For a long time, tech culture has focused too narrowly on technical skills; this has resulted in a tech community that too often puts companies and code over people. Greater Than Code is a podcast that invites the voices of people who are not heard from enough in tech: women, people of color, trans and/or queer folks, to talk about the human side of software development and technology. Greater Than Code is providing a vital platform for these conversations, and developing new ideas of what it means to be a technologist beyond just the code. Featuring an ongoing panel of racially and gender diverse tech panelists, the majority of podcast guests so far have been women in tech! We’ve covered topics including imposter syndrome, mental illness, sexuality, unconscious bias and social justice. We also have a major focus on skill sets that tech too often devalues, like team-building, hiring, community organizing, mentorship and empathy. Each episode also includes a transcript. We have an active Slack community that members can join by pledging as little as $1 per month via Patreon. (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode)
179: Conference Magic with PJ Hagerty
02:43 - PJ’s Superpower: Convincing people that karaoke is a good idea.
- PJ’s Karaoke History
- Why Karaoke is Awesome
07:13 - The DevRel World (DevRel = Developer Relations)
13:42 - Online vs In-Person/Live Conferences
- Body Language and Delivery
- Hallway Track: Is not a literal 'track.' It's all the interactions, conversations, talk follow-up, etc. that happen at a conference outside of the formal schedule. Hallway tracks are when people interact socially about the issues being discussed at the event. For instance, between talks or over lunch. Most hallway track conversations are open and casual. Sometimes hallway track conversations inspire a future lightning talk, Ignite talk, panel discussion, or full talk.
- Can you emulate an in-person conference online?
- Luck and Visibility
25:54 - Making Conferences Diverse & Inclusive
- Putting People on Stage That Don’t Look Like You
- Passing on “Lucky” to Others
33:01 - Prompt and Talking About Mental Health
- Ed Finkler on Open Sourcing Mental Illness at Distill (this was the talk that launched Prompt)
- Greg Baugues: Devs and Depression
- OSMI = Open Sourcing Mental Illness
- CodeDaze 2016 - Paying Off Emotional Debt by Justine Arreche
- Madalyn Rose Parker: Overcoming Mental Health Hurdles at Work
- Mental Health Summit - php[tek] 2014
43:10 - Making Conferences Diverse & Inclusive (Cont’d)
- Being Seen -- White Cis Men
- The Colored Musicians Club
- Aggressive Inclusion
- Micro Opportunities
- Lightning Talks
54:14 - Accessibility
- Time and Monetary Expenses
- Conferencing in the time of COVID-19
PJ's First Ever Full Talk at RubyMidwest: Act Locally - Think Globally
Reflections:
Carina: The exaggerated visual of putting a hand down and throwing people into the air to lift them up.
Jamey: Holding onto the feeling of being lucky while feeling awful.
Jessica: Getting pushes to make output.
PJ: Be a Jim Weirich. Have a “Hello World” attitude. Human connection is important.
This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep of DevReps, LLC. To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode
To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps. You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well.
Special Guest: PJ Hagerty.
Sponsored By:
- strongDM: Today’s show is sponsored by strongDM. Transitioning your team to work from home? Managing a gazillion SSH keys, database passwords, and Kubernetes certs? Meet strongDM. Manage and audit access to servers, databases, and Kubernetes clusters, no matter where your employees are. With strongDM, easily extend your identity provider to manage infrastructure access. Automate onboarding, offboarding, and moving people within roles. Grant temporary access that automatically expires to on-call teams. Admins get full auditability into anything anyone does: when they connect, what queries they run, what commands are typed. It’s full visibility into everything. For SSH, RDP, and Kubernetes, that means video replays. For databases, it’s a single unified query log across all database management systems. strongDM is used by companies like Hearst, Peloton, Betterment, Greenhouse, and SoFi to manage access. It’s more control and less hassle. strongDM. Manage and audit remote access to infrastructure”. Start your free 14-day trial today at strongdm.com/GTC.