The Ruby Gems Podcast
A Ruby Central podcast that takes an inside look at the people, projects, and progress shaping the Ruby community. Discover the gems in Ruby and connect to this vibrant group of amazing people.
The Ruby Gems Podcast
Rails World: Amanda Perino
Amanda Perino, Executive Director of the Rails Foundation, shares insights into Rails World's evolution and the foundation's growth strategy for supporting the global Ruby on Rails community. From creative conference elements like the Ruby Embassy experience to strategic partnerships with regional events, Amanda reveals how they're building sustainability while maintaining the community's playful spirit.
• Rails World returned to Amsterdam with continued enthusiasm despite using the same venue
• New elements added this year include a chill-out lounge, Ruby Embassy experience, and Ruby phone installation
• The Ruby passport system will connect global Ruby events with stamps from different conferences
• Rails Foundation partners with regional conferences like Tropical on Rails rather than organizing events in every region
• Balancing conference size (targeting 1100-1200 attendees) to maintain community feel while satisfying sponsors
• Rails Foundation operates with four pillars: documentation, education, marketing, and events
• Current focus includes updating documentation for Rails 8, creating educational resources, and producing case studies
• Foundation plans to grow beyond one full-time employee for long-term sustainability
• Community members can contribute by reviewing documentation PRs or participating in Rails in Focus videos
If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and consider leaving a five-star review. It really helps others find the podcast.
We are listening to the Ruby Gems podcast. We're your hosts I'm David Hill and Marty Hutt and we are joined today by Amanda Perino, the Executive Director of the Rails Foundation at Rails World. Welcome to the podcast, Amanda. Thank you for joining us.
Amanda Perino:Thank you. Thank you for being here and also thank you for coming to Rails World. So welcome to you as well. Oh yeah, it's been great. It's a lovely, lovely venue. Thank you for joining us.
Marty Haught:Thank you, thank you for being here and also thank you for coming to Railsworld. So welcome to you as well. Oh yeah, it's been great. It's a lovely, lovely venue. We've got the sponsor hall right outside our greenhouse recording booth provided by Buzzsprout, which is awesome.
Amanda Perino:Thanks, Buzzsprout.
Marty Haught:Yes.
David Hill:Thank you so much Buzzsprout. This is an amazing little location to have fun conversations with people about the community, so I invited you here, amanda, because we're really kind of curious to get some insight from you in terms of how you think Railsworld has gone this year and what you've learned doing this three years now and how you've been improving things and hope to see them improve in the future, and what can you tell us about that?
Amanda Perino:Oh, that's a lot of questions, right? Yeah, I just started talking and this comes out.
David Hill:So how has this Railsworld gone so far, since we're most of the way through it now?
Amanda Perino:I'm really happy with how this Railsworld is going so far. I was a little bit curious, coming back to the same venue, how that would be if people would think like, oh, we've been there before, we're not going to go. But there was just as much enthusiasm because a lot of people who went last time remembered this venue. And this venue really brings a lot. It does the heavy lifting.
David Hill:And there's people like me who are. This is my first Railsworld, so I wasn't here the first time, and I had to sit on that page when the hour was ticking over to make sure I got a ticket because it sold out really fast.
Amanda Perino:So I thought oh, people went to the Amsterdam venue, they'll see it and maybe they won't go for tickets because they've seen it already and they're going to try it for another city or wait for another city. But we did see the same enthusiasm. But I'm happy that there's still a lot of first timers as well. We don't want it to be an exclusive event where you feel like you can't come. One thing that did concern me is OK, it's the same venue, it's the same sponsor lounge. What did concern me is okay, it's the same venue, it's the same sponsor lounge. Track one is going to be in the same spot. Track two is going to be in the same spot.
David Hill:What can we make?
Amanda Perino:different. So a lot of the effort besides, of course, getting the speaker lineup going a lot of the effort was in how do we surprise people, push it a little further, let them explore the venue a little more, and that's where a lot of the effort went into. So I think we did it. So if you were here in 2023, it is a slightly different experience. There's a lot that's similar but, yeah, it takes a lot of brainpower this kind of thing.
David Hill:So what kinds of things did you do differently, that kind of explore that space more?
Amanda Perino:Yeah, we did. I would say four things to make it a little different. There's, first of all, a chill-out lounge, because I don't know how you are in events, but events can be very intense, talking all the time and you see people and you catch up. It's very exhausting, yeah, from an organizer standpoint and, like Marty, you were in this position from Ruby Central a couple months ago. I had a great time because I wasn't organizing real time by the way.
Amanda Perino:But as an organizer, I was like maybe we need a chill-out zone. So we have a chill-out zone and it's this really beautiful room behind track two where, if you just need to zone out, you can play with Legos, something I also saw at RailsConf.
David Hill:So I was like oh, this is user research.
Amanda Perino:Let's see if it'll work, and it was very engaged. But you also have this beautiful view over Amsterdam Central Station, which is just an iconic building, so that's new. We also created the Ruby Embassy experience let's call it in partnership with Avvo, and that's a hit. And what that is is basically a physical passport that you need validated in an embassy in order to get a Railsworld stamp, and it's a whole experiential element that we've never tried before, and this actually came from the evolution that we were talking about before, and this actually came from the evolution that we were talking about before the first two years of Rails. Well, first of all, let me finish. What the embassy is? You go in and you get, I would say, treated poorly. Did you go through the embassy experience yet?
Marty Haught:I have not, I did, I did it today.
Amanda Perino:Yeah, I mean whoever likes going to the embassy, I mean usually you avoid it if you can. Yeah, so that's the premise of this experience as well, but when you get out on the other side, you've had quite a funny experience it was very entertaining. Yeah.
David Hill:And then going out to dinner last night with some people. We went to this Argentinian restaurant. Was walking there with two other guys and one of them ran into the man who was the security guy and the older woman who was there at the desk like giving us all a hard time, the embassy personnel.
David Hill:The embassy personnel was like, and it was like, oh yeah, those are amanda's parents they were my parents, they are my parents and they spent their careers in government, so, like they know how this experience plays, I was like, oh, that makes all the sense in the world. They were both so good at this A little too good, a little too good. It was so funny and entertaining. Your dad was great as the security guard just wanding us all and then there are two people at the table that you could wind up with and I got your mom and she was so great. It was just such an entertaining experience.
David Hill:And then it's my understanding that the and she was so great. It was just such an entertaining experience. It was like okay.
Amanda Perino:And then it's my understanding that the idea is that you can then take this passport to future Ruby events, other conferences, and get a new stamp on there. Yeah, and this is an idea I had from day one when I entered the community and saw all these Ruby events around the world Like we need a stamp. We need some sort of passport.
Amanda Perino:We need something that ties us all together and that's why, working with Avvo, I was like I have this idea, Will you help me make it? And Adrian Maron from Avvo. We worked on the passport together, All the little details like the Penn State property of the embassy of Ruby or something like that. The forms are all different and they ask you ridiculous questions that when you get to the embassy worker who's going to validate it, they have a lot to go on right, Like they ask you when was the last time you cuddled a kitten? Why haven't you cuddled a kitten in nine months? It has nothing to do with Ruby, it's just a little bit of frivolity.
Amanda Perino:And then you get the Railsworld stamp and then Avvo, friendly RB. You can get a friendly RB stamp. Yuruko is going to do it. And then we're going to reach out to all the event organizers to say please have a stamp, because we want this passport going around the world, something to tie us all together. But that came from the knowing the first two years, I think, marty, we worked at HashiCorp, right. We both worked at HashiCorp. My training in events comes from HashiCorp right.
Marty Haught:Right so.
Amanda Perino:I tried to bring that production level, that sense of cool, to the events that we do for the Rails Foundation. But knowing the community and getting to know the community, what was missing I always thought was this little bit of ridiculousness and silliness. We were so serious for the first two years, right, but we have like. Why the Lucky Sif to go?
Marty Haught:on and.
Amanda Perino:Aaron Patterson as examples to go on. I understand that this community likes that, so I thought, ok, let's do something silly for the community, just for fun. You don't get any content out of it.
Marty Haught:You don't get the latest framework news.
Amanda Perino:It's just completely ridiculous.
Marty Haught:For some years there was a conference called Keep Ruby Weird in Austin, texas.
Amanda Perino:And.
Marty Haught:I think there is quite a tradition of just ridiculousness, just Ruby as joy that we're doing it because we want to and it's fun and there's no point to this. But that's okay. Maybe that is the point, right?
Amanda Perino:Yeah, the point is no point to not have a point. But then the other thing that we added is the Ruby phone. So this is a three-part installation around varying degrees of success. There's a photo booth a British photo booth in the foyer and you can send a video message to somebody in the community who couldn't make it. It'll be online later on the rubyphonecom and a junior developer is creating that website for us. And then another one is audio messages, where you pick up a phone and you hear a prompt that says if you were to give advice to a junior developer, what advice would you leave? Leave a message after the beep. Okay, that's broken. Now that happens.
Amanda Perino:And then the third part of this Ruby phone installation is two phones over there where you pick up one and the other about maybe like 25 feet away rings, so you can have spontaneous chat roulette across the hall and meet a new. Ruby friend, spontaneously, but nobody is picking the phone up. Wouldn't you see a phone and pick it up? Or if you hear a phone ringing, you can pick it up.
David Hill:I saw the phones over there multiple times I was like that's got to be just a decoration.
Amanda Perino:It's not a prop. It's a chance to meet a new Ruby friend, but nobody's doing it. I haven't promoted it well enough, I think.
Marty Haught:Maybe they didn't understand what was going to happen.
Amanda Perino:Yeah, even like there's a sign, but it's a little vague. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I tried it. The other day I went to pick it up because I was just seeing like I don't know how's it work. I had a friend work really hard on it but, he's using it and he knows that because he's here. And I picked it up and I said hi, who's this? And he said it's, I just met your mother. Yeah, great. Mom's already more popular in the community than I am yeah, so yeah those are the little things that we tried to add to add fun.
Amanda Perino:If you came in 2023, maybe you'll be surprised this year, right?
David Hill:Right, so this is the third time here doing Rails World, second time here in Amsterdam and with kind of the name of the conference focusing much more world international. I'm wondering if you could kind of talk us through a little bit the considerations that you and the foundation look at when considering venues for the future.
Amanda Perino:That's a really good question because it starts first with a city search, as you know yourself, and we do have world in the name Conf was taken Right. We didn't have much options but it was deliberate. Generally we're sticking to the regions where there's a high, high concentration of Rails devs and also Rails devs that travel to conferences, which is really North America and Europe. So generally we're going to stick to those two. But for the regions that really deserve conferences, we would like to partner with a local conference, which is why we worked with Tropical on Rails. Brazil is a huge market, but getting there and producing an event there with any regularity would have been really difficult.
Amanda Perino:So we saw what Ceres was doing with Tropical on Rails. I went one time and then I said, okay, this is like the same sort of vibe that we try here at Railsworld, so let's support them. You know the community, you know the ecosystem better, the meetup organizers. You're the best person for the job that we can support in that way. Yeah, I would love to see that in Africa. I would love to see that next year. We'd really love to support Kaigi on Rails. So in these regions that we can't get to it, where it makes more sense. If you have local knowledge, then that's the approach. So it's not going to be Rails World there. If they want to call it maybe Rails World something or other, we can always talk, but this is such a meaty, event-oriented community we don't have to do events everywhere because they're popping up already on their own Right.
Amanda Perino:Even in the past week I heard of two more RubyCon in Romania. Italy is coming, and then a conference that Procore would like to host in Cairo, which would be amazing Wow. Yeah.
David Hill:That's cool, yeah, so I really like series. I went to Brazil years ago in my life and speak Portuguese, so I'm hoping to get to Tropical RB one day. But I'm really curious to hear, like what did that partnership look like for the Rails Foundation to be involved with Tropical RB without it being a Rails Foundation event?
Amanda Perino:Yeah, and we had some sort of conversations around like what does that look like if it's not flat out sponsorship? Because he actually didn't need it. They met their sponsorship goals. They sold out right, but what they really appreciated was promotion. Speaking to speakers who might want to go there right like the speakers are a big draw, especially if they have to travel so far for sure.
Amanda Perino:So what we ended up doing was we supported travel costs for some of the speakers, some of the keynote speakers that they had. We bought a batch of tickets beforehand and gave them to local developers in the community who might not have been able to afford the ticket or the rush for it. So there was a short application process for that and generally supported in that direction. I think David sent video again, maybe that was the first year. So just generally, a little bit of attention, a little bit of a stamp of approval, but not we're going to fund the whole thing.
David Hill:Right, so we're going to organize it yeah that's awesome. I like that.
Amanda Perino:And for Kaigi on Rails. I mean it's not official yet, but I talked to Masa Pumi and next year they would like the Kaigi on Rails to be more international, so attract more international speakers and attendees. International, so attract more international, okay, speakers and attendees. So I'm talking to him about, like, how we can help promote that reach the speakers. That maybe and he's here, I'm sure he's talking to people himself reach potential speakers and, for instance, live translations might be something that we would pay for, because if you have japanese speakers, you want the non-japanese speaking audience to understand it, and vice versa.
Amanda Perino:So ways to support like that.
Marty Haught:I was curious, what does the European community, ruby community, how does that sort of engage with Rails world Is there, with you being here in Amsterdam this area? Does that change anything about how you organize or engage with sort of the local community? Or is it more still just like world focused and maybe not as tied in?
Amanda Perino:So one thing I think the foundation we're quite clear in our mission documentation, education, marketing, events, right, community building comes along with that to a certain aspect. But it's also very practical and I think ruby central does a fantastic community building and especially the beat of work that's happening there with ruby europe. Yes, they're specifically focused on community building right in europe. Obviously it's in the name so we don't do that so much Like it happens via some of our initiatives and Rails world of course, but it's not such a focus. The community building aspect it's more like, okay, when you're in the community you're going to need these resources and maybe a little bit of the funnel to get into the community. But the community nurturing the community building I see other organizations doing that really, really well and it could be like a divide and conquer sort of thing.
Amanda Perino:So when people reach out to me about meetups, I always point them to Ruby Central, saying maybe you should work with them. They already have the system in place and that's something that I think we can work complementary together, whereas we're not really doing it. That's how we work together. That's how it is to work with me. Don't do the work that ruby central does everything, but you know what I mean.
Marty Haught:yeah, yeah we don't all have to be doing the same thing there does make sense to say, like this is our focus. We're gonna really put our chips down this aspect of this, we're gonna be the leader in this or we're gonna like sort of make advancements here. Yeah, and this other organization has that focus, so let's let them do their thing in that.
Amanda Perino:Exactly, yeah, and that's how I've approached it for the past like three years. As far as the different mission of Ruby Central, for instance, versus Rails Foundation, right To me it's always been very clear cut and I like to direct people to what do you need? And then, which organization do you need and who in that organization should you speak to? I haven't talked to Marius lately, but I think what he's doing with Ruby Europe is exciting, yeah, and a good idea.
David Hill:Yeah for sure. So Railsworld from an attendee perspective kind of still has like the new shiny event kind of luster to it. It's sold out three years in a row at increasingly rapid rates. Is there any kind of thought about what you do to kind of try to maintain that energy and that level of interest in this going forward, because I have to imagine there's a certain amount of pressure there.
Amanda Perino:Yeah, there is, there is. I have my opinion of things need to be fresh every time, which isn't always the case. Not a lot of events would take that approach, for instance, brighton Ruby. What Andy loves about putting that on is you always know what to expect every time.
Amanda Perino:Yeah, yeah, Same place same format, same venue, like that's what you get and we've had talks about this before. But to keep that mystery, intrigue, excitement shiny, I want it to be a little bit different every time, which takes a lot of planning and deliberateness of it, but like these little elements I talked to you about the venue I want everybody to just be surprised by the venue every time. That's really hard. The venues that I really really like, which is actually Hachikonf Europe. Back to Hachikorps. That's kind of where I learned that there's a fantastic venue here that I unfortunately couldn't. We produced Hachikonf Europe in several times.
Amanda Perino:It's just like an old gas Gas works and electricity works and it's stunning, so I like that aspect. I surprise and delight people, for instance. I don't know how long we can keep that up.
Marty Haught:It's a lot of work, but that will be the driving force for a long time. Yeah, I can imagine that finding those gems of a location.
Amanda Perino:The challenge is, when you go to a city, do you just go for the hotel and the classic hotel or the convention center, which is easy, but it comes with unique places to stay and to visit and to look at and just to enjoy and tour. So for me that part of the job is really, really fun, but I'm not finding it all the time, so eventually I know I've talked bad about conference hotels before Eventually- I am going to have to find, find one that I like, yeah, but I think we'll probably go to convention centers before that because you can build your own experience there a little bit, right, right.
Amanda Perino:But then also back to David, where you were saying like the shiny, the pressure, the new, keep it going, I think, for the first three years. To sell out quickly, that's cool, that's fun. It can happen every time because people will get angry if you can't get a ticket to Railsworld. So we had a board meeting a couple of days ago and we were really thinking, okay, how could we mitigate this a little bit so that people don't have this angry impression of Railsworld that people feel like you can go if you want to get a ticket. We don't know what that looks like yet, we don't know how, but that's something that it's nice on paper and it's cool and it's funny, like, oh, we sold out so fast, but really like you can't do that all the time without losing people, I think. So we're going to figure that out. I don't know how to balance those two things Keep it shiny, fun and exciting and then keep it accessible, accessible.
Amanda Perino:Yeah, I mean there's definitely a.
Marty Haught:You have to pick a venue size that meets the demand and unfortunately that takes sort of pre-work to get right and then like what if you're wrong? Yeah, cause you can get too big a venue. I mean, I don't think you'll have that problem, but certainly previous years, especially during the pandemic or right after the pandemic or re-central, you know, we got a space that was large for pre-pandemic sizes and you don't feel it. You're like, oh dang, you're on the line for a contract.
Amanda Perino:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marty Haught:And I recall years ago, 2006, rubyconf. This was, of course, post-rails, so Rails had come out, but they hadn't really sort of dealt with or thought about how the new demand was going to drive ticket sales, and so they sold out in four hours and they released tickets in the afternoon. I want to say so people in Europe were asleep when tickets went on sale, so they woke up and the conference was sold out and RubyConf had never sold out before. And they're like what just happened and it was because they just didn't anticipate it, and what can you do?
Amanda Perino:Yeah Well, the first year I didn't anticipate it either. When we were looking for a venue, it was like the first order of business get in, get out, get a venue. Amsterdam wasn't actually the first choice. I looked at another city and I did the numbers. I thought, okay, we can't afford that, especially for the number of people, which was. David was like let's set it at a thousand. He just like threw a number out and I was like, whoa, like doing the community? I was like I don't know if anybody will come to this. Let's go on the lower side, let's play it safe, let's do it within a certain budget. We don't know if sponsors will show up. It's just risky.
Marty Haught:Yeah.
Amanda Perino:So I found this venue in the end, which brings a lot. Like I said, the heavy lifting, it comes with the AV, it comes with the FMV, it comes with a lot, and then we sold out quickly and to his credit, he didn't tell me, I told you so.
David Hill:But I was like I should have listened.
Marty Haught:Yeah, I was like I should have listened.
Amanda Perino:Yeah, there was more capacity. So that one was my fault, I have to say, because I kept it quite slim, but we ended up adding tickets later, okay, but yeah, that was a lesson, we will go higher. But I think what's your opinion about events where there's really less than a thousand? Because personally, I get lost in the crowd.
Marty Haught:It's a great question because you have plenty of people that love the single track, intimate experience of a 300 or less person conference and that's never going to be this and that you will never do that. I mean like both RubyConf and RailsConf embraced that and said we are not that.
Amanda Perino:Yeah.
Marty Haught:So, please, regionals, pop up and do your special thing, be that intimate experience where everyone can share that same experience for two days. Whereas, yeah, we're multi-track and some people don't like that. They have to miss content because they can't be in all the rooms and it is overwhelming. And so I think if you go to like a 4,000 person conference, it's just a sea of people you can't connect. And so I think there is something about like RubyConf, always targeted to be around 800. Because we felt if we went above that, too much above that, you wouldn't have that. Well, railsconf was already defined for us before I got involved and that was meant to be the 1,000 to 1,500-person conference. But again, yeah, you feel like you're just in a sea of people you can't connect, and so I don't know. It's tricky because if you have the demand, you want to give them space, but then the experience changes.
Marty Haught:And is that what you want?
Amanda Perino:And do you know what changed my not changed my mind about it? Because I agree with you. I can't wait till I can get to all the little regional conferences I have such a good time but the few that I've been able to get to. I always wanted to keep RailsWorld below 1,000. Toronto was a little over 1,000. This year it's 800 plus 815.
Amanda Perino:But then on the board, kyle Daigle from GitHub was on the board for a while before he stepped off and he said if you really want sponsors to pay attention, it's got to be 1,000 plus.
Marty Haught:Yeah, that's true.
Amanda Perino:They need ROI for their investment. No, yeah, we're going to have to think about the sponsors too, but really I want to prioritize the attendees. So I'm looking for that same spot. 1,100 is probably 1,200. I don't know, we'll find it.
Marty Haught:I think that's right. I think that RailsConf was able to stay around that size and still feel closer to the RubyConf experience. I think there are things you can do. I think once you get to 1,500 or 2,000, then yeah, I don't know, it's kind of hard. Especially when you get 10 tracks or something.
Amanda Perino:it's just bonkers, you're like okay I don't know, it's kind of hard, especially like you get like 10 tracks or something and it's just bonkers You're like okay, we don't need to be AWS re-inventing Exactly.
Marty Haught:I mean, it's like I just get lost in this, I have no idea. So like I think you go above four tracks and then it just becomes sort of decision paralysis, where you can't really make that choice of like no-transcript, Because really it was all about getting people to talk about the problems find people in the audience who had the same issue and the one-track focus that we can't do at Railsworld we're two-track was really beneficial.
Amanda Perino:And the breaks and the Q&A, the interactivity-ness of it, because I was thinking another 30-minute break are people going to think it's too much, but actually it was hard to get people back in their seats at 30 minutes.
Amanda Perino:It was like please sit down, stop talking, even though the whole reason you're here is to talk. So we're probably going to do that again. That's another element to add on to it, but it with the Rails at Scale Summit I'm mindful of my own energy. Plus, we ask the court to attend. All the attendees hear away from your families that much longer. It's a big commitment three days. So we'll see how it goes.
Marty Haught:RailsConf used to be four days Whoa really. And I think at one point I was like I feel like we're one day too long, it's too much, and I mean obviously regionals generally are two days and that feels really pretty good. I think there's this you kind of know when you've been here too long and also you can also feel when it's too soon. Can I have a little bit more time? I want to have a few more conversations.
Amanda Perino:I think it's tricky because I think you're right, I'm wanting more.
Marty Haught:That's the thing I because I think you're right, always living and wanting more. That's the thing I mean. That's true, yeah, you do, yeah, that is true.
David Hill:That is true, yeah, yeah, I really liked the three-day setup that Ruby Central has been running the last couple of days, with the community day in the middle for collaborations for hack day for workshops, Since that really kind of opened the door for a lot more of the social interactions and working on open source contributions.
Amanda Perino:That was smart.
David Hill:I really felt like that improved my experience at RubyConf and RailsConf significantly when that was introduced.
Marty Haught:There's something interesting, because I remember when I started Rocky Mountain Ruby that there had been a conference previously. The focus was basically cram as much technical content in, basically polarize your brains and I'm like you know, I don't know if I want that. I think I would rather have more space for people to connect and to learn and incorporate that. So I think there is something about how you structure the days and not give the feeling of I don't have enough time to do all the things I want to do and give that space to breathe. But I don't know. Like every community is a little bit different, every conference is going to be a little bit different.
Amanda Perino:I think every organizer needs to find what's their formula like what feels best, but I feel strongly about not over-programming. And I felt, this time I was like oh, am I pushing it?
Marty Haught:did you, did you push it too?
Amanda Perino:much, maybe a little yeah we're gonna pull some things back, I think next year. Okay, and another thing that I was reminded of for some audience, for instance, rails core, the at Scale Summit, which was the day before Rails World, was already day three.
Marty Haught:We were asking them to do things. Yeah, that's their day three.
Amanda Perino:Yeah, I know, as an organizer, how I felt. You just get really tired during an event, like you're always on in your early mornings, late nights, and then I remembered and it's always good to remember this that people are coming from so far away. The travel fatigue and the jet lag is so real, yes, and then you're asking them to go here. Do that, that, that, that, that that keep running, running, running, yeah, that. The other thing that I don't want to leave people with an impression that rails world is exhausting. Yeah, so space in it and like the rails at scale summit, with all the breaks. We had the feedback in the first year more time between the breaks. So we have 30 minute breaks here, 15, then 30 minutes hour and a half for lunch, three minutes, 15. So that came from feedback directly from the audience and not wanting to over program as well, but it slims down the number of speaking slots you have, yep.
David Hill:So yeah, it's all connected. It's all a puzzle to figure out. Yep, yep. So from the first year to now, what have you learned? What has kind of evolved in terms of how Rails world has changed from year one to year three?
Amanda Perino:I think there's so much excitement in the community? There always has been. I know that now. Even when I was coming in, I came into a lot of excitement and it continued. I said this after the first event, maybe even after RailsConf, because that was my first ruby comp in 2023 in atlanta. I feel like we put a lot of heart and love and all the event organizers in our space into the events that we put on right. But you could put a projector against a brick wall and put beanbags in the parking lot and people would have a great time in this community right because they bring the energy you know like.
Amanda Perino:You just give them a setting and it could look like anything and be anywhere in any city and they would actually travel to it, which is why we have so many events popping up around the world. It's a very meat oriented community, which I love, and that's the most exciting community to create experiences for, so it's been super rewarding. But, yeah, the overtime and actually kudos to RailsConf this year and the legacy aspect of this year's content, which is something I kept in mind and why we have things at this event like the fun and the frivolity Because, for instance, aaron's keynote of keynotes looking back on all the things, that was Ajni's keynote, no, aaron's, no, aaron's keynote of keynotes looking back on all the things.
David Hill:That was Ajni's keynote. No Aaron's. No Aaron's. Okay, yeah, his own keynote. Ajni's was called the keynote of keynotes, and so I was confused.
Marty Haught:Like Aaron's personal look back. Yeah, fair Of all his keynotes, yeah.
Amanda Perino:Gave me really really good context in what I had missed in the community and I have seen Aaron's keynotes at RailsConf and RailsWorld, but to see that he's always been doing the shtick in different ways, it was really good and everybody was talking about the legacy of Rails and RailsConf when we were there and it gave me really really great context as a new person in the community and thinking like, okay, how can we continue what should continue in a way that makes sense for like the Rails Foundation, for instance, or Rails world, and keep certain things going. And I learned a lot there. It was really interesting. I liked it a lot. I like how the content was curated, let's say and I didn't have much chance because the hallway track is the best- of everything.
David Hill:Let's face it.
Amanda Perino:But I pulled some lessons out of it. Like, for instance, I was saying, like the ruby embassy, that was already an idea. But then I was like, yeah, this community will appreciate. I feel confident that they'll appreciate this experience I did yeah so, but keeping that going.
Amanda Perino:So this is a call out. By the way, if anybody has a fun idea and wants to make it real in real's world, I would love to talk to them, because this was really a collaboration between Adrian Marin from Avvo and myself to make it happen and it was a lot of fun. I gotta say. It gave me like great satisfaction to do it, also to bring my parents, and they did a great job. So I guess that's what I've learned. It's a fun community, Awesome TLDR, all that to say everyone's fun.
David Hill:So we've focused a lot of the conversation on Rails world. If we can back out to the foundation for a second oh yeah, there's that. How do you envision the foundation itself growing over the next couple of years, or is growth a target of what you're looking to do? Yeah, definitely and what does that growth look like?
Amanda Perino:yeah, for the point of sustainability. Right now I'm the only full-time employee, but we work with a whole team of freelancers. In my opening keynote I named a lot of them and we work very lean right now.
David Hill:One employee because you'd have to if you've only got one employee.
Amanda Perino:Yeah, exactly, but that's not very sustainable in the long run. My next focus next year is to really look at what does the organization of the Rails Foundation need. We were like a scrappy startup style for a nonprofit, and then we can take another step to get more like what if I disappear tomorrow? What if I run off and run away with a handsome prince? If you're out there, call me? It can't be like a the bus factor dhh, like we had a board meeting, the bus factor. That's back. Yeah, also for, like, the rails core thinks about that as well it's something we should all think about.
Amanda Perino:So that's a goal for next year growing a little bit, but it won't be very, very big. We won't be a massive organization. Of course, trying to figure out where that support is needed, what that profile looks like, what that role is, that's our biggest challenge, I think, next year, or one of our challenges. Then we're going to continue all the initiatives. The documentation work will still continue. Eventually we'll get to the point where we look and see what new guides need to be made, but that'll work really tightly in conjunction with the core team.
Amanda Perino:The biggest thing I'd like my focus next year more videos with typecraft. We have a couple of ideas in the works already tutorial add-ons with chris oliver, two more by the end of the year. But next year we really need some sort of public roadmap of rails, like what do you need to learn rails, which starts with ruby a little bit, of course. A resource online where any boot camp, any individual, any university looking to teach rails has all the resources they need, and there's so many members of the foundation that really want this. That's why they've signed on to the foundation. So we're going to work on that curriculum, that roadmap, and get that live sometime next year and then, hopefully, my wish is then to start reaching out in some way to universities and bootcamps and incubators and these sort of organizations to pitch why Rails is a good option to teach and, by the way, these are all the resources that you need for it. So the education arm of the foundation, the pillar, so to speak, that's going to be a big focus next year.
Marty Haught:Maybe we should step back, amanda, because I don't know how many of our audience members know about sort of like Rails, foundations, pillars, so maybe you can go through those real quick.
Amanda Perino:Yeah, so four main pillars documentation, education, marketing and events. Our main pillars documentation, education, marketing and events. Our projects fall into those categories, with the end goal of providing all the resources, all the free resources that the community needs to learn Rails, level up with Rails or potential new members of the community to discover Rails. Right, so, making sure the documentation is in line with Rails 8, for instance. Right, so, making sure the documentation is in line with Rails 8, for instance. It's all speaking, not speaking modernly, but it was put together by individuals over time. It's an open source documentation as well, so making it a little bit more consistent. Events, of course, rails world, but supporting other smaller regional conferences in regions that we can't get to, that are quite important, like Brazil Marketing, which is a lot about case studies like who's using Rails, why did they choose Rails, how are they scaling with Rails? We have Doximity's live already. Cookpad is live soon. We're working on the Shopify case study, which should be really interesting.
David Hill:Oh yeah.
Amanda Perino:I'd love to see that one. Yeah, yeah, it's a lot of work, as you can imagine. Totally, the On Rails podcast that we launched is really good marketing. In a way, I put it in the marketing category, but it's developers talking to developers so that they would hate if that was called marketing, but that's what I consider it Like outreach in a way, yeah, outreach and messaging, let's say Messaging yeah, just making noise. It should be like noise Make noise about Rails, the noise killer.
Amanda Perino:Absolutely, and social media tips and tricks about rails. New features in rails 8 that was a big thing. As soon as rails 8 was launched, I wanted a series of videos like what can you expect in rails 8? And then education the curriculum I just talked about, but also the new tutorials with chris oliver from go rails. The video tutorials which was another thing with typecraft, just like a getting started tutorial. So you have two options you can either read a video tutorial and make an e-commerce site, or you can watch a video tutorial series 10 videos and make a task manager app. So that's kind of the work that we're doing in those pillars. Good, I always forget that context and I just launch right into it.
David Hill:Yeah, it's like oh yeah. One of those questions was like oh yeah, we probably should have led the conversation with that one Live and learn, I guess.
Amanda Perino:And how's it going with the podcast in?
David Hill:general. From my understanding of the podcast stuff, it is notoriously difficult to get accurate statistics on listenership and what that looks like, and so I'm doing it because I enjoy it. I learned this from Drew Bragg when he was telling me about his podcast years ago. He's like he created a podcast so that he would have a legitimate excuse to walk up to an interesting person like Aaron Patterson and ask him to have a conversation with him on his podcast. And then I watched him actually go up to Aaron Patterson 10 minutes later and invite him on his podcast. Nice Good strategy. That stuck out to me so vividly in my mind. When I saw him do that, I was like, oh, that's one more reason I want to start doing podcasts.
Amanda Perino:Yeah, yeah, it's a lot of work, though, now that I worked with Robbie to launch one listeners, it's a lot of work. A launch one Listeners it's a lot of work. There's a lot of research to do, outreach to people, the editing that comes afterwards, the promotion, putting it online. So I have a lot of respect for podcasters.
David Hill:Now, thankfully, there's a lot of tools that thankfully make it a lot easier to get through Having an editor. Thank you so much, paul. Our editor makes it so much easier to mostly just record and send him the file and he fixes it for us yeah and then buzzsprout.
David Hill:Our hosting platform makes it so much easier to just upload the file and again, just kind of push the button and everything that happens amazing to happen, yeah, and it's built with rails, so that's right so like we've got some amazing tools and resources that lower the barrier to entry quite a bit from what I thought it was years ago when I was first imagining doing a podcast, so thankfully we've got a lot of tools now.
Amanda Perino:And how's it been in the Buzzsprout podcast like in person, because that's quite different, right? Yeah, better or worse. Recording here like this no, just recording in person sitting across from somebody, it's fine.
David Hill:It's an opportunity I will take advantage of anytime I can get it.
Amanda Perino:Yeah, yeah, yeah, being able to read cues a little better than on screen, yeah, yeah yeah, it's a little difficult to read those on Zoom.
Marty Haught:Yeah, that's true. I would say that I've been very pleased with the podcast so far. I only had really one event since we started. We launched it at RailsConf so people didn't have a chance to really come and say, marty, I heard on the podcast, but actually at ParisRB and here I have had people come up and said I love that thing that came up on the podcast, tell me more about that, said I love that thing that came up on the podcast, tell me more about that.
Marty Haught:And so that was primarily my motivation was I felt like there were stories and things that weren't being shared outside of hallway conversations and conferences that could we take that and bring it on to a podcast format and get it out there. Someone joked that I'm sort of like a Ruby historian because I've been around so long and I know so many people and kind of how things have happened over the years. Is this like already trying to bring on folks to talk about what has happened? And obviously the first few episodes of the podcast were that Leaned heavily in that direction Leaned heavily in that direction.
Marty Haught:Not that we will always do that, because I also want to talk about things that are happening now and not just like oh, let me tell you about 15 years ago Back in my day, back in my day. I've appreciated the response so far. I think our download numbers are good. Certainly they're better than I would have expected.
Amanda Perino:I think also to David's point we don't really know how many people are listening to this and the focus is Gem Maintainers right.
Marty Haught:It's a mixture. I mean, yeah, we've been doing. I think Gem Maintainers is the primary focus, but there's also other people having impact in community, whether it's organizing, whether it's local events that I also feel it's important to bring their story online as well. You normally don't hear about a lot of that.
David Hill:There's that kind of whole metaphor of diamonds in the rough and that person being a gem. When the name was suggested for the podcast to be the Ruby Gems podcast, it was like, okay, well, there's the very literal, it's about gem maintainers. But at the same time it also kind of felt like this is also a metaphor for a lot of the community and for individuals and these stories and experiences that you may not hear about very often, that we wanted to bring forward a little bit more.
Marty Haught:Yeah, great, excellent, and that's why there's actually a space between Ruby and gems in the game.
Amanda Perino:Do people respect it? Because they don't respect the space in Rails world I do, putting that on the record.
David Hill:I've seen you make those comments on Discord, and I retrained my brain. There's a space.
Marty Haught:Yeah, it's tricky because you do like is there space? There's no space, but we intentionally made this space so that it's gems from Ruby, which could be literal Ruby gems, the things that we install.
Amanda Perino:And it's a community full of gems, so you'll keep going. You'll find stories all the time.
David Hill:Yeah, so I had one last question to close out. This is hopefully a relatively quick one. You mentioned before that Rails Foundation is you're the only full-time employee, that it's primarily a lot of volunteers. If someone wants to get involved with the foundation in some way, how would they go about trying to get involved?
Amanda Perino:So it's not a lot of volunteers, it's a lot of freelancers.
David Hill:Freelancers Okay.
Amanda Perino:It is all paid work and we have the board, so one of the easiest. We have so many PRs up for community review all the time for like guides, tutorials. I would love people to go through the tutorial PRs to say like do you see anything? Does it flow well? Does it read well? Do you have any junior developers that can read through this with fresh eyes, junior eyes? Yeah, and that's the biggest place. And then from there, as we get to know people and their work for instance, that's where Harriet Outen started. She was on the documentation team. I knew her from Blue Wagon teaching so I knew she had the chops for it. So that was like an easy. I've seen your work before because I learned from her as well. And then from there I asked her like are you comfortable on camera? Like presentation style? And she is actually. She did improv, whatever.
Amanda Perino:So she was a teacher, yeah, so then from there it was do you have any tips for the community that you could turn into Rails and Focus video that we could record and share? So she recorded some of them and now she's also one of the emcees at Rails World. Helping out in the documentation is definitely a way in, but also another way to volunteer. If you're interested, it's a lot more involved. Is this Rails in Focus series? It's basically a series of tips and tricks of one Rails dev to another.
Amanda Perino:Hey, I have this thing that I use or a thing that you might not know about Rails and I'd like to let you know, and the idea is that it passes as a host from person to person to person to person. We take care of all the production. You just have to like get your environment set up in a demo style and present and it's easier said than done and I have a lot of respect for seeing what goes into that right do the people who we record with understanding what goes into a production, because it's like teleprompter, it's lights, it's camera kind of thing, because we want the production quality to be high. So I would like to set up kind of moments. I wanted to do it around Rails world. But the over-programming thing again, because we have so many Rails devs in the community who wouldn't be shy on camera. So I would say reach out with a tip if you want to be a host of the Rails and Focus for one or two videos, and then we can figure out how to record that and make it work.
David Hill:Awesome.
Amanda Perino:There's a couple of little ways and also, yeah, just reviewing and, of course, volunteering at the event. That's one way, but then with membership comes the financial. So I don't think you mean that. I think you mean like the easy way, right the easier, live the free way in. Right the easier, live the free way.
David Hill:Is it free, though, like we're talking about putting work in?
Amanda Perino:It's free for me the support.
David Hill:Yeah.
Amanda Perino:No, we do believe in paying like the people who are doing like a lot of work for us and consistent work and work that we like really ask and expect a deadline for, so there's also an opportunity there, by the way. Awesome Well thank you so much for joining us today, Amanda. Thanks so much for having me and for being here. It was great to see you guys. Yeah, thanks a lot.
David Hill:Thank you so much for tuning into the Ruby Gems podcast. We hope you enjoyed this episode. You can find show notes and links to everything we discussed at rubygemspodcastcom.
Marty Haught:If you have a topic you'd like us to cover or have feedback, we'd love to hear from you. Please email podcast at rubycentralorg. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and consider leaving a five-star review. It really helps others find the podcast. Until next time, thanks for being such a gem.
