Our new office includes a 37-seat theater-style classroom. We intend on having conferences, master classes, workshops, and talks in this space. We’re about to get started thinking about the first few events. What sort of conference/class would you be interested in attending? The events will be related to the things we’ve learned about design, programming, and business over the last ten years. Any topic suggestions?
Amber Harloff
on 20 Jul 10I would love to see a full conference on Rework. Are you going to livestream these events :)
Robert
on 20 Jul 10Nice idea, could you be sure and record it for those of us who live too far away to attend?
I’d be interested in attending anything involving programming and business.
Jason Klug
on 20 Jul 101) Transitioning from client work to web apps
2) Exhibiting expertise through speaking engagements
Richard Nyström
on 20 Jul 10I’m a developer but it would be awesome to learn more stuff about how to design web apps (the 37s-way).
It would also be great if you video tape it and sell to people like me who can’t travel to Chicago so often.
DK
on 20 Jul 10Pick any chapter from REWORK and just expand/embellish… personal reflections and insights are always good/valuable plus I’m sure the code monkeys out there would want a piece of the action :-)
Alternatively, if you’re open to hosting international visitors/speakers then I’m in town in September and would love to do a session on zen and social media if you’re game…?
Rich S
on 20 Jul 10Things you wish your professional self would have known 10 years ago.
Nico Navarro
on 20 Jul 10It would be nice to hear some psychology behind solving problems with clients and all that kind of stuff..
Bryan Sebastian
on 20 Jul 10I think it would be great to have a seminar/conference centered around bootstrapping a company. Or maybe a 1 week “mini-camp”. There are several organizations that have incubator camps for startups (Y-combinator, Techstars.org and Exceleratelabs here in Chicago). But the primary goal for these programs is to gear the start-up to pitch for VC capital at the end of the program.
I think it would be interesting to have an event with a similar idea, but the goal is to gear the start-up to be profitable, without requiring VC funding. Instead of having people apply and be chosen into the program, charge a nominal fee to attend the program. I have to believe there are plenty of start-ups out there that would feel it would be money well spent to spend a few days learning from 37 Signals.
Many
on 20 Jul 10Everything you think that lead to act big being small (as a company of course ;-)
Jim Jeffers
on 20 Jul 10I say whatever you’re most interested in these days. I’d rather go into a class where the teachers were really passionate about whatever it was that they were teaching rather than just telling me about a subject I requested.
Kerry Draper
on 20 Jul 10Rework for sure! I work for a software company that is convinced large design and more meetings than actual work is the way to go. I am however convinced that they would attend a seminar and listen to another succesful software company.
Erik Escobedo
on 20 Jul 10If you livestream the conferences, i would even pay for see them.
Phil Willis
on 20 Jul 10I love that you guys have included a classroom in your new office design.
It’s a tremendous acknowledgment that teaching (whether you like it or not) is now one of the big things you’re known for.
37 seats. 37 signals.
Coincidence? I think not.
Looking forward to webcasts of any sessions you run.
Kristin
on 20 Jul 10I attended the Chicago meetup on Rework, and I’d love to have the expanded conversation that a conference would offer.
Bryan Fuhr
on 21 Jul 10I work for an innovation company. We are always looking for interesting venues to host training and education workshops, especially in the Chicago area. I wonder what kind of things we might be able to do together. Can we discuss?
JF
on 21 Jul 10Bryan: Our office classroom is for our use only. We have to work in the office too so we can’t rent it out a a venue for others.
Scott
on 21 Jul 10Rails for beginners .
Eric
on 21 Jul 10I’d love to see something that covered the 37signals way of starting a new app. From planning to sketching to initial HTML designs. There’s plenty out there for the programming side of things, but not much for the early stages of creating something new.
Of course, you’ve written about this stuff before, I’d just like to see it in practice.
Brian Burridge
on 21 Jul 10All the ideas mentioned so far are all great, traditional classes that I’m sure would be very educational. But, what I think would be most beneficial would be to have elements of your team, rework a portion(s) of one of your sites, or, work on a new product perhaps, and actually get a chance to SEE how you work, and the methods you use to solve problems and the creative process at 37 signals. To see the iterations and be a part of the discussion. Going through some project that took about a week, from start to finish, that used each skill set of your team, would really leave a lasting impression and give us something very tangible to take back to our own situations.
andy holck
on 21 Jul 10NOT rails. NOT info architecture. something general audience. something that will bring more women in. I think your group has a good opportunity to build and leverage influence on wide range of businesses and org’s.
Victor Scott
on 21 Jul 10Title: The road to profit is not paved with VCs.
Adam Justice
on 21 Jul 10I would love to see a whole topic on keeping things simple, when to say no and when to say yes to ideas. I think this is one of my biggest lessons from Re-Work and your blog. It would be great to have an extended conversation on this kind of stuff. I cant wait until you guys hold some classes, I will be there (if I can get in)
Ben Ackles
on 21 Jul 10I’d like to see the “Bootstrapped, Profitable & Proud” series spun-off into a conference. I love to hear these stories and learn from the founders. The comments alone from these posts incite some interesting discussions worthy of a conference.
Michael
on 21 Jul 10I’d like you guys to talk about developing rails apps for beginners who can program in other languages. That’s where I’m at right now.
Brian Rivera
on 21 Jul 10REWORK for non-profit organizations
I work for one and I used the book to rethink everything I ever thought about running a project, designing a process and putting an end to useless meetings.
If 37signals can help out some of the community organizations in Chicago first, by finding ways to work smarter, cut excess mass and and focus, then I think that it would be very beneficial for them.
I see it as a gathering/talk of people at non-profits organizations that have used the tenets in REWORK or looking for inspiration through REWORK.
Steve Erickson
on 21 Jul 10I would love to see a conference based around your Design Decisions series of posts. Perhaps the workshop could start with 37signals sharing a few design decisions from your apps. It would also be great to also allow time for a few of the participants to bring some examples of challenging problems in their apps and get feedback from the crew and the other participants.
Good Web Work
on 21 Jul 10Some others have mentioned stuff along these lines but I think you would get a ton of people in for a “Designer to Developer” course. Maybe a good full day or 2 days or even 3.
This obviously wouldn’t need to get too specific but if it’s too vague it will be useless. The best way I can describe it is by describing the kind of people that would be the audience. These people would already know:
- how to code CSS/HTML in their sleep, no prob - how to send form data to a db and pull it out to a page through PHP/MySQL or something similar - how to do basic conditional syntax through something like PHP, but they end up with spaghetti code as soon as anything gets halfway complicated
The course would give them an overview of RoR or PHP or something so that they could conceivably create a very simple web app (maybe the attendees build the web app during the course and that’s how it works).
I know that in a short time you can’t train someone to do elegant, beautiful code and be a master programmer, but people who know CSS really well will have some context of what they need to do after the class to move in that direction. But to start, they need to be able to look at the files and code in a web app and at least understand have a notion of what’s going on.
I know you guys talk a good bit about designers and developers working together. This could be the kind of thing where a designer just does it to have a clue how to work better with devs, or it could be such that they want to actually move more into development themselves.
Good luck at the new digs.
Jimmy Chan
on 21 Jul 10Just a simple event, introducing 37signals to your new neighbours and who want to know 37signals more.
Anyone would be happy sitting in your new-chair-office :)
Henrique
on 21 Jul 10One thing we rarely read here at SVN blog is about the more technical stuff. We would love to get more insight on the actual structure you guys have (servers, software tenancy model, infrastructure performance, replication techniques, etc), the pains you got thru through those years and how to deal with clients during problems or shortages.
Wish you luck on the talks!
Robbie
on 21 Jul 10I’m with Amber and Erik—would love to be able to watch a live stream or even have access to a library of archived talks. I’m in NC, so I won’t be getting up to Chicago anytime soon.
Jirapong Nanta
on 21 Jul 10How about get start from Getting Real then Rework with workshop class anything came up with Web Design and RoR?
Paul
on 21 Jul 10How to write an app that wins the market – from nothing to profit. Especially for people that have daily jobs and consider building such app on the side – technology, market analysis, pricing, customers etc. (great example was Peldi with his Balsamiq Mockups).
Dave R
on 21 Jul 10I’ll be Chicago-way mid-August so heres to hoping you’ve got something on then!
Jaap
on 21 Jul 10Format-wise, I’d say you should stick to what you’re good at with text: Showing inspiring ideas, without delving too deep in particulars. As a frequent attendee of conferences, I’ve noticed that you only take a few inspiring ideas with you – which for a large part come up in the coffee brake. It’s almost impossible to really dive into one area and speakers often end up using more and more examples instead to fill the time.
5 ideas in 5×20-30 minutes format would be far more interesting to me than an hours-long workshop on one particular subject.
Kevin H
on 21 Jul 1037 seats… That’s an odd number to pick….
Lee Graham
on 21 Jul 10You guys should talk to Steli or Bjoern at Supercool School and allow people to teleconference in during the sessions.
Jason Harvey
on 21 Jul 10I loved the design round table series from the podcast. Something similar, but with visuals would be great.
Adam
on 21 Jul 10I like Ben Ackles idea of a “Bootstrapped, Profitable & Proud” series. It’s inspiring to read how people are turning their ideas into profitable companies. A 1 day workshop would be cool!
Pete
on 21 Jul 10How about reversing designer-to-developer and also offering “developer-to-designer?”
Stephanie Fonda
on 21 Jul 10I would like to attend a class that focuses on the relationship between the programmer and the business/marketing/sales/etc point person. As a non-programmer who is starting a web based business, I want to cultivate a greater understanding of each person’s role and how to communicate effectively to reach a common goal.
Max
on 21 Jul 10I would like to see something on simplicity as you understand and present it. How to build it, how to see it, how to know when you begin to deviate.
Michael Doan
on 21 Jul 10Whatever the topic, if you can record it on video, put it on your site and charge to access it, that would be valuable for those who can’t be there physically. Re-using and re-packaging, you guys are into that right? ;)
Americo Savinon
on 21 Jul 10What about a Rework meetup? Having the fisrt official 37 Signals Rework meetup at the new theater-style classroom sounds great to me. I would say Remarkable.
Caleb
on 21 Jul 10“How to cut the BS and write 1-2 page proposals for client web projects”
Hibiscus
on 21 Jul 10I would love to send all of our senior executives to a mandatory Rework 101, focusing on some of the biggest mistakes large corporations make that impact productivity and effective team work. Make sure you charge them something like $25,000 per day apiece, though, so they take you seriously…
kishba
on 21 Jul 10Programming session idea—thoughts and process on how to upgrade an existing/old Rails application to Rails 3.0 :)
(This is one area I bet you guys have a lot of valuable experience with.)
mendrinos
on 21 Jul 10A flash-back, demonstrating the server and network infrastructure improvements from day one (and one single server for the first year of your saas) to today’s farm of servers.
Justin Basie
on 21 Jul 10After you’ve been in your new office for awhile I would be interested in attending a session on how your office space affects your productivity. Positives and negatives of the layout.
Glenn Meder
on 21 Jul 10How about watching Groundhog Day while eating pizza and having a follow up discussion about living life like the born again Phil Connors.
Dylan
on 21 Jul 10I’d love to learn more about creating a killer product and using word of mouth to promote it.
I’m also interested in Ruby on Rails for beginners.
Thanks!
Rick Hengehold
on 21 Jul 10Web design and development, as well as a series on Getting Real/Rework.
Jonathan Cohen
on 21 Jul 10I’m a big fan of open design critiques. Obviously, NDAs might cramp your style in a community event. Could work if it’s constrained to personal projects.
Geoff
on 21 Jul 10Ditto re Ben Ackles’ & Brian Sebastion’s bootstrapping theme. I’d love to hear a bunch of scrappy entrepreneurs share their story.
In a similar vein, I think the venue size is perfect for roundtables, and you have the following to be able to quickly create some. The tech entrepreneurs who partake would largely drive the meetings.
Here’s an example of a roundtable organization specific to the remodeling profession. They facilitate the creation of a board of advisors for your business, made up of your accomplished peers. Rather than attorneys, CPAs or VCs, you get to lean on (and help out) other entrepreneurs. Each roundtable member shares his/her insights with the expectation that you’ll do the same for them. Groups meet twice a year for a couple days each time. I’d love to have this kind of thing in the bootstrapping/self-funded tech world.
sebastian
on 22 Jul 10Anything about methods or techniques for achieving simplicity.
But most of all I’d enjoy hanging around people with this school of thought.
There’s so much convolution everywhere that we can make an industry from it.
George
on 22 Jul 10I would love to see a beginning Rails class too. Just try and search for any out there on the web. There are next to none.
Also, I second Caleb’s thought: “How to cut the BS and write 1-2 page proposals for client web projects”
Colin Mathews
on 22 Jul 10I agree with Bryan Sebastian and a few others: I love the Bootstrapped series and learn a lot when anyone shines a light on the very cloudy area between building something beautiful and VC-free success. Specific, practical examples of what helped others get through this transition period (when budgets are really tight) are always awesome.
jerome
on 23 Jul 10My humble suggestion is going to seem like it comes out of left field since it has nothing to do with programming, so feel free to, er… moderate it.
I think you should book Grant Petersen, the founder of Rivendell Bicycle Works and former Bridgestone Bicycles product manager, to come give a talk at your new theatorium. Sell tickets to the early evening talk (and heck, sell tix to the teleconnectors too) and let Grant donate some of the funds to a charity as he sees fit. Whatever he wants to discuss, about bikes, about writing about bikes or something else entirely. He works tirelessly in an industry that should be more important than it is, and he’s built a business that is largely sustainable and substantively - if you can believe it - important in people’s lives.
Martial
on 23 Jul 10How to smack your business partner in the head and get him/her to pay attention to the fact that success does not need to be based on old models. How to convince people in other departments that, no, they do not know it all and, no, they have neither been there nor done that.
Not that I’m having any trouble with these issues.
John
on 23 Jul 10Highrise, Basecamp, Campfire etc. best practices.
Ashit Vora
on 23 Jul 10Something about designing a completely new product or your existing app(not just a portion of it).
RF
on 24 Jul 10Do something where all 37 people are participants, not only an audience, and you’re trying to inform yourself as much as anybody else. Try and round up people who do cool stuff but don’t intersect with your day-to-day work much. In Web development, maybe John Resig, the folks behind Node.js or CoffeeScript or Google App Engine, some WebKit developer, or folks you respect who build in something other than RoR. Outside Web development, maybe folks who do, say, tech in the third world or psychology or behavioral economics or deep comp sci or toy design. Have 5 or 10 minute talks followed by at least as much Q&A as talk. (Questions could be written down and moderated so questioners can’t filibuster.)
You could provide a theme, like thinking about the Internet or world five years from now, or just ask everyone to talk about something important they think the world needs to know. Post the thing on YouTube for buzz, or sell access and help defray participants’ costs.
Another angle on this is the same 37-presenter conference, but streamed live, with questions coming in over the Web and perhaps being ranked by other watchers in real time.
(A cute twist: have 38 folks so every seat is always filled. Perhaps the moderator’s in the chair of whoever’s currently presenting.)
This discussion is closed.