to do it in two months or something so that was the challenge this year and Oh because I feel like in the past years, you know, everybody expected that it's gonna happen every year So even the organizers were you know in the mindset like yeah, we will work again because basically you start organizing right after The event ends, right? So that's the challenge for this year. So I hope that We again kind of like jump on the train and have keep the energy for next years as well And for me the most challenging is when you are organizing and Amitabh The really thing that you are doing is many eight people that it's the most difficult thing that you can do And also you need to understand a big difference One thing is the community another thing is the assistant because the community Probably have the same vision and mission that you have you want to make the conference more diverse more open and That every young is happy and enjoy and is not just for the Python language It's also for the people but the assistance don't have this vision or not well not all the assistance and There is a lot of people there are a lot of people that these kind of things that you put more soft tax not just technical tax don't Don't think that is a good thing for the conference and also that you try to get more people from minorities they also is like I don't know why you are doing this with why the force of the community in these kinds of things so At the end haters gonna hate and you need to accept that communities Who are going to help you and you? Think that the people understand that the various it is important But you can't be thrown out for this reason these you don't get it. Well I think this is a mozzarella part. Well, I can add something at least from the perspective of Python Italy one thing that we struggle with is the lack of Documentation of our processes because well fortunately we have a core team that's been pretty stable over the years, so Let's say everybody kind of know what they need to do when they need to do it and how But it's always the same things that land on the same people so You get very experts in what you're doing for example running the program You know, you have a set of deadlines, you know, you have a set of things to do in a specific order But We don't have us a handbook or written down how we want to do things how they've been done in the past so it's hard to Get people in and have them up to speed fast So of course every year new people joined the organization in some leave But these new people need at least one or two years of running the conference alongside with the core team To be able to get things on their own so This for sure one thing that we can improve but of course it requires a lot of time and While we are organizing the conference. It's hard to spend time on Writing how you're doing it. Yes, I think currently we're in the stage. Oh the conference great This is everything we want to do basically after the conference to do better after the conference but then as this peek off basically and view the other and Suddenly say, okay, we need to relax on and basically everything falls apart until the next year And that's a real challenge with the documentation. I think one of the challenges is Actually are getting people together also I think one of the challenges is actually also to sometimes say no because like to have like to build a good team and committee Because we never like people having good ideas, but we need people who also Okay, what's the action plan who is going to do it? We we have enough of good ideas Yeah, so we we like we lack basically time and and and execution of good ideas so and Yeah, so actually, I think it's it's always the most of the biggest challenges Yeah, apart from the equation building a good team give it running expectation management I think it's something I learned which is which is really helpful and Yeah, and of course time because like sometimes there's peak times and this they are I sometimes have to say Yeah, currently I don't have any other hobbies Python community. So yeah, what's your challenges? so If I look back at the decade which I went through I think The the most prominent challenges has been repeating and it is Handovers and burnouts And I think documentation is a good example of think which is a tool in this basically like documentation helps handovers and and so on There are more tools like having a having a helper with every experienced person basically teams of two for each Responsibility and so on but I think the core challenge is Handover and burnout like managing of that in in the groups. I I have one personal rule and that is when I do something for the community I Can champion it in one person? In the beginning I can start something new and that is very efficient and then I become expert in that thing because that's what I do I mean if I do it for longer time I become the expert unlike the others who don't do it but Then my job is not done until I can Leave the thing and it survives The job is done when I hand it over to someone else and it survives then I created something nice Which didn't end with me and that is the hard part. I Find the most challenging is the incentive because we are all volunteer So not like normal companies, so I don't have any right to promotion No money. Yeah, so I always need to find a way to make others such as oh you You are you you like to meet new person and or you would like to be Meet some strong engineering strong engineer, so I need to know what they want and Give him so he will be very happy in the group Yeah, and and then I need to find the right one Some somebody you can find his patient He has enough patient to make things happen and somebody actually didn't clearly know what should I do So how should you do so? You need to guide him. Yeah, so I think it is the most challenging thing is to instant to motivate and Find the right one. Yeah Thank you So now we've talked the challenges. Oh, let's move to the fun part So what was your for funny and snows inspiring or heartbreaking anecdote? And ever so who wants to go first who has like something I can start. Yes, sure Well, my anecdote is actually how I entered the community Because okay, so I was 18 years old and I was with my high school Friends looking at the website of the conference of my country because we wanted to attend right and Well, the conference website was it still builds into different languages the Italian version at the English version, of course So everybody can feel included the thing is very similar to your experience the Translation had some errors so you were in the Italian version and you will get like a paragraph in Italian and a paragraph in English and the same for the for the English version So it was completely Ununderstandable so at the time we had this chat named all arc on the website where you could contact directly the organizers And I was like, hey, I'm trying to Book a ticket. I would like to join But be careful because the website has some errors and maybe it's not accessible to everyone and Five minutes later. I had an admin account on the website and they said like sure. Okay, come and fix it and that was it basically and Trusting me to do that. Like just a normal stranger on the internet, right No one's buying stories. It's all boring. Yeah, I just want I just want to share in one one thing that it It made me feel happy that It's very good that I I hold a mid up for ten years. I remember the first year a middle Middle school student, maybe just 13 years old. Oh He is he taught by himself. It means he didn't enter the usual education system it means he studied at his home and he he every every month he attend our meetup and the Lens person and as time goes by he he tries to be a speaker and and His speech is better and the better and the more professional and Maybe maybe less than a year He he entered AWS as a as an employee. Yeah, I feel very happy that a local meetup can make up make a Small child become better and better. Yeah, so I just think it and a lot of people in this meetup Have a good job. I met fight fight a good job. I'll find a good friend in Izmir So I'm happy that I Have I held the meetup. Yeah, so we have many stories, but I'm thinking like what's appropriate to say here But um, so in one of the pythons that took place in Brno Which is the second biggest city in the Czech Republic and it's like 200 kilometers away from Prague So we invited the speakers We would you know, tell them just you know by our tickets playing tickets, whatever we reimburse you later and so on The address is here, you know, this is the schedule, you know when to come where to come and so on So the conference is on we're waiting for one speaker and we couldn't find her anywhere so we we start calling her and She says yeah, well, so I mean I'm here And we're like well here where like at the conference at the hotel or can we help you somehow? Can we go get you and she said yeah, well, I'm in Prague. So I'm here and We said well the conference is not in Prague, but it's one bus stop away actually There's a direct bus from Prague to Brno, but it takes I don't three hours or something and It was under one hour to go before the talk, you know So we had to switch the schedule and so on But it was funny because like she flew in from London and she just thought that the conference is in Prague because it's the biggest city I guess or I didn't ask her actually we were just happy that she finally arrived But she had a funny story to tell as well. So things like that happened This is a silly little detail but We to improve the Inclusion of the non-binary people we did for the toilets Some posters that we put the things you can phones inside inside the toilet Not the gender in mind like they pass you are in the Euro-european When you sit In front of the bathrooms You can see how at the beginning people is so like totally Lost Go inside one and running inside the other and taking a gun inside the other because it's like oh my god I'm wrong. I don't understand anything But at the end just playing what is the purpose of these kinds of things and more or less people understand and some people go to the What normally is not they? Corridor the specter bathroom just to say hey we can serve and because It's not important no matter whatever you can phone inside the bathroom It's just a bathroom and if some people is going to be more comfortable if we We are doing these kinds of thing. It's okay But yeah at the beginning is always in every conference so funny see people running away from the washroom to another So I I want to remind once what one story that we We wanted to organize by conceded and then the venue has kind of died before Like one or two months before something like that like it shut down the venue so we had to move the conference to a different venue and We had to announce to like everyone that it will be somewhere else They had booked hotels and so on and we even had to move the date because like one shift one day Somewhere, I think it was like from Friday to Thursday or something like that because you know the the venues were all booked and so that was really a funny story and And a similar story in my like when when I was still the main organizer Well, it was at the end of my organizing career of the Bruno Biden meet-up that I already lived in Prague, but I for every meet-up every month I came back to Bruno and and For the people but also for the meet-up. I wanted to still get it going and Even though there were people helping me I was still like I I'm not leaving you you know, I'm still helping you and I the moment when I realized I am not helping that much was that when I accidentally Organized the meet-up at two places at the same time It was a Christmas edition and it didn't matter that much but Then I decided well, maybe I should step down as the main organizer after five years How many because I'm probably not contributing contributing that much Perhaps like to the minus scale So I should move on to other things like writing the commendation So I think for me is always like inspiring the thrive and dedication Also to details and other people. That's that's I think the most inspiring and I might have a tear in my eye now happens Yeah, but I think the This is a tiny story that happened just like when we were on our way to the billion conference I was sitting with my colleague in the train. There was a total stranger sitting Opposite to us and we were talking about the conferences and sponsors and then the person said okay Spock, do you work for them because I'm I'm very excited and now we're running this conference and you know like I said, yeah, I know that I I originate from nabibia and I I learned watching the videos from your conferences and basically now I'm Machine-learning engineer and I have a job here and that was like oh wow It's like a random stranger just on the train. We basically say. Yeah, that was that was I think this year do the most Yeah, funny inspiring story, which was pretty unexpected Because here at the Python conference, I really know what to expect like really friendly folks and Dedication so what that was like really random Yeah, so What's the part? What did you learn being an organizer as well? Like what's your basically also like something you skill or something you learned about yourself or something you you Yeah, you basically personally grew being an organizer Oh You know we have no inspiring story for you, sorry I Forgive my bad bookkeeping. It's not a problem. I don't have a really good story. Oh, okay Okay, so what's your personal what did you learn being an organizer? First it's hard work And You interact with being a software engineer I'm more of a back the stages guy and this kind kind of makes me interact with people more and in a good way because Interacting with the customers is not that funny And It was a good exercise for for my team also to be able to to achieve all these things and In my case in particular because of covids, I think we were not prepared for that and it We were forced to to make something something out of it and we actually did something so it's something that I'm proud of Well, I learned how much stress you can take A few years ago because I'm part of two other conference organizing teams and I think it was 2018 what happened is that I was the main organizer for pycon CZ and Part of two other teams for two other conferences and I don't know why I did that really but It actually showed me that you can survive a lot and even though you feel like you're at the lowest You can always go lower, but I mean that sounds very unhealthy But I survived but the thing is that you actually really learn to not to Stress too much about things that you cannot change or are not so like huge problems So actually I call them like mistakes of two types So what whatever happens at a conference like a fuckup? That's the only you as the organizer knows that happened But the attendees don't know it. That's all right It's like learnings for next year, but like don't fret about that, you know and only focus on what's actually Affects in the attendees, you know So if you kind of like categorize these problems only focus on those like public ones or outside ones So that's the learning from when you organize several events during the day for me is to think One is that you are always going to have good and bad reviews. So you just need to be sure that you are Fine and feeling good with the things you are deciding and doing The other thing that is very important is that maybe People feel that you are a bit bossy, but this is a necessary path Because everyone wants to help But people is scared about taking decisions and someone needs to take the final decision In the other hand you can go and Make polls about everything that every young can decide everything both and these kinds of things, but this sometimes just don't work because the things are slower and not everyone join the Boats and things like that. So don't be scared about a bit of it bossy. It's okay. It's needed My takeaways Like I have so many like it's like half of my personality now Really, I like organizing things forced me to I don't know call strangers, which I didn't like to call But I would say I would say I learned a lot about like communities Which is important for me because now I Left my job and I I have my like full-time community. I it's my like small business I learned Volunteering work the mechanics of it and I Didn't realize it But when people started to come to me and ask me about it and and I had the answers I realized that I should write it somewhere on the blog or something because it's still repeating is the state say same still still the same things and I Think I'm much better with people and stuff like that. I Through the community work. I got so much I Like say privilege because you know like various doors open for me or connections and Opportunities which I totally wouldn't have if I Haven't Invited the few the first eight people to the pub like back in 2011 when it started It's like crazy how it took me Maybe can I add one thing? I learned to delegate tasks to other people Especially those that I hate So for example, I hate phoning. Okay, let's we don't use phones like that anymore, right? so for example basically in the past five years I made maybe five calls During organizing the event, you know, so I always try to ask somebody else Can you phone the bakery or the you know catering company or whatever? Like can you do that? And you know you decide whatever but like you do to the call if I can do something over the email I will that's all right because you can do it whenever right you can do it at night But phoning it's like no so and then other things obviously But because as they may organizer you need to know about everything, but you didn't need to do everything You just keep an eye on that, you know, but you need to delegate stuff obviously Because I from Asia so the first challenging thing is the price of the ticket. Yeah, as you know a the good ability of Asia people is costum and When we've at the first year People always challenge us. Hey, you all guys are volunteer. Why your ticket so surprising price so high and But from day one, we know We need we didn't consider about the price. We consider about the value. We tried to provide as much value As we can yeah, so Yeah, like in Asia in Taiwan, we we don't have so much core commuter. So we will try to invite core commuter to Taiwan and Compensate the travel expense and we have a very good food very good. Yeah, so But and after 10 years and the people get accustomed to it. Yeah, it's very hard for Asia country Yeah, because we have low price things and yeah, and in the next thing that Becoming an organizer in In it is big organization We sell promotion and the monies. I think I try a lot of weight to motivate others. Yeah, we just said and And I think I feel a little shy so Sometimes I'm very nervous nervous and I don't know and my my my brain will be blank but when I think that I watch I when I focus on the things that I can inspire people the things that can enable people If I think like that then I won't focus too much on myself. So then I can become novel and And deliver good thought to others. Yeah, that's what I learned. Yeah Yeah, I can conclude this So for me, I think it was So given that I Got introduced to the community that I was rather young. I was not even out of high school that was sort of my first chance of Interacting with so many people that are different from me So I think one thing that I that I learned is Respects for for people and things there are different from you and what you know so and in the end being part of this community and seeing how a Volunteer team that can be so so diverse can pull together something that is so beautiful and gives you so much energy and Makes goods It's so beautiful. I think I learned like I Never was a team player before to be honest. So I think I learned to be BPO team player now. I hope so I know I Sometimes I was a good team lead. I definitely know like in the first after conference like when we did Basically COVID ended we had a conference. I know I was not the best team lead. So thanks for him to ring me So but I I always appreciate the feedback from my surroundings. So so I think it made me like a better team lead also like I think it's It's it's also a challenge to motivate volunteers because it's not like it's different than employees So basically yes, so you need a call. So I think I'm way better like and also delegating because I'm also really bad at delegating I learned Not to look into every detail because there's also a thing we tend to do is to over-engineer on details and And we we forget about thinking do we do we have to actually the capacity to do that? Yeah, I mean I love to have every detail on the conference, but if we don't have The the means for that financially or more even on on our time Capacity so we have to let go of some things and say it. There's always another conference in another year So that that's what I learned. So I think and the first thing actually I learned when I entered the Bilbao conference 2015 I was organizing with strangers on email. So I thought like my German urges Like oh, you have to plan. We need a backup plan and then I said, okay Session sharing is just like in the open Google doc and this is this can fail But when I watched and especially in these communities was so amazing No, you did you don't need a backup plan. You just need to go around and if there's no session chair You just ask friendly people from the audience. Hey, can can you just jump in and the person and yeah, everybody We said yeah, sure and this was also for me and your experience who was tried to basically be a Perfectionist from from the very beginning to say no, let go. There's this there's friends and friendly people around in the community And I can also rely on so I don't need the perfect perfect perfect plan So we just need a good plan and perfectionism is can be or is the enemy of the good as well So that's that's that's my take. So can I add one more thing? I think you made a great point about the people being diverse or the teams being diverse I know it's a buzzword But the important thing is that if you have different people on your team Then it means that you are also making a conference for different people If you are all the same people on the team the conference will be the same as well You know like when I went to my first meetup, there were like 50 guys and two girls, you know now it's more balanced thanks to pilot these courses and It's such a different vibe and such a different atmosphere, you know so even though we kind of like don't want to talk about diversity because it sounds like such a buzzword and it's like Yeah, we hear it everywhere. I still think it's important just to think we are organizing a conference for various groups of people, you know beginners advanced Programmers and so on and so on so when we keep this in mind We really make it an event. That's really like colorful and and interesting for so many different groups of people Yeah, thank you very much. Now Time for questions from the audience. I see there's some fellow organizers in the audience. There's some As far as I know not yet organizers in the audience. So Yeah, just Let's open the conversation Yep, there's a microphone. Just go to the mic and Ask questions or give input Oh, does it now it works? Okay. You mentioned that Seems like you ever start from from scratch for every conference and I can relate to this We'll see And there's also it's difficult for the getting volunteers because there's not too much written things everything. It's just communicated really more or less But organizing an open-source conference or Python conferences very similar doesn't matter if it's in Czech or In Sweden or in Spain or somewhere else. So do you think Some common ground to work together to come up with some documentation how to organize a conference in general and some more specific and maybe even What tools to use or share tools or share resources in one way or there are some other kind of Kind of synergy effects you can have because everything's open source everything by volunteers There's nobody's selling anything to anybody. So there should be some way to start Maybe there's a low-level thing like visible wiki or some other documentation tool to write down things how we do it What would be the best? What tools to use how to communicate because people and so on and so on so what do you think about it? in context we at EPS Meeting in the open space yesterday and we're also discussing openly about it, but Yeah, it looks like I'm talking a lot But yeah, because when you prepare an event you have so many topics to take care of speakers catering blah blah blah And the whole book would be like this thick, you know, and nobody would read that right so What I believe in is to when you when you organize During the year you take on new volunteers every time so they become more advanced Organizers over time and so this is how you kind of like pass the knowledge on Basically face-to-face Let's say or in person because nobody would read a million pages on how to you know find a good catering company Or whatever so I don't really have a better advice You can always write down some bullet points, but then it's it might not be like Detailed enough, but if it gets detailed enough, it's too detailed so it's kind of like How many of you actually actually read instructions for anything? People jump try to solve the things and the they only go to instructions when something is going wrong So we need stack overflow for conference organizers. Yeah, it's something like that And I like well, you know, I'm Currently my role is pretty much the documentarian of the Czech Python community We have like docs dot pivots dot org It's in Czech, but we have documented like how do we do meetups how we do stuff like that how the nonprofit operates and I have to say Picon CZ is one of the hardest things to document because it's like every year. It's different. It's Like the the knowledge flashes The knowledge changes over time dynamically the people are like event one event driven there are many There are many Points in time which are like deadlines and so on they are basically always busy or Resting for one month after the conference And there is there is a good point that I think I think the knowledge is very locally specific that Conference in we had the conference rotating like Prague or no Ostrava and there were different suppliers different ways the team have been operating so I think even for one conference it wouldn't hold together and There is this issue with reading we and but there is also the issue with writing like a There is like like documentation Documentation is hard. Yeah, it's even for programming it. That's that's like yeah, 20 30 percent of Time should go to documentation and nobody does right now Documentation is better than wrong documentation. That's the problem and having outdated Documentation for by con would be that nobody will read it updated and it will be just waste of time So I think the the way to to do this for for conferences is to have the Padawan system Where you have a team of experienced people who one does communications one does I don't know catering one takers of Whatever For a few years and then finds a volunteer who doesn't know anything about it But wants to help and basically splits the responsibility It's like, you know apprentice apprenticeship and then you just pass it to the apprentice and do go go do something else Otherwise you burn out and I think even with tooling For example, ero python uses pre talks and predicts We also used it in Django con and Python, but it's it's not Fixed in all conferences Every organizer has their own opinion about these softwares, especially the ticketing system because it's something Really particular So you can suggest a couple a way of toolings, but things change and Everybody has their own opinion about the kind of tooling that they want to use for example Django con website Most of the times is not even written in Django. Oh really? Yeah We written it we decided that if we are doing a Django con conference, it will be written in Django But it's not common that for example junk on you So every team will use the the best tools that they know In the it's not necessarily common for every conferences My advice is that Getting spotted by other conference, but don't copy it because the cultural bias is so strong in any location Your volunteer your assistant your people is going to be different It's so different organize something in Spain that in Italy or in Germany don't really Don't work the same things you can Be inspired, but don't copy because you need to put the focus in your people Yeah, I think so my take on this. I think it's documentation some rough documentation guidelines is always helpful But I think more importantly we try to build more like a mentorship network Because I think sometimes just like a 10 minute or 15 minute conversation just say hey We have this challenge. What's your experience? And then you basically it's way more effective because we also have to consider even if we take the time to write the perfect Documentation it will be different across countries cultures different different things also documentation could too much standardized everything because If you look at your python, it's constantly involving bringing your things in it's never the same conference And I think that's important that we reinvent ourselves currently So I think just picking people with experience in some field Is is is the best way we can we can do and then yeah, but This is what I did also like with mentoring the new program team and the diversity team and at For this year's conference. I was very say hey, this is my experience, but I was very always emphasized and it's your call Yeah, I'm yeah I'm just here to give you advice and if you make another decision. Hey, you're all adults you're like Yeah, and if there's a mistake don't worry about it. It's like Yeah, yeah No questions. Yeah Oh Hi, so I'd like to know I think it's if you can share about approaching companies to be sponsors Yeah, I think so there's different ways 2019 we actually started outsourcing it for in in Germany So yeah, actually my company which I want to change as well because I think Sponsoring needs to professionalize you need somebody during the daytime sponsors Sorry sponsors, but some of you are very disorganized Yeah, some of you are already amazing as well. Yeah, and I don't know any names But some some especially sponsoring you very often have new new people who just have a new job and they'll know the community So I don't want to say basically you're trying now So there's there's a lot of communication going on and also like of course if you want out with international sponsors and they From if they're from abroad like across Atlantic So they probably also don't know how things work and like sizes like yeah different dean formats Whatever like there's a lot of things to work out And so I think it's the best way also that somebody's there during daytime be accessible Replying fast. So it's it's should it cannot you should not be off-loaded to somebody in the middle of night Answering a lot of emails. You need the best thing. There is a call and then of course for finding sponsors Of course, it's reaching out to sponsors talking to sponsors having a mailing list and I think the best advice I can give here as well as plan early because many sponsors do like the they do budgeting and By the end of the year or an autumn or in the first quarter like usually it's good To left and no there's going to be a conference next year before the end of the year And if they're interested they can at least plan for it in the budget on short notice It's hard because most of the time the budget is all allocated already and even if they love the conference There's no money left. They can allocate. So then that's yeah, that's Two quick tips that was for our conferences one if you want new sponsors don't go to the generic contact email go to someone across LinkedIn for example that maybe Can help you that is interested in your conference or in the things that you are offering and That this person sponsors you inside the company because if you go to the generic emails Sometimes you don't get any answer and the second thing Create your own contract because companies have their contracts and you sing it like okay We are providing this you provide that blah blah blah, but you need to put your own conditions like this is the End date to send the things. This is the date to make the pay things like that because You need to be also You are also important you are giving a lot of things to your sponsor. So put it in a Paper and they so see this thing to be more serious about that If I can have something We learn this the hard way please put a clause about having to suspend the event and How much money you will you give back to the sponsors because you will end up with some expenses that you cannot Avoid and for example we have the several down payments for Django con 2020 and We were lucky enough that they let that go to 2021 But it was out of their hearts because legally we didn't have any clause that Actually protected of us. So having a clause for all kinds of disasters In that situation we keep 20% for example for expenses. I think it's really important Yeah, I think it's good to have personal and like friendly relationships With the company so that it helps you that the next year You know you know who the person is to go to and because your friends with them So they come back and they're like, yeah, here are the money So that worked when we organize the event every year. So, you know, even the companies would know so they would account for that in their budget So it's good now after the break You know, it's it's been different also the economic situation is different now but still we always try to you know have at least like one gatekeeper in the companies and Be friends with them. So we invite them to after parties and such Yeah, unfortunately. Oh, you have something Yeah, all the small tip small tip that what I think helped us is that we have a local non-profit It doesn't matter if it's non-profit. It's like the main thing is that it's a it's a legal entity Which can take care of the accounting of the Contracts and stuff like that because if you're just like 10 people Volunteering for having a meet-up or a conference The company doesn't then have someone to do the business with so you can probably delegate it to maybe Python software foundation or something like I don't know but we have our own local non-profit which was like easy to set up It's harder to keep it going but Basically, it's only purpose is to be this Like it doesn't tell volunteers what to do It's the only purpose is to be the accounting entity and basically to the supporting entity So it's not like top-down that we have a non-profit and we tell people like what to do, but we are the service Service non-profit for the volunteers. So they come after us and say we need that and we will try to take care of that So Unfortunately, it's already and so we have to go out of the room scoffing break now. Thank you all for joining and sharing So openly everything you've learned. Thank you all for listening as well. I Think if you have any more questions, I think everyone's around where we're happy to chat outside with the coffee If you have like further questions or you want to exchange also like we also Multiple different, I don't know where social media where you might ping us or find us So maybe we can improve that as well And to be more reachable for advice. Yeah, so I hope you enjoyed the panel and yeah, have a nice coffee break. Thank you