Idea and Integrity
It is necessary to think over a large conference in advance, according to my feeling, six months to a year in advance. First of all, you need to have something to talk about and someone to talk to. That’s why it’s important to think through the concept, decide on the audience and don’t spread yourself too thin.
A common logic must unite all the processes in the forum. That is, you need a central idea on which you string everything. This idea is taken into account in everything: in the selection and preparation of reports, in the packaging of the event, in the texts, promotion, the choice of the audience, activities and merchandise. It should all at least not contradict the main idea.
Content
One must take into account that engineers only believe engineers. But often IT-specialists think that they “can’t talk” and are reluctant to speak. Therefore, you need to prepare all the speakers: do not pressure them, help them with the choice of topic and, of course, support them during the speech.
We got to this point by holding internal meetups, which I highly recommend. So not only do you help people open up with a presentation, but you also create an internal community, which is very important for colleagues.
Don’t do everything yourself
At first I thought I could do everything by myself. After all, I had previously held many mitaps on my own. It turned out that it was possible to hold a mitap on my own, but not a big conference.
I broke down in about the third month of preparation, when I realized that there were still a lot of tasks to do and no more time in the day. Maybe that’s why we moved the conference from January to April. And it was the right decision.
It is necessary to understand that one person can not pull out the preparation of 21 speakers, and adequately calculate your strength. That’s why I recommend that before the conference starts, you think through who will help you with the organization. And if no one – once again think about whether this conference is necessary to anyone but you.
