1st Conference of the Year
YouGotThis was fun !
YouGotThis 2020 at Birmingham
Kevin here đź‘‹, On the 18th January I attended YouGotThis which is a one day conference targeted at early-career developers. The talks are all about non-technical skills to help you have a happy and healthy work life.
But for me YouGotThis was not only a conference where I could learn from the speakers but also a way for me to meet and engage with people.
The environment of the conference was very positive and the numerous breaks in between talks “allowed” and “pushed” you to meet people.
As you may have notice, we — Samsung Internet as part of our mission, help events that support diversity. This conference is one of many that we sponsor.
We were happy to support YouGotThis that was in line with our diversity and inclusion goals, you can read more about them in this article: “Help! someone has pointed out my conference has diversity issues! How do I fix this?”medium.com
**If you are running a conference and would like to apply for a sponsorship here is the place to be: **https://sponsorship.samsunginter.net/
Out of the 9 amazing talks I’ve selected 4 things I wish more people know:
Create a Brag document
( From the talk given by Gargi Sharma — So good they can’t ignore you)
A brag doc ? isn’t what LinkedIn is made for ? cough
You’re probably doing so many awesome thing that you probably don’t remember all of them, and that’s where the brag doc comes in.
A brag doc would be the place where you enumerate everything you did: Projects, piece of codes, achievement, people your helped.
If you want learn more about brag documents Gargi recommended an article from Julia Evans: Get your work recognized: write a brag document There’s this idea that, if you do great work at your job, people will (or should!) automatically recognize that work…jvns.ca
There is not a clear path to be a developer
As the conference was going on we started to notice that most of the speakers had a point in common… most of them were teaching English in Japan. 🤷
Even if I already knew that there is no clear path to be a developer hearing it from other people and from people in tech is reassuring and validating.
Networking hacks
( From the talk given by Gargi Sharma — So good they can’t ignore you)
Some networking hack shared by Gargi:
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Have a blog (or a micro-blog)
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Become a connector (Try to know most people in your workspace and connect people together)
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Speak at an event (Like my colleagues at Global Diversity CFP https://twitter.com/natjgray/status/1219221021280088070)
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Organize a comparatively low effort event
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Talk to n people before leaving
All of theses hacks are either designed to challenge you into meeting people and even make people come to you.
Create your own luck
As part of the the talk of Amina Adewusi about “How to find your perfect mentor”
Learning code can be tough. I want you to know that there are many people out there willing to help you. Create your own luck. Start initiating mentoring.
Thank you for reading, see you soon !
Kevin
Thanks for reading this story !
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By Kevin Picchi on January 24, 2020.
