As we did FrontTalks
how it all began / the Idea
It was a cold January 2013. The window was around -30. Everything you want to throw a Cup-another coffee, wrap myself in a blanket and sit by the fireplace. But excited look Misha Davydov and confidence in victory long languish not given:
— Oleg, I have an idea! Let's organize a meeting on the type of MoscowJS, read reports, be cool!
Hmm... let's go!
In the end I decided that for meetings at the JS content is too small, and took the whole frontend. And so began the story of one of today's leading frontend gatherings of Yekaterinburg – FrontTalks.
Where to meet / Place
It would be possible as a place to choose a Yekaterinburg office Yandex. But we wanted to gather the people not to talk about Yandex and its projects, I just wanted to collect great party frontend developers from all over the city. And then, it remained unclear how much will come to us. 20, 30, 50?
Began to search the room. Settings was very simple: cheap and cheerful. Cheap in the first place, because the money we have is not so much was thrown off themselves. But angry in the sense that it had to come at least 30 people. Decided to stop at the bitter Bar. Comfortable and inexpensive.
EkbFrontTalks / Name
I went through all conceivable names, which would combine the frontend and Ekb. The working title was EkbFront, as a fallback took EFC (Ekaterinburg Frontend Conference). But that was not it, the title should be biting and, most importantly, no one is busy. At some point everyone already agreed to EFC, but suddenly invented EkbFrontTalks. To accurately transmit the essence of the idea would be difficult. After doing all this it is in order to talk about the frontend!
With this name we started to hold meetings, and eventually console Ekb fell away, leaving just FrontTalks.
Made a website for example berlinjs.org, having received . Kate moss, a little poshamanit with flowers, made the site warmer, and also drew juicy and the most important button, "I'll go!".
It so happened fronttalks.ru.
How to find speakers? / Content
Since the idea originated in Yandex, and immediately found 3 of the report from Montenegro Yandex — Vasya Aksyonov, Denis Chistyakov and Misha Davydov. Hooked up our friends at JetStyle, it turned out another report by Lesha Ivanov. There are still 2 slots available, we left before the publication of our event, hoping for applications from the outside.
Where to get audience? / Listeners
Opened the website trumpeted social.networks and waited. The result stunned us. Literally for the first couple of days the number of registrations exceeded 50! It became clear that need a platform larger capacity, and took to Freelance Café. It in further and stopped.
Total to the first meeting, we received 107 registration, it's 60. It was fantastically cool! Beyond that, it's still 5 requests for reports that we can easily shut down two slots in the program, arranging some of them in 2 hours 15 minutes each.
How to prepare speakers? / Runs
Before the meeting I decided to listen to each of the speakers. It turned out that the degree of readiness of the speakers was radically different. One of the speakers, for example, came without a presentation, taken out of the book leaves. Then we decided runs make always! For each speaker and several times.
Later, began to practice and the deleted runs to the speakers from other cities — I communicate with them through skype. Many experienced speakers themselves often ask us about the runs because they a very important quality of the preparation for the performance.
It's the day of the meeting, on 16 February 2013. On the platform came a little early to connect, set up equipment. And then there was first a curiosity: while she dealt with the connection of equipment, broke the only wireless microphone. A couple of reports even had to turn to the maximum volume of the voice, a little later, however, managed to find a wired microphone. Exhaled.
Also, as luck would have it, right before the event, it turned out that a regular camera will be used for shooting at the University. Video reports eventually shot effort Vasya Aksyonov and his mobile phone. It looked something like this:
Since all the necessary equipment for events, prepare in advance and check it several times.
Success
Despite all the difficulties, after the event, we realized that it worked. It's 60 people, 7 of them came from Chelyabinsk and one even from Izhevsk.
The reviews were only positive:
Thanks guys, finally someone started a frontend action in our city!
Everything was cool and delicious.
The idea is to set the topics of conversation reports, and then stay at the tables and continue the conversation, she paid off at 100%. 2/3 hall after reports remained and continued the discussion.
It was a success.
Second meeting
The most difficult after the organization of the first event to continue to organize, reducing. Throwing the call in the beginning, we received a lot of feedback and requests. But for the second event, which was announced on the first, not received any.
It was decided to continue at any cost. At some point we just expertly rolled out a programme of four reports, which we had in the pool and continued to wait for new applications, otherwise there was a risk of losing the wave.
I must say that the reports were more hardcore than the first time and, mainly, about the JS. Therefore, we expected a smaller number of registrations for the event, but this time there were many. Checked 94 people. The event was attended by about half.
But this time not everything went smoothly. The day before the meeting many times before prognuvshis Maxim Ponomarev came down with a fever of 40. From the bins I got your report from Peter about the promo page and read it again. Report in stock – it is excellent.
DUMP
Once Vasya Aksyonov, who was at the forefront FrontTalks, knocked Julia Gerasimovich from IT-People and offered to curate the section "Frontend" at the conference of the DUMP. Bob decided to bring us all, and so, FrontTalks already organized a section of one of the largest conferences.
Here we first tested the format of the meeting, which is called "30-10-10". 30 minutes per report, after – 10 minutes for questions and 10 for holidays and unofficial communication. The format is proven. Reports seem easier or have any thoughts or questions, no chance to be unspoken, and everyone have time to relax, stretch and drink water. We have no rush to switch and configure equipment and presentations. In addition, the time inherent to the questions allows to decrease the lining in case someone of the speakers can stay on track.
Not without its technical difficulties. The whole room of our section was only one microphone, so we had to run around the room, passing the microphone from the presenter to ask questions. We handily defeated this time, otsutvie that this was done deliberately so the speaker time to think what to answer the question. But take note.
By the way, in 2014, about the technology we reinsured, and no wonder — in our room was not output to VGA projector, HDMI the wrong scene length — in General, with the connection had trouble.
the Conference with the support of the Y. Guests
Then the story unfolded rapidly. We talked about the event to our colleagues from Moscow, and they liked it so much that they decided to try on our new Yandex for assistance in organizing and hosting special events – I. Guests. Thus, we had the opportunity to remove the set and bring the eminent speakers. In addition, Yandex just spent Saturday in Yekaterinburg, so that should be an excellent conference lasting two days.
Began a serious and difficult process – curating the speakers and the decision of household questions. Not enough to find a speaker, to have to bring (to buy tickets, book a hotel, join the visit, to organize the runs to settle the technical details). And, most importantly, to multiply it all by 8. Because that's the number of speakers is the result.
But after all this time we had strong support from the event team, they took the lion's share of efforts to the organization. Therefore, the event, everything was ready and it went to cheer.
Further more / Fifth meeting
Further, it is possible to tell, we entered the stream. The fifth meeting in 2013, we already nobody was surprised. Watching how the professionals from Yandex, make a video, we decided to try to do as well. It was easy: start recording the screen of the monitor a speaker (for example, on a Mac this can be done using QuickTime), to find a buttonhole to output the speaker's voice to the camera, the actual start of the speaker and remove. After the left to make two videos with some video editing software, we use OpenShot.
Videos we do so at each event and uploaded on our website fronttalks.ru, and also Vimeo.
2014
This year began with preparation to DUMP. Like last time, we organized a section of frontend development. Gathered speakers from different parts of the country, and even from Israel, used the already proven format of the "30-10-10" and got 8 hours of useful and lively communication.
Proposals rained so much that deciding not to deny myself the pleasure, we did what we had to do until now – organized the day before the conference pre-party. And no, it's not the same as the after-party, but only before the event. The pre-party we were filled with interesting and informative presentations, with breaks for tea, coffee and conversations. So, the evening before the DUMP went hot, and with a greedy FrontTalks the audience got another 3 hours of fun, listening to additional 5 reports, and communicated with many interesting people before the DUMP-ovsky action.
New city / Chelyabinsk
The idea of pre-party we liked it so much that in may of this year, we repeated the experiment, but this time I went with him to Chelyabinsk. The conference organisers UWDC made us welcome, giving us the opportunity to inform all Chelyabinsk developers of our arrival.
The program planned to recruit both in-house and Chelyabinsk speakers. In the end received only one request from the Chelyabinsk developer has finished two reports from yourself.
Opening the check, the notice we especially did not expect — the city is new to us, and reports out a bit. Failed platform — a meeting was held in a much smaller room than planned, this was the main "Faile". At the pre-party came more than 40 people out of 60 have registered, it is a very high percentage for a free event. Some people had to huddle at the bar, watching the speakers and their presentations from afar. Pleased that even such inconveniences did not frighten the people, and each of the three speakers found their audience.
Pre-party conference as a prelude to the main piece. This is a good opportunity to warm up the people before the conference, and not to leave without attention of those listeners who, for whatever reason, cannot attend the main event.
future Plans
Now we are preparing for the next conference FrontTalks, which will be held on 19 September in the framework of the project I. Guests. We are already actively preparing, and can already announce the first speakers at this time will perform Vadim Makeev pepelsbey Dmitry Dudin, Roman Salnikov and Vadim Makishvili. The program is still in its infancy, and you can send us requests for fronttalks@ya.ru.
And, of course, register and come to our conference!
In the end I would like to thank everyone who participated in the creation of FrontTalks: Misha Davydov azproduction Irina Roeva, Bob Feldman, Denis Chistyakov, Sergei Gorobtsov, Alex Ivanov, Natalia Frantseva, Maria Kudryashova, Kate moss, Lena Voronina, Julia Gerasimov, Andrei Zharinov, Anton Trushnikov, Gennady Barmakov, Sasha Polonik and all the speakers.
Thank you!
Oleg Mokhov and Anastasia Shipulina xcopyofsoul organizers FrontTalks
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