Do iOS Retrospective

Jeroen: Okay, so do I. What happened? Like, already? It's, like, two weeks ago, and I think it was a success. It was an interesting event, I think, especially for me as an organizer. Um, I had a lot of positive feedback, especially on the seating. People loved the seating. It was like a movie theater like thing. But then in the science museum, so. But it was very funny to see that a lot of people there were just during the breaks, they were just wandering around into the museum and checking out the exhibits, just focused science stuff. So it was really cool to see and it was just a good atmosphere. Delighting was great because Marco helped me with that, that we had like this little bar on the side that was like in the theme of the conference, which is a rainbow theme and we had a lot of, uh, people in the room. Actually, the room was like packed 200 people at the same time listening to a presentation, and it's just been a very busy week or weeks, I should say, because we also have like a little remodel going on in our living room. So we're looking at bare concrete in our living room. We had like, uh, plaster being done to our ceiling in the living room and there was like a fireplace that has been taken out and that wall has also been fully plastered. So the relative moisture content of the air in our living room was like way, way, way, way high, with which involved us wiping down the windows and the frames of the windows. So to take away the water because there was actual water standing on our window frames, which is not good if it's a wooden window frame. So overall, we've been very busy. Uh, this week On Wednesday, we'll get the painter in to do the ceiling and to do the wall, and then end of the week flooring will be started and that will be a fun exercise as well, because then there will be somebody who will put something on the floor to make sure that it's perfectly smooth. And then everything has to be out of the room. And then after the weekends he will start sticking the floor flooring. We're going to go for PPC, and then he has to do the same thing again in the kitchen and in our hallway. So I'm not entirely sure yet how we are going to get upstairs because we need to go through the hallway, but we'll manage and we'll survive and hopefully by the time it is center class, December 5th, we can have like a decent situation again in our living room so that we can have a party because we have small kids, a five year old and eight year olds. And in the Netherlands, Sinterklaas is like a completely child focused festivity and the kids just love it. Uh, that's a can get all kinds of presents. It's a little bit like Christmas in other countries. You know, you give like tons and tons of presents and gifts to your kids, so you spoil them a little bit. That's probably also why they really like the event. But overall, I'd say, uh, the past few weeks has been a great success, both for the event for our do I was financially it's also, uh, it was a healthy exercise. I didn't make a ton of money on it, which was not never my goal, but I was left with a little bit of money that will help me bootstrap next year. Do I was. I'm awaiting confirmation on some dates from the same venue because I'm looking forward to booking the same venue again for November next year, but I still have to see what will be the case there. Uh, because they have some remodeling going on there as well and they're not entirely sure yet if they have availability in November, but I'll keep an eye on it. And if you sign up for the newsletter on the conference website, do iOS dot com, you will get early notice on dates, availability of tickets and everything. I am planning to up to ticket price a little bit. Maybe I should call this section my plans for next year. So in 2024 I want to organize do IPOs again in November. Not sure on the date yet and I want to basically do the same for almost 200 people. Um, good catering, good speakers. I want to up the price of the tickets a little bit. Instead of 300, I want to charge 400 and instead of six sponsors, I want to have a few less sponsors because if I up to ticket price, I'm less dependent on sponsors. But it's a balancing game. And because the ticket price is higher, I do want to allocate some budgets or figure out another way on top of that that allows people who have a, um, how do you, how do you put this correctly But in any way people who can't afford to pick a who can't afford two tickets but do want to be a part of do I wish that I still have an opportunity to be a part of it without having to pay full price, something I have to figure out. But anyways, event format will be exactly the same as this year. It will be a workshop day followed by two days of conference. So people that are willing to travel to Amsterdam for do. I was 2024. It will be a three day event and it will be an event that will be hopefully in the same venue and I will just have to see how things go because it's still early days, you know, still recovering from from last year, from this year's events. But I'm planning on opening up ticket sales a little bit earlier compared to last year, because people buying tickets really allows me to get started with the whole organizing of it. And I do hope that a lot of people will actually take the opportunity to buy tickets on invoice because then the transfers they trickle in on my account for do IPOs, which again allows me to start organizing and figuring out things financially earlier. Because, yeah, what happened this year was that I had a decent amount of people buying an invoice, buying on invoice, I should say, and that allowed me to have some budget available. I had some sponsors that had me some budget as well, but it ended up with me. End is over two weeks later I get like a big honking transfer on my account. €60,000 is like, whoa, I've not I've never got this amount at the same time on the single bank accounts. So that already gave me like a little bit of apprehension because it's like a crazy amount of money. But within the same day, fortunately, the money was also gone again because I had to close off all kinds of open balances that I still had. So I paid the venue, I paid some of my updates, I paid to workshop hosts and, you know, and everything together. All the money was already spent by that time. So yeah, I did feel good that I was able to like, close all the accounts and to have like a positive balance at the bottom of my sheets. And yeah, it all matched up with my expectations. So financial planning was successful. And I think in hindsight, I think the financial planning was the, the most um, well, it gave me, it gave me the most tension of all the aspects of organizing a conference because what was different this year, I probably mentioned it before, is that this year's Do I Wish was fully on Me. The two editions before this one were organized by the CO Cats and L Foundation, which I'm a chairperson of, but the CO Cats and L Foundation has a reasonable balance on on their account, not a lot, but enough to be able to to cover any mishaps on the financial side of organizing an event. But this year it was all on me. And if I made a financial mistake with my conference, that would mean that that would directly cut into our private finances. So my family finances, which I don't know how it is for you, but I have a wife, two kids. I want to make sure that they have no, uh, financial surprises. So that was the most important thing for me to get right with the IRS, because everything else about the IRS has been very easy for me on the date itself. I didn't have a lot of tension. I was relaxed. I was announcing a few speakers here and there. It did. It did turn out to be an exhausting day because I ended the first conference day with with a massive headache. And I took it slow Today, after in the morning, with the help of Daniel Daniel Steinberg, he did a lot of the announcing on the second day. But overall, um, yeah, the organizing went fine, the event went great. I think I had a lot of positive feedback. People really enjoyed themselves. Also, my, uh, my staff, Yolanda, Marco Bartz and Jing, they all were very excited to be a part of do IPOs again next year, which is great because it's a team that I can just rely on. You know, they, they, they, they know what tasks they can take during the day and they know what I expect tempted to do and they know how much freedom they can take to to to sort out certain situations. But what I also noticed was that again, the the attendees on sites, they were all great. They were all very helpful to each other as well, which was great to see as well, because that's in fact the whole goal of of do I was also do I use as a conference is like the prototype conference of how I would like to see a conference that I would enjoy. So I tend to enjoy like to the to the conference that are a little bit smaller scale that have like full focus on the content, but also on the, on the interactions between attendees and, uh, and I like it when the conference is single track. So that you people don't have something to choose. But in my conference, in my situation, that's on purpose because then everybody has the same shared experience. Well, at least if they're in the if in their presentation room. But the set up of the area that we had this year really invited people to be a part of the event as much as possible because that basically everybody was in a room and it was not very welcoming to to stay out of the presentation room. Sometimes you have a conference that is like really easy to like to linger and to stay out of the presentations just because and with do I was that was not the case for the sponsors that I had I AG Bank, ABN Amro Stream revenue cuts, App Circle and Rocket SIM. I understood from them that the event was also very successful, especially App Circle was really nice because they, they signed up late to the event, but they were very flexible with working with me to make sure that they ended up with a setup that they, uh, in advance of the event I thought would be the best effect for them. And I spoke with, with their staff on site and they, they really were like very happy. They had a lot of engagement with the audience, which I'm thankful to the attendees as well, because I did ask them to interact with the sponsors because that's what the sponsors are there for. Because, yeah, to two big banks in the Netherlands, they were just looking for a new team members Revenue Katz Stream App Circle they were like there to like uh, advocates and to uh, excite people about the services that they offer revenue cards for like in-app purchases and subscriptions, stream streaming, a chat and video SDK app circle bit of service that is focused on continuous delivery and integration of mobile apps. And then finally there was Rocket SIM, who has a product for iOS developers that helps you get the most out of the iOS simulator. And probably with Rocket SIM, there's even a few tricks available that is not available by default in the simulator at all. So it's some great stuff, but they were all very happy and excited to have been a part of Do iOS and one of the sponsors actually already indicated that that they are very interested to be a part of do iOS again next year, which is great. So I hope that, uh, that I can finalize those deals in the coming months as well. But the first thing that I need of course, is to find Venue Nemo Science Museum. If you're ever in Amsterdam with kids, go visit because it's amazing. They have like availability for me because that that's, that's the thing where it starts with a first before I can even start organizing anything else, I need to know dates. And also if I know dates, I can indicate those on the websites, I can update the websites, I can start my my sponsorship rally. I can actually also start selling tickets early because I'm once I know dates and it's 2024 because I want to keep everything in a single calendar year financially, I can actually start selling tickets and I just want to open it up early and see what people think and that people can also have like some say in what the next edition of do was will be. One thing I will not do would do iOS for 2024 is make it bigger in the size of the audience. Maybe on the workshop day I will make it possible for more people to be a part of the workshops. But on the other hand, I just have to see. Most of all, I don't want to make it bigger because right now I felt like I had like a decent opportunity to interact with with most of the attendees on the sites. And I probably spoke to fewer people than I'd like in hindsight. But yeah, it is what it is, especially as an organizer. You're just like most of my time was actually involved with observing how things were going. I ironing out like small things that I noticed interacting with the venue staff to make sure that that they were informed on when things needed to be catered. Because one thing I must say, the speakers, the catering staff, everybody, even attendees coming in in the morning, everybody was nice and sharp and on schedule, which was great because that makes everything a lot easier to make sure that we end the day at a time that we have planned for ourselves. And also it allows for people to, uh, to, you know, to fulfill their expectations so that there's no surprises in, uh, in how the day goes. And probably some people also had plans in the evening maybe to, to see or visit some, some friends because they're traveling from abroad or they had some clients or work or a course that they needed to do in the evening, whatever plans people have. But it's, it's always nice that you can count on an indicated end time of an event to actually be held up because yeah, I don't know about you, but the one thing I find annoying with meetings myself or anything calendar related is me for whatever reason being late or me being in the meeting already and then other people showing up late, I just find it, uh, disrespectful of, uh, of other people if you, if you don't, uh, keep time, if you don't keep schedule, if you're not there when you have agreed to be there. So maybe I'm old fashioned in that way. I'm definitely not a generation Z kind of person. I'm like a few generations before that, actually. 44 right now. So, uh, I must say that after the conference, I did need to, uh, sleep in a few mornings to, to recover some energy. So I'm not. I'm not that young anymore. Maybe. I just wanted to give like, an, a, a little bit of an update. Uh, so that's what I just did. Uh, I indicated some plans for next year. For 2024, you will have noticed that my podcast has been on a slow rate. Well, you might have thought that I might be away that have stopped podcasting. I have to see how this will pick up again in the next months, because I did slow down my podcasting on purpose because there's only so many hours in each day and there's regular work that needs to keep going, which is my main focus. And while not my main main focus, because my biggest priority is of course my family. But when I'm working, main focus is my day job, uh, for Stream. And then if I have time available, it has been like a lot of organizing for the conference. And then if I had some opportunity to, to spend some time, I would actually spend it on podcasting or whatever. It was important at that time. I do plan on going to some, uh, some meetups for cocoa snow in the near future. Uh, that, that also ongoing. And I must say that Barton, Chin and Marco have been doing a great job there because I have been, uh, letting them take care of a lot of things for the Meetup organization, but hopefully for people that are in and around the Amsterdam area and do IOC development, The December meetup of Coco Chanel is usually about like sharing a drink with the community members without a presentation. So it's if you want to get started with Coco Chanel meetups. I think December one is one of the best to, uh, to get like a started with because the barrier to entry is like really, really low. Um, And what's left now is to to thank a few people. It sounds like a want some sort of award, maybe, but I really want to thank all the attendees of do IPOs and how they have been an open and welcoming part of the event itself. Because the event it can only happen with the help of the attendees. First of all, with them showing up. But then second of all, which is the most important part of all of the attendees interacting with each other, helping each other, supporting each other, and trying to lift each other up. Next to that, of course, the staff members, Marco, who did all the lighting, all the audio, and he did record the screens and the audio of the presentations. And yeah, he had a hard time figuring out the lighting system at the venue because the, the guides that they had available from the venue, there were some errors in there. And he basically had to figure out how to how to, how to how to steer on the lighting so from his console. So he figured it out and we were able to to use all the lighting that we needed. Next to that, we also had had Yolanda Bartz and King. They were like involved with making sure that everybody got into the venue smoothly, that they were like signed up, that they got their badges. And especially Yolanda, she was her main priority was like making sure that all the speakers had their microphone on in time and that they had like no issues getting audio started. We did have two glitches in the morning, but that's what's what happens if you work with technical systems, right? That there was some some buzzing or something going on when we disconnected HDMI and we were able to figure it out. And next to that, of course, Danie Steinberg, because he's been helping me announce the speakers, that he's also has been a workshop host the day before, which was very well-received and people really enjoyed his workshop. And then there's the the, the venue staff led by Tamara. And yeah, they were just great. They were just on time. Helpful food was great. And they were like very, very much pleasantly surprised with all the positive feedback that they also got from the attendees, which was amazing too, to hear afterwards. And of course, it was also Donnie Walsh, the second workshop hosts, and what's important with Donnie Society. When I mentioned that I wanted to do Do I was this year and that I was looking for somebody to run a workshop, he immediately told me, Yeah, sign me up, I'll do it. Whatever you need. Make sure that that you get things organized and we'll figure things out along the way. So he was there with me, willing to be a part of do us when it was not much more than just an idea of something that I was considering doing in my head. And next to that, of course, all the speakers. First of all, Vincent Padilla, who did like an amazing talk about swift macros. And then there's Gianna, Henry Lewis, who told an amazing talk about metal shaders Akatsuki from Japan, who took us into a journey about the only in some keywords in Swift and then Alina Plushenko who knows a lot about chakra development and she gave us a talk about of 2.0 and pixie that's very technical. Josh would a very inspirational talk about shipshape shipping engineer. Wow, that's a tongue breaker. Tim Condon did like a little bit of a bit of a sneak peek into Vapor five and some of the plans he has for server side development. And Zachary Brass, who did a talk about about mentorship that this is actually the talk and at the conference with and it was it was a great fit too to sign off on with the conference and I hope it'll let people travel home again after the conference. Feeling like power and empowered and amped up to really get started with things that we learned during the during the event and Roadrunner really was also finally a part of the process. We wanted to have him last year, but there were some issues with his visa, but this year we were able to manage it and have him on site and and do a presentation about widgets on iOS and iPads OS 17 and Mac OS 14. Then there was during the friends doing a talk about accessibility on on mobile, which is a very important topic and something you should look into. Th there was a sponsored talk by Charlie Chapman about revenue cap, but he did not make it into a talk that was very sponsorship sponsorship. It was just a fun talk and very interesting to see what insights Charlie had on on in-app purchases and subscriptions. Then there was Monica Metzger, who did a talk about Fashion OS and transforming user experience with this new hardware device, and it was her first conference talk that she did, and I think she did amazing. She's actually also organizing a conference in Macedonia. So check that one out. And then there was Drew McCormack, who had something to say about Swift Data and his thoughts about what Swift data would be. And Phillips Narducci did like a talk about navigation tech, which was a good overview and gave you some pointers on how you can have like navigation compatibility and a transition between like iOS versions. Dimitry Ivanov did a nice overview of of of doing code review in a large team setting AT&T and then Martin Dimitrescu from Stream did a talk about swift concurrency in the real world. And it was an actual talk about how stream use of swift concurrency day to day in their SDK, which is open source. You can actually look at what Maarten was talking about and it was of course the dinner and drinks and catering by by the venue. So thank you for that. And finally, I want to thank the sponsors of do iOS because without their help it would not be have been financially possible or viable at all to to do this event. So that's ABN Amro and Angel Bank both big banks in the Netherlands. So if you're in the Netherlands and you're banking, most likely you will end up with one of these two banks. They were looking for staff members to join their teams. So do check them out. They usually have great openings available throughout the year. And then there are revenue cuts, stream and app circle. Those are more service oriented companies, revenue caps for in-app purchases and subscriptions if you're doing that. They have this amazing new paywall feature that you should check out. Stream has a chat and video SDK. The video SDK is in. It's in a sort of a beta stage, but it's getting ready for full production. And they recently announced a very amazing free tier in their chat service. So if you're looking for some sort of a chat service in your app, definitely check out stream because they have like a free tier available now for the up and coming small time iOS app developers that are just trying to make a break with their products and an app circle. If you're looking into, um, continuous integration and continuous delivery with mobile applications, definitely check them out to have to infrastructure and all the tools that you need to make getting your apps from source control into production in the app stores a lot easier and a lot more automated and with much more control and with much more possibility to reproduce situations. And then finally, there is Rocketman by Antoine Fondly, who's also a big friend of the Du Iris Conference and the Cocoa arts community. And it was just great to to have him on site and to see how it was working the room and talking with people to advocate for all the things that he does. And Rocket SIM is just one of the things that he does. So thank you. Sponsors. Thank you. Attendees. Thank you. Speakers. Thank you. Workshop host And thank you. Venue staff for an amazing time with the IOC. I really enjoyed organising it much more than last year's edition in 2022 because I felt so much more in control and on top of things this year because it is the fifth time that I'm doing this. So let's go for a sixth time and see you again in Amsterdam in 2024, in November, once I have two dates, I will let you know if you want to stay informed, do sign up for the newsletter at do dash iOS dot com. You can't miss it. It's at the top of the page and I hope to see you again sometime soon. And a go catch and I'll meet up or at a events at a conference somewhere. Maybe my conference do I whatever. Whenever you meet me come say hi. I always like talking to people and well, this is due Irish 2023 signing off and now it's back to work again.