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 ODE2RAILSCONF at checkout to get 10% off. You're listening to the Ode to RailsConf podcast, where we reminisce about RailsConf over the years. I'm your host, david Hill, and joining me today is Shan Kyrton. Welcome to the podcast, shan.

Shan Cureton: 0:29

Thank you, excited to be here.

David Hill: 0:31

We're excited to have you. So earlier this month, it was announced that you joined Ruby Central as the new executive director, and so I was really curious if you could share with our listeners a bit about you and where you're coming from and what drew you to Ruby Central.

Shan Cureton: 0:48

Most of my background has been. You know, I launched my own company out of my own need on the campus of San Diego State. They say that you're always an entrepreneur, so I did little things like selling at fleet markets and things like that. I had a lot of different businesses, but I was a non-traditional college student, a mother of three At the time. I had a high schooler, middle schooler and a kindergartner and I was in the middle of my capstone class, which is always in the middle of the day, and I thought to myself there has to be some type of service that would pick up your kids from school and drop them off at home, or something like the Uber or Lyft for kids. And I started to do a little bit of search. I saw that there was a company up in San Francisco, there was one in New York, but nothing in San Diego, where I'm from and raised. So I started the company. So that's kind of a little bit about my background from San Diego, originally from South Carolina, greenville, south Carolina, born there but moved to San Diego when I was five and been there most of my entire life. I had my company and a thing called COVID happened, where a lot of businesses were impacted, but there were no more children to transport and we had a group very large. I had 60 drivers and we were in about 80 zip codes. We had contracts with the office of education. We were transporting foster youth. Yeah, it just really had grown. We were in about 80 zip codes. We had contracts with the Office of Education. We were transporting foster youth. Yeah, it just really had grown. We were working with a number of nonprofits who always had transportation issues and we were a tech-enabled service company. So we had the tech, but we were not necessarily a tech company. I was using a white label app and we'll get back to that because had I known about Ruby, especially doing a lot of the bootstrapping and just building and really getting my hands in if I would have known or would have learned how to kind of code my own thing instead of getting quoted hundreds of thousands of dollars to build my platform? I ended up using the white label, but once COVID hit, I had to close down the businesses, like a lot of other stories. We know how it all ended. We thought it would be a few weeks and we know how the story ends.

Shan Cureton: 2:47

So I did the great migration and I left San Diego and I thought, hey, let's move to Florida because I have godparents there. Then I realized visiting Florida and living in Florida were two different things. It wasn't really for me Nothing against individuals in Florida, but just wasn't for me. And so I was going to go back to California but, to the great advice of my friends, they were like you need to try to figure it out. You've made this move, what's your next step? And so I was really looking for something that matched my values and I'm very strong and rooted in my values and don't compromise them and so I found an organization here in Washington DC that built corporate social responsibility programs for globally, for corporations, and bridging that gap between corporate partners and nonprofits, and started off as a client manager with a number of corporate clients and moved into more of a director role where I was managing all of the operations of our programs department and so that really just dive more into that social impact space.

Shan Cureton: 3:52

I did that for a few years three years and was looking for my next opportunity and I seen the Ruby Central and as I started diving and doing a lot of research of the community, I realized that I'm part of the tribe and I was like, oh, I found my tribe because I was just thriving places where I can be my most authentic, genuine self.

Shan Cureton: 4:10

When I met with Chelsea, I was like, oh, chelsea's great. And then she's from San Diego too. And I was like, oh, we're both Californians. And then I met with the team and as I started meeting with everyone in the team, I was like, oh, this, this something about the energy of everyone that I had met. I needed to be a part of this. And then I, of course, looked at the history of Ruby, ruth's, history of Ruby Central and Rails and started diving into, looking at some of the areas that we are diving into and some of the areas that are kind of untouched, and I thought I could definitely add in some support and some of my expertise and skillset to the table. And they liked me. So here I am.

David Hill: 4:49

Yeah, awesome, yeah. I felt very similarly once I started getting to meet a bunch of the Ruby Central people in person, where it was just like just the energy and the vibe was like, oh, I wanna hang out in this neighborhood, this feels really good. Yes, exactly. So, as the executive director, what is it that you're going to be doing with Ruby Central? What are your goals for yourself and for the organization in this position?

Shan Cureton: 5:16

I'll preface it that I'm on what I'm calling my 90-day listening tour. I don't like to dive in and make my voice known right away. I like to hear what others and people that are in the community and working in the space are saying before I dive in with my recommendations. So I've had a lot of conversations. I have more that will happen over the next few weeks, all up until RailsConf. Up until RailsConf, and what I can say is that there is a disconnect between open source and Ruby Central, the organization, and so I just feel like that's just a branding thing, a visibility thing, talking more about all the work that we're doing at Ruby Central, how open source is powered by Ruby Central. We do more than conferences. So mainly would be visibility, positioning, ensuring that our infrastructure for open source is solid, we have the right people in place. Who else do we need? What types of low-hanging fruit and wins we can take advantage of here?

Shan Cureton: 6:26

Within this first year of my administration I like to say I'm the new administration so how are we sustaining? How can we be sustainable? I've heard a lot of the stories. I've dived into a lot of the research, and there's always these stories of the old days, right, the olden days of Ruby and where everyone was creating and you could fail in the sandbox environment and figure out what you're building and all that and it's just, it's really a youthful energy to it, and so really thinking about how we can bring and help shepherd some of that youthful energy back in to the community. I'm an advocate of youth.

Shan Cureton: 7:02

What I didn't talk about was I am a professor, so I teach public speaking and communication. I've done that now for eight years and I also work with a number of startups on their pitches and getting them prepared for pitch competitions, and I've been doing that as well, and my teams, they win. So I used to brag on that, but now I'm feeling like you know, so I want to bring some of that too. I have a good, solid network to young people and I feel like bringing in some young people to a Ruby Central, teaching them Ruby, teaching startups. That is also a way forward and a way to kind of shepherd in the next generation, because, let's face it, we're going to want to retire at some point. That would be nice.

Shan Cureton: 7:44

Yeah, go on a beach or hike or something. So, yeah, how can we really ensure that open source is sustainable and also the organization in whole?

David Hill: 7:51

So there's a little sidetrack I have to follow here. Your whole professorship public speaking thing is like I got to ask any tips or tricks that you would give people who are like speaking at conferences to improve their presentations. I'd love to hear that.

Shan Cureton: 8:10

I can give you two. The first one is the pencil trick. What I always tell everyone is to practice your pitch. Put a pencil in your mouth like this. I mean, I can't believe this is being recorded, but we're going to do this anyway. So you put the pencil in your mouth like this and then you practice your speech at the loudest possible capacity. What that does is that it helps your diaphragm. It helps you remember how much emphasis you need to put on your vocal projection. Wow, it's not like speaking loudly, yelling, but more like how do I project my voice?

David Hill: 8:45

across the room.

Shan Cureton: 8:46

And so that's what that does, and so I welcome everyone to give that a try. Just read through your speech record yourself. Definitely listen to your speech and then try the pencil trick, and what you'll notice is that you're more articulate and your voice is projecting more. That's the first trick. The other one is I always take my phone, put your recorder on and put it at the furthest side of your room and then practice your speech. Then you go, retrieve the recording If you can't hear yourself clearly, in that you're not projecting enough. You need to practice a little bit more. You need to raise your volume, most likely, but of course not yelling. No one wants to yell on the mic, right? There's this difference between yelling and projecting, right? Those are my two tips. I can leave it with everyone.

David Hill: 9:29

Okay, I'm going to remember those. I can imagine those being helpful tips to try out next time I'm giving a presentation. So, railsconf is this going to be your first RailsConf?

Shan Cureton: 9:41

Yeah, it's going to be my first RailsConf and I'm very excited.

David Hill: 9:46

Your first RailsConf is also the last RailsConf, I know.

Shan Cureton: 9:50

But I'm looking at it as my first conference with Ruby Central.

David Hill: 9:54

So yes, we still have RubyConf going forward, so it's not like the conferences are going away. Is there anything in particular that you're looking forward to with RailsConf? We're like a month and a half away now, which is crazy.

Shan Cureton: 10:07

Yeah, I'm just looking forward to with RailsConf we're like a month and a half away now, which is crazy. Yeah, I'm just looking forward to meeting everyone. I'm excited to meet with everyone. I'm excited to if I've had like kind of like a small microcosm of the energy how much is the energy of the room? I'm interested to see what that feels like. I've heard so much about it. I'm interested to meet everyone in person. You know I had a great conversation with Amanda Perino, so we're interested to sit down with her and learn more about her.

Shan Cureton: 10:35

Our sponsors, meeting with them in person, getting some face time with them, speaking to the community. So I will be doing a little speech or opening like an opening remarks and things like that. Meeting with everyone. Yeah, I'm very excited of that part. I'm also really excited about game day and I can say I'm competitive. I'm a competitive gamer. So I don't know, I mean maybe I'll leave that at home and see if anyone else is competitive or what the vibe is there. But yes, no, I'm definitely an advocate. I heard it's a bring your own game. So I will be bringing a card game that I have that I played when I was in childhood and then I found it on Amazon just randomly and I was like, yeah, so I taught my kids how to play it and everything like you said, I'm a big supporter and proponent of the game night yes, perfect, see, I'll see you at one of the teams.

David Hill: 11:20

I will probably be there. I haven't figured out what games I'm going to bring yet this year, but yeah, yeah, last year I think I brought three or four different games and just like I would pull one of them out and the people that were like around that table and be like, okay, I'm going to teach you guys this game, and this was like we'd play it all the way through and then I'd pack it up and put it away and then bring the next game out and be like all right, who wants to learn this one?

Shan Cureton: 11:50

Yeah, exactly yeah, I'm excited about that.

Shan Cureton: 11:51

I'm also, of course, excited to hear what people are building, excited to hear from David to see what's going on with Rails, and yeah, I'm just excited to put faces on all the names, all the leaders in the community, but also to hear from all of the members right in the community and what it is that they would like to see from Ruby Central.

Shan Cureton: 12:07

How can I help shepherd that and just how can we continue to be the voice of the community. So that's what I'm really interested in. We have a kind of a feedback survey that I put together that we will be sending out to a number of the community members. We'll put it in the Slack and things like that, and then there'll also be QR code there at the conference. So if you don't have a chance to do the survey before then, you can do it at the conference. But I'm very interested in collecting data. I'm very data-driven, process-driven person and I'm just really interested to know what we do and the moves that we are making over in the next few years really represent what the community needs and what the community is looking for from Ruby Central.

David Hill: 12:49

That dovetails nicely into my next question is kind of after. The buildup to RailsConf is kind of busy and hectic. Trying to get everything settled and arranged for this big event After RailsConf, what is next for Ruby Central? What are you going to be working towards after that?

Shan Cureton: 13:08

What I've already identified is that what we're building is a state of the practice kind of document that is going to kind of lead us over the next few years, next three years, and it's important for us to understand all that we have built and all that we have done. And although it's kind of known in the community, it isn't vocalized, it isn't anywhere. So the state of the practice document will figure out and showcase, I should say, where we are today, what things we would like to do in the future, and kind of build on that. So I also am going to be prepped to do a regional meetup tour. I want to go see the individuals who are leading the regional meetups, meetings, how their sessions are going, be able to meet the community locally in their space and their environment where they're comfortable, and then figure out how else we can be a supportive factor to the regional organizers. So that's another thing that I definitely want to do post RailsConf. We also have, I mean, rubyconf 2026 that we're already prepared for. We are on track to announce that location for at RailsConf. So that's very exciting. We're building out a full kind of like marketing plan to again promote Ruby Central and what we're doing, what we would like to do.

Shan Cureton: 14:30

I'm really an advocate about social impact. I feel like that's a space that we're doing fantastic, great things here. Why aren't we sharing it with others in the communities, others that can thrive from it and others that just don't know about it, like some of the students and the startups and diverse founders who have limited access to resources and capital and would do the work to become an engineer and to learn Ruby you know what I mean so that they can build. There's so many stories of this happening already where you know. Why aren't we able to promote that? So working with local governance and various states that are dedicated in bridging kind of the digital divide, and looking at the programs that we would like to put into place, can help kind of shepherd that and really work with the communities on a local level. So I'm really excited about that.

Shan Cureton: 15:29

But, of course, what's he do with open source? How would he grow it? What's the team and all that? So I've been putting together his wish list a community that supports us and those who are just interested in what we're doing, interested in supporting us, so that we can begin to really grow out that infrastructure and get it into a place where we just go to the next level. So it's just now, building on what has already been done. There's so much that has been done and I'm just coming in to say, hey, we can go a little further.

David Hill: 16:01

Well, that sounds very exciting and we're happy to have you here as the new executive director for Ruby Central, just kind of pushing us forward. It sounds like it's going to be an exciting time.

Shan Cureton: 16:10

I'm very excited. Every conversation I have I'm super excited. I get super engaged. The board has been so helpful and kind of give me a lot of the historical context and I'm really excited for the next phase of Ruby Central. I know there's been a lot of conversation about the last RailsConf and it's important to look at the history and recognize the history and recognize where we have come. But it's not over. This is just the end of this phase and now we're onto a new era and I'm excited to share more in the coming weeks with everyone.

David Hill: 16:41

That sounds exciting. I'm looking forward to hearing whatever news comes out Awesome. That just about wraps up my questions. Are there any final thoughts you'd like to offer before we close this out?

Shan Cureton: 16:52

My door's always open. Anyone can contact me. I'm on Slack, In the community channel. I put my email. If you have any feedback or anything that you would want to work with me on, if you have any potential projects or partnerships opportunities, yeah, please reach out. But I hope to see everybody at RailsConf. Please come up and say hi to me. Hopefully, I've showed that I am a nice warm character, so please come say hi to me. I love that and yeah, no, I'm just excited to meet everyone and get to know everyone, but I'll end there.

David Hill: 17:23

Awesome.

Shan Cureton: 17:27

Well, thank you so much for joining me today, Shan. Thanks, David.