David Hill: 0:00

Shout out to GoRails for sponsoring Ode to RailsConf. If you or your team wants to learn the latest Ruby on Rails features Hotwire Ruby and more check out GoRailscom. Use code ODETORAILSCONF at checkout to get 10% off. You're listening to the Ode to RailsConf podcast, where we reminisce about our experiences at RailsConf over the years. I'm David Hill, your host, and joining me today is Jim Remsick. Jim, would you introduce yourself? Yeah, thanks so much for having me. I'm a long time Rubyist.

Jim Remsik: 0:30

I started professionally in 2007 for the company that would become HashRocket, and I've been going to conferences pretty much ever since.

David Hill: 0:36

To start things off, I guess we'll talk about the most recent conference you co-chaired, rubyconf in November and, even though this podcast is a little bit different, you've been pretty much ever since. To start things off, I guess we'll talk about the most recent conference you co-chaired, rubyconf in November, and even though this podcast is mostly about RailsConf RubyConf is the kind of sister conference to RailsConf, also run by Ruby Central I was hoping you could share a little bit about your experiences co-chairing RubyConf in November.

Jim Remsik: 1:01

Experiences co-chairing RubyConf in November yeah, so I had the luxury of co-chairing RubyConf alongside Kinsey and it was a really great experience. There is a lot that happens behind the scenes that you know ideally nobody ever sees, not because it's bad, but there's just there's a lot of moving pieces. We are also responsible for the RailsConf site this year and RubyConf and everything from setting the program committee and making sure that we have sponsors in place. Ruby Central has a team that works on all that stuff. But as an ambassador, as somebody who's trying to make a successful event, you've got to go out and shake hands and kiss babies and whatever the Ruby community version of that. And so I have a little bit of experience.

Jim Remsik: 1:47

You know I've run my own conference Madison plus Ruby for a number of years. It went on a hiatus, came back and there's just a lot of moving pieces and I feel lucky to have had that experience. And I think, like a lot of things, I don't want to write a book, but I want to have written a book and so I'm happy to be on the backside of having co-chair at a conference and I think that future conference chairs will have a little bit easier time. Ruby Central is making changes to make that role a little bit easier. It's fun to be there in the middle of everything and definitely had a few moments where the enormity of that catches up with you.

David Hill: 2:25

Yeah, I can only imagine I just remember the morning of the second day of RubyConf having that little bit of time where you dragged me along to help, you know, set something up in one of the rooms and just having a conversation with you, just kind of like I don't know, the feeling that I got from you was just this immense feeling of just total genuineness in terms of your love and your care for this conference and the event that you were working on and for the Ruby community as a whole. It was just so palpable almost you could almost feel it. And so I was like, oh wow. I had never met or heard of you before going to RubyConf and this was my first RubyConf, and so it was just like having that moment with you was just kind of like, oh wow. I'm really glad Jim is here, because I can just feel how invested he is in making sure that this all goes off well.

Jim Remsik: 3:11

You're going to make me cry. We often don't know why we are the way that we are, but I definitely have wondered a little bit about that in my career, especially in Ruby. A lot of what I do revolves around relationship building and getting to know people. I don't feel like I would be nearly as successful as I am which is modestly successful without a lot of people around me. Lots of people feel like is this a space where I belong? I still feel that, perhaps especially as a co-chair at RubyConf, that was a thing that was going through my mind. What I've always done is try to make sure that people are finding success around me. And so go back to a talk that I did at Ruby on Ales in 2015. And leading up to that, people asked Jim, you know all these people like you go into most cities and you wind up having dinner and seeing people or meeting folks for coffee and like, how do you do that? And I didn't know. It's just the way that I am and I don't know why I am the way that I am.

Jim Remsik: 4:13

But I took some time in preparing for that talk to try and figure out. What is it that I am trying to accomplish? What is it that I do that leads to that outcome? So I prepared this talk to give to other people about how I think that works, and the output of that was this personal mission statement that I have for myself, that I created for that talk, which is genuinely desire success in those around you and do what you can to make it happen. And it's a thing that I've thought long and hard about and it is a very efficient statement, but it has to be genuine, and when I talk to you, I feel like that comes across to people. You just commented on that genuineness. So you have to genuinely want success.

Jim Remsik: 4:55

And the thing that I've realized that I don't get to decide what success looks like for David Hill, and so I have to listen to you. I have to understand what your goals are, what you're trying to work towards. We can have a conversation. I say, oh, did you ever think about this? But at the end of the day, you have to decide for yourself what that success looks like. And those around you it's quite literally everyone around you. It's not just your boss, it's not just looking up, it's the barista, it's the person you're walking by on the street. It's like, oh, you got toilet paper on your shoe. You want to know that as soon as possible so that you can correct it, and you have to take action. You have to do what you can. It has to be a conscious thing, but do what you can also gives me it out.

Jim Remsik: 5:37

I have a limited amount of resources, time, energy, and so there is a limit to what I'm able to do. I think that we often don't brush up against that limit, but it's there and it's different for everybody. A thousand percent. It's different for an individual from day to day, from moment to moment. Make it happen. What is it? It's that success that you've allowed that person to define for yourself that you genuinely desire, and it's everyone success that you've allowed that person to define for yourself that you genuinely desire, and it's everyone around you and so genuinely desire success in those around you and do what you can to make it happen. It is been my pinned tweet or skeet or you know my LinkedIn message for a long time, and it's just. I could do less and I probably could do more, but I just try to do what I can.

David Hill: 6:21

Yeah, and every time something that you post or share shows up in my feed on LinkedIn like I always see that little tagline right there is it's like it's such a great reminder of this is how I should be treating other people and working with everyone around me is like if I can adopt that attitude more regularly, I think that would make the world a slightly better place. In my little corner of it, I'm always really grateful Every time something of yours shows up in my feed. It's just like, oh yeah, I needed that reminder today.

Jim Remsik: 6:50

That's awesome. I don't know that. I realized that that is what comes across. Of course it makes sense. I hadn't realized how often that message gets put in front of other people as well. That's really interesting.

David Hill: 7:01

Often enough that it's been helpful to me, so I can only imagine it's showed up for other people too.

Jim Remsik: 7:06

That's fantastic.

David Hill: 7:07

So next up for RailsConf in particular. Have you spoken at RailsConf? Have you been involved in RailsConf specifically in the past?

Jim Remsik: 7:17

I've never spoken at RailsConf. I believe that lightning talks count, so perhaps I have spoken at RailsConf. I believe that lightning talks count, so perhaps I have spoken at RailsConf in Portland. But my involvement outside of that has been as an attendee, has been as a sponsor, has been the designer of the site. You know we did the Detroit RailsConf site and we've done the RubyConf since and actively working on the site for this year as well. We have a sponsor booth that we will bring, but we don't want to stand at a sponsor booth. We want to have a home base. We want a place that's ours and people can find us. But at the end of the day, we've decided that a photo booth with some great art behind a selfie wall is how we want to support the community and capture some memories and let other people share the fact that they've been there.

David Hill: 8:01

That photo booth wall in November for RubyConf. That was gorgeous. I really loved that, so I'm looking forward to see what you guys do this time around.

Jim Remsik: 8:10

That was done by Valencia on our team and she will be working on one for this next conference as well. I was at a job fair last night and we needed a backdrop for our table. I was like I'm going to bust out that same backdrop as an example of the work that we do, and it stood out amongst the rest of the corporate banners and whatnot. But when you have a company named Flagrant, you kind of have to find ways to stand out by being yourself and showing off the talents of the team that you've put together.

David Hill: 8:37

Right, you brought up the website for the conferences. This is a new area of the topic of the conference that I haven't really been able to talk with anyone before. Are there any fun or difficult considerations that you've had to deal with going into designing and building the websites for these conferences?

Jim Remsik: 8:54

So when we got involved initially was for RubyConf in 2023. We saw the site that was out there and it didn't seem to represent our community particularly well and I said give me the keys to the kingdom and we'll design you a nice site. And that got us involved, not only with doing the site, but also all the digital and print signage that happens in the space, which has been an interesting challenge and a lot of fun, so that first year they were using Framer, which is a website building tool. That decision was made before we got involved, so we got through that and we decided at the end of the day that the websites should be built with Ruby and so we started using Bridgetone.

Jim Remsik: 9:38

And the difficulty is there's a lot of moving pieces to a conference and so all the speaker information coming in, all the sponsors and just making sure that you're managing all of that. The first version of the site is typically a splash page. Then you get a little bit more refined version when you're able to open the CFP and get information up with the venue. Each conference site goes through several iterations and you might not notice it because you probably only visit a few times and then it all quote, unquote, gets thrown away Because we started building them in Bridgetown, we're able to keep up archived versions of the old sites, and so, for example, if you go to 2024.railsconforg, you'll see last year's site for Detroit.

David Hill: 10:26

Oh really, I hadn't realized that the old versions of the site were still available somewhere.

Jim Remsik: 10:28

That's fantastic. So, starting post-RubyConf 2023, we're able to keep those sites because, at the end of the day, they're just static assets.

David Hill: 10:36

That's wonderful. I was having a chat with Chris Oliver recently at some point and he mentioned at one point his frustration with that that the sites just kind of roll over and you lose all of the context and the detail about what went on with the previous conference, and so I love that that those sites are still there. Just part of the static site is the different subdomain. That's fantastic. I'm happy to hear that.

Jim Remsik: 10:59

I've had similar conversations and had similar complaints, but it was when I was talking with Anthony Eden from DN. Simple, they're like we sponsored the conference and we get that exposure for the time that the conference exists and then that goes away and you kind of lose the record of hey, we were there and we were supporting. So as Ruby Central, we're working on making sure that we get the sponsors into, like the YouTube descriptions. Youtube is going to be around for awhile and so making sure that we make reference and leave those breadcrumbs so that in five, 10, 15 years people will say, oh man, dn simply used to sponsor rails. Kind of that's very cool.

David Hill: 11:37

Right, this next question is a kind of a new one. Since we're in the lead up now to the final RailsConf in July, I kind of wanted to give you a chance to talk about anything that you're, in particular, looking forward to or hope to get out of this final RailsConf.

Jim Remsik: 11:55

There's a lot of people that are submitting talks, and I'm happy that I was part of the program committee for last year and not this year. I think it's going to be a significant task to review all the talks. I really expect, but also hope, that we see a lot of folks who have come to RailsConf's past and they are able to make it out to Philadelphia this year to provide the sort of send off for this event that it deserves. Anytime that I go to an event, I like to connect with people, and I think that this will be a unique opportunity on that front, given the historic nature of it.

Jim Remsik: 12:33

We've been working on the site, trying to bring bits of Philly into the conference site as well as, like the digital signage and whatnot. There's a lot that's gone down in Philly over the years, and so there's a lot that's happened in our community as well, and so trying to find ways to honor that and bring those details in.

David Hill: 12:51

Is there anything else you'd like to talk about or share about RailsConf before we end the recording? Jim?

Jim Remsik: 12:57

My first RailsConf was back in 2007. It feels so far away, but it also feels true to what I know. It's not who you know, it's who knows you, who knows that David exists, that he's willing to be generous enough to do this podcast, that he's going to show up every week on Monday and post the episodes and be generous and do something outstanding for the community. And one of the ways that I've been able to do that for myself is getting out to conferences, and so hopefully we'll see you all out in Philadelphia.

David Hill: 13:44

I'm so looking forward to meeting new friends and old friends in Philadelphia this year. I can only imagine it's going to be a really fun conference celebrating the history of Rails and RailsConf and Drew Bragg. I can only imagine the lengths he went to to convince Ruby Central to do it in Philadelphia, since Philadelphia wasn't even on the shortlist of the survey last year.

Jim Remsik: 14:08

Here's a dirty secret If you've got somebody like Drew Bragg or any of your listeners who really want something to come to their area, that just makes it so much easier for everybody involved. None of the folks at Ruby Central probably had Philadelphia on their list because they don't have a ton of experience and so they don't necessarily know from personal experience what a great city it is. And so to the degree that you've got somebody who's boots on the ground saying, oh we could go to this venue, we could get cheese, steaks and do all the local Philly stuff, you can make things happen for your city, for your town, just by showing some energy.

David Hill: 14:44

Yeah, and Drew had an abundance of energy when it came to convincing people to set RailsConf up at Philadelphia this year. So, yeah, I'm really looking forward to that and hoping to see a lot of people there. Thank you so much for joining me today, jim, and talking about RailsConf.

Jim Remsik: 15:01

It's been a pleasure. Thanks so much for joining me today, Jim, and talking about RailsConf. It's been a pleasure. Thanks so much for having me.