Organizing and Running a Conference
For the last three years, I've been fortunate enough to work with a great team of people to run a successful and profitable technical conference called RubyNation. This conference is an annual event, part education and part entertainment, that promotes the Ruby programming language. As you might expect, I've learned a few things about how to organize and run a conference over the last three years. I'm going to share some practical tips and suggestions about how to organize and run a relatively large-scale public event like a conference.

Our First RubyNation Video is Live
Our first RubyNation video is now live. It features Jim Wierich and his well received "SOLID Ruby" talk. It's been a lot of work getting the RubyNation video production effort off the ground, so it's nice to finally see our first polished video (only 28 more conference sessions to go).

How to Get Your Conference Proposal Accepted
I've been part of a team running a technical conference called RubyNation for the past three years. It's been a successful conference all three years, both in terms of profitability and its reception by conference attendees. This wasn't entirely an accident. We worked hard to make sure we had high-quality speakers with the kind of content that would be attractive to our intended audience, as well as making sure other conference aspects were addressed - e.g. - venue, food, equipment, etc.

This experience has given me some insight into what it takes for an individual to secure a speaking engagement at a conference. I'll provide tips on how you can making your speaking proposal more attractive to conference planners, thereby increasing your odds of getting accepted as a speaker.

Filming at RubyNation 2010 
It's been crazy lately, first with the run-up to RubyNation 2010, and then getting the video production effort in full swing after the conference was over. We finally managed to get some of the photos from the conference online.

RubyNation Tape Inventory
I finished the inventory of tapes for RubyNation. We have 34 DVCAM tapes, which are the large tapes from the professional-caliber cameras that we borrowed from Arlington Independent Media (AIM). They'll have to be ingested into digital form IN REAL TIME at AIM's ingestion facility. We have 32 MiniDV tapes, which are the tapes from the small consumer video cameras.

Of these, 32 DVCAM tapes and 24 MiniDV tapes are from the conference sessions (56 tapes total). The remaining 10 tapes are extra footage, including conference interviews, footage at the RuBy-B-Q, footage of org meetings, the pre-production walk-through at the hotel, footage from the cherry blossoms festival, the Jeremy McAnally interview, etc.

All in all, I'm estimating it at about 45 hours of footage.

Anatomy of an April Fools Joke
I'm one of the founders of the RubyNation conference, which is scheduled for April 9 - 10 this year. Since the conference date was so close to April 1st, and since so many people were actively viewing the site during the run-up to the conference, well, we couldn't resist throwing in an April Fools joke. Surprisingly, it worked extremely well.


We got a major traffic spike when Matz, the creator of the Ruby programming language, re-tweeted about our April Fool's joke. Find out more about our online joke on the the Ruby community.

Shooting the Cherry Blossom Festival
Where was I at a ridiculous time in the morning on April 1st? I was at the tidal basin in Washington DC with Don Anderson shooting pictures and video for the RubyNation documentary that we're doing for Arlington Independent Media. I've lived in this area since 1987, but in all that time, I'd never been to see the cherry blossoms. I have to say that the cherry blossoms were a pretty impressive sight and that I can see why they've become a tourist attraction.

Video Production Volunteers Needed
RubyNation 2010 is just around the corner. The conference is April 9 - 10. We've just released a "Volunteers Needed" flyer for experienced video production volunteers in the Washington DC area. We have video production activities that will be taking place on April 8 - 11. See the flyer for further details.

Chad Fowler at RubyNation 2010
Just saw this tweet from Chad Fowler, who was last year's keynote speaker for RubyNation. He'll be at the conference this year as an attendee. How cool is that?

New Version of RubyNation Site Released
A new version of the RubyNation web site was just released today. The new graphics were created by Don Anderson, while the new look-and-feel, including CSS, was assembled by me. The new look highlights the fact that RubyNation 2010 is being held April 9 - 10, which overlaps with Washington's Cherry Blossom Festival. This is the first major change to the site's design since its initial launch in mid-2008.

RubyNation 2010 Graphic Preview
Here's a preview of the new graphic "theme" for RubyNation 2010. The design was created by Don Anderson, graphic artist extraordinaire. Since this year's conference, scheduled for April 9 - 10, will overlap Washington's annual Cherry Blossom Festival, we decided to incorporate cherry blossoms into the theme. Interestingly enough, the cherry blossoms were originally a gift from Japan; likewise, the Ruby programming language was created in Japan.

MetroStar Systems Sponsors RubyNation

MetroStar Systems, a 10-year-old Information Technology Provider and one of Inc's "America's Fastest Growing Companies," has agreed to be a Diamond sponsor for RubyNation 2010, which will be held April 9 - 10. MetroStar is headquartered in Reston, Virginia, and specializes in systems and software integration for government clients. It provides clients with agile, collaborative solutions designed to integrate people, processes, technology and learning across an organization.

RubyNation 2010 Interviews
I was in the studio at Arlington Independent Media a few weeks ago taping some interviews for the upcoming documentary, "The Road to RubyNation: The Making of a Conference." Here's a teaser picture of me interviewing Gray Herter, Chief Organizer of the RubyNation Conference. The shot was taken from the studio control room, so Camera #1 (of 3) can be seen in the background on the left.

Videotaping RubyNation 2010
I'm one of the founders of the annual RubyNation technical conference, which will be held for the third time on April 8 - 10, 2010. Each year that we've held the conference, we've tried to up the ante in producing a bigger, better conference.

One of the exciting developments for RubyNation 2010 is that we're planning to videotape the conference sessions this year. More than that, we're going to produce a documentary about what it takes to organize and run a conference. I will be functioning as the producer for this documentary, which currently has a working title of "The Road to RubyNation: The Making of a Conference". When completed, this documentary will be shown on public television and will be streamed online.

David Keener at RubyNation 2009
Many thanks to Dave Bock and Don Anderson, who snapped some excellent photos of me speaking at the RubyNation 2009 Conference on June 12th. Click here to see the full set of photos from my talk.

RubyNation 2009 Design Preview
RubyNation 2009 is just around the corner, and I've been working diligently with Don Anderson, graphic artist extraordinaire, to come up with a suitable design for this year's conference hand-outs, such as the T-shirts and badges. So here's a preview of the design we came up with.

David Keener at RubyNation 2008
Many thanks to Gray Herter, who snapped some nice photos of me speaking at the RubyNation 2008 Conference in August. Click here to see the full set of photos from my talk.

Graphic Designs for a Regional Ruby Conference
The Northern Virginia Ruby Users Group is planning to organize a new regional Ruby conference. They've asked for some ideas on graphic designs to promote this new conference. So here are some promotional concepts that I've come up with.