tech talks

Starting Tech Talks From Ground Zero

~ patviafore ~ Leave a comment

I’m at DevSpace 2018 right now, and just participated in a Open Space about Lunch and Learns.  As I have previously written, I am the curator for Tech Talks at my workplace.  Instead of talking about how our tech talks work today though, I want to give my ideas on how to start up a tech talk or lunch and learn culture from absolutely nothing.

 

Remember, you don’t have to have something fully launched day one for it to be valuable.  Be Agile.  Create your MVP for Tech Talks, and iterate on what works; throw away what doesn’t. Continue reading →

Launching Tech Talks in your Workplace

~ patviafore ~ 5 Comments

It’s no secret that I’ve really loved conferences as of late.  Ever since I went to PyTennessee in 2015, I’ve really felt a renewed encouragement to further my own knowledge. I read software books for a long time, but was starting to peter out on them because I felt like a lot of what I was reading was broadly applicable, but I needed to take deeper dives on certain topics.

I started reading through HackerNews, and started finding blogs I enjoyed, but it still wasn’t enough.  But once I went to a conference, I realized just how much more I could learn.  I saw great presentations, great content, and got to talk to a lot of smart people.

That all happened in February.  That started getting some gears spinning for me.  I wanted to get the conference mindset at ADTRAN, where I work.  I wanted for us to create a culture where we could share all the great thing we knew.  So by July of that same year, I had created Tech Talks.   Continue reading →