Ask A Tech Event Organizer (AATEO)
In general, conference organizers have a wealth of information about their own specific event, which often ends up siloed away from others for various reasons. At the same time, organizers often have no idea what non-conference organizers, starting conference organizers, or even other similar conference organizers might know or not know. This makes it incredibly hard to share bits of hard earned wisdom with one another without seeming overbearing, overly-assertive, or prideful. This can, and arguably has, created a rift between tech event organizers and the community of people they hope to properly serve - one that is absolutely better removed so both sides can help each other.
In an effort to help break down the barriers between the shadowy, behind-the-scenes conference organizer and the wide world of attendees and organizer-curious, I am putting forth a new site Ask A Tech Event Organizer, AATEO for short, as a place for you to ask and get answered any question you might have about the organization of tech events. Responses will be either made by myself, Chris Williams (@voodootikigod), or an appropriate guest organizers and will be posted (for now) to this very blog with the title prefix of "AATEO". This may change as we may find that other sites or workflows are better, but for now this is what I have to offer up as an initial effort. Thoughts and feedback are definitely welcome.
I encourage you to ask anything as long as it pertains to tech events. The questions do not need to limited or scoped to my experience or events as I will be reaching out to other conference organizers for their support in answering questions. Given the nature of this, we do offer the ability for one to submit a question anonymously or with a provided email address. Also, questions can be marked as explicitly requiring privacy or sensitivity (with instructions) and if so marked and an email is provided, we will email the response directly and ensure the privacy and sensitivity of the dialog. Otherwise, the question and response will be formally presented as described above over time.
All responses are provided as experience-based recommendations and not as assertion. All participating organizers do acknowledge and want to explicity express upfront that there is no one, absolute correct way to organize a tech event. We always want to encourage you to create events in your own voice and from your own experience. The provided responses are based on the individual organizer's experience and not intended to be a final, one-size-fits-all solution to the question.