Curation is massively important to ffconf, and as of last week, ffconf now has a complete line up of speakers and sessions for ffconf v10 in early November.
The talks are:
- The Future of JavaScript & Machine Learning
- Mentoring: Being the help you wish you'd had
- Practical Web Animation
- Is it possible to build a truly diverse community?
- Back to the future of JS: the next features and amazing proposals
- WebXR: A New Dimension For The Web
- Dear Developer, the Web Isn't About You
- Weird Web & Curious Creation
You can get your Friday (sold out) Thursday ticket today.
Remember: it's the same line up, the same content, the same amazing day.
How and why
Unlike a lot of other events, ffconf is carefully curated by me. Call For Papers (CFP) has typically only accounted for just one of the eight talks in previous years. As soon as the previous ffconf event is over, I start thinking about the types of talks I want to hear right away 🧠⚡️
The process (since 2011) has been to list the topics I want to host at ffconf, then match that content up to a potential speaker.
My invitations to speakers are always asking if they would speak to a particular topic or specific question.
As a conference speaker myself, I find it a little frustrating to receive an invitation that simply says "can you speak at our event". Sure, I'd be happy to speak, but why are you inviting me?
Again, as a speaker myself, I felt like a significant number of events would use the same speaker year after year. With that in mind, I made one of ffconf's golden rules: no speaker speaks again.
It's a blessing and a curse for curation! It's made curation harder and harder as the years have piled on! The huge positive upshot is that ffconf has hosted 78 unique individuals since 2009 🎉
Why don't we reveal speakers? Initially this was an accident back in 2014 they were going to be revealed - but I just forgot!
The following year, I realised that hiding (or blurring) the speakers only reinforced the idea that ffconf is content first. We do start to slowly reveal the speakers much closer to the time.
Painstakingly careful curation is absolutely one of the keys to the success of our event. If you're thinking of running an event yourself, I'd highly recommend it. And if you want to see how it works out, see it first hand at ffconf in November.
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