If you've followed me over the years, you will know that I run ffconf. You may have also noticed that I call it ffconf, and not Full Frontal (any more).
So, what's in a name?
History
The original conference announcement post also discusses the name.
Back in early 2009, I was racking my brain for a name for the event that Julie and I had decided to put on. I knew that I wanted the name to either use words that include "front end" or similar, to evoke the idea that the event was to do with front end development.
The name also must not include "JavaScript" or "JS" - to allow me to diversify as I pleased over the years (which indeed I did do).
One night I tossed and turned thinking about the name, and what it could be. The delegates would be some kind of front end…musketeer, and then, maybe we'd be talking about the frontier—Frontiers! Ah…but no, there's Fronteers, the very well established and excellent event in Amsterdam.
The next day, a friend casually suggested two names: euro-jash (like eurotrash of day gone by, with a mix of JavaScript), and full frontal. Full Frontal also had the .org domain available and the dictionary definition fitted exactly the sentiment I wanted to convey at that time:
with nothing concealed or held back
In that, the US had jsconf 2009 and it had talked a lot about libraries. I wanted our event to be about JavaScript, without libraries (and as years went on, I've continued to avoid talks about libraries as a personal preference).
So we launched as Full Frontal.
Aside, and proudly, even the logo that was designed, was intentionally vague which allowed me to rebrand the style of the logo each year:
Losing it's name
Unintentionally in the 2013 release of ffconf, the only mention of the original name was in the twitter handle, in the title element (which frankly I rarely see these days due to all the tabs) and in the light footnote.
Then 2014 completely removed the name referring only to ffconf. It was that year that I also only published the sessions and revealed the speakers on the day.
A concious change
It was early 2014 that I decided that we would change the name. I had grown in our industry and become a lot more aware of the non-white-male demographic. Even though to me the name's meaning is…meaningless, it perhaps isn't to others, and so it's been discarded.
The domain changed, the twitter handle changed, there's no reference to the old name in any of the sites from 2014 onwards.
This conference, has been, and now is, known as ffconf.
It's our conference
"But…what does it stand for?"—I've had asked of me many many times already!
Well. It means what you want it to mean. Seriously. Let me know what it means to you in the comments.
To me? I like friends forever conf. Because it reminds me of the new friends I've made over the years, and people our event has helped. It reminds me of all your faces:
