Event Participation
Rainkit gets two invitations in the same week: a big general tech conference in Delhi with 5,000 attendees, and a weekend hackathon in Bengaluru with 300 students building apps for farmers and cities. The conference sounds more impressive. The hackathon is where Rainkit's future users actually are. Choosing between them is the first of three jobs that every event involves.
The rule
An event is three jobs: prepare before, engage during, follow up after.
Developer events come in many shapes: conferences, local meetups, hackathons, workshops and online events. An advocate can take part as an attendee, a speaker, a sponsor with a booth, a mentor or judge, or an organiser. Whatever the role, the work splits into three jobs.
Before
- Choose by audience, not by size. A room of 300 people who need your product beats a hall of 5,000 who never will.
- Set one goal and one way to measure it. "Raise awareness" is not a goal you can check. "Fifteen teams build with Rainkit" is.
- Prepare materials: a starter repo, a demo that works without the venue's Wi-Fi, a short link that is easy to type.
During
- Talk with people, not at them. A demo that visitors can try beats a table of stickers.
- Write down every question and problem you hear. It is some of the best feedback you will get all year.
After
- Follow up with the people you met, and share slides, recordings and the winning projects.
- Report to your team: the goal against the result, the top questions, any bugs found, and whether to return next year.
The shortcut
Write a one-page event plan before you book anything: audience, goal, measure, materials, follow-up. If you cannot fill in the audience and the goal, the event is probably not for you.
Audience
300 students and young developers building apps for farmers and cities. A strong fit, so Rainkit picks the hackathon over the bigger conference.
The trap is measuring an event by how busy it felt, or by how many stickers were handed out, and then going home without writing up what you heard. The notes you take are often worth more than the event itself.
Drills
Answer fast — trust the rule.
How should Meera choose between two events on the same weekend?
Which is a clear goal with a measure for a hackathon?
Why prepare a demo that works without the venue's Wi-Fi?
Which after-event step feeds the feedback loop?
Remember
- An event is three jobs: prepare before, engage during, follow up after.
- Shortcut: the one-page plan (audience, goal, measure, materials, follow-up) before you book.
- Trap: judging an event by how busy it felt, and going home without writing up what you heard.