Looking back at /dev/24

24h of content

What does it take to run an event like /dev/24? After having recovered from the "jetlag" of being awake for 24h, I've done some research: The initial concept document was created in May 2020: Back then it was the hot times of quarantines around the world, so it was clear already, that Devcon 2020 (and particularly, the Unconference) would at least be postponed. As a self-respecting (and very impatient) Nerd, that's just unacceptable, so one does what one needs to do: Think of an alternative, to have an excuse for meeting with Liferay Developers and the community, without having to wait for Devcon.

David Gomez came in quickly and our joint proposal got approved in the record time of 5 minutes (Thanks, Brian). Do you know what it feels like when you prepare endless arguments, concepts, and scenarios, only to be approved on the spot, without needing them at all? Amazing experience! Talk about being over-prepared.

/dev/24 was meant to be a community led event - with as little help as possible from those that professionally organize our events. This means that I was lucky my managers were all on board as well, and granted the time to coordinate the event, aside of my regular day-job.

We added some coordination within the different Liferay departments first, before going public. This was in order to see if we can rely on them to submit content - after all, the event was planned close to the release date of DXP 7.3 and 7.3 CE GA6. This time is often high-stress, in case late blockers are identified. With such a blocker being discovered, preparing a presentation would take a distant second place on the list of priorities of a bug-fixing software developer.

It turned out that we got good support throughout the organization and could go public with the first announcement and call for submissions.

Well, long story short: Of course, preparation still took quite some effort, but we got immediate offers to help, from within the company as well as from outside. It's great to get voluntary community help even for the messy and hidden work behind the scenes, not just a shiny video appearance.

You can see how smooth the day went by looking at the stream recording - which was up immediately and quickly timestamped at https://liferay.dev/24. This only worked so well because of a lot of behind-the-scenes organization going on all the time. In fact, so much that I will still need to set aside another 22 hours to now watch the content that I couldn't pay attention to during the event. 

If you wonder how this all was done: The event itself was running in a Zoom Webinar, which got live-streamed to YouTube. The webinar was also our backup solution, should anything be failing with the YouTube stream. The organizing team had a second Zoom Meeting running at all times, in which quick coordination was way easier (and more personal) than any text-chat could provide. "Just" make sure pick the right mute-button at all times.

I'm thankful for being able to do what I love (see also), having gotten the personal support, even from people that I didn't know before. And that it's possible to execute such a stunt as a group effort.

Naming everyone always risks calling out someone who doesn't like to be called out in public - Right now, I have 52 envelopes sitting in front of me, which gives you an impression of the size of the event behind the scenes. You know who you are, and you are going to receive some (physical) mail soon. Twice, to be exact (don't ask ;) ).

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