So for DevSpace in October, I was happy to present my first soft skills talk: Building a Development Community in your Workplace.
I got a lot of good feedback on it, and some people were asking for some more background information on it. It’s tough to condense a 1 hour talk into a blog post and not bore the heck out of you, so I’ll make you a deal. I’ll distill it into my core talking points, and if you’re interested in a specific part of it, let me know and I’ll write a more in-depth blog post.
It all started back at PyTennessee 2015. This was my first conference, and I was floored at what this sort of environment offered. I got to talk with great people, learn awesome stuff, and just generally have a good time. But as soon as Monday rolled around the next week, I didn’t feel that great. I chalked it up to being tired from a conference, and having to go back to work after a great weekend.
A few months later, I had the privilege to go to StrangeLoop in St. Louis. This was a much bigger affair, and we had talks from senior engineers from Twitter, Microsoft, and Mastercard there. I loved being there, but another strange thing happened. Even before the conference ended, I was feeling that same “down” feeling that reminded me of PyTennessee. I wasn’t quite sure what it was. It stuck with me longer too.
Pat Viafore 