Finance

Progress was made on learning about the financial part of organizing a conference! And I just mean progress. I am still not sure I am actually doing it right but I feel a little better. The reason for this is that I had a really good conversation with a financial person at Ruby Central. I got to ask a bunch of questions and they gave me honest, straight up answers. It was incredibly enlightening and gave me a lot of confidence to continue pushing forward and learning more. I decided to open up a quickbooks account and start tracking all my finances in there. This is not a lot right now, mostly the deposit for the venue and a couple administrative costs here and there. I also asked her about the logistics of compensating speakers. Basically if you pay them at all (reimbursing travel, stipend, honorarium, etc) then you have more taxes to do and so do your speakers. But if you pay for their travel directly then it is just a business expense and thus a tax deduction and your speakers don't have to claim it as income on their taxes. And if my taxes are simple that means maybe I don't have to pay hundreds of dollars for an accountant. Anyway, I feel a lot better and ready to start talking to sponsors and speakers.

Coding Meetup at a Maker Space

There has not been a Ruby or Rails meetup in Albuquerque in many years and I wanted to try and start one up for several reasons relating to the conference. I know there are multiple companies in Albuquerque that use Rails. Buying a conference ticket, a flight and a hotel isn't always an easy decision. Especially if you have never been to a conference before or don't know anyone that is going. But if you live in that city it makes the math way easier. I would like to connect with more people who have the easiest time making the decision to come to the conference. Unrelated to the conference, I have been coding a lot more lately and I want to connect with people in person, on a more consistent, casual basis than a conference, to talk about what we have been working on.

Also, If you have never been to a maker space before you are missing out. If you like building software I have a feeling that you probably like building things in the physical world as well and makerspaces open up all kinds of opportunity for that. At this particular one (Quelab) there are a ton of things that I can use for the conference itself. There are giant printers where I can print sponsor materials, badges, or even sheets of pre-cut stickers. There is a wood CNC and a laser cutter station where I could make special swag. There is a screen printing room where I could make t-shirts. The possibilities are endless.

I am thinking of making this meetup a weekly or bi-weekly thing where we just meet up and show off what we have been working on. We can do speakers but it isn't necessary. I am excited to start this and see where it goes.