Orientation and Welcome with Kojo Idrissa

So there will be an official welcome after me, but let me say welcome and thank you for coming to DjangoCon US 2022, but also thank you. More specifically for well yeah yeah round of applause to Django Khan. A round of applause is appropriate for Django Khan US twenty twenty two. It's it has been a quite some time since we've been able to get together in person. But let me also personally thank you all for attending the orientation session. So who am I? Some of you may or may not know me. I was going to ask this a little later, but I'm going to ask it now. How many first-time attendees do we have? Any first timers in the chat? First time? Okay. Oh that's okay. All right. So how many of you are, let's see, first-time conference attendees? Show of hands.

Okay, all right. And then the rest of you first time DjangoCon US attendees. Okay, there we go. Excellent, excellent. So I I know there are some people here who have attended other tech conferences. Um but this is the first Django Khan US. So again, thank you. Welcome. So who am I? I'm Kojo. There's a bunch of details here about me. Um the details about me are really just mostly for sort of for context. More specifically for what we're focused on here, what I do at DjangoCon, I am the orientation chair, which is why you're seeing me here now. I'm also the Lightning Talk chair and the development sprints chair. And I'll have more details about those two things here later in the orientation. Just made more sense for me to talk about those instead of asking someone else to talk about a thing that I'm doing if I'm already going to be talking to you all. So

there we go. I work for a company called Repsys and the speaking about my company Repsys is important because one of the reasons, well the reason I work at Repsys is because I met that set of folks. uh attending my first DjangoCon US and being a DjangoCon US organizer. It's a small company, there are nine of us, but I believe currently five of us are here. Four of us are working as organizers and and have been for quite some time. Um the fifth uh President Frank is here. He's not like actively involved in the organizing, but he's here and we're also a sponsor. And a sixth member is on his way, Jacob Kaplanoss Um so as a company and and I have to be clear when I say this, in talking about the companies, people have somehow thought, oh, so your business is you all organize DjangoCon.

Well no We we actually build things in Python and Django. That's what we actually do professionally. But community involvement has always been very important to the folks at RevSys. And that's one of the reasons I work there. And that's sort of how we met. And so that helps inform what we do here and the reason that we have an orientation because the orientation is here to try to help attendees have the best experience they can from Django Conduice and get the most out of the experience. And that's important to to me and to the company and the organizers because the community is so important to us. And so in a change from a change this year from years past, we say hello to our virtual friends who are, I don't know where the camera is. Maybe that's the camera, there's a camera. Hello, online

people. This is the first year that we have had a hybrid event. So we this is the first year where we've had both people here in person and people online. Now As you might imagine, the orientation, well maybe maybe you wouldn't imagine, because I'm the one who created this whole orientation thing, so let me provide some context. The orientation was originally created to help people be more comfortable in a strange physical space. It was something that you know that came up in prior Django cons in prior Django cons. And so the purpose of the orientation was to help you sort of get physically oriented, but also you know help help you get into a better mind space Now for our virtual friends, that should not be an issue. That should be less of an issue because hopefully you are at home or at work or any

place that you are already familiar with. But we are also glad that you're here that you're attending. And so I want to say hi to you all. Some of the logistical some of the logistical details that I'll discuss won't apply to you all as much to our virtual friends. But we are glad you're all here. This is again the first time that we have had a hybrid event for DjangoCon US. And so to our virtual friends, if things don't go as sort of As smoothly or as perfectly as you would like, please allow us some grace because this is the first time for us and we're sorting it out as we go, but we definitely want you to be as included as possible. So again, we talked about the first-timers and that it is great to see so many first-time attendees. So

The best case scenario, um the best case scenario again was that we have the orientation, it is designed to help people. I'm just gonna move that the unused mic out of my way. The orientation is designed to help people who are attending a conference in a strange space full of strangers be a little more comfortable because let's be honest. As software developers, a lot of us tend to be a little more on the introverted side of things, personality-wise. And so being in a strange space surrounded by a bunch of strangers. Can kind of freak you out. Make you feel a little weird, a little uncomfortable. So the orientation is designed to to help with that, to help you get better acclimated to what you need and what is here and what is available for you.

But that is it and it was designed during a best case scenario, which was sort of the normal times. As we all know, we're not in the normal times. anymore. Things have changed. And so now over the past two and a half years everything has been weird for a lot of people and The different social skills that a lot of us have developed over time might have eroded, might have changed. Many people have been working at home. And so now being in a room full of strangers in 2022 might be even more weird and discomforting than it was in 2019 or or prior years. And if you are feeling more uncomfortable or a bit more anxious, you know, about being in a room full of strangers in a city that is not your home city or, you know, a place that's not home.

That's okay. It's not just you. You might feel like, oh, you know, why am I freaking out? But Believe me, it is not just you. It is lots of people so I've spoken uh in Europe and in in and in Texas this year and it is uh almost everyone has had that sort of feeling because it has been a strange time. So just okay, just take him up, just breathe. And just and on and also you're wearing a mask on your face. Even as I tell you to breathe, even that's a little weird. Things are just stranger than they have been before. And again, if if it makes you feel a little weird, that's okay. But just sort of breathe, relax.

We're gonna, you know, make make it through this and we want to make sure that you're gonna have the best experience you can at Django Kanye West. But don't I don't want anyone to feel sort of alone or left out or as if they have some particular failing because they're feeling s sort of anxious about a situation like this. It is normal and this new normal. And so with that I'm going to talk about this the this idea of a self-care sprint. And so anytime during the conference, if you feel you like you need to take some time away from the different activities. Give yourself some sort of a mental break, that's fine. Um and while that sound might sound a little sort of like new agey or you know woo-woo or whatever. It's important and it's important to point out here at the beginning of Django Kanye West, whether you are doing it in person

or online , We want you to be able to get the most from the conference. We want you to to get the most from the experience and to benefit from that. And if you're sort of starting to, you know, starting to strobe or freak out or or feel really anxious or whatever, you can't get the most from the conference. And that's literally why we put on the conference. So some of the organizers are here in front of me, others are wandering around doing other stuff. But like we did all of this so that you all could have the best experience possible. That's the whole point. And so that and so that's why we want to do this. And so this is why the self-care sprint is so important. I'm going to repeat self-care sprint things again, sort of over the course of the orientation, but I'll save this part now. A self-care sprint is one, it's a valid sprint, and then two, it's the only sprint

that makes every other sprint sustainable If you don't take care of yourself, if you don't attend to your own mental and emotional well-being, all the other productivity things that you want to do, They they don't work. They don't happen. Or they happen at a much more diminished level. And so it is very important to take care of yourself, especially while you're here at Django Khan US. in a situation where you can learn new things, get exposed to new information, meet new people, make new connections , it's important to breathe and to take care of yourself so that you can make the most of that situation. So I know some of you thinking, well, Koja, we signed up for Django Khan, not for like Pranayama Khan or like Yoga Khan or whatever, but. Taking care of yourself is very important as far as enhancing your abilities, learning new things, becoming a better software engineer, becoming a better community member.

So Moving on from that, the the one of the most important points to getting the most out of Django Khan is for you to sort of think to yourself eternally, it's time for some introspection. You see, we have to look at our feelings. You're like, well, hold on, Kojo. Wait, but it's important. You have to look at your feelings. Why are you specifically here? What are you hoping to get out of Django Khan US? Um And answering that question is what's going to allow you to get the most from the conference. So some people are here mostly just to hear talks. or to hear about new features in Django or new libraries that they can use. Some people are looking to hire people for their teams, some people are looking to be hired, some people are looking to get more involved in the Django and the Python communities.

Do you want to maybe learn how to enhance your own local community at home? There are lots of different reasons that people have attended DjangoCon, lots of different things that people are hoping to get from it. And so By you taking a few minutes to just sort of think to yourself, okay, like why am I really here? Like what do I look to get out of this experience? Spending some time thinking about that will help you guide your energy as you go through the course of the conference and help you decide what to do and also more importantly what not to do. Because there are a lot of situations where less is actually more. There are a lot of things to do, there are lots of talks, there are lots of people to meet, lots of activities to be involved in. They might not all be the best, you know, things for you to do depending on what your reasons are for being here.

But also, as I said before, if you are feeling anxious or feeling uncomfortable by being surrounded by a bunch of strangers And I assure you, the vast majority of these strangers are friendly, but because they're strangers, you don't know that, and so you know there's lots of stranger danger. But uh as someone who has organized these conferences over time uh bad people generally don't come to Django Con US um if for no other reason because like at some point somebody realized Kojo's gonna get on stage and make us breathe. You know, um you know I'm gonna say some woo-woo stuff and so that that that scares off a a lot of bad people. But There is often a temptation to try to do everything. And you don't need to do everything. You just really need to do what is best for you. And so if that means not trying to go to every talk, That's okay.

If that means taking some time to for yourself, some quiet time for yourself to relax and help you calm your anxiety, that's okay. So you don't always have to just be pushing, pushing, pushing. So this is important. And that's also that also helps the learning process. You'll get exposed to new information. There'll be some stress there. Give yourself some time to recover. That sort of stress recovery adapt stress recovery adaptation cycle works physically, works mentally. So less is more. And again, self-care sprint, and that's sort of how and why this comes up. So just so keep this idea in mind, especially since lots of you are new here. It's it is important to take care of yourself. Taking care of yourself is the only way to really get the maximum benefit from the conference

Now, you've seen the schedule. You know their talks, you know their talks in different rooms. Especially for a lot of new people, there's this idea of a hallway track. that some conference might not be aware of. And especially if this is your first conference, you might think, okay, I'm going to a conference. I need to sit in every talk and hear everything everybody has to say and write down all the notes and all that sort of thing. One of the important parts of a conference is what we call the hallway track. And so if you look at this the conference schedule, you'll see two tracks of talks, talks that are going on at the same time. The hallway track is literally what's happening outside of of the talks, out in the hallways. This is where you get to get a chance to meet people, interact with folks, talk to the sponsors, talk to other attendees. Find out what people in different parts of the country or different parts of the world are doing with Django and Python.

It allows you to make friends and to make connections. It is often one of the best parts of the conference. And the truth is. . Those conversations and interactions, they're not being recorded. They can't be replicated. The talks, and and we are thrilled that all of our speakers are submitted talks and the talks were all fantastic. But they're also all recorded. And so you can watch those asynchronously if you need to. You can watch those at another time. You can't Talk to the person next to you another time or the person that you run into the hall into the hallway who went to the same college as you or who knows your cousin or what have you. So the hallway track is important. Please don't overlook that and especially for uh new attendees. For our virtual attendees, you won't be walking around in the hallways But we do have both Slack

going and the Loudswarm platform, and that is where your hallway track will take place. And also let me point out to the people who are here in person, feel free to also interact with our virtual attendees online as well. So there are also friends to make there and connections to be made there. All right, so now we're gonna get into some of the some of the more practical, logistical aspects of the conference. Um, you know, where are things, what are things that are gonna be useful to you, how can you better enjoy the conference? This is sort of sort of the nuts and bolts of things. So we have different rooms, I have just decided to call them self-care sprint rooms. So where are like important places to go? So meals we all like to eat. Hopefully somebody

hopefully folks. How many people ate breakfast? Oh show of hands. Okay. So you all know where the food is, yes? So and for people who might not know it, you know, tell a friend the meals are going to be on the west lawn. So in this room that we're sitting in, it's going to be out those doors and to the left. to your right behind you. And there is also in this hallway where the sponsors are, there is a sort of a cooler sauce refrigerator that's with Pepsi branding. There are, it's full of sodas. Those are for you all. Those are for us. So it 's not obvious, so I'm telling you now. Um so feel free whether soda is water, so if you need you know a beverage, that is also there for you between the meal times and and between breaks. The quiet room, you're surrounded by a bunch of strangers. At some point, you might want to just, you know

Have some peace. Have a little quiet. Get away from the movement. So the quiet room is in Santa Fe 4, which is on this left hallway. Towards the back, Santa Fe 4. We also have a lactation room if it is needed. Also on that hallway, Santa Fe 3. The two rooms are next to each other. Fresh air and sunshine are good and important things. I know sometimes people are scared to go outside because there are bears outside and and that is true. Um but here in San Diego and here at the here at the venue, not so many bears. I've I have not seen a bear uh once in in several years so that's good. So if you don't want to go to the quiet room and there's a lot going on, you can also just go outside. One of the nice things about this venue Beautiful outdoor space. You can just go and sit outside and just sit quietly.

And the San Diego weather, often very, very cooperative, so that's fantastic. Anybody remember uh Jersey Shore? The TV show, yes? So the Gym 10 Laundry? You you you all know it? So so so so so there's some people who are like, Yes, I remember, and I'm embarrassed that I remember that, but so so that was the thing that they said. But So here the venue, you can both gym and tan and do laundry. So on the here with in the where the pool area is, the sunken pool area, on that level where the pool is, there is a gym. uh on that level and there's also a laundry facility and then there is sunshine so you can sit outside and tan. So you if you need to gym tan or laundry or you know, some combination of those. Um those can all be done at the basement level.

I will point out that you will need your key card, your hotel key card to get into the pool area or into the area where the gym and the the laundry facilities are. So That is important. So all those things that can be helpful to you. Again, it's important to take care of yourself while you are here. The organizers put on a conference because we want you to have the best possible experience, but we don't want you to to burn yourself out while you are here. So whatever breaks that you need to take, feel free to take those. Now as the Lightning Talks chair, I'm going to talk a little bit about the Lightning Talks. So here's a link here, bit. ly, and I'll just leave this up so people can look or take a picture. But

I am not super creative, but I also try to make things clear. So this link is DCUS, DjangoCon US, 2022, the year, and then capital L T for Lightning Talk I was gonna make it lowercase LTE, but then that can be ambiguous when you're looking at it. So this bit. ly link will take you to Google Sheets where you will sign up for the Lightning Talks. The Lightning Talks, again, for those who are not familiar since we have a lot of new folks, the Lightning Talks are short talks with a five-minute maximum So a maximum of five minutes. I'll also point out that you don't have to go the full five minutes if you don't want to. Sometimes new speakers do that. There are going to be nine slots. For lightning talks each day, and you'll see that on the schedule, I think, from what 1.

30 to no 12. 30 to 120. Um So there are nine slots each day. You'll look at the sheets and there will be a tab for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Go to a day, you know, fill in the information to propose a talk. If you are if you see that all the slots are full, then go ahead and propose a talk anyway because all the talks may or may not be selected. It varies depending on how many people submit talks and things of that nature. So if you want to propose a lightning talk on any of the three days, go ahead and do that. It's important to include an email that information because if I need to contact you to let you know that your talk is Not been accepted or been accepted, but we've had to move the time or something like that. That's important to know. Unfortunately, our virtual friends won't be able to give lightning talks this year, um, but

I they won't be able to view them. And so Today I will be notifying so if you go to that link and you want to submit a lightning talk, today I'll be notifying people by email at noon. as far as whether or not your talk has been accepted. But then on Tuesday and Wednesday I'll be notifying people at 1130, a little bit early in the day, just to give people time to fine-tune their talks if they want to. But today just because of uh compressed time it'll be at noon The other thing, again, I am the development sprints chair. If you are someone in so we sent out Uh I think some emails about this, but also there are blog posts on uh on the website as far as organizing a development sprint.

And so this is the link where you can go to sign up if you're going or to announce that you're wanting to help lead a development sprint. So again, bit. ly, DCUS2022 sprints, all lowercase. For those who are not familiar, again we have a number of new attendees, development sprints are opportunities to contribute to open source projects, and they usually are meant to take advantage of the fact that the contributors are all together in person in one place. Now again, so we have a situation here this year where we have a hybrid event. So we have some people who are in person but then some people who are contributing online. The good news is most open source projects are are Built in an online fashion, and so whatever projects are going to be involved in the development sprints, they can use their

existing online communication platforms. So the contribution to open source can take the form of code or documentation, but they can also take the form of contributions that don't require code. So things like helping to plan for the project's future, any sort of planning or support or ideation that the project needs. There are all sorts of other non-code related things that open source projects need or open source communities need. So those things can all be done at the development sprints. And if you're planning to try to lead a sprint on a certain topic, this is where you can sign up. Um I will also point out that again so the sprints are happening Thursday and Friday, so towards the end of the conference. You might be tired

after three days of of uh lossing information. This risk will also be happening in the the Cabrillo 102 rooms, which are towards the front of the venue, like near the entrance on the left hand side, rooms that you probably haven't been in. I think one of the tutorials was in that space. Uh so if you went to a tutorial there you're familiar with it, but if you go towards the the entrance of the hotel and on the left, on my left just your right. That's where the sprints will be. But I also point out here that again a self-care sprint is a valid sprint. And so if you get to Thursday and Friday and you're still feeling some overwhelm from all the new information. It is fine to take some time for yourself and to gym tan laundry or to sit outside and enjoy the sun or to go see some of lovely San Diego.

Those are all fine. Again Self-care sprint, the only sprint that makes every other sprint sustainable. So this is important. And lastly, I'm just going to touch on the code of conduct here. The code of conduct is sometimes seen as something that is restrictive, but in in reality, the truth is the code of conduct is here to help each of us focus on why we came to DjangoCon US and to get the most from the conference. So by following the code of conduct, we don't have to spend a lot of time worrying about our interactions with others. We can just follow the code of conduct, and that allows us all to focus on the task at hand and on why we came. So if you have any questions or comments about any of this or just kind of about general uh general stuff uh at the conference, uh but

m even more specifically maybe lightning talks or development sprints because I'm attracted to those. You can see me, yes? I'm here. I'm not always dressed in bright red, but you know, sometimes I am. Um you can ping me on Slack. I am just my full name on Slack. You can ask if you see one of the organizers, you can ask them to get in contact with me if you have some sort of specific question just for me. You can also ping me on Twitter where I am also just my full name on Twitter. And that is most of my time. I don't want to uh take up too much of time for our next welcome, but if anybody has any questions for me, I am around, and so feel free to reach out. And once again, thank you all for attending DjangoCon US and specifically thank you for attending the orientation. Hope you have the best experience possible.