Are online events the new normal?

Some people have just (re-)discovered that we don’t have to meet in person to run an event. They are very enthusiastic about it. They are even asking to replace all conferences as online events. But, are they right?

Some of you may know I am going to co-chair the next FOSS4G. (Come Hell or High Water, but we are going to have a FOSS4G next year!) I have also participated on the organization of the last ApacheCON and some other minor online events. I have also spoken on many online events by now.

And, let me tell you, I am not as optimistic as those people. I really hope this post ages badly and in the following years we get better options for online events.

But as of today, I don’t feel we are anywhere close to replace face to face events with online ones. Delivering the talks as streaming is something good but we will be losing most of what makes a conference an amazing experience.

Let me tell you why.

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From Cat to Hat

On June I joined Red Hat as a Senior Software Engineer.

I always said that I preferred to work on a small company before a big company, because on a big company you can’t be anything more than a number. That you can’t really grow professionally if you are such a small piece on a big machine.

I have to say: I was completely wrong. The room for manoeuvre you have on a big company is not comparable to that on a smaller one.

Just a month after my latest job change and I am completely in love with Red Hat. I keep asking around me “where is the trick? where is the trap?” because there have to be. Tough it seems there isn’t. If this is not my dream job, it is only one “geospatial” label away.

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Quiero mejorar la diversidad en mi evento, ¡ayúdame!

If someone linked you this post is probable you are organizing an event where diversity and inclusivity is an issue and they want to help you fix that. If you want, you can jump to the subsection that better adjust to your case. Remember: diversity is not a TL;DR, you probably need to read the full article to get a better grasp of what you need. As usual: I’m going to focus on the gender gap because it’s easier for me to talk in those terms, but similar strategies can be applied to any other under-represented group.

I was told I have a manel, what’s that?

A manel is a panel full of men (usually white and middle aged). Usually this manel is the main panel or the keynoters panel whose members are the most relevant/the most advertised speakers. They are the display case of your event and they may tell more about your event than you probably suspect.

Bonus track: Have you heard about the Techdel Test?

But I had no women speaker candidates for my event!

It doesn’t matter if it was a set of speakers chosen manually or if you sent a call for papers to the internet waiting for proposals. If you have few (or none) proposals that improve your diversity line-up, something went wrong. Because there are women (and PoC and functionally diverse speakers) out there. You just didn’t met them. But don’t worry, there’s many things you can do to improve it.

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