3 ms·

> What is the point of an online conference? The article seems to be written from the standpoint of a conference organiser. Which is quite different than the p

> What is the point of an online conference? The article seems to be written from the standpoint of a conference organiser. Which is quite different than the perspective of a learner. As someone who hasn't attended a single tech conference in my life, yet watched hundreds of recorded talks, I think the point of an online conference is to create an occasion for people to produce high-quality content in their field that others will enjoy watching. I would, of course, prefer that these people created such content regularly, without needing to be prompted by the occasion of a conference, but very few do.

thierrydamiba 2y ago
Can you please share your favorite high quality content creators? This is something I am chasing and I’m curious what you consider good content.
- dvh 2y ago
  https://youtube.com/watch?v=g8pjrVbdafY https://youtube.com/watch?v=g8pjrVbdafY (My favorite part is somewhere in the middle of the video when he realizes sat solvers are magic)
  - ryukoposting 2y ago
    Wow, this was phenomenal.
- jamii 2y ago
  https://m.youtube.com/@CMUDatabaseGroup https://m.youtube.com/@CMUDatabaseGroup
- notpublic 2y ago
  Andrej Karpathy https://www.youtube.com/@AndrejKarpathy/videos https://www.youtube.com/@AndrejKarpathy/videos Sasha Rush (an underrated creator who deserves more eyeballs) https://www.youtube.com/@srush_nlp/videos https://www.youtube.com/@srush_nlp/videos
- azangru 2y ago
  For front-end web development: - Many Google dev rels, former or present, are great. For example, Jake Archibald, Paul Lewis, Una Kravets, Adam Argyle, Rachel Andrew, Bramus Van Damme, Surma, Jhey Tompkins - Web performance community is pretty rad. Harry Roberts is good. Tim Kadlec. Philip Walton's talk on service workers at a Smashing Conf was fantastic. Alex Russell is always good for a sobering perspective on how bad things are with the web. Barry Pollard is good - Example conferences with great content: CSS Day (2024 was a good one; I remember the talks of Tab Atkins, Sara Soueidan, and Rachel Andrew as being very good), performance.now - Among speakers on React topics, Ryan Florence is usually great; Mark Erikson too; sometimes Kent C. Dodds... - Love Ben Lesh (observables and async programming); and Alex Rickabaugh's (Angular team) explanations of Angular signals
jamii 2y ago
> I would, of course, prefer that these people created such content regularly, without needing to be prompted by the occasion of a conference, but very few do. That's more or less the first two points I mentioned - coordination and distillation. Getting a big group of interested attendees together is an effective way to get busy experts to distill some of their knowledge.
SoftTalker 2y ago
Perhaps there are some good conferences. I have yet to attend one. By good I mean value gained vs. cost and time spent. A typical conference will for me cost transportation, lodging, and meals for several days, in exchange for sitting through a lot of sessions that are poorly presented by poor or inexperienced public speakers, and one or two good ones where I do pick up a nugget or two of useful information. Generally the talks that are polished and well presented are by speakers who are somewhat well known and are really there to promote their latest book. As an introverted person, the social aspect of conferences is not an appeal. The last conference I attended, I bailed after the opening session on the last day and went to a local gym for a couple of hours, then headed to the airport. That was the best part of the whole experience. A former colleague used to say "if we come home with one or two new ideas, it will have been worthwhile" but I always end up thinking "there's got to be a better way."
- mmcdermott 2y ago
  I've had similar thoughts a few times over the years. "Let me lock myself in an office for a week with a pile of books and YouTube and I'll learn more than any conference" - and I say that as someone who kept a full day at conferences and took notes. What I realized is that the learning was supposed to come from talking to other people working on similar problems, as opposed to an earth shattering realization from the presentation itself. I remember one year when I compared notes with a few people on authorization approaches because we were getting ready to overhaul our authorization systems, and I found the random discussions very helpful. That said, I still dream about getting to do a stay-conference, analogous to a stay-cation, but for learning.
  - alibarber 2y ago
    Wise words from my PhD supervisor (paraphrased): "The presentation is supposed to get them to want to read the paper and talk to you about it" - or basically, it's not a lecture.
    - ghaff 2y ago
      If you're only going to a conference to attend breakout sessions as if they were lectures, you probably should just stay home. It's one reason I think sessions should generally be shorter; they're to pique your interest in a topic, not be a comprehensive tutorial (unless they're actually structured that way). I totally get that some people don't like the other aspects of conference-going and that's fine. They probably really are better off taking some days at home to read and watch videos.

thierrydamiba 2y ago

Can you please share your favorite high quality content creators? This is something I am chasing and I’m curious what you consider good content.

dvh 2y ago
https://youtube.com/watch?v=g8pjrVbdafY https://youtube.com/watch?v=g8pjrVbdafY (My favorite part is somewhere in the middle of the video when he realizes sat solvers are magic)
- ryukoposting 2y ago
  Wow, this was phenomenal.
jamii 2y ago
https://m.youtube.com/@CMUDatabaseGroup https://m.youtube.com/@CMUDatabaseGroup
notpublic 2y ago
Andrej Karpathy https://www.youtube.com/@AndrejKarpathy/videos https://www.youtube.com/@AndrejKarpathy/videos Sasha Rush (an underrated creator who deserves more eyeballs) https://www.youtube.com/@srush_nlp/videos https://www.youtube.com/@srush_nlp/videos
azangru 2y ago
For front-end web development: - Many Google dev rels, former or present, are great. For example, Jake Archibald, Paul Lewis, Una Kravets, Adam Argyle, Rachel Andrew, Bramus Van Damme, Surma, Jhey Tompkins - Web performance community is pretty rad. Harry Roberts is good. Tim Kadlec. Philip Walton's talk on service workers at a Smashing Conf was fantastic. Alex Russell is always good for a sobering perspective on how bad things are with the web. Barry Pollard is good - Example conferences with great content: CSS Day (2024 was a good one; I remember the talks of Tab Atkins, Sara Soueidan, and Rachel Andrew as being very good), performance.now - Among speakers on React topics, Ryan Florence is usually great; Mark Erikson too; sometimes Kent C. Dodds... - Love Ben Lesh (observables and async programming); and Alex Rickabaugh's (Angular team) explanations of Angular signals

jamii 2y ago

> I would, of course, prefer that these people created such content regularly, without needing to be prompted by the occasion of a conference, but very few do. That's more or less the first two points I mentioned - coordination and distillation. Getting a big group of interested attendees together is an effective way to get busy experts to distill some of their knowledge.

SoftTalker 2y ago

Perhaps there are some good conferences. I have yet to attend one. By good I mean value gained vs. cost and time spent. A typical conference will for me cost transportation, lodging, and meals for several days, in exchange for sitting through a lot of sessions that are poorly presented by poor or inexperienced public speakers, and one or two good ones where I do pick up a nugget or two of useful information. Generally the talks that are polished and well presented are by speakers who are somewhat well known and are really there to promote their latest book. As an introverted person, the social aspect of conferences is not an appeal. The last conference I attended, I bailed after the opening session on the last day and went to a local gym for a couple of hours, then headed to the airport. That was the best part of the whole experience. A former colleague used to say "if we come home with one or two new ideas, it will have been worthwhile" but I always end up thinking "there's got to be a better way."

mmcdermott 2y ago
I've had similar thoughts a few times over the years. "Let me lock myself in an office for a week with a pile of books and YouTube and I'll learn more than any conference" - and I say that as someone who kept a full day at conferences and took notes. What I realized is that the learning was supposed to come from talking to other people working on similar problems, as opposed to an earth shattering realization from the presentation itself. I remember one year when I compared notes with a few people on authorization approaches because we were getting ready to overhaul our authorization systems, and I found the random discussions very helpful. That said, I still dream about getting to do a stay-conference, analogous to a stay-cation, but for learning.
- alibarber 2y ago
  Wise words from my PhD supervisor (paraphrased): "The presentation is supposed to get them to want to read the paper and talk to you about it" - or basically, it's not a lecture.
  - ghaff 2y ago
    If you're only going to a conference to attend breakout sessions as if they were lectures, you probably should just stay home. It's one reason I think sessions should generally be shorter; they're to pique your interest in a topic, not be a comprehensive tutorial (unless they're actually structured that way). I totally get that some people don't like the other aspects of conference-going and that's fine. They probably really are better off taking some days at home to read and watch videos.