Welcome to Remotely Interesting brought to you by Netlify.

(by the way, Jamstack Conf is Tomorrow!!! come join us!)

People who were remotely interesting:

Bringing tech events into the virtual web-o-sphere can be a daunting task. In this episode, we talk about what it's been like as an attendee, contributor, and organizer of there virtual events. We cover the great things, the maybe-not-so-great things, and even come up with an idea for a WHOLE other event, because, why not. Come join us on this virtual, distant journey.

Few of our favorite things! & hard transitions

TRANSCRIPT:

Cassidy Williams: [00:00:00] Previously on Remotely Interesting. 

Phil Hawksworth: [00:00:04] Spill the tea, the tea, spill the tea, the tea, spill the tea. 

Cassidy Williams: [00:00:08] Hello, and welcome to Remotely Interesting. 

Phil Hawksworth: [00:00:10] This is Remotely Interesting. 

Divya Tagtachian: [00:00:12] Well, that seems a little presumptuous. 

No, no, no. That's the name of the show.

Jason Lengstorf: [00:00:23] Hello everyone. And welcome. To another episode of remotely interesting today on the show, we are going to talk about virtual events and what we've seen go well, what we wish to do on better and what our hopes and dreams are for the spaces we we're looking into an uncertain, mostly remote future. How about we kick it off with a, uh, with a general question here.

Um, spill, I'm gonna pick on you first. Uh, what is your favorites virtual event that you've attended so far? 

Phil Hawksworth: [00:00:54] Goodness me straight into the money. Look at that. Absolutely. 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:00:58] Because you will be dissing every other conference. You don't mention, 

Jason Lengstorf: [00:01:02] you need to name all the ones that you didn't like me, like could be organized.

Now. First, last name, mailing address 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:01:09] alphabetically. 

Phil Hawksworth: [00:01:11] Oh, wow. So, um, well, I've, I've been fortunate to be involved in, in, uh, a handful of virtual events this year. Um, I know, I must admit that my, my enjoyment is very greatly and that's not to say that some are bad, some are good. It's just that they're hard to, uh, to be, um, a speaker up.

So I think the experience from a speakers point of view and the attendees point of view is different. So, um, we'll probably circle back around to that, but, um, But, uh, one event that I have particularly enjoyed, and to be honest, I enjoyed them when they were in real life as well. And I think the team has done a very good job of moving them across to being virtual is the smashing different events.

Um, because I mean, they've carried of, I read over a lot of the good stuff about making it feel like a really approachable kind of community. Feel, which is hard to do. Um, and I think a lot of, a lot of the good stuff has come from the personalities involved, you know, Vitale, who've kind of fronts this, uh, an MCs, these and kind of stairs.

Everything is, um, it's so personable. Uh, so it's hard to not have that, um, cover enthusiasm come across. But I think they're just also very, very thoughtful in terms of. The way that they structure it and schedule it and try and try and fill some of those gaps that you feel when you don't have it. You know, a hallway track anymore.

Um, 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:02:39] it's super daunting though. Like when you have a conference, that's like, it's known so well for being so much fun to be there. I mean, that's so much, like I felt that way with NG camp, because the biggest thing about NG comp was the hallway track. And like, they knew that like they emphasized. At the like IRL G comps, like there was always fun in the hallway, so were like donut walls and that's all I can really remember, but 

Jason Lengstorf: [00:03:06] it was the oldest part of the event.

There's a donut wall. I don't, I'm not going to any talks. 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:03:15] I mean, can you do a virtual donut wall? 

Phil Hawksworth: [00:03:17] I completely, I completely glazed over at the point that you said, uh, I haven't heard anything since you said donut wall. I've only been stuck on that now. So 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:03:26] that was brilliant. Can new, was that intentional?

No, 

it 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:03:30] wasn't. Was it? 

Phil Hawksworth: [00:03:34] I, I was too embarrassed to, once I realized it was coming, that I didn't, I didn't have the guts to call out because I couldn't think of another word. So, 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:03:42] um, yeah, I just sprinkled it in there. Huh?

Phil Hawksworth: [00:03:47] Thank you. Thank you. 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:03:50] But I think that, I think, because I think like that kind of transfers over those, the creative creativity and excitement of the organizers. That do those, uh, events. Now they just have to pivot their thinking and try to make it like NG comp. Um, they did skit because they were using a green screen that they had an invisible man.

Um, 

Lindsay Levine: [00:04:12] I'm like, 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:04:14] sounds so ridiculous. I won't give away the true identity of who the invisible person was, but like, uh, It just, it was hilariously, um, ridiculous. Um, but it's just like, you see, they had to basically funnel all that creativity that they had and all the plans let alone, they had four, cause this was like back in March.

So this was like pretty early on, uh, not a lot of time to like come up with this stuff. But I think for me, that's one of my kind of favorite parts is like watching how that kind of. Creativity and thought work transfers over to the virtual environment 

Jason Lengstorf: [00:04:55] that I, I think that's such a, it's such a challenging transition too, because like, you know, as a conference attendee, the parts that I always take the most out of.

Have been the things that happen in person. So it's, you know, I honestly, I'm a really bad conference attendee because I, I actually go to conferences almost exclusively for the hallway track. Um, it's, it's pretty common for me to show up at a three-day conference and see four talks, uh, because I'll spend most of the time inside conversations, hanging out with other people, going for like a walk into the city to get long lunches with folks like it's, it's such a social event for me.

Um, and, and so when you switch over to a virtual event, it's so hard to bring any of that across because it, the virtual events are by default, completely content focused. Um, and, and it's so easy for them to basically become video playlist. And, and I think that, um, where we're seeing really interesting things is like, like you said, with, uh, with NG conflict, coming up with some kind of a thread that you can pull through the talks that.

That makes it feel like an event as opposed to destroying the talks or, um, I think if you can get a really good, like, find ways to make it a little bit more interactive. And I think there's some, some notes to be taken through virtual media, like, like Twitch is really good at this. How do you take a bunch of people who are not in the same room and make them feel like they're doing an activity together and you, you get these kind of like, How do you pull the audience in and, um, you know, how do you, how do you let people participate in a way that's not completely disruptive to the, the format of the, the event?

And I, I mean, I don't know, it's hard. Like I try to do it on my stream and it's so disruptive. Sometimes we have to just like turn stuff off and I don't think that's good for giving a talk. Um, but it, it is good for like making the audience feel like they're part of it. And I, I feel like that is a, it's kind of a, it's a little bit of a Razor's edge, I think, to walk.

Um, in trying to get this right. 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:06:56] It's funny because you would think there are a lot of resources out there. I think about the popularity of YouTube and like YouTube personalities, like feeding off stuff like that, where you feel like it's so personable with this stranger you've never met and you've never seen in person.

Um, it's just interesting to see how that happens. Like as far as like human interaction though, one of the things that I really loved, so. It was the very first Jamstack comp that I attended and it was the virtual one, but there was the platform they used was happen and it, they did the, um, was it, was it just the virtual networking 

Phil Hawksworth: [00:07:36] is what it was.

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:07:38] Oh my goodness. I was so intimidated by that, but I was like, I got to do it. Okay. Had to like check myself up. I totally did it. And then I was addicted because. Like the hardest thing, in my opinion about meeting people in real life is going away from them.

no how to, like, I mean, like you can, I mean, I can, I could give like, I have great like conversation Enders, like, Oh, I'm starving. I gotta go eat. Oh, I gotta pee, you know, stuff where it's just like, okay, they can't follow me. Right. But no, they can. Um, and so it's really hard sometimes. It conferences to break apart from people.

And what was great is happened there. Like you were meet them for like, I think maybe five minutes or something, and then there's a countdown, the 32nd countdown. That's like, Oh, your session's going to end. And then they just go away. It was fantastic. So I did so many of them 

Phil Hawksworth: [00:08:42] kind of your habits. So like rigorously enforced that, you'd see the countdown and you'd get this kind of Pavlovian.

Now I need to pee kind of,

is that how it worked? 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:08:55] I actually like, pardon me? I was like, okay, do I, do I talk about like, do I use conversation Anders here? Or do I just let this die? And I definitely did a mix of them because it was just too much fun to experiment, 

Lindsay Levine: [00:09:09] but 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:09:10] it was great though. I loved it. And now I think I'm going to implement some.

IOT device like a lapel. It just has a countdown for when I'm going to walk away 

Phil Hawksworth: [00:09:20] in real, for real experiences. 

Jason Lengstorf: [00:09:22] I wonder like, I mean, for, for everyone who's listening, who's never been in a meeting with Tara. Like Tara has the most just like cutthroat meeting etiquette where the meeting gets to the end and then she just says, bye and hangs up.

And like, the meeting just ends like mid sentence. Doesn't matter. It's like, bye. And then it's over. And I'm really wondering how you're going to reintegrate into non remote society, like 

Lindsay Levine: [00:09:47] are 

Jason Lengstorf: [00:09:50] begging you to like adopt smoke bombs as part of your personality, 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:09:56] or just like very uncomfortable social cues where, like, I just put my hands over my face when 

Lindsay Levine: [00:10:02] I'm done talking to you.

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:10:07] I can't imagine I'm not looking forward to that, but, um, Yeah. Speaking of like not things not looking forward to, are there any things that stood out, anything that like stood out to you all about virtual events that you were like, Oh, let's never do that again. Or maybe don't try that because it did not work.

You don't, you can keep it anonymous because we want to have friends still. 

Phil Hawksworth: [00:10:33] That's good thinking, actually, this is interesting because one of the things that I just called out smashing comp as one of the ones that I particularly enjoy, but there's an attribute that I don't enjoy quite so much. And that's the duration of the talks.

Um, because those haven't changed that much since I don't know if they've changed them at all, actually since the, the longer talks that they do at their regular conferences. Um, and so they kept them the same length and. I don't know. It's I think a lot depends on again, how you, how you engage with the conferences and attendees.

Given the, a lot of us are attending from home and people who've got family running around and all those other kinds of things. Um, so what are some of the things that we, we did it for jumpstart conference. We very deliberately made the talks 20 minutes long, which is horrendously short as a speaker.

It's like, here's, here's my introduction. I know what my conclusion is going to be. Oh, I've got very little time in the middle to actually give the, give the meat of the talk. Um, but for an attendee, I think that was kind of nice. I think I actually kind of liked 20 minutes as a, as a, as a, the length of a, of a talk to watch over video.

Um, so I think keeping talks shorter. Personally, I think everyone's probably different, but I personally like that as a, as an attendee of, of virtual campus. 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:11:47] Yeah. I think you get to see a lot more people too. Like I like when I think a lot of companies that are doing now where they have different formats where it's like lightning talks and you know, then the regular link talks and then they'll have longer workshops that you can attend if you want that really in-depth or like.

It's hard to run through any code in 20 minutes, um, and do it well and not worry. I mean, that's, that's, you know, and I mean, even just watching it when it's just like, people definitely do it well, but it's nice to be able to go to a conference and see if you're, if you're there virtually and you're just watching the talks, like it's almost like a hallway track where you get to see all these people and their new technologies.

Phil Hawksworth: [00:12:31] Yeah. I mean, I, I, wasn't kind of like, so this isn't really answering your question, but this is just another thought that's that's, it's like, I'm not honoring the format of the podcast. I'm sorry. Um, but the, one of the things that also I'm seeing, um, two very different approaches is some people are doing the talks live.

And so, and a lot of people are pre-recording the talks. And I think there's a, I think Jason, I think Jason mentioned earlier on there, there's a risk of it becoming like a YouTube channel or , um, And there really is a risk of doing that when you, when you prerecord. However, I kind of liked the fact that that can also mean that the speakers can be engaged in the chat and answering questions on the fly, because you know, in, in, in real life, you, it doesn't really work if halfway through the talk, someone in the audience just says, yeah, but how does this work, you know, has your middle of the presentation, but you can do that when it's virtual, you know, you can, people are asking questions in the chat.

And that I kind of liked the fact that the speakers can be present in the chat and responding and just be part of the conversation as well. So in an odd way, I've seen that, that can feel like you're like you're more engaged even though the talk is prerecorded, as long as there's engagement from the speaker throughout and then Q and a, which is kind of live afterwards.

So I think that it can go both, both ways. For those, 

Jason Lengstorf: [00:13:51] my experience with this has been very positive from an attendee standpoint and very negative from a speaker standpoint. In that like, I hate prerecording talks. Like I just, Oh yeah. I just hate it. Like, there's nothing less fun to me than giving a talk to no one.

Um, and 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:14:15] Oh, you mean as giving a talk, you don't like prerecording. 

Jason Lengstorf: [00:14:18] Yeah. Just recording as a, as a speaker. Um, because like, I, but I, I feel like part of that is because a lot of my. Like everything that I do has an improv. Bent to it. Like, I am not a, I'm not a pro I don't prepare. I am very fly by the seat of my pants.

Let's show up and see what happens. Right. And so this is so counter to my nature as a speaker to prepare something and record it and edit it and Polish it and then turn it in. And I'm just like, Oh, I hate it. It's like school. Um, as an attendee, I really do like the idea of. The speakers are there as like, as the talk is happening, the speaker is there to answer questions in context.

Um, I think where I've seen it go really well is, uh, I saw one where the speaker wasn't there to give the talk. Um, they were there in the chat, but they were collecting questions. And then the MC would like do a live Q and a after the talk. Um, and, and that also like adds to the feeling of you're at a real event.

Um, cause one of the, because, you know, as I said, with the YouTube channel or the YouTube playlist thing is like, if what I'm watching is going to be the same, whether I watch it now or whether I watch it later, when it gets cross posted to YouTube, what is the benefit to me of like taking time out of my day or like, you know, rearranging my schedule to watch it now versus trying to watch it on my lunch break or something.

And, and I think like the. The primary benefit of doing that at a conference is that you're fully engaged in it. If you're, if you're just trying to watch, like in between, you know, you've got to go on in the background, you're working on this other monitor. If you're not, are you really watching or is it just background entertainment?

Right. And so, um, as a, kind of like a tangential attachment to this, uh, one of the things that I have noticed that I really liked about, uh, like smashing to, to call back to them again, um, their workshop format. They've accepted that like remote workshops are an inherently different, medium than in-person workshops.

And so in person, the reason that you do an in person workshop for a full day is because that's the only day you get off. Like you can't take three weeks off to go learn something new. You gotta like learn the thing and get right back to work. What smashing has done with remote is they've broken it up across multiple days as like two hours at a time.

Um, and that puts it into this really interesting format where like, I'm not as a, as a remote person. I do not have the attention span to sit in my own office with no one around for nine hours. Um, I'm not going to do it, but I can spend two hours at a time working on a thing and then like have a couple of days to let that information sink in and then go back and do another two hours.

Um, and I think that like a lot of events are starting to, to explore this idea of like, It's not a full day conference. It's a three hour event that happens on like two or three or four separate days. And I think that's really interesting. Um, Because it lets me focus. It lets me schedule without having to block out full days.

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:17:37] There are so many things that are smart about that, because like, just thinking about, uh, I just was, I'm still, there's a conference going on at now that I will not name, um, that is going on for three days, but it was like three full days of talks, but their platform went down the first day and they had a canceled the whole.

Second part of the day and then switch platforms for the next day. But if you think about it as like those smaller chunks that happen over a more extended period, there's less pressure for the organizers. And like, as an attendee, I would love that because I can't tell you how many, like. Seven hour workshops or like six hour workshops.

I've been a part of where it's like information, information, information, and then you leave and you're like, I need something with something because it's just so overwhelming. Like you have all this information and let alone, if you have questions that part two of 17 and you're just moving onto the next section.

So I, I really liked that. Um, And it's a little more, it's funny. I actually really liked school. Um, you know, this is probably our only difference, Jason. 

Lindsay Levine: [00:18:45] Um, 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:18:46] but it's kind of like school where it's like, you know, you just fit that part of the section into your daily routine where it's just like, it's much easier.

Like you said, to squeeze in two hours somewhere than a big chunk of time in one day. 

Jason Lengstorf: [00:19:02] Yeah, it will. And I also just think it's better for absorption, right? Like , we've got research that shows that the best way to learn something is like intense learning followed by time, like to let it marinate. Um, and yeah, so you, you learn for two hours, you eat the whole donut wall.

Sleep that off. And then you come back and learn for two hours. Hope they didn't refill the donut wall. So you don't have to go work out later. Like, you know, like, uh, you have, um, if you have the ability to like intensely bury yourself in something for a little bit of time, get completely overwhelmed and then let it soak in your subconscious for a bit and then come back and revisit it.

It's that's going to make that content sit, like, sit it'll actually stick in your brain. You'll actually start to understand it versus, you know, a dunk. And then you feel like you're drowning for a day and then you'll retain like 10, 15% of it because you won't have time to practice it again. So this is like built in practice and repetition.

I think that's the stuff that really makes stuffs like stick and sink in, um, which doesn't help so much with like talk driven events. Uh, because the content will change across days, but I do think it helps, like, I don't know about you, but if I watch, if I go to a conference and I actually watch all eight talks by the fourth talk, my brain is jello.

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:20:25] Oh my goodness. Yeah. Yeah. But even being able to break those up with something, the content content, that's not so heavy in 

Jason Lengstorf: [00:20:33] between. Nice. Yeah. 

Phil Hawksworth: [00:20:36] What's your, um, Preferred duration of a talk then whether you're in the room or not, not just not to give us as, as speaker, but if you were to, to engage in just to watch your talk, what would you, what's your preferred duration?

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:20:51] Definitely 20 to 30 minutes for me. I can't, I just cannot do over like the 45 minute talks that I see a lot. Like, I, I lose track. I just, I can't, I don't, I, you know, I'm. I'm an internet child. 

Phil Hawksworth: [00:21:09] You you'd like all of your talks delivered as Tik TOK. What, what is, what is the tick? What is the unit of tick talk by the way, is this a tick, tick?

Tick. It 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:21:19] goes tick and then talk and then tick and then talk and then taking them talk. How have you not learned that? 

Phil Hawksworth: [00:21:25] You're all rolling your eyes at me, but no, none of us really know. I don't want 

Lindsay Levine: [00:21:29] to look. That's the max length of a tick 

Phil Hawksworth: [00:21:31] tock. It's maximum 60 seconds. Alright, thank you. 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:21:35] 60 seconds. 

Lindsay Levine: [00:21:37] Maximum length of a sequel Tik TOK is 60 seconds.

Yeah, one minute. That's wild. 

Jason Lengstorf: [00:21:41] You can, you didn't make art in 60 seconds on those things. 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:21:45] Seriously. Can I put a super, super side note note in here? I just been this thing that in, um, interstellar, when they're on Miller, that water planet. The soundtrack has a tick in the soundtrack and that tick like marks one day on earth and millet.

Yeah. That's so cool. It makes me want to watch that for the 80th time again. 

Phil Hawksworth: [00:22:11] That's great. I think I might've found the, the other person who likes that movie. I've spoken to so many people who just do not like the movie and I really enjoy it. You will like it. Do you like 

Lindsay Levine: [00:22:24] sort of what I've heard about, or from people who have 

seen 

Phil Hawksworth: [00:22:27] it yourself?

Jason Lengstorf: [00:22:28] I just want you to be better friends. 

Phil Hawksworth: [00:22:30] I do. I mean, trying to jettison those losers for such a long time, I took, 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:22:35] I took my dad and he was like, I, I was like, it's not what I expected. I was like, well, what did you expect? He was like, I thought there would be more space travel. And I was like, dad, that was like the whole second half of the movie.

And he's like, I did fall asleep 

Lindsay Levine: [00:22:47] for a little bit. 

Phil Hawksworth: [00:22:50] Well, I mean, that's, that's a review all of its own, I suppose. Isn't it. 

Lindsay Levine: [00:22:55] But anyway, 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:22:56] so it's 60 seconds Lindsey. 

Jason Lengstorf: [00:22:57] Yeah, that that is the, the, the unit. So, so you want your talks to be three tech talks or less, or 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:23:05] me? Yeah. Yeah. 

Lindsay Levine: [00:23:08] When you're speaking to the two hours, you know, the intense learning two hours, maybe two hours max letting it marinade.

I was thinking Jason should invent school should reinvent school. I'm a dropout. I, you know, if, 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:23:24] if 

Lindsay Levine: [00:23:25] a talk can be five minutes, let's, let's cap it at that. Let's just get straight to the point. And that's my perspective. 

Jason Lengstorf: [00:23:33] I think I agree with that. Like I am, I'm a big fan of, um, keeping talks really short where I think the, I think there's a, a line for me though, where, where I want either.

I either want it to be like Ted talk length, 10 to 15 minutes. Or I want it to be the 45 minute actual we're building a thing. Um, because there's, there's two modes that I learned in, right. There's like conceptual mode where we're talking about philosophy and big ideas. I have yet to hear somebody talk about philosophy for longer than 15 minutes without starting to repeat themselves or getting off point.

So I want, yeah, like a 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:24:07] short time. My philosophy papers. 

Jason Lengstorf: [00:24:09] Yeah, me too. I mean like most guilty of this, this is why all my blog posts are 6,000 words and you can stop reading after the first paragraph and be done.

Okay. They make that joke. Like this book should have been a blog post. My blog post should have been a tweet. Like that's 

Lindsay Levine: [00:24:24] really,

Jason Lengstorf: [00:24:28] but, um, but I think that, you know, like a lot of talks that are, here's a way to think about a thing should be 10 to 15 minutes. But then if it's like, I'm going to show you how to build a thing. Let's do the 45 minutes. Don't speed. Run me to save time, because I want to be able to actually see what's happening.

Don't shortcut things. Don't copy paste, a big chunk of code that I'm gonna have to pause the video and read myself, like walk me through the whole process. And if that takes 45 minutes, so be it, I'd rather learn than have you rush for time. 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:24:58] You know, what'd be really cool. Cause like one of my favorite, my favorite takeaways from talks are like a super deep dive into one tiny thing that I never knew that much about.

And, um, I used to love doing this with different, uh, Like you see a lot of this when you see a, that with ECMAScript and when they come out with new, um, features to add, they have to like really dig down deep, like in temporal came, uh, as Cummins in the process of coming out to deal with time and date and JavaScript.

And like, they hit you, like, you have to deep dive into like, when did calendar start and why? Because you're rebuilding why they started so five minutes on like a micro deep. So it's like five minutes, but it's one thing and it goes really deep would be so cool. Like, I would be way about that. Like, and then, you know, you have the second half of the day, you can go to it in depth.

Workshop to actually learn how to use it and put these things into play. Like, man, I'm okay. Obviously this pod has episode would come up with a new conference idea, 

Jason Lengstorf: [00:26:06] but I think like in their talks like this, right, like I've seen these talks and they always, the ones that always stick with me are, are talks like that.

Like I've saw, um,  did a talk on Lambda calculus that was like, it's a deep dive into something kind of esoteric. Uh, John Fenella did one on time. It's the history of time zones and measures of time and how we got to where we are. And it is the weirdest, bizarre, deep dive I've ever seen. And like those talks, neither one has real impact on my work, but they gave, they like give you this kind of lateral view of, of how the world got to be where it is.

And I think that that adds to the way that we work and think about things. Definitely adds empathy, right? Like when you see somebody struggling with dates, I don't know. Part of me goes, Oh, this is easy. Like it's so fun. 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:26:58] Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, when people are like, Oh, it's hard. And JavaScript was like, no, time is hard.

Time 

Lindsay Levine: [00:27:03] is hard. 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:27:07] But speaking of time, do you all want to talk about like any latest or upcoming conferences that you're excited about or involved in? 

Phil Hawksworth: [00:27:17] Oh, I don't know. Nothing comes

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:27:26] on their mind lately. 

Phil Hawksworth: [00:27:27] Nothing comes to mind at all. I can't really, 

Jason Lengstorf: [00:27:30] Oh 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:27:31] my brain to figure it out. 

Phil Hawksworth: [00:27:35] Well, we are knocking on the door at Jamstack constantly, since you, since you mentioned it earlier on and actually goodness me, it really, we really are knocking on the door it's next week. 

Jason Lengstorf: [00:27:45] Yes. 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:27:46] And by the time this product comes out, it may be this week.

No pressure. Chris, when are you? 

Phil Hawksworth: [00:27:58] Uh, at least at least we made this a perfect clean recording. So really there's basically no editing needed. Chris can just have a, McGurty listen to it. It'll take 35 minutes with 

Jason Lengstorf: [00:28:10] the publish button. 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:28:13] He can sip on a lemon,

Phil Hawksworth: [00:28:18] whether we finished this podcast recording in time or not, it is happening on the 6th of October. So the conference is on the sixth and then we have a workshop day on the seventh, um, and, uh, Yeah, I'm pretty, I'm pretty excited about it. I mean, we had, as you mentioned, we had the last couch of it searching for the word there.

I just wanted to put something in it needed editing. There we go. Uh, you put the last, we had the last edition in may and that was the quote unquote London version. And this is the quote unquote San Francisco Cisco version. Uh, but yeah, they're both, they're both virtual. Um, I 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:28:53] think in the time zone, right.

Of each of those locations, 

Phil Hawksworth: [00:28:56] that's true. It isn't the time zone, but I'm, I'm, uh, Well, yeah, Tara and I are both getting to MC this woman. Um, and I will be emceeing the San Francisco event from the timezone in London. So that will be fine. Uh, no one, no one will be any of the wiser. 

Jason Lengstorf: [00:29:13] Fine, 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:29:14] Jason and I, uh, very aptly are doing workshops as well as, uh, I think we're both kind of helping with some discussions too, throughout the conference.

You can't get rid of us, basically. We want to be at the conference and you're going to have to see it. 

Phil Hawksworth: [00:29:28] I don't recall either of you being invited in any way, shape or form, but you're 

Jason Lengstorf: [00:29:32] very much present, 

Phil Hawksworth: [00:29:34] but there's some, there's so much good stuff. So there are like those panel panel discussions, those kind of topic tables for kind of big.

Big discussions, um, with there's a bunch of lightning talks, whichever 10 minutes, which is punchy, but it's so focused. It's really nice and focused. So we have loads of it, credible submissions from the community. So we had a CFP, um, some people submitted proposals and it was really difficult. Um, choosing from that.

From those wonderful proposals. So we have more lightning talks and more content from, uh, I was going to say full talks, but even a full talk is 20 minutes. Yeah.

Sorry. I do beg your pardon. That was my accent. Once again, 

Jason Lengstorf: [00:30:15] we, 

Phil Hawksworth: [00:30:17] geez. 

Jason Lengstorf: [00:30:17] We're doing those lightening launches and I am, I'm super excited for a couple of the things that are coming out of that. I'm, I'm really, there's some stuff that I think is going to move the Jamstack community. Ahead by quite a bit coming through this, this, these announcements, like, you know, it's stuff that if you're really plugged in, you know, about, if you, if you are a casual observer of Twitter, like I am, uh, then you, you may not have heard about some of this stuff yet.

Um, I think the workshops are going to be super fun. I'm doing a Jamstack one-on-one, uh, it's a shorter format, like it's a half day. Uh, and I'm going to try not to bury people. Like my, my goal is that you walk out. Feeling capable, not, uh, not overwhelmed. Um, I will 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:31:03] no promises, 

Lindsay Levine: [00:31:06] but 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:31:07] honestly though, like that's kind of the glory of the Jamstack because it's like, you're just re reconfiguring things that people already know.

We've talked about this on many podcasts episodes, but, so I feel like even though the. How you construct it and the architecture may look a little different. You already have that base knowledge. And I mean, if only you were good at helping people code live and, you know, teaching them things online, I mean, that would really make it great.

Phil Hawksworth: [00:31:39] One practice. Jason, we know you've already told us you won't practice. You're just going to turn up, turn your camera on and 

Lindsay Levine: [00:31:45] go. Okay. 

Phil Hawksworth: [00:31:47] Here's a half day workshop. 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:31:49] He's going to finish, grinding his coffee beans and go, Oh, hello. There, are you here to land the Jamstack with me?  

Phil Hawksworth: [00:31:56] for legal reasons, we should probably, we probably say that Jason will not be doing that because while the conference is free, the workshops are $100 and Jason Langsdorf will be preparing actually for his half day workshops.

Jason Lengstorf: [00:32:10] Okay. I'm totally, you know, 

Phil Hawksworth: [00:32:13] I can't, 

Jason Lengstorf: [00:32:13] it's going to be so much fun. Get ready. Like it's 

Phil Hawksworth: [00:32:16] the best I can do for getting you out of jail. Jason, 

Jason Lengstorf: [00:32:18] if you like building, come on, let's make it. I do, 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:32:22] I, 100% have to bash for this because we've been doing a lot of mob pairing and pair coding in general. And it's hilarious because Jason will be like, I have a quick cycle.

Did you need help? And I'm like, yes. And then he pushes like, Helps me push three of my four requests over a hump that I've been in, in like 10 minutes and like, does it in a way that it's like, okay, so what we're going to do is walk through this process and here's what what's happening and how we're sending state across.

And I'm just like, huh, 

Lindsay Levine: [00:32:48] cool. It's like basically 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:32:51] a workshop in his like free cycle after he eats his breakfast sandwich. 

Jason Lengstorf: [00:32:55] So I can definitely vouch for that. 

Lindsay Levine: [00:32:58] Yeah, 

Phil Hawksworth: [00:32:59] he is. He is a pretty, pretty useful person to, to use in that way. I definitely, I definitely agree. Uh, and if anyone has got any doubts about whether they should part with money for one of these workshops, you should just go and check out, learn with Jason for a little taste, and then realize you could get a half day dose of that.

This is the, this is the biggest sales pitch I've ever done. 

Jason Lengstorf: [00:33:21] I actually got to cut you off because the workshops sold out. Um, there are other words that are available and they are going to be equally good. So we've got like, we've got, um, Terry you're teaching a workshop. 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:33:35] Uh, what are you teaching? Better?

Build a bedroom, build a build plugin, 

Jason Lengstorf: [00:33:39] build a bear. Build it, build it, build it. Yeah, there is

and then we've got, um, Hey, Zeus is going to teach us how to build e-commerce on the Jamstack. Like that's going to be a super cool one. I don't have the rest of the list in front of me. There's so much 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:34:00] comms.com. 

Phil Hawksworth: [00:34:03] Well, that's the thing. Yeah, you can, you can say all of this on Jamstack com.com for sure. But yeah, we've got workshops on Gatsby.

We've got workshops on building things with next. We've got, we've got all sorts of stuff, so 

Jason Lengstorf: [00:34:13] we'll 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:34:13] put them on the show notes 

Phil Hawksworth: [00:34:14] too. Did we intend to get so salesy? I feel, I feel like I just did like a 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:34:19] sponsor 

Phil Hawksworth: [00:34:21] enthusiasm. Isn't it it's enthusiasm, 

Jason Lengstorf: [00:34:23] but I feel like, you know, I don't even feel like this is sales.

Like, I honestly feel like, you know, for, for a hundred bucks to be able to spend four hours with an expert and learn something, if you don't turn that four hours into a significantly larger amount of money, like it's going to advance your career, it's going to make you more money. And, and I think that like, it's, it's a steal because if you know, if you're looking at some of the other things out there in the community, you'll spend a hundred bucks for a, for an ebook, you'll spend a hundred bucks for like, Yeah, there there's stuff out there.

That's five, six, seven. I mean, 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:34:56] let's be honest. This is less than my pre door dash order for the day of Jamstack com

Jason Lengstorf: [00:35:06] you just find out is that Tara is making her own donut wall. 

Lindsay Levine: [00:35:11] Yeah. 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:35:12] Oh my gosh. I could do that. They'll be like, what's all the grease things 

Lindsay Levine: [00:35:20] you signed. 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:35:21] You signed the contract. 

Jason Lengstorf: [00:35:22] She bought me 

Lindsay Levine: [00:35:23] clothes, no question. 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:35:26] But, uh, we are wrapping up on time. So, uh, with just one, uh, like quick, uh, sentence or so I would love you all to, uh, just tell us what your favorite virtual conference, or if you haven't been to a virtual conference, um, a memory that you would, uh, Like from a virtual conference or whatever Lindsay decides, she wants to tell us about it.

Lindsay Levine: [00:35:54] I'll go for it. And I would just like to ignore what you're saying and ask Chris to clip the frozen cover that Tara sang, and I'm going to remix it and we'll put 

Phil Hawksworth: [00:36:03] it 

Lindsay Levine: [00:36:04] on another podcast or on the internet. Yeah. 

Jason Lengstorf: [00:36:08] That's just, 

Lindsay Levine: [00:36:09] that's just a small 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:36:10] request. That's the memory that you would make. 

Lindsay Levine: [00:36:13] Yeah. A terrible performance, accustom, frozen built plugin, 

Jason Lengstorf: [00:36:18] Remax 

Phil Hawksworth: [00:36:19] to beat 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:36:22] you all, just going to make up memories now, aren't you, you're not even going to stick to the prompt.

Phil Hawksworth: [00:36:26] Okay. So I have, I have a memory. So, uh, what a break? Uh, I have a memory from a, from a conference that I, I could have named earlier as a favorite actually. So. Um, I think maybe the first virtual conference I attended this year as, as odd things started happening in the world was a S it was a very small conference based in Leeds in the North of England, uh, which normally has like 150, maybe 200 people I think there, um, but had to go virtual.

And as a result, I ended up with much bigger reach because, you know, they, they could reach an audience for, from a wider. Wider net. Um, but the thing that I really enjoyed, uh, in particular that surprised me at the end of the day. Was, you know, everyone was, uh, it was basically like a giant zoom call, uh, for the most part.

Uh, and at the end of the day, they just kept, uh, the playlist that was kind of their hold music throughout the day, like in the different kind of gaps, they just kind of kept that running for a couple of hours after the conference. And people just hung out as if it was. Like music in the bar and people just started chatting in the text in zoom.

A few of us just kind of went and got a cold drink and enjoyed kind of having a drink and chatting with people. And it did feel a little bit like the schmoozing and socializing you do at the end of the conference. And it, it happened just kind of impromptu just because they. Kept the music going and kept the chat open and people just hang out and gossip and I, I really enjoyed that.

That was 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:37:52] that's so awesome. They actually, it's funny. Cause they, they unintentionally did that at NG camp where they had the music going and the chat was still open. So we all kind of just like kept the banter back and forth, uh, and then were like, seriously, you all go home? What are you doing? Why are you still here?

Like they would come back on screen and be like a bunch of you are still here hanging out. I don't know why, but then they kept it going because we wouldn't leave this 

Phil Hawksworth: [00:38:20] great. 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:38:21] One of my, like, definitely, uh, it's it's funny. Cause it does go back to Jamstack cons, but I did a workshop last Jamstack con for, uh, angular and the Jamstack and you know, it's like, it was nice.

It was a smaller group. So we were all kind of able to go on camera and talk to each other and we were, we built out an angular. Jamstack project. And at the end, we're also excited. And you know, you have that feeling when you build something out. But so then we all did the wave together on the zoom camera or like on the zoom video.

And it worked out super, super cute, but it was just like, I don't know, I probably would not have done that in real life. I would have not stood up in front of my work and be like, so time to do the wafers, like, but then you also had like this screen capture of like the fun, like teamwork end thing. That was really great.

And so I still have that and I play it like ever so optics. I really like it. That's my memory 

Phil Hawksworth: [00:39:22] things. 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:39:23] People say that a lot about me. 

Phil Hawksworth: [00:39:25] Yeah. 

Jason Lengstorf: [00:39:27] So you say I have, uh, um, a memory like w this one, I don't even know if this is really like virtual event specific, but just a memory that I wrote that I really love is, uh, Maggie Appleton gave this talk on like visualizing complex ideas and systems.

And one of the things that she did was she compared react to a potato. Uh, and she did it with this really beautiful visual, you know, as Maggie Appleton does, like everything that she creates is always so visually interesting and well done. Um, but it just swept the internet. Like it completely escaped the conference and it became like a meme where react was a potato for like a week after this.

And it was, it was just such a, like, I love it when something, and I know for sure. And actually, I don't know for sure. I suspect that this was a complete throwaway idea where she like gave the talk and was like, Oh yeah, here's the visual comparison. And it was just like, for whatever reason, hit at the right time and the right, the right way that everybody just kind of took, picked it up and ran with it.

And it was just wonderful. Like it's such a charming. It was such a charming little moment of like internet happiness. 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:40:37] I love that. So that's another episode of remotely. Interesting. Thank you all so much for joining us next week. Uh, or next episode, I should say, we're going to be talking about, uh, the benefits of connecting with your team through pear and mob coding, especially during the times that we're going through right now with this pandemic.

So again, thanks for joining us today. Uh, we've had the panel here, including myself, Tara litter Gupton 

Jason Lengstorf: [00:41:05] and I'm Jason twinkle toes Lang store 

Lindsay Levine: [00:41:08] I'm Lindsay. I was forced to do this part Levine

Phil Hawksworth: [00:41:15] and I'm Phil fancy pants. 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:41:17] Hawksworth brilliant. Thank you all so much for joining us today. 

Lindsay Levine: [00:41:23] Next time. Bye.

Jason Lengstorf: [00:41:37] one, 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:41:38] two, three, 

Jason Lengstorf: [00:41:43] two, we'll slow down that lag. Every 

Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:41:48] time we 

all do that. 

But the funniest thing is, feels clap is also slow. Oh, I meant 

Phil Hawksworth: [00:41:54] what'd you mean in terms of that's because there's an ocean between us or use,

I'm 

giving you a visual clue. That's you're welcome.