The Ultimate Ng-Conf Survival Guide
Jeff Cross is a co-founder of nrwl.io, providing Angular consulting to enterprise teams. He was previously on the Angular core team at Google, leading the Angular Mobile team.
(Thanks to Aaron Frost for helping put this guide together)
Ng-conf 2017 will soon be upon us, and this year has some exciting things happening, not the least of which is Nrwl being a platinum sponsor! Being one of the elite few who have attended every ng-conf to date (#HumbleBrag), I wanted to share some tips for attendees to get the most out of the conference, whether it’s your first or fourth time attending. Even if you couldn’t snag a ticket, there are some new awesome things for remote attendees this year as well. This is an exhaustive guide, and doesn’t need to be read from start to finish. Feel free to scan and jump around to interesting content.
Remote Viewing 360 Experience
This is something new which I think is one of the coolest things they’re adding this year (and I don’t think the organizers have announced it yet): there will be a 360 degree camera mounted in the front row of the conference, live streaming both conference days. So make sure to get your Google Cardboard ready so you can experience the magic live and in 360! I’ll make sure to sit really close to the camera.
Preparation
You’ll have a good time if you just show up to ng-conf and go with the flow. But you’ll have a GREAT time if you take some time beforehand to prepare for the conference. A small investment of time beforehand will help you maximize the impact of being at the conference alongside many key people from the Angular community.
Download the App
Ng-conf has provided an app that includes the full conference schedule, including all workshops, talks, and extra-curricular activities. There’s content in the app that’s not on the website, so you’ll want to go ahead and install the app today (Android & iOS). Lots of prizes for attendees, and last-minute announcements will be announced through the app.
Scope the Schedule
The main conference days (Wednesday and Friday) are single track, so it’s safe to plan to find a seat and park there the whole day to hear every amazing talk. But you’ll still want to take a look at the schedule to know which ones you absolutely can’t miss, so you don’t decide to take a nap at the wrong time. If you have to pick only two talks to attend the whole conference, I might suggest my talk about pre-rendering, or Victor Savkin’s talk about upgrading from AngularJS 1.x.
Fair Day
In addition to the main conference days, there is a “Fair Day” between the conference days on Thursday, which has many awesome activities to choose from. There will be several tracks of awesome talks which can be found on the schedule on the website or in the app. For folks new to Angular, there will be a Tour of Heroes room where you can walk through the Angular tutorial from start to finish, with Angular team members and other experts available to help if you get stuck. There will also be an experts room where different speakers will be scheduled to hang out in throughout the day, where you can chat and ask questions of your favorite speakers. There will also be scheduled “Ask me Anything” sessions with speakers on Fair Day, where you can ask speakers to go a little deeper on subjects from their talks. And when you want to hang out or relax, you can stop by the virtual reality room, the combat bot arena, massage room, mindfulness sessions, or yoga room. Or crash your favorite podcast in the podcast room.
There will be more activities on Fair Day, which can be found in the ng-conf app. One activity of note is an exciting Birds of a Feather session that I’ll be facilitating. We’re going to discuss the state of performance (measurement/habits/tooling/optimizations/etc) in Angular applications, which we’ll share more info on soon.
Extra-Curricular Meals
There will be amazing meals served at the conference during the day, but dinner is on your own. The conference venue is centrally located, with quick access to many nearby restaurants (and pretty good restaurants at the Little America and Grand America hotels, too), so take a look around at what looks good before you get there so you can avoid standing around the lobby with your fellow conference-goers looking at Yelp for 20 minutes.
Code of Conduct
Read the new and improved code of conduct. The code of conduct sets the standard for how conference-goers are expected to behave and interact, to ensure that all attendees can have a great time and feel safe. It’s a short and simple document, so please read it, and please encourage other attendees to read it and abide by it. If you feel someone at the conference has violated the code of conduct, don’t hesitate to reach out to myself, any of the organizers, conference staff, or Angular team members.
Socialize
It’s rare to be in the same place with so many other Angular developers, core contributors, and experts at the same time. Take advantage of it. If you’ve used someone’s open source library, go tell them how much it has helped you, even if you don’t have anything else to say. And when you think, “now’s a good time to ask them about that bug that still hasn’t been fixed,” resist the urge. Every contributor knows there’s a backlog of things that need to be done on their projects, and they don’t want to think about it at a conference :).
If you ever see a group of contributors or speakers that you want to talk to, and you think you’d be bothering them by butting in, just wedge yourself into the group and say hi, and tell them Jeff Cross gave you permission to barge in.
Even members of the Angular team enjoy random conversations, and are highly trained in making small talk with new people. And don’t be shy about taking selfies with Igor.
If you’re a contributor, or an insider in the Angular community, make sure you’re making yourself approachable. Be intentional about joining groups of people you don’t know at lunch, and look for opportunities to chat with new people during the breaks and parties. Speaking from personal experience, it can be intimidating coming to a conference like ng-conf, and seeing all these “famous” open source rock stars and their entourages, and feeling like you shouldn’t bother them.
Engage in Sessions
At ng-conf, you’ve got a front row seat to talks from some of the brightest minds in the Angular community. And if you’re there in person, you have a unique opportunity to be able to talk with the speakers after their talk. Make the most of that opportunity by shutting off all distractions when someone is giving a talk that interests you. I’ve started adopting the following habits when I attend a talk, which have drastically deepened my ability to comprehend the topic and engage with the presenter:
- Close the laptop (defer the urge to Google things that the speaker brings up)
- Put away the cell phone and turn off notifications
- Use a note book to write down questions and follow-ups
As much as we might convince ourselves that we’re good at multi-tasking, you’re not getting the full value of a talk if you’ve got your laptop open surfing, chatting, tweeting, and emailing.
Sponsors
Ng-conf wouldn’t be what it is without the sponsors. Sponsors chip in time, money and energy to help make ng-conf a valuable and fun event for everyone. Take some time to stroll the booths (including the Nrwl booth!) of some of the sponsors during breaks, and see what they’ve got going on that might interest you. There might be products, deals, or job opportunities you might not have otherwise known about. Not all sponsors have booths, so also make sure to check out the sponsors page to see who makes ng-conf possible.
As a special bonus this year, many booths will be handing out different collector’s iron-on ng-conf patches. The patches have different designs and can be applied to your ng-conf hoodie by ironing professionals at nearby ironing stations inside the venue. Nrwl will have a special limited-edition patch of our own!
Parties
The first-night party is always a lot of fun, and always different. Make sure to grab a quick dinner on the first night to get back in time for the party to start.
On Thursday night, after Fair Day, different sponsors will be hosting mini parties at the venue. It’s a great time to bounce around parties and meet other folks. Outside of the mini parties, there will be a karaoke room, a game room, and other folks roaming the venue to strike up a conversation with. Make sure to practice your best karaoke performances beforehand to impress your fellow ng-confers.
Angular Panel
At the end of the final day of the conference, the Angular team from Google will take to the stage to answer questions from conference-goers and from Twitter. For the past couple of years, the big question has been, “When will Angular 2 be final?” So I’m not really sure what folks will ask this year. But if you’ve got a burning question for the Angular team, there will be an opportunity to tweet it with a hashtag (tbd), or for those who will be at the conference, you can just ask it live. This will be my first year not being on the panel, so I’m looking forward to putting the team in the hot seat.
After the Conference
On Saturday April 8th, after the conference, the ng-conf organizers have arranged for an ng-cares service day, where attendees can provide mentorship to refugees who are learning to program. Sign up here if you’re interested in participating, or click here to donate to the ng-cares fund (all proceeds go to We are Makers).
Conclusion
It’s hard not to have a great time and learn a bunch of valuable stuff at ng-conf to help you be a more effective developer, and more active member of the community. We look forward to seeing old friends and meeting new folks at the conference and at our booth. See you in a couple of weeks!
Jeff Cross is a co-founder of Nrwl — Enterprise Angular Consulting.
