LOUDER

DeMo Des Moines — February Edition

DeMo Des Moines returns to Startup City Des Moines on Tuesday, February 21 at 4pm.

Not clear on what DeMo is? Check out the recap from January’s event.

You don’t have to register to attend or present, but a heads-up is always appreciated. Hope to see you there.

My BarCamp Cedar Valley Recap

My wife and I road-tripped to the UNI Campus in Cedar Falls this past weekend for BarCamp Cedar Valley. I really enjoyed myself. The audience was my favorite part — there were a lot of energetic, open-minded, and educated people asking good questions and enhancing every presentation with their participation.

Structurally, the event was nearly identical to the Des Moines BarCamp I attended in December. Three tracks (techies, creatives, entrepreneurs), seven speaking slots per track, and only a few spots were left untaken by the end of the day.

Emboldened by my DSM BarCamp experience I marched straight in and was the first sign-up of the day, snagging a 10am slot in the creatives track. I labeled my talk “Getting Started with Markdown”. It was essentially a live demonstration of my writing set-up on OSX using the Markdown text-to-HTML conversion tool in TextMate, with Marked for previewing. It seemed to go over well, and based on discussion throughout the day and on Twitter, I know I convinced at least a few writers in the audience to give Markdown a try.

I put my name down again later in the day for the final speaking spot in the entrepreneurs track. I called it “Don’t Be Sheepish About Your Job Search”. I talked about how I used social tools like Twitter and Storify to share my own job search story and generate leads. Reflecting on what I shared, a better title might have been “Job Hunting for Introverts”.

I felt better about my Markdown presentation than the job search presentation. It was a better fit for the track, and the crowd was larger and more energetic in the AM. I’m still glad I did both, and love how the BarCamp unconference model allows an opportunity to try out new stuff without much pressure.

Cat snagged a mid-day spot in the creatives track as well. She presented “Blogging 201” and shared tips, tricks, and tools she’s learned from being the Managing Editor of Offbeat Home.

I bounced between all three tracks throughout the day. Thoughts from a group conversation about diversity in technology and a presentation about networking and relationship building as a consultant are still bouncing around in my head after the fact.

I stole a little time from our busy weekend to buzz through Cedar Falls’ downtown area before heading home. Wow. It was a remarkably lively area on a late Saturday afternoon. Very cool-looking shops and restaurants. I was particularly impressed with the visual aesthetic of the downtown — nearly every shop, sign, building, and storefront was beautifully designed. I hope to get a chance to visit again with more time to explore the area.

All in all, BarCamp CV was A++, would BarCamp again. I’m very grateful to the organizers and sponsors that made the event possible and the welcoming attitude everyone showed a couple of conference crashers from Des Moines. Hope I can make the next one.

Help Me Solve DeMo’s Presenter Problem

If you’re not familiar with DeMo, read about it here, first.

I’ve been running DeMo for several months now with varying levels of success. With a full house and a slate of energetic presenters, it goes great. There’s one little problem: I’m having a hell of a time getting people to present. I don’t know why. I need your help.

I’m looking for whatever insights and opinions you can offer to see if this event is worth saving. I want to reach a point where people just ping me on Twitter, chat or text and say “Hey, I’ll take a slot, see you Tuesday.” That’s not even close to happening. Last month involved a lot of cajoling, arm-twisting, and even a little begging.

In a recent Juice article that talks about DeMo, I offer up advice for people starting a new project and seeking feedback to first give themselves a thorough critique and dressing down, thinking through possible problems. I’ll try and eat my own dogfood here with possible problems I’ve been able to think of:

1. People don’t get it. I’m on variation five or six of my elevator pitch by now. I must have really screwed the pooch early on in explaining this to people. Maybe the name is bad? No idea at this point. Here’s the bare skeleton of my pitch: Present a thing. Tell us what about the thing you want feedback on. We’ll give feedback on the thing. It is very easy. It is very helpful.
2. The time still doesn’t work. Possible, but seems unlikely at this point. Getting butts in seats hasn’t been too hard, getting presenters has been.
3. People are afraid to share. Their thing “isn’t quite ready” or they think they have to keep it secret until it’s 99% done. Getting people out of this mindset is the point of DeMo. I may need help solving this if people think it’s a problem still.
4. People think I’m an asshole and will be a jerk about their stuff. I’m not, and I won’t be.
5. People don’t care. They feel they get an adequate amount of feedback from the network and team they already have. I worry this might be the real problem. I hope to gosh it’s not. Personally, I would leap at the opportunity to have some of Des Moines’ best and brightest giving me feedback, for free, on a regular basis in a low-pressure environment. I struggle each month not to fill up an hour with my own stuff I want feedback on. Educating a potential audience on the value of feedback before I even get them in the door might be more than I’m ready to handle for something like this.
6. It’s too often OR people don’t have anything to show off. “I don’t have anything to DeMo” is something I hear a lot. It’s totally not true (have you done anything in the last month? yeah? gotten all the feedback you need on it?) but it’s a struggle to get folks to realize that. I need help.
7. The focus is too broad. Developers want to talk to developers, designers want to talk to designers, artists want to talk to artists. Maybe? Hard to say. Recurring events targeted at a more specific subset seem to have more success, and have been more successful for me in the past. Perhaps I am too idealistic about creating a big feedback melting pot.
8. Something else I’m not seeing…

What’s keeping you from presenting at DeMo? I really need to hear from you. If it’s all still crickets come Monday, I will probably call off the event, and may decide to pass the torch or just put a kibosh on the whole thing. I hate to do it but booking for DeMo is unfortunately starting to eat up way too much of my attention.

Ping me on Twitter at @scottrocketship or write me at scott@scottkubie.com. Thanks.