"Hiatus" doesn't mean "dead" · 15 days ago
In the last few days, a handful of people have lamented the disappearance of XP Day North America, so I want to be clear about our hiatus and what that means.
At present, I (J. B. Rainsberger) am taking a break from organizing XP Day North America and from being heavily involved in others organizing such events. If you would like to organize an XP Day North America event, write for this weblog, promote events, or otherwise keep the spirit of XP Day North America alive, then I’m happy to have you. Please show your interest by commenting on this entry.
I would like to thank those who have already shown interest. Perhaps you can do something with XP Day North America that I simply wasn’t able to do.
So, who’s in?
— J. B. Rainsberger
XP Day North America is on hiatus · 36 days ago
Well, it’s time to admit that XP Day North America isn’t going anywhere right now. For a variety of reasons, including changing priorities, lower energy and a disappointing turnout to our last two events, we have decided to stop organizing XP Day North America events indefinitely.
We would like to thank all our sponsors and co-hosts, including Thoughtworks Canada, Pyxis Technologies, Thoughtworks New York City, Community Connect, Digital Focus (now Command Information), Methods and Tools and the Agile Alliance.
We would also like to thank our speakers, especially those who agreed to join us before we could afford to pay their expenses.
I would personally like to thank my co-organizers Niraj Khanna, Deborah Hartmann, Sarah Rainsberger, and all the others who helped put these events together.
Finally, thanks to Kent Beck, Francesco Cirillo and John Goodsen for being there in Oregon in 2004 when I first suggested there should be a North American conference with “XP” in the title. Without them, I would never have tried any of this.
We might be back.
— J. B. Rainsberger
Looking for feedback · 197 days ago
Warning: I’m going to share some of my opinions on the conference. The intention is to acquire feedback and solutions to some questions I have. Here’s the kicker: I want to get more attendees at this event for the attendees’ sake much more than my own. I imagine that’s hard to believe from anyone involved in promotion, but I’ll ask you to believe it anyways.
As a co-host and promoter of XP Day, I’ve been able to attend all five of the XP Day North America conferences. Given that I’m not a recognizable “name”, I really get to enjoy being an observer and a mild contributor, without the pressure of being “on” as the speakers and presenters must surely feel. I’d like to share some of my observations with you and then follow-up with how can we get more attendees at these conferences.
If you were to ask me what benefit XP Day serves to its attendees, my response, as any good consultant’s would be, is “it depends what you want out of it.” Some people come to listen to notable practitioners speak about a certain subject. Others come to post their questions or findings as an open space discussion topic to share with peers. Then you have people that just come to hang out and see if they can pickup a few useful pieces of information that might help them deliver running, relevant software sooner.
I’ve yet to attend any XP Day conference whereby an attendee felt their $250 was poorly spent. At the end of each XP Day NA conference, everyone has an opportunity to share what they got out of the sessions. Not once has anyone said “nothing, this was a waste of my time” or something similar. So what leaves me baffled is: If everyone who has attended has thoroughly enjoyed the conference, why aren’t more attendees flocking to this event?
My guess is momentum. Since consecutive conferences are never in the same city, how does the conference get the public buzz surrounding it? I haven’t seen any discussions on the “international” forums like extremeprogramming that have carried over from the conference. I doubt there’s much I can do about it, but it’s noteworthy to mention that fertile discussion in such a widely read forum would be quite helpful.
Other areas we’re looking at revising to get more attendees are:
- Cost. Is $250 too much?
- Format. Would more attendees be interested if the conference was purely open space or purely tutorials?
- Cities. To date, we’ve selected big cities with a relatively large set of programmers (irrespective if there was a thriving agile group in town, as we really want to appeal to XP curious devs).
- Traditional marketing (ads in eWeekly, for example).
J. B. and I are currently looking at modifying all four variables mentioned. But what I’m finding difficult is justifying any decision we make. Without feedback, we really don’t know why the conferences aren’t attracting more attendees. I’m worried that our modifications will be no different than someone who is drowning, flapping their arms around in the water with the hope that whatever they’re doing will save them. Usually, that just gets them killed faster.
So, can anyone throw us a line? Ideas, insights from past attendees and what would be golden would be insights from non-attendees who considered attending and didn’t. Jerry McGuire said it best: “Help me help you.”
— Niraj Khanna
Welcome to the new xpday.info! · 197 days ago
After two years of trying a bunch of different web site ideas, we have relaunched xpday.info. Look here for news about events in 2008 and beyond. We have some interesting ideas in the works.
I committed to organizing XP Day North America in 2004 at a workshop that Kent Beck hosted in beautiful Merlin, Oregon. At that time, we were discussing how to help raise the profile, and profitability, of XP. At that time, the two major North American conferences on Agile were merging to become Agile 200x. I wanted there to be a North American conference specifically about Extreme Programming, so the idea was born. At the time, we brainstormed a list of 20 cities to visit with a traveling roadshow of one-day events.
My vision was to help local software development communities learn about XP without having to spend thousands of dollars, and a week traveling hundreds of miles. XP novices could learn inexpensively and in their own backyard. If they liked what they learned, they might join us at the larger conferences, on the mailing lists and in projects. At the same time, I wanted to give local experts a chance to make a bigger name for themselves. After five events, I believe we have delivered on some of that vision, and I look forward to helping XP Day North America evolve over the coming years.
In 2005, Niraj Khanna joined the XP Day North America crew as promoter and co-investor. He is looking for ways to keep this event series relevant, both to presenters and attendees. To that end, here are some ideas in store for 2008 and beyond.
We are looking to bring XP Day North America to Mexico City in 2008 to make it a truly North American event. We also have tentative plans to expand to XP Day Americas, including South America and Caribbean. We plan to enrich our training and help our Open Space events become the premier XP event in the western hemisphere!
Thank you for attending XP Day North America, for telling your friends and colleagues about it, for joining us as invited guests or volunteer organizers. We couldn’t do it without you, and we hope to come to a city near you sometime soon. Please subscribe to our RSS feed to stay in touch.
— J. B. Rainsberger