XO Ruby is hitting the road (Interview)

33:20Adam, I'm already putting on six conferences this year. You want me to put one on in Madison too? I'm not suggesting that you are. What I'm asking is, does that mean this is paused so that you can do this? Absolutely. This is a heavy lift, and the first year of a conference is always the hardest. Anybody who's been to a Madison Ruby will recognize bits and pieces of what we've done in Madison in each of these, including some of the speakers, including some of the activities and whatnot. So I want to do something in Madison again, but honestly, it will probably be an XORuby rather than Madison Plus.

33:56Does the website get a lot of traffic to Madison Ruby? Or is it just kind of like fickle whenever there's no event really happening? it seems like it's fairly fickle and on monday for some reason we got 400 hits and i have no idea well those 400 people do not know about exa ruby that was gonna be my next thing i was like okay let's tell i mean because you're famous for doing this for 10 seasons as you had said like 10 was it 9 or 10 uh 10 10 i mean 10's a lot right that's 10 that's a decade of producing a conference so there's got to be some sort of brain equity there where people are coming back to it or there's content that people are coming to leverage that promote exo ruby on madison ruby it's all your it's all your you know your company flagrant so you know i would i would happily like say we're paused but that doesn't mean we're not here we're elsewhere in the world kind of thing we'll be back well yeah we'll be back thumbs up okay friends i'm here with a friend of mine hardrock gill ceo of code rabbit ai code reviews so awesome.

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37:34what are some of the challenges that have come up with organizing six in a row i guess or you have to organize them in parallel but they operate in a row i assume call for papers is probably harder lots of stuff's probably harder when you got six things going on so um yes that is true uh which is why we didn't do a traditional CFP for this. I largely curated the talks for the first couple of events. If you go to the schedule, if there's a slot where there's not a speaker, there is a link there to sign up and say that you'd like to join. Because again, the hope is that either we or somebody else will do this again next year.

38:17And so we really want to find out where people are. So that's part of it. And then the failures cascade, right? And so thankfully, in the first round, we actually lost our venue in Chicago once and had to go to a backup. And while I'm extremely happy with the backup, in fact, that's what happened with Madison plus Ruby the first year. And we wound up with this amazing venue that we really loved. But that meant that we had to go back through and reschedule all of our events in our both of our events in atlanta and new orleans uh after that venue fell through so that is a risk in doing these sort of in series typically you get into a workflow of you know there's a build to a conference and then you're done and you get to rest and it's just it's just been building uh you know for the last couple months and uh in two weeks we'll get some relief so you picked this every saturday cadence for a group of three and then there seems like there's some short break and then another group of three thoughts behind that like what versus you could have done like every other week and maybe just spread them out and relax a little bit in between but here you have saturday saturday saturday and then a little break should have done sundays sunday sunday sunday no um hey you could have sold more tickets that way uh sounds like a deal you you buy the entire seat but you'll only use the edge.

39:42I'm sorry. That was a good one. I grew up going to racetracks. My dad drove stock cars. But there is a gap. You're absolutely right. And in fact, I drive from Chicago to Atlanta to New Orleans and then Austin's right here. But instead of going to Austin, I drive back to Wisconsin. my wife's birthday is in that gap and so wanted to come home, spend some time at home and then something that's not even on the XR Ruby map I'm actually going to Rocky Mountain Ruby before I start the western leg I'm going to drive out to Denver flagrant to sponsoring Rocky Mountain Ruby and then we'll start the rest of the second leg after that gotcha you know take a you make a documentary or something like a road trip you know like road rules but uh ruby conf style ruby conferences exo ruby road rules i do have a little uh mobile camera rig um like a cage to put her on my my mobile camera um and i've been talking with some some filmmakers about getting like even just behind the scenes stuff like if i'm driving past the the largest ball of twine in the country.

41:04We'll stop and take a picture. We're also, uh, Dean simple is sponsoring and one of their, their mascots is a, um, like in the, the writeup that they have about their mascot. It says that he's always up for a road trip. And so I'm going to try and get them to send me a plushie to, to ride shotgun with me. Um, but yeah, we're, we're going to try and do something. We're also working with confreaks, trying to get them to record all these events. And if nothing else, maybe we'll do something a little bit DIY to get them recorded if we need to. Man, I haven't heard the name Confreaks in a long time.

41:45It has been a long time. So long, I was going to ask you to remind me of the person's name. And as soon as you say it's going to be on my, it's going to be, who runs that? You are probably thinking of Kobe. Yes. Kobe Randquist. He's at Heroku. He's got bigger fish to fry. He worked with Cindy Backman, who has been running Confreaks for the last six, seven years. And always brings a really... She sees so much. She goes to so many conferences and so many Ruby events and whatnot. She's got an interesting perspective on the history of the Ruby community. And actually has found herself on stage at RubyConf.

42:31um yeah just and then she not only does she record the talks but she goes through and edits all the talks as well and so just a lot of work yeah so much work wow uh actually the last time i think we saw uh is it kobe is that right not kobe kobe last time we saw kobe was uh was that keep ruby weird first edition here in austin jerry remember that 2014 14. I remember the event. I don't remember that being the last time. Kobe was in the rafters with us recording. I remember that part, but didn't we see Kobe at like OSCON as well later? Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Who knows? Maybe. It's fuzzy back there in the history books.

43:15It's fuzzy back there. I do remember Keeper Be Weird at Austin because that was the first time that we met, wasn't it, Adam? I think so, man. Yeah. And that was at the Alamo Drafthouse, Jim. Right on. That was a good venue. Good venue. Yeah, I'm talking with, I wanted Caleb to come speak at the Austin event. He's up in Denver. He's not going to make it down. He has a conflict. But I've also got a call into Terrence as well. Oh, yeah. Terrence Lee could help out for sure. Yeah. If you mean Terrence Lee. I assume you mean Terrence Lee. Blue hat, of course. Yes, the blue hat. Famous for the blue hat.

43:53Was it Tar Heels? North Carolina Tar Heels? Know what it is? Or is it just a blue hat? i think this is a blue hat okay i wasn't sure i thought it was the tar heels but it could be i actually spoke to him earlier this year we had a sponsorship with heroku and i got a chance to catch up with him again and then he gave me this number and i've been too busy to reach out to him since then so terrence you're on my list man i'm gonna reach out because he's like hey you're in austin we need to hang out you do and perhaps you could do that october 25th you know i'm gonna i'm going to come you're gonna make it i don't see any reason why i can't make it if it's uh let's see what what day of the week is that we already did saturday right yep yeah man we established a joke already yes it's not someday it's well established there's saturday saturday saturday nothing on yeah there's nothing on my calendar for that that's not true you have zero excuses let me enable my wife's calendar now oh he's trying to find one he's trying to find any excuse Just not coming to spend time.

44:51He is. He's trying to back out live on the air here. We do have a YMCA parents night out on the calendar that day. Well, you could still go to that later. Yeah, this is 9 to 5. Like, that's later. Yeah, that's your evening. And I think that means that we would have no kids, which is great, because the kids go to YMCA and have fun, and then we can go somewhere else. So maybe she's trying to take them on a date. Go to the after party. Is there an after party or anything? The thing about after parties is that they cost money. They cost money. Okay, 9 to 5. I see what kind of confidence. Add a hundred dollar ticket.

45:20Like what has happened in the past is, you know, once you get people together, plans form and people wind up in places together. But we're not planning an after party, but we do anticipate that people are going to gather afterwards. Yeah, I got some ideas for you. We should talk. I'll at least here in Austin. That's that's about it. Some some venues and some thoughts. Just just whatever. If it could be helpful, I'll be helpful. and if I can make it I will for sure make it for sure this this is the thing um you know and to your point about putting the the sponsors uh the opportunity to you know show interest in sponsoring um when you give people an explicit direction as to how they could help they can see that they and so I've got you know if you want to speak you know reach out let's talk if you want to attend there is not yet uh but by by the time this airs there will be a volunteer link as well, we're going to overstaff with volunteers.

46:19And so if you wanted to come to the event and you want to give up an hour or two at the beginning or end of the conference to volunteer, we'll let you in for free. Like, um, we've always done that with Madison Ruby and there are people that, uh, people that came into the community that way that had that opportunity that now work at, you know, Square and Coinbase. That's cool. Yeah. And so what people most often need is an in. They need somebody to take a chance. Well, friends, you don't have to be an AI expert to build something great with it. The reality is AI is here. And for a lot of teams, that brings uncertainty.

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48:00You know, you made me think about something since you've been running these events so long. You have that thing, that thing that you do, so to speak, the way you run it. Is there anything in particular that you do that you feel like makes an event, whether it's Madison plus Ruby or if it's XORuby or whatever you're doing? What are some things that you try to always do as like a DNA thing for your events? So that's an excellent question. Um, we always try and, uh, get people into conversations with other people at the conference. And like that sort of naturally happens at a hallway track. If you're going to your first time conference, this happens to me back in, you know, I got sent to a.NET conference out in Vegas.

48:42Um, and I went to like, uh, methodically went to talks that I thought could help my, my company, my career, whatever. and what I understand now is that it's the people like that's the benefit that's the value you can get connected to people that are going to help you at work you can get connected to people who you could potentially hire for your job you can get connected to people that are you know going to wind up driving in a car down to future web apps and fanboying over you know somebody else in the car like i'm telling you i mean so you mentioned it was obi i couldn't help it he's the coolest you mentioned still is the cool you mentioned steven bristol uh oh my god or in that conversation earlier and that was a lesson that i learned from him is we would walk around at a conference and he uh he would always find like a wallflower or somebody who wasn't doing anything and he would just bring them into the fold yes he was and he wouldn't let you go he grabbed you not physically sometimes physically but he from his who he had tractor beam like he's like a tractor beam get over here you know you get into this conversation don't you be isolated over there and he would he would force you out of your shell he really would in i know he did to me the best way i was gonna say then you realize that oh that's why i'm here right like he did that to me yeah um yeah and so that is another thing that i you know just try to always make sure that if there are people who seem like they're lost or seem like they don't know what to do, make an introduction.

50:23I can't, especially as a host, I can't sit there and talk with everybody all day long, but I can connect them with somebody who's going to make sure that they're seen after and introduced to people and have a proper conference experience. Um, another thing that, uh, that I think is inherent in the way that we've done things is I will always look for people who have never spoken before. Um, I remember, uh, Nell Shamrell, uh, gave her first talk at Addison Ruby, I think in 2012. Um, and there was something about Nell that caused me to want to do that. but she had never spoken before so I didn't have anything necessarily to base that on other than she was a great person and turns out she had a drama background and she just absolutely delivered her talk and probably the best talk at that conference and so even at RailsConf this year the last RailsConf I had somebody come up to our booth and I was like do you want to speak?

51:40And she's like you know you're not the first person to ask me that and so that was Tia. She's going to wind up speaking in Austin as well. So always just trying to try to find people that think that there is an explicit rule set that they have to play by and you know have to either wait their turn or wait for permission or what have you and say hey can I take you to the front of the line? You don't actually have to wait for anybody. you can just do it one of those things with getting everybody together is we are not catering the conference we are strategically getting venues that are surrounded by good restaurants and we're giving everybody$25 to go out and grab lunch so it's a little bit of adventure so you spend$100 and you get$25 back to go eat lunch?

52:29that is a heck of a deal if you ask me that's an awesome deal I love that deal. And that is something that we did for Madison. We had the luxury of being downtown and having really fantastic restaurants around. But the other thing is it doesn't matter how good you are or how good your catering staff is. It's hard to serve 100 great lunches to people all at the same time. It is. And so add on top of that food sensitivities and concerns of that nature, whether you're preferences, vegetarian, vegan, whatever, halal. It's hard for me to serve all those people in that way. One thing that Alan and Stephen did, we keep seeing their names.

53:22I miss this guy so much. Obviously, I miss Stephen. But when they when they did less comp, when they did. And this is probably why Alan is mayor, because he went out and if you recall, Jim, you can share your side of the story. But they went out to particular local venues and said, hey, we're going to have people here for this reason. And they made a list of where you can go. I don't recall if it was free or what it was. I think it might have been free as part of the conference. But it was like they had already set it up. you go out into that small town into that little city in independent city and you go where you want to closest to the venue you can walk there you can go with the friend groups you've made you can make new friends you can invite yourself somewhere be invited somewhere but they had already identified various places you can go and it was just really easy and they the those folks were ready for it they were bombarded but you had selection you got to see the city and you got to come back to the venue and continue your conference experience like nothing happened You know, it was such a, it seems smooth to me.

54:23Maybe as an event planner, not very smooth, but as an attendee, I thought it was super cool, very smooth. And I got the choice of where I wanted to go. And I thought that was the best experience ever. Yeah. We, uh, in downtown Madison, there is a local business community called downtown Madison Inc. And they have gift certificates. And so we did gift certificates one year, just give them a gift certificate and, uh, and you're covered. but there were so many people that went someplace where it wasn't accepted or um like that that value wound up getting lost or like they would give it back they would just give us a gift back and it's like that's good for me but you know you didn't get the thing that you paid for as part of your your deal yeah but that that experience of like going out seeing the city finding some local hole in the wall and, uh, you know, I can, I can feed you high quality salads all day long or, or, you know, maybe you'd rather have a steak or whatever.

55:22Some people, you know, I would just kill a hot dog. Like I'm not fancy. And so it's gotten to the point where people, people expect variety and, and, you know, they have preferences that, that they want to hold up. And so we'd rather leave people to the, to their preferences. Kind of like that awesome burrito place that we found in uh what was that vancouver adam oh my god led to a burrito place that adam just to this day loved i remember it like it was literally yesterday and it was not yesterday obviously hilarious oh it was bad some random person that we just was hanging out with and he's like he's being very kind yeah let's go to lunch and he lives there and he's like all right I'll take you guys to this burrito place.

56:09It's amazing or something. I don't know. And, um, it wasn't that bad, but Adam, it did not, it didn't jive with Adam at all. And so we're, we're trying to be gracious, you know, but Adam's not as good at acting like this tastes good. I left, I left hungry. Let's just say I left hungry. Yeah. And a smirk or not a smirk. What's the opposite of a smirk on his face? Total frown. Total frown. You know, frown. Yeah, basically frowning. I don't want tangent us too much further, but you knocked a hot dog. And I had some friends over a few months back. Well, you said I can kill a hot dog. Yeah, kill one.

56:48Okay, okay. No, like knock it down. Knock it down. Gotcha. Yeah, kill it. Gotcha. Like you didn't like it. I had hot dogs for lunch yesterday, man. Well, I discovered these Wagyu hot dogs. And these Wagyu hot dogs, I'd never had Wagyu hot dogs like this. ever in my life. We had some friends over for the 4th of July this year and they brought them. It's like a tradition for them. Like, sure, sweet. I'll cook them. And so they brought their Wagyu hot dogs and we got the long buns and all that stuff. And I got a Weber kettle and I got them over a real fire. So they got all the flavor in it. And I promise you, I'll make it for both of you one day.

57:29Some of the best hot dogs I've ever had in my whole life. In fact, those, when i think about hot dogs that i want to have in my life if i could eat a hot dog like that every day in my life or not every time i eat a hot dog if it was like that that's that's my example of a hot dog it was so good so good yeah no we're yet jim i mean thankfully well i know you all are uh you are this is afternoon for you too should be past lunch yeah i just bought probably three months ago a weber smoky mountain and so i've been smoking up a storm in the backyard well we can we can talk about that in the after show for sure i will talk about barbecuing with you all day long uh because this is one of my passions so exoruby.com uh this is like pretty much tomorrow you kick off are you are you are your bags packed have you got piles of laundry that you're washing like what is what is your stress level in this moment uh stress levels is pretty low like uh It's going to unfold and it will be the thing that it is.

58:33That's one way to look at it. You could always sell more tickets. You could always have more sponsors, but it's not like we're not still working on it. But I've got backdrops and projector. I did a test run at my mom's 55 plus community on Sunday night just to bring everything out, put it all together, make sure that I've got all the connections that I need. What was your talk about? Did you tell them about? No, no, no. I, I didn't actually do a talk. I just got everything put together, but they have a community space that is large enough to put it all together. Cause it turns out, you know, it's like a 30, 30 feet of backdrops.

59:17That's a big one. Yeah. Don't dry run that day one, right? Like test run that at a, 55 plus community. This was not my first test run either because I did I think two weeks before I did one and it did not go well. I'm so glad that I don't have 100 people sitting behind me saying where's the show? The one thing that does have me sweating a little bit is that I ordered the projection screen online and it was supposed to be here on Saturday the 23rd and then they said oh it's delayed it'll be there on August the 26th. Well it It's now August the 27th. I don't have a screen to project on yet. Less than a week?

1:00:00More than a week. You've got more than one week. Yeah, you've got a week and a half. Chicago, September 6th. Well, I mean, if it doesn't arrive, drop ship it to wherever you're going to be at. Don't be like, it's only at home I can take deliveries. Take delivery wherever you're at in the world. You can't change that that late in the game. It's going to show up even later. No, you can't. The next venue, though. The next event gets the screen. You should order a backup and ship it straight to Atlanta right now. I have found there is a not nearly as good version, but there is a version that I can get that should be able to get here in time.

1:00:33But I want the good version. I want the best experience for people. Well, if you are in and or around Chicago, Atlanta, Nolens, as they call it down there, Portland, San Diego, and especially Austin, because I hear one Adam Sokoviak will be in attendance. I will be in attendance. I'll be there. It's not too late to get in on it, right? You're selling tickets right up to the day, I suppose. The other thing, too, is if you're in between those cities. I'd love to stop and have coffee or whatever. um oh cool that you know that part of uh uh making the movie or making the uh the documentary is we want to find people along the way uh i've got one stop already in nashville and then um talking to travis doctor who's planning blast off rails for next year uh in santa fe new mexico um about stopping there as well so put your route up on the website put your route so that people can see like where you'll be generally speaking you know that'd be cool i think uh again in that promo kit uh which is in the footer of the xrruby.com i think there is uh a link but we'll make it more prominent and do a specific call on the blog yeah yeah that'd be cool here's what would be and when i would almost encourage i'm look i'm trying to feverishly to see if you'll correct me but if there's already an instagram doesn't they just start a brand new instagram just for this or something like that, anything to kind of like document as you go.

1:01:58Cause that thing will catch steam, you know? I mean, or even LinkedIn, I suppose our, our version of Instagram is probably LinkedIn, right? Yeah. I think, um, I was trying to, I was trying to, as I said it, I was like, Oh, that it's kind of sad. Our version of Instagram is LinkedIn. Well, our, like our, like, I think less of our community is, they're probably on Instagram, but not for that kind of content. Maybe, I don't know. I was just thinking like it might be better suited for LinkedIn. The problem with our community with software developers is that we're scattered to the four winds. That's the problem.

1:02:33We sure are. There is no home anymore. There is no home for anybody anymore. Like there is not one place where you can go and find everybody. And that is absolutely a lesson that I'm, I knew going in, but I'm just feeling so hard. I don't necessarily know how to solve it. We are not creating our own asynchronous communication space. We're partnered with Ruby Central and we're using their Slack. So if you buy a ticket to the conference, you get added in Slack. You could always join the Ruby Central Slack from their site. But we didn't want to create further. We didn't want to create our own Discord and have yet another walled garden that people can't get access to.

1:03:17Or even temporary. Like I've been to so many conferences over the years where you have a temporary place and all the connection you're trying to make is stuck in that past. That's a great choice to choose. It's a great choice to use Ruby Central's Slack and just double up because like put them where the community is at and not where it's temporary. You know, that makes a lot of sense. We did that with Madison Ruby and we will be moving everybody over to that Ruby Central community Slack instead of giving people the opportunity to move over there. uh we're not going to force people if they don't want to how in the world do they afford that slack i think it's free i think it's the free version man i gotta know who they know well not anymore because we use it's so much better by the way they probably just lose their history like we used to yeah that's probably the case man anyways zula pay zulip is cool we love it's cool another place you can go that's one more that's the challenge with it it's just one more i did not join uh after we started talking, that's the problem.

1:04:19Here's the thing. Early Twitter days, everybody was in one spot. There weren't alternatives. There weren't other people doing the same thing. Now there are too many. You got Blue Sky, Mastodon, Instagram, Threads, LinkedIn, X. How do you find people? That's on top of individual discords and zulips and slacks yeah well i did was discord what you do is zulip anytime somebody says join my discord i'm like nope nope i'm just not gonna do this discord i just decided to nope out of all discords i'm not gonna do it i mean i have an account and i'm a part like two but it's such i don't even understand how to use it like i feel like i'm old or something i'm like how does this work discord just feels like uh it's more about them than me discord i i definitely struggle with i think i have about 72 discord accounts that don't seem connected to any other thing that i i know or do and it's like every time i join it's like oh you're a new person i was like no i'm the same person yeah their joint process is horrible it's like the old days kcd about the protocols because right now i'm about to say what we need is one new place we're all gonna go and then we'll be happy and that will be the place that no one goes that's linkedin yeah that's what adam just said though linkedin maybe maybe i mean i like instagram for olds is that what you're saying adam you know no i think instagram is for everybody i just thought that maybe more people would gravitate towards linkedin like i know i'm i probably check linkedin several times a week whereas instagram i'm on there like maybe maybe once and it's just really just to look at my wife sharing our life to our friends on instagram because i like the way she shares it i just want to see what she says and look at the picture she takes and i i saw them in the moment i saw them in the camera because she's like hey look at this at this picture but somehow seeing the story version of it later on from the publisher my wife is very cool to me so i'd pretty much go to instagram to read dms from her because she send me things that she finds on there same and watch what she shares on there about our life that's the only reason i go to instagram to look at her pictures yeah yeah that's that's it that's instagram for me so i mean there you go but i've definitely taken the tact of uh trying to not add another protocol but just drop them so i never even wound up on threads um yeah same i was like no i don't think so man is this a version of facebook i want to be involved in threads never made sense to me given zuck enough in my life you know it's an also ran it was an also ran that just didn't run i don't know there's a lot of people there just there's people there but they're not real people i don't think a bunch of bots no offense to those people but they're just like you know kara swisher's gonna be upset with you jared yes she might gosh but you know she's cross-posting to everywhere come on true that's what people with big follower accounts do is they just every new thing they're on it because they want to get that follower count up and they just cross post the same crap across all of it i feel seen because i i've been uh cross posting stuff for x or we lately and uh yeah you're not lying just gotta no i mean what else are you gonna do you want to go where the people are now the people are in seven different places and so you're just like well i guess we'll post to seven different places but we're not gonna be happy about it so no allegiances anymore you know i know i asked you what was your motivation but i think maybe a different version of that is what is success of this for you like when you're done with the road show it's it's december maybe you're sitting on your couch you're getting ready for christmas and you're reflecting on your year and you're like man this is what happened with xoruby and you're you're recounting your brain what happened what it what is success what would that be for you you know the there's there's a dirty secret in all of this, right?

1:08:16Which is I have run out of... We haven't heard from my wife in the other room this entire thing, but this might be the one thing. I have run out of clients under this roof that I need to go out and meet people. And so part of this is a sales trip, right? Like this is me going out on the road, meeting a bunch of people in new locations and looking for design and development work for Flagrant. But like that's a, that is a, so that is one goal. But the bigger goal would be for people to, there have been people who've had whole careers over the last five years that haven't had access to local conferences that don't understand that you can talk to somebody and get access to opportunities that they didn't know existed because they weren't in the same physical space with one another.

1:09:13So if I'm sitting there and I find out, hey, I just got a new job from somebody that I met at XRRuby, that's a huge win. I just talked to somebody right before this call and they said, I've been on the market for nine months and I don't know what I'm doing wrong. What do you recommend? and I had sent them a ticket to Atlanta. So they're going to show up in Atlanta and hopefully they'll walk away with a connection that leads to work or, you know, some opportunity that is beneficial to them. But that's really the goal is to get people on stage that have never spoken before. It is get people to understand that, you know, there is a unique serendipity that is only available if you show up.

1:10:04I've got a friend and mentor, Martin Atkins. He's a musician. He always says, awesome stuff happens when you do stuff. Nothing happens when you don't. And if you never leave the house, you're never going to meet new people. You're never going to find opportunity. It doesn't just show up at your door and say, hey, do you want a job? Like that doesn't happen. There was a time where that happened. in the 2010s, but that is no longer the case. And so you've got to go out, you've got to meet people, meet a lot of people because not all of them are going to, you're not going to connect with all of them.

1:10:48But if you meet enough people, you're going to find enough of your people that something works out. Whatever that is for you, maybe it's a job, maybe it's an opportunity to learn woodwork from somebody that does work working. But that ability to connect with other humans is so important. Can we unpack that? Run out of roof or run out of clients under this roof comment? And can we unpack that a bit more? Can you go there? I mean, I've been doing consulting for, you know, since 2011. I've been either an owner or a part owner. Going back to 2007, my wife is one of my clients and she's in the other room.

1:11:38I've reached the limit of what I can sell her on. And so now I've got to go out in the real world and get other clients for us to consult. She runs the software as a service. It's successful. And she only has a certain amount of needs. and so I've got to go out and you know find people that are looking for the skills that me and my team have and you know at this point we're largely doing Rails and Hotwire we've got some some React and TypeScript folks but we're about half and half design and development and so that is product design UX UI all the way up to branding and illustration yeah I mean it's a it's a tough market for, for everybody.

1:12:24And, uh, there's not a single consultancy owner that I have talked to that isn't struggling or laying people off or what have you. Has this been a, is this a chat GPT thing of three years ago thing, like a decline since then? Is it been, uh, I mean, I know we all went through the pandemic and there's lots of crazy change up and then it was a whole different world. And then it was back down to the new old world again, kind of thing where it was back the way it was like, has this been a trend for a decade or three years or what's the trend? Yeah. I think the, um, no, I mean, I, I don't think that we have a unique story.

1:13:01I think that, um, we, we grew during the pandemic, you know, we were up to, uh, almost 20 people. We're down to 10 right now. And, uh, we are, uh, keeping our nose above water, but part of it is unless you're going out and meeting new people, it's hard to get people to find you and it's even harder to get them to trust you. So it's really all of the new work that we've had this year, the bulk of it were people that we met 10 years ago that already trust us. The other brand new work that we've gotten has been referrals from people who trust us. And so it is really, if you spend any amount of time around me, you will likely hear this comment, but it was something that was shared in 2011 when we started my first consultancy.

1:13:55Somebody shared this with me and they said, it's not what you know, it's not who you know, it's who knows you. And I've come to learn that that means who knows that you are the person that's going to show up? Who knows that you are capable of solving their problem. Who knows what your values are and who knows that they can trust you. And so that's the part of meeting a lot of people that it's not that I'm out there doing a little jig so that everybody knows that I can do the jig. You just got to show up. And after a while, people just know that that's Jim that he's going to show up if you've got a problem with with rails or if you if you're doing Ruby and Madison you should talk to Jim if you want some really great design work done you should talk to Kelly but uh talk to Jim he'll get you connected that makes sense and so your world your world's shrinking because of the I would say probably you run the event but is the lack of getting out there and meeting people outside of the Madison bubble is kind know what i hear you saying it's like you want to go beyond madison i think that's fair like yeah because i mean you've got pretty good touch points in madison right like madison ruby has got to be giving you something for sure it is it is also only once a year and so um we wanted to do something that you know the original plan was to do 12 of these every year and um it would have been a cycle that just kept going so it was constantly meeting new people and we decided to to settle for six and then just focus on the, on the fall.

1:15:38Um, but if these turn out well, we do have plans to do more of them. And, uh, ideally if folks, uh, get involved and they're successful and they just want to keep running with it, we would be happy to do that too. Cause I would love to just go to events rather than throw them. Yeah. Put on an event is, is, uh is tough business i've resisted my my entire life and uh jared you want to share recently we did a live show i mean jared did all that pretty much i didn't do anything besides show up and smile and upset a few people really um what do you want me to share about it you just uh just the fact that we did it yeah we did the fact that we haven't done anything like that but we did something you know it was the yes the smallest version of what we could do yeah totally It's not like we did six of them in a row.

1:16:29We just did one. Right. We're mere pikers, Jim. How many people? About 50. That's good. I mean, that's a great audience. What sort of venue did you do it in? We did it at the Oriental Theater in Denver. So we picked the city first, and then we asked around about locations and then found a location that was affordable and seemed like it was pretty cool. And it was both those things. So kind of got lucky, I guess, in that way. Yeah. They were great to work with, which can always be a variable as well. And we kept it as simple as we could possibly keep it. Like even our meetup the night before was completely just like, here's where we're going to be.

1:17:07Come there if you want to. That kind of a thing. So it was just low stress for that reason. And then obviously putting the show on is something that we normally do twice a week anyways, just not on stage. So a little bit extra, but not too much. Right on. Well received? Everything went well? I think so. There's obviously places where, as the self-critical people that we are, there's plenty to improve. But overall, I think everybody was pretty happy about it. And the show turned out pretty well. What do you think, Adam? I think when we did our consensus recently, we said the only thing we would have changed was have onstage monitors.

1:17:44And I think that's a win because if all you need is onstage monitors, you can hear yourself better in the mic as you interview somebody. because we interviewed Nora Jones. She found a jelly. It was acquired by PagerDuty. We have a podcast about it via this live show. You can go listen to that. But, you know, we were talking into microphones, but we didn't have in-ear monitors and we didn't have on-stage monitors. So she had to hear us for real. Like the audience couldn't hear us loud because they heard us through the loud speaker system, but she couldn't hear us very well. And we couldn't hear her as well as you would probably want to, I could still hear her, but it was a struggle in a couple cases where maybe the venue was louder.

1:18:28Somebody laughed, just something may have happened where it was like, you couldn't hear us as well. And she'd say, huh, or what did you say? And that wouldn't have happened if we had onstage monitors or even in-ear monitors. And so I feel like that's a major win if all we walk away with is, oh, onstage monitors. Everything else went pretty smooth. You know, there was no real hiccups that you couldn't solve in the moment. Yeah, that's it. That's a huge victory. So you're going to do 12 next year? We did talk about doing several. Yeah, we did talk about more. Definitely more. Maybe not more than one a year.

1:19:03Maybe more than that. But I think we do want to do it again. Decided that much. We haven't circled back on it. Like, I kind of walked away bullish, honestly. I don't think we should do more than four. more than maybe two or three maybe two or three in the year would be cool definitely not one one's not enough i feel like a couple i don't know one is special because one is only one of the year you know so you better get to it whereas you know six and eight weeks or whatever it is here's the thing is the the plan from the beginning was for me to drive far enough that somebody from chicago is not going to drive to Atlanta, let alone the rest of the cities.

1:19:43And so it's local to Chicago and there's enough people there to support that they get one a year, right? Right. Yeah. And Atlanta gets one a year and, you know, maybe we decide to, you know, rather than do San Diego, we do Denver next year. Who knows? Um, I like that idea. See, so now you're talking about going on tour. I'm already on tour. Well, yeah, but you're talking about us going on tour or you're thinking about yourself and we're thinking about ourselves that's true yeah yeah we're talking about us now i just thought maybe we'd go to like somewhere else and just do another one but you never know you know i can get more i'm down for more no matter what in terms of like doing it again does it have to be six or ten a year absolutely not i don't think i would want to do six but i kind of like i kind of want to do more than one not because i want to do more but because i I think it's nice to get out a couple, like, I don't know about you, but in my life, I kind of have like times when it makes sense to rejuvenate by traveling somewhere with people I want to be around and all that kind of stuff.

1:20:51And so I feel like that reconnection is good for everyone. And, you know, best case, it's a regroup of our team. You know, even better case, you know, everyone else gets to enjoy it, too. I feel like that's, that's what I liked about it was that like my favorite moments, and this is totally going TMI gym and I'm sorry, but my favorite moments was really the thing itself, but bringing us together in the same place. Like even Fogo de Chau and like getting to sit down and eat together. Like to me, that was, that was, that was cool. Two times a year would be perfect. One, not perfect. Three, maybe too much.

1:21:29So you talked me into it. Maybe, maybe too much. Now we're negotiating here. Jared does do you find that travel rejuvenates you um I guess it depends on the type of travel I think that the company yes I think that you know I like traveling so I'm not against the travel part I don't mind road trips for me it's like a lot more complication than is necessary so it's like is it worth it I think once a year it's really worth it I think twice maybe it is but six in eight weeks jim you're crazy man it's just two trips oh i'm sure you have all kinds of ways you tell yourself i appreciate the the gumption the ambition and the drive i think that there's people that do that um they're usually younger than all of us you know they go out on tour and they're gone for six weeks are you saying that i'm old no i said that they're usually younger than all of us.

1:22:27So we have reached a certain, you know, age. I mean, I, I grew up, um, my, my family came from a large family, didn't have a lot of money, but, uh, we had, uh, family that lived in Florida. And so probably six times in, you know, age five to 12, we would drive from Wisconsin down to Florida straight through, uh, dad was always the only the one that ever drove and um you know it just built that uh you know nostalgia perhaps for for the road trip um but again like these are uh shorter since for the most part um we've got stops you know every uh 10 hours or so and so try and and try to get through that in a week sorry you're you're just listening to my thought process as to why this makes sense like i said you can tell yourselves that kind of things i think it's going to be cool i think it's going to be a memory um i i think that you should absolutely record as much as you can and try to make some sort of a a memory video or something so you have a takeaway at the end whether or not anybody else wants to watch it but you and your wife or your your team who cares you'll like it um and i hope lots of people come and there's great talks and there's great food and there's great venues.

1:23:53Sounds like you still have some variables up in the air, which for me would be stress. And you seem like you're very chill about it. So I'm social about it as well. It's going to work out. Um, like we, it's going to work. It's going to be what it's going to be. Right. Like, that's kind of how I approached this event. And I think Adam probably would have stressed about it more than I did. And this was why I kind of kept him out of the details. And I'm just like, you just get a place and then you get a plan together and you invite people and then you show up and do a thing and it'll work out and you know but again the like the the support from the community has been great we've got carline ada emke scott warner in chicago seth giddens is probably going to join new orleans uh tender love is going to come down to portland i'll leave out a few more names because i haven't gotten sign off sign off but again you know uh yuri is speaking in chicago he's never spoken at a conference before but reached out and he's like I would really like to.

1:24:51Here's my talk idea and we're talking through how to best pull it off. Tia speaking in Austin, Landon, you all know in Austin, Sexy Korea in Austin. So, yeah. Well, if you put Omaha or Kansas City on your map next time around, I will be there. I'm not going to drive to Chicago. It's eight hours. Seems like a lot. But I would definitely hop over to KC. It's like a two and a half hour drive from here for RubyConf. Tulsa? Tulsa's going to go far. That's fine. I'm not saying I would, but I'm interested in Tulsa. That gives me pause. Is that already on your list? It has been sort of a canonical example of, I want people to say, hey, we've got 30 people in Tulsa that want a conference.

1:25:43the original idea for this was to go to underserved uh technology uh cities yeah and that still have a population um you know one of the back in in hash rocket days we went to huntsville alabama uh for a conference that uh jeremy mcdally ran uh i went to that as well we wound up playing at the old granola opry i think we went or that was tennessee yeah that it was tennessee okay well it's definitely ruby hoedown but maybe it was did he do it different he might have because he also did a conference in uh disney he did um magic that's right so he magic okay so i went to the tennessee one not the alabama one talking about jim jeremy mcannally jeremy i was thinking of jim who did lone star ruby i can't remember his last name in this moment if jim freeze yeah jim yeah jim freeze uh that's what i was thinking because he did that in uh yeah in uh in florida yeah uh one of those those fun memories um we actually drove an rv from i i drove the rv from jacksonville florida we rented an rv and piled uh eight of us into it and drove to ruby ho down in huntsville um and we had uh you know a a group of young uh young people that were all sort of eclectically dressed.

1:27:07We drive up to a, like a barbecue place and we're just looking for a bathroom and pile out of the video. And somebody has T-Pope, are you guys in a band? He's like, no. It's like T-Pope, if anybody asks you, if you're in a band, you say yes. Yes. You get free food. The answer is always yes. They might say, can you come on stage? oh dang well you don't overplay that one that's right that's right not we're late we got a gig it's too late we're on our way well that's cool man uh i want to call one out because uh a friend of mine a friend of ours is going to new orleans and this is if it was in austin i would be much more happier because that's where i'm gonna go i'm not gonna go to new orleans but it's our friend Robert Ross from Fire Hydrant, who's been a friend of mine, founded Fire Hydrant, and then became a closer friend by being a sponsor and being a friend.

1:28:06And I just love their journey. And he's talking about if I did it again. And I think he's talking about the journey of Ruby with Fire Hydrant and the mistakes they made and the things he would do again, obviously, versus the things he wouldn't do again. So I kind of, I like the way Robert shares his stories, especially how it relates back to building a successful company. And so that's one I'm I'm personally looking forward to. Will these be recorded? I mean, because I won't be able to see it. If Confreaks will answer your call, right? No, no. Confreaks has answered the call. It's just if we can find a way to get them the poultry sum that they're looking for to record.

1:28:44Yeah. That makes sense, too. Well, I got some ideas for you. We'll talk in post. I got some ideas for you if that doesn't work out. And for sure. They have been great. I've worked with Cindy for most of trying to think. I've known Cindy for most of the decade, most of the past decade. Again, she is one of those people who shows up and she always delivers and she'll always try and make something happen if possible. And we're going to try and make something happen. Good deal. Well, everyone, go to xoruby.com. Fall love, hugs, and kisses. Ruby all around and then go to the same domain slash fire starter.

1:29:29And if you're not going to be there and you love everything Jim has said, and you resonate with how he cares about the community and you care about supporting flagrant and their future and what they're doing and all the ways Jim shows up, um, be a super fan, buy a, buy a six ticket, buy a latte, buy some tacos, a tank of gas, whatever you can do. I think, uh, I would love to see some folks from our community buy a tank of gas. That'd be kind of cool. 50 bucks, buy a tank of gas, show some love, help Jim out on this trip here. And maybe he'll do it again and again and again. Maybe in your city.

1:30:05Who knows? Jim, thanks so much, man. Thanks for having a great heart and pouring in and planting seeds, being the Johnny Appleseed we need in our world. And thanks for coming on the podcast. It's been great. My pleasure. And thank you so much for helping me get the word out.

1:30:21can you make it to any of the exo ruby events this fall what does your conference calendar look like are there any must attend events coming up let us know in zulip jim didn't join but you totally should it costs zero dollars and you can sign up at changevlog.com slash community we'll see you in there thanks again to our partners at fly.io and our sponsors of this episode Shout outs to depot.dev, coderabbit.ai, and miro.com. That's M-I-R-O dot com. Thanks also to Breakmaster Cylinder, to our editor, Jason, to our producer, me. I guess I just thanked myself. You're welcome. And thanks to you for listening.

1:31:04The changelog wouldn't be the same without you. All right, that's it. This episode is done. But we'll talk to you again on Changelog and Friends on Friday.

1:31:22Thank you.

1:31:59Game on.