When did going to skiing with some mates become a conference?
Yeah, I went to Hooters...conferenced pretty hard, drank too much, conferenced all over the sidewalk...you can tell I am serious because I use the word conference a lot...conference.
Not to defend the guy you're replying too, but it's quite a stretch to imply the author is in jail - or on the chopping block for, even.
The quote you originally had shoots down your complaints anyway, if you're upfront about it you can plan around it. And if people have strong preferences for same sex lodgings they can plan that upfront, or if not, maybe I'm misunderstanding your complaint?
It turns out that the language of social justice isn't just a set of magical incantations by which you produce controversy, and attempting to concern troll by cargo-culting that language is pretty much always obvious.
to make a cryptocurrency around spending time on it? < MAJA was created as an experiment, we've been giving it to people we are inspired by. It's backed by time on the island.
I think people are just getting tripped on the fact that it's called a conference or how can you possibly get value from 12 people having fun and talking on what looks like a vacation trip.
The problem is that on HN I would gather most people are tech workers or startup folks and have gone to "real" conferences which are big with tons of people, where Brian Casel fits more into the content marketing, consultant, life-style business sphere, which is usually for self-employed consultants, or 1-2 person bootstrapped SaaS or service businesses. In that sphere, there is so much value to be had talking to another successful person doing something similar to you and how they manage a solo 6 figure business and/or 100k+ mailing list empire.
As mentioned in the article, it's probably more akin to a mastermind group (again which seems like it only fits into that latter sphere, unless you are a high level operating exec), but with some variability into who gets in and who stays.
As someone who went from startup world into consulting world, reading and listening to the folks in that sphere, this kind of stuff is pretty common and is actually super valuable, perhaps 1000x more value then I've ever seen in another conference I've attended, especially since I'm more shy and dislike talking to rando's and going to strange parties knowing no one after hours, but this is a small group of people in an intimate setting where everyone can meet each other and get a chance to talk, like forced networking.
I don't think a group of friends or colleagues going skiing to discuss dev-ops or NodeJS would be that relevant or worthwhile in this type of case, but perhaps a group of founders running companies with 5-10 employees facing the same challenges might be.
As I get older, I have less and less interest in most big tech vendor conferences and have taken pretty much all of them off my must-do list except for one (that's not too too big). They're crowded, the food is lousy, it's hard to meet up with people, I mostly don't care about the parties, etc.
I don't do any really small conferences but I do have several regulars in the 100-300 person range and they're definitely my favorites.
"Conference" has always meant any formal(-ish) gathering of people talking together. From OED: a formal meeting for discussion.
"he gathered all the men around the table for a conference"
It's "convention" that denotes "large conference". (OED, again: a large meeting or conference, especially of members of a political party or a particular profession)
I specifically noted in my comment that I understand the literal meaning of the word can be applied to basically any group of people who meet. My point is that an article about "How to Host or Attend a Tiny Conference" holds a very different connotation than "they gathered all the people around the table for a conference".
I was agreeing and expounding about the literal meaning and how easily it is to confuse "conference" and "convention". It seems like a lot of people's connotations in the debates here confound "conference" and "convention". The existence of "convention" for meaning "large conference" as size being a key factor would also seem to imply a usefulness in the term "small conference" or "tiny conference".
I think the remaining debate is about semantic distinctions in individual connotations eluded to in the "formal" part of the literal definition of "conference". To many here it seems like open enrollment is a formality they expect, though an interesting argument here would be that invite-only is more generally/historically considered the more "formal" in connotation. It's an interesting assumption to question in people's connotations of what "conference" means.
I set up a page to gather feedback on my idea to do a tiny conference using amusement park ride lines for session time. http://thrillcode.xyz
Mostly people assume that I'm joking about doing this, but it is legitimately something I think would be a good idea. I got tired of seeing the same reused slide decks in conferences/conventions, and I love the idea of a conference medium where the medium's limitations can be creative opportunities (you can't present a slide deck in ride line, but you can speak to a passion), and naturally present a different sort of conference rhythm. Seriously, what if at the end of each session, whether it was good or bad, there was an amusement park ride to enjoy?
16 comments
[ 5.1 ms ] story [ 51.9 ms ] threadYeah, I went to Hooters...conferenced pretty hard, drank too much, conferenced all over the sidewalk...you can tell I am serious because I use the word conference a lot...conference.
The quote you originally had shoots down your complaints anyway, if you're upfront about it you can plan around it. And if people have strong preferences for same sex lodgings they can plan that upfront, or if not, maybe I'm misunderstanding your complaint?
(the island we acquired for the purposes of inspiring and connecting great souls).
Off grid adventures and transformational relationships.
to make a cryptocurrency around spending time on it? < MAJA was created as an experiment, we've been giving it to people we are inspired by. It's backed by time on the island.
The problem is that on HN I would gather most people are tech workers or startup folks and have gone to "real" conferences which are big with tons of people, where Brian Casel fits more into the content marketing, consultant, life-style business sphere, which is usually for self-employed consultants, or 1-2 person bootstrapped SaaS or service businesses. In that sphere, there is so much value to be had talking to another successful person doing something similar to you and how they manage a solo 6 figure business and/or 100k+ mailing list empire.
As mentioned in the article, it's probably more akin to a mastermind group (again which seems like it only fits into that latter sphere, unless you are a high level operating exec), but with some variability into who gets in and who stays.
As someone who went from startup world into consulting world, reading and listening to the folks in that sphere, this kind of stuff is pretty common and is actually super valuable, perhaps 1000x more value then I've ever seen in another conference I've attended, especially since I'm more shy and dislike talking to rando's and going to strange parties knowing no one after hours, but this is a small group of people in an intimate setting where everyone can meet each other and get a chance to talk, like forced networking.
I don't think a group of friends or colleagues going skiing to discuss dev-ops or NodeJS would be that relevant or worthwhile in this type of case, but perhaps a group of founders running companies with 5-10 employees facing the same challenges might be.
I don't do any really small conferences but I do have several regulars in the 100-300 person range and they're definitely my favorites.
It's "convention" that denotes "large conference". (OED, again: a large meeting or conference, especially of members of a political party or a particular profession)
I think the remaining debate is about semantic distinctions in individual connotations eluded to in the "formal" part of the literal definition of "conference". To many here it seems like open enrollment is a formality they expect, though an interesting argument here would be that invite-only is more generally/historically considered the more "formal" in connotation. It's an interesting assumption to question in people's connotations of what "conference" means.
Mostly people assume that I'm joking about doing this, but it is legitimately something I think would be a good idea. I got tired of seeing the same reused slide decks in conferences/conventions, and I love the idea of a conference medium where the medium's limitations can be creative opportunities (you can't present a slide deck in ride line, but you can speak to a passion), and naturally present a different sort of conference rhythm. Seriously, what if at the end of each session, whether it was good or bad, there was an amusement park ride to enjoy?