Code BEAM in Stockholm has wrapped up. More on this later. If we me there, thank you. I had a lovely conference thanks to all you people.

I just release a new episode of the Regular Programming podcast. The conversation between me and Andreas keeps going to new topics. We have a few in the wings but editing will be a bottle-neck for a bit so we’ll see what the cadence is.

In brief, my efforts are supported by the companies that sponsor Underjord. I’m currently on leave from marketing their job openings but feel free to check them out if you are either in Sweden or the US. If you company is looking to find Elixir devs, read more here or reach out.

Events are Exciting/Exhausting

The European Erlang/Elixir/BEAM event. Code BEAM. This was the first time I went with a team. Underjord is not just me anymore and that was a new experience.

I have gone to conferences with colleagues in the past but I’ve only gone to Elixir-related conferences solo. This team has been working together for maybe 9 months overall and knows each other pretty well from before. To ensure we had some time to gel before the event we did one day of team-only things. Took team photos, did an escape-room-style thing outdoors, went for dinner and drinks. All very good.

Then I’d planned the day before the conference to be a chance to connect with some friends and potential friends from the community by pulling together a workshop/hack-for-fun event where we spent most of the day with faces in screens and doing Nerves and LiveView. Then we went for a long and fancy dinner. It was all in all a great success. Special thanks to Frank Hunleth for enabling the Nerves part on several levels.

This day introduced our team to six people that we didn’t previously know that were now natural conference buddies. I’m very pleased with the whole plan and would love to do something similar again.

I don’t regret a smidge of the preparation and thought I put into these pre-conference days. If anything I think I could have put more time and effort in and had even more come out of it. It did have on drawback. We were all already a bit tired when the conference started. Still worth it.

Tech conference events are very exciting and inspiring for me typically. They are also exhausting and draining. I’m comfortable with tech as a a culture, steeped in it as I am and in some ways it feels like coming home. A place where tons of other people appreciate the same things I do. However, there are so many people. With people come nuance, social situations, potential for conflict, disagreements, barriers, invitations and all that makes human interaction complex and interesting. Negotiating this continuously with many people typically gets to me now and then. Usually means it’s a good time for a short break.

It was also very satisfying and interesting to introduce my team members into this environment. They are not steeped in this culture in the way I am. They were definitely not as comfortable as I was and I think they did a fantastic job tackling it. They have different backgrounds, different cultural defaults and different priorities than what you’d typically find if you polled the audience. This was also an interesting twist for me. I’m used to mostly minding myself at an event like this but now I also wanted to keep up with my team. Some new and interesting experiences all around.

I will also say that the default culture and the general mix of the event was much more varied than I think it has been. The crowd on the floor is changing and I that’s an enormous benefit. I also want to give credit to the Code Sync folk and their Program Committee for managing to swing three Keynotes that were all Keynote-type talks (inspiring, big picture, interesting) with three women and a man. Refreshing. And I really enjoyed the talks.

Overall the technical talks I did see, which was not nearly all of them, did not blow me away. I think my focus was more on the social and human side of things this event and the hallway track was quite good.

Events, their about the people. Apparently. It seems cheesy but that’s where I keep ending up. They are messy, tiring, inspiring and full of people. It was great to be at one again.

What do you look for in a conference? Were you at Code BEAM? Feel free to let me know at lars@underjord.io or on Twitter where I'm @lawik.

Thank you for reading. I appreciate you placing your attention here.

- Lars Wikman