Orientation with Kojo Idrissa

All right, good morning everyone and uh and good morning to folks who are here in the room and to people out in the hallway who may or may not be able to hear me, that's fine I want to say first of all uh good morning and welcome everyone to Django Kind US 2025. Give a round of applause for yourselves, please. We're very excited to have you here, and we are very excited to not only to have you here and to be able to interact with you, but also to share with you the program that our team has put together and the insights from our various speakers. and all the other good things come with the DjangoCon US. So um without any further ado we'll get into that. Who am I? This not so important. I'm Kojo, I am large, you'll see me around. Uh I've

I do the things with the computers and I talk to the people and and I used to do other things and now I do this thing. If you have questions, I'm around. Please feel free to ask me. What I do here specifically, the Jango Hine US, I'm the orientation chair. That's why I'm here now. I used to do a couple of other things as well, and I will talk about some of those things later because you might want to participate in them. I work for a company called Revsys. So why am I talking about why am I talking about my company here now? Largely because, let's see, I am not here on stage because I work for Revsys. I work for Revsys because I'm here on this stage and because they're here. So we're a small company, we mostly build stuff in Django.

I know you. Uh we're a small company, we build things in Django. There are nine of us. Of the nine of us, eight of us are here. Um well seven of us are here in person, one is here online. Hey, hey Lacey. Um one of us is here online, but We've been always been heavily involved in the Django community. The company was founded by two of the earliest users of Django in the place where Django was created. Um again of that nine of us, five of us are organizers. We've got two former presidents of the DSF, the Django Software Foundation. One of our employees, Catherine, is uh you you've probably seen her moving around, but she's a big part of the magic in the background that makes things happy for Django Khan US. There's also a panel called Two Decades of

Django that's on the schedule for Wednesday. You'll see some of our members there. Just a sort of a quick run through. The DSF founder and the person who helped make Django Floss is part of our team. Two former DSF presidents, a former PSF or Python Software Foundation director. I'm sorry I'm using the acronyms. Django Software Foundation and Python Software Foundation Director. A current Django Steering Council member. Two former DjangoCon U. S. chairs, the founder of DEFNA, Django Events Foundation in North America. That's the nonprofit that puts on DjangoCon and has put it on since 2014, and their former president. And so I mentioned my company and all those folks that work with me because again

we've been involved and active in the Django community for a long time because we care about it, because a lot of our business is built on it. And that's why there are so many of us who are involved in organizing DjangoCon US. And that's why so many of us are here because we care about the Django community and you all and we're a part we are a part of it. And so we want it to thrive and flourish along with you all. And so you'll see us around and that is why we are here. Let me also say hello to our online friends. This year we have an online component for the conference as well. So I'm gonna when I get to the part where I'm discussing some of the logistics, some of that won't apply to you all. But we are excited that you all have chosen to join us virtually. Everyone can't come physically.

We're still improving how we run a hybrid event. I see John is leaving. That's okay. He'll be back. We're still working on how we run a hybrid event, and so we're we're smoothing that process up. So please give us some grace. as we go through that learning curve. But again, we are very excited, even uh we're excited to to see our online attendees and we'll see you all in Slack and things of that nature. So by show of hands, who is here at their first DjangoCon US ever? Okay. There's some people who are sort of shy about this. Some people are like, no, mm-hmm. But but you know a a majority of the folks here, which is good because that's what the who you are who the orientation is for. Now how many people are at the maybe their first tech conference ever?

Okay, there we go. So people are excited. I'm gonna add a one and a zero because I know one person just walked out is the first Django Conduit, but not the first tech conference So what are we trying to do here with the orientation? We started it in 2016 to help people uh who might be a little more introverted at functions like this because and let's be honest, a lot of software developers. If you know other software developers, they tend to be a little more on the social anxiety, not around the people side. And what we've done is we put you all in a room together with people that you mostly don't know. And so that can be a little uh a little anxiety creating. And so we wanted to help folks become uh comfortable in strange spaces surrounded by strangers. We can't eliminate all of uh the anxiety, but we can't help try to smooth out some of uh some of the

the the more anxiety-making bits. And so how do we do that? The first thing we do is again, we want to emphatically welcome you to Django Kanye West. We don't want you to feel like, oh, I'm just kind of here and nobody cares. No, no. We're like really, really excited that you're here. It doesn't make sense to have everybody be all weird and excited like I am, and so I'm like the big loud one who will say it in front of you all. But yes, we we're super excited to hear But we also want to acknowledge that being surrounded by strangers can be weird and make you uncomfortable. And if you feel kind of weird and uncomfortable surrounded by a bunch of strangers, that's okay. It is essentially it is basically sort of a normal human response. That's fine. The good news is after a little while they won't be strangers. They'll be your new friends. And then

Then boom, the Django kind of takes off because oh me and my friends, we're all just gonna do this stuff. Um but that's that that response is a natural feeling. But now let's add on to this. Imagine that you're not part of the dominant demographic, and you sort of look around and you be like, oh. I don't see the people who look like me. So not only am I surrounded by strangers, but I sort of feel even more left out. There can be even more anxiety making. And so if you feel like, well, maybe I don't belong here. Surprise! You're wrong. You you also belong here And we are also excited that you are here as well. So again, I can't say enough. I'm going to stop, but I think Realistically, practically, can't say enough how excited we are that you all are here. So we're gonna cut through uh step through a couple quick stories about feeling weird and out of place.

Uh I was talking to a friend a couple years ago after their first. trip to DEF CON, which if you are familiar is a security focused conference. And he's also not really excited about being surrounded by strangers. But one thing he noticed, you know, the insight he took from it was like Yeah, I I'm at this thing with a bunch of strangers, but everybody here is here for the same reason I'm here. We've all got the same interests, the same topics, the same things we want to talk about, and so it's like okay, like you're kind of at a place with your friends and If you work with Django or if you work even, say, specifically with Python or something like that, there's a decent chance that you might be the only person in your place of work who has this area of focus. So now here at Django Khan US, you're surrounded by a bunch of people who have that area of focus. And so we've got a lot of friends who are here.

I would also say to our experienced attendees, I know some of some of them, some of whom are here in the room. Let's try to be a little more enthusiastically welcoming to our new attendees to help uh folks feel comfortable and in place The second story is about me and my shoulder. So uh unfortunately I recently had some shoulder sh surgery, and that's a thing uh recovering from that. But one insight I took from that was you have surgery, you wake up, and people are like, oh, okay, you're fine, time to go home. And I'm like, who, what? What is happening? Why is my voice different? What is going on? Um and it reminded me that For the people in the hospital, the nurses and the doctors and all that, this was a routine thing that they did not only every day but multiple times a day.

But for me, going through the surgery for the first time, it was this unique experience and I didn't really know what to expect. And as a first-time attendee to both the Tech Conference and a DjangoCon US, That's a situation that you all are in. This is the first time you all have done this myself. We've got some of the organizers who are here, other people you know who have been organizing the conference or have attended for multiple times. It's fairly common and in commonplace and normal for us. But if you're here as a first-time attendee, this is just an entirely unique experience that's kind of happening at you. And so Again, we wanted to acknowledge that and remind you that we are excited that you're here and we welcome you enthusiastically. Let me make some more explicit welcomes to certain members of our community. So I'm going

to explicitly welcome our LGBTQ members. And so there's a difference between just like, oh well, we we don't discriminate against people as opposed to no, we actually actively welcome people. Um because that's this is Django Khan US, this is what we do here. So I want to explicitly welcome our LGBTQ members. I also want to welcome folks from outside of the US. Because you come to the US and It's a different country. If this is not the country you're from, it is a different country than the one you came from. Some of the customs are going to be different. Some of you know they're just a lot of the sort of the social norms, the language. uh can be different. So I'm I am wanted to again explicitly welcome our folks from outside of the US. It is called DjangoCon US. That's because it's in the US. It's not just for people from the US. I also wanted to

show this year explicitly welcome people who are worried about what the US federal government might might do next. I live in Houston, Texas, but I'm a native of Washington, D. C. And so weird things are happening in my hometown around my cousins and my aunts and uncles. I'm not super excited about that, but if you're worried about that, you are welcome here as well. I will point out that A side effect of American culture is we tend to be sort of self-focused. So if you're from outside the US, please please try to excuse us that. It's a thing a lot of us are working on. But you know, we're still really excited that you are here. I'd also like to give an explicit welcome to people who have mobility issues. So when you're here at an event like this, there's often a lot of So social gathering and people just kind of walk around, oh hey, let's go to this place. It's only a five-minute walk away, you know, or a 10-minute walk away.

If you've got mobility issues, that might be more of a challenge for you. Don't worry about that. If you need to you know take your car separately and meet folks when you get there or be there a little early, that's okay. But again, we are thrilled that you are here. So this phrase is a phrase that I say a lot and you will probably hear a lot. You'll hear at least a couple more times throughout uh this orientation. But it's important to point out, if you get to a point where, again, we've talked about you're surrounded by strangers, you might be a little weirded out, it might be a little overwhelming, uh, it might be taking a little more brain energy than you need If you're feeling you need to take some time away from the activities to give yourself a mental break, that's okay. And it might sound a bit sort of new agey, woo-woo. I point it out because it's actually important in getting the most out of Django

Khan US, either in person or online. You can't get the most from the conference if you're struggling against being overwhelmed, if you feel like you're freaking out, to just Take a moment to breathe. And just those little pauses can give you the extra mental space you need to help yourself get more from the conference and become a better software engineer or a better user of Django. That's important. So this ends the the the feelings portion of the talk. So let's move on into uh sort of why you're here. Let's look at take a look at that. Uh the next thing you need to do is you you need you want to give some thought to what are your priorities. What made you decide to come to DjangoCon US? Your time and your the time here and the energy that you have are both limited, and so you want to make sure you direct those in the best possible ways for you.

So he this this isn't we're now in the homework portion. Uh you didn't expect that. So you have to think to yourself, okay, why did I decide to come to DjangoCon US? And this also applies for our virtual attendees. I'm going to look in the camera for our virtual attendees. What made you decide to come to DjangoCon US? As you try to decide how to get the most out of the conference, that's where you have to start. Why did you decide to come? Did you mostly want to focus on Hearing talks about new features in Django or new libraries. Are you looking to hire people or to get hired? Did you want to get more actively involved in the Django and Python communities? Did you want to learn how to enhance your own local Django Python community at home? There are a number of different reasons you might have come. And so As you think about how and where to direct your energy over the course of the conference, that's I think the best place to start.

You know, why am I here? What was I hoping to get out of it? And then you can direct your energy. Accordingly. It's also important to realize that you know less is often more. There is a temptation to want to attend every talk and go to all the things and be involved in all the activities, but Realistically, you can't. There there were we it's a it's a two-track conference, and I'll talk about the logistics of that in a minute, but it's a two-tra-track conference, so there will be some talks that are happening at the same time, so you can't attend everything. But also it might not be the best idea for you to attend everything again, depending on how you're feeling, how many spoons you have, where your mental capacity is, that sort of thing. And so Focus on the things that best support your reason for attending. That's why thinking about why you're here is so important.

Sometimes taking a break to let your mind absorb this new information is the best way to learn. This is true if you're in person or attending online. It's true for all learning, and it's a great way to become a better software engineer, to give yourself some breaks. It's also easier to focus more deeply on a smaller number of things than trying to just absorb all the things that are coming at you So that is something to keep in mind. If you're not familiar with this term, the hallway track, you'll see that the schedule shows two tracks of talks on Monday and Tuesday. So two sets of talks happening in different rooms, this is one of them. Um but the hallway track is what is going on outside of the talks And so the hallway track at any almost any conference is very important. It's the opportunity that you have to meet folks in the hallways, chat with them,

have conversations. Uh it's often one of the best parts of the uh of the conference and those talks can't be replaced and they're not being recorded. The actual official talks that are in in the main talking rooms, those are being recorded You can watch those again later, but the people that you sort of meet in the hallways or at lunch, um those those can't be recorded. And those can't be replicated. As I sort of look around the room and I see faces of people I know, they are mostly people that I either met at lunch or in a hallway track. And so, you know Those interactions weren't recorded, those are things that were live. And so don't overlook the benefit and the value of the hallway track. And for virtual attendees, the hallway track will happen in Slack. All right, so the next uh step here is logistics.

So, you know, where do you find things that you need to to better enjoy the conference? How's that gonna work out? So toss so this is what I alluded to earlier. We've got two tracks of talks, and they are in two rooms, the Soginash ballroom and the Wolf Point ballroom. So we are currently in Soginash and Fortunately, you have found it, you've made your way here. Uh and so when the Suganash ballroom is here on the 14th floor, the Wolf Point ballroom is on the 15th floor, one floor up, and so just outside of this room are the elevators, which You know where they are because that's how you got here. Um so to get to the Wolf Point ballroom, you'll take the elevators up to fifteen. You're gonna turn left. You're going to turn left again. Well, don't immediately turn left or walk a little bit

because there are elevators here. Turn left again. And then walk towards the window. And when you do that, when you get to the window, on your right will be the Wolf Point ballroom. Some of you might have seen that. I don't know exactly how many people are staying here in the hotel, but in the the big open space on 15. That's also where some of our meals will be, but that's where the Wolf Point ballroom is. Uh so we got two tracks, two different floors. I will also point out that just outside of this room and just behind registration There's a stairwell that goes between the 14th and 15th floors. Um logistically, you might want to think, okay, it will be easier to go to a talk in the Wolf Point ballroom and go to my next talk in the Saganesh ballroom because I can just walk down the stairs. You might not want to walk up the stairs I'm not here to judge your cardio or what that is. I am both old and fat.

And so me walking upstairs, maybe not as simple as for the young and the slim, but you know, you you do you. So Two tracks, two floors. Each room is going to have a masks-only section. We've got some signs here. Those masks only sections would be up front and center. And so if you want to Sit in a section where all where people are only wearing masks. Those are going to be available in both of the rooms. Now we also have some other rooms. I told you the self-care sprint thing was gonna come up again. We've got some rooms that are gonna be a little more self-care focused So meals and again eating part of self-care, you have to eat, that's a thing. You you you are all still the people. Until the robots come and take over, you're all still the people, and so you need to eat the food.

Um and even when the robots take over, they have like batteries and stuff. So that'll still be a thing. So this room, the uh the Sogan Ash ballroom and the Wolf Point ballroom is also where our meals will be. And it will be very similar to what we've seen here for breakfast. So I see people who have food, and so clearly you all have sorted some of that out, so that's good news. But our meals, breakfast and lunch will be in these ballrooms. There's also a quiet room. Again, I've talked about so if you start to be freaked out, we have a quiet room that is available. It is the Shakespeare House Room. So if you go out of the Sogan Ash Ball room, go to your right. There's a hallway, you can go down that hallway. At the end of that hallway, in the in sort of in the corner, there's a Shakespeare house room labeled Shakespeare House. If you feel like, okay, I need to kind of get away from this, I need some quiet.

There's a quiet room that's available for everyone. Again, please be quiet in the quiet room. The quiet room is not for like for you to talk quietly on your phone. It is for you to like just literally be quiet. There's the speakers' green room for folks who are our speakers here in the audience. That's the American house room that is right next to the Shakespeare house room. So the speakers green room is next to the quiet room. There's also a wellness room that is the lakehouse room and so it's sort of on the opposite corner. So if you go out of this room and to the left and to the left, at in that back corner is uh the wellness room, we're asking that folks, if you're using the wellness room Focus on only having one person there at a time. Uh also maybe before I get to the secret room, stuff

Tell people. Um just behind behind registration, uh well there are two hallways on either side of registration. That's where the restrooms are. Very important, an important part of a conference because you know people have needs they need to deal with. Um now okay. So so so this is a secret just for the people in orientation. Don't don't tell the other people. If you go out of this room but behind registration, there is an open space uh with with some additional seating there. Again, if you feel like okay there there are a lot of people it's it's a you know sort of there's a lot going on, you need to to get away a little bit, but you don't want to go too far There's these sitting areas that are just behind registration, and that's also a good place to sort of go and get away from folks. Again, the restrooms further back from there. The men's restrooms are on the left side, left, my left, your

right. The women's restrooms are on my right, your left. If you are staying here in the hotel, On the sixteenth floor, there is a a gym that has a sauna and there's also a pool. So again, if you feel like you need to get some exercise or get some sauna getting us on a getaway. And that is on the 16th floor. It's basically above the Wolf Point ballroom. So that same general set of directions will take you there. Uh also if you just feel like you need some fresh air, some sunshine, or or to see the river walk or go to a beach, those are all here in Chicago I did not know that there were actually like beaches on Lake Michigan, but uh one of our organizers, Tim Schilling, assures me that the beach is lovely and wonderful and you should go in to swim and and enjoy. So All those things are available. But the river walks are literally just right outside. Go out

go outside the hotel, turn right, and boom. There's lovely seating to view the river and see the boats going by. So that is also a thing. I 've also been told, and this is not like paid or sponsored, but I've been told by another one, one of our attendees, that there's a blue bottle coffee that's like right across the street, and is apparently very, very lovely and highly recommended. So that is the thing. I know people love their coffee. So lightning talks. Lightning talks, so I'm gonna, Lightning Talks coming up. I'm gonna, if you want to take a picture of this next slide, I'm gonna put that up so feel free to get your cameras out while I talk. So this is where you will register for lightning talks. If you're not familiar with lightning talks, they are short talked with a five-minute maximum.

Unfortunately, this year our virtual attendees aren't going to be able to attend, be able to be lightning talk speakers or give lightning talks remotely But if you wanted to sign up for Lightning Talks, this is the short URL that you can use to go to the registration form. Again, there are talks with a five-minute maximum, and they are an excellent way for people who have never given a talk to give their first talk. So if you were interested in that, please feel free to do that. I'm going to move away from this slide now. People are still taking pictures. I see don't see any cameras. Okay. Again, the feelings are back. You thought the feelings were gone. The feelings are always there. That's their secret. Just like the Hulk, you're always feeling. So this is a little bit different,

a little more scientific. I'm going to say this again because it bears repeating. The self-care sprint , and if you're a software developer, you're familiar with development sprints, but the self-care sprint is so important because it is the only sprint that makes every other sprint sustainable. As such, it needs to be factored into your time and your energy budget. So it is very important that you take care of yourself. And I know you're thinking, well, Koja, we're all adults. We're all grown-up people. We you know we we drove here in cars and stuff, we you know and and took a plane and in whatever. Uh but it bears repeating and we put on Django Khan US because we want you all to have the best experience possible. And so maybe it's a little pedantic, but we care. So that's how that goes. Contribution sprints are going to be happening on Thursday and Friday.

So Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we have talks. Thursday and Friday are the contribution sprints. These are an opportunity to contribute to open source projects, usually in person. The contributions can take a number of different forms. Traditionally, people think about code and documentation, but there are also many non-code contributions that are needed, such as helping with planning or ideation for the project's design or project governance. Our virtual attendees can also use the Sprints Slack channel for general collaboration and to find the methods that each Sprint project uses when they're not all in person together. So the contribution sprints are going to be happening in the LaSalle ballroom, and this is the room they will only be in Thursday and Friday. That's in a slightly different location. For the LaSalle ballroom, take these elevators up to 15, turn left, and then just walk all the way down the hall until you can't go any further.

And you will go into the LaSalle ballroom. But we'll only be there Thursday and Friday. If you're working on sprints, you know you can use the Slack channels to organize those things. And again, a self-care sprint is a valid sprint, only sprint that makes the other sprints sustainable. So please take care of yourselves. Here we have a link to our code of conduct. Um we are hoping that you you've taken a look at it before. Uh some people view a code of conduct as restrictive, but in reality the code of conduct is here to help each of us focus more on what we actually came to DjangoCon US to do. Um that way you don't have to sort of Worry so much about your interactions with others. It gives you some guidance on that. And so we can all focus on what the actual task at hand is.

And with that, I am done. We've got a couple minutes. If anyone has any questions or concerns, again, if you have questions for me specifically, I'm wandering around, you will see me, and just feel free to ask me questions I'm in Slack or I'm on Blue Sky or on Mastodon. So I'm going to open up for questions and see if anybody has any questions, concerns. Well, let me rephrase that. I'm going to see if anybody has any questions or concerns that they're willing to raise in front of a group of strangers. Because I know you have questions or concerns. I'm very old. I've known many people over many years. And so I know that there are questions and concerns that are inside your minds, but maybe you don't want to bring them up in front of a group of strangers. That's also okay. But if you have any of those? Yes? No?

All right. Well, with that being the case, I'm going to step down and uh let our conference chair come and give you an official welcome. Once again, thank you very much for attending and I am thrilled you're here at Django Kanyuas with us. I look forward to seeing you all