A little bit of personal and career news. In July I join the YOW! Conferences team as Technical Director.
It’s a huge honour, and somewhat daunting with some very big shoes to fill.
I always looked up to Dave Thomas. He built something truly special with YOW! I’m not ashamed to admit being a little emotional at his last Brisbane event.
Steffen Braa Andersen did a great job taking the reigns, but it’s a lot of travel to maintain an Australian presence from Denmark.
So here I am, about to stand on the shoulders of giants!
This isn’t the way I saw things going this year, but every now and then an opportunity comes up that is too good to pass up. When this role was announced in April, I instantly knew I had to throw my hat in the ring. And after a couple of long conversations, here we are.
Ironically it got announced during this year’s YOW! Tech Leadersip Summits, which I was emceeing in Brisbane.
What will I be doing?
Well it’s early days, but essentially my role will have a few parts.
Firstly, the guy who emcees all the events, the “face” of YOW if you like.
I’ll also be heavily involved in the conference program, alongside my new colleagues at Trifork working on the GOTO conference program.
Lastly, and probably most importantly, it’s about working closely with businesses in Australia to help make YOW! be the best conference for Australia for years to come. Ultimately that’s because we want lots of people to come to the conference, but also by strengthening YOW’s deep community roots everybody wins.
My history with YOW!
As part of the application for this role I documented my long history with YOW!
I’ve been coming to the conference in Brisbane since the very beginning, I’ve been to almost all of them.
I went to all the YOW! Nights back when that was a thing (watch this space again).
I’ve also been involved as a track host many times, due to my community involvement with various meetups.
I’ve spoken at the Tech Leaders Summit twice (while it was called the CTO summit), track hosted it, and emceed it.
The December YOW! Conference has always been a highlight of my year, a great time to catch up with people in the industry. Especially since going freelance in 2019, I’ve often said that YOW! Is my work Christmas party.
So I’m no stranger to the conferences, and the amazing team behind it, a team I am now proud to call my colleagues and friends.
This role seemed like an amazing fit.
So what’s next ?
Well I’m still getting my feet on the ground, but if you’re in the Australian tech community you can expect to see and hear a lot more from me.
If you lead a development team I’d love to chat about what would make the conference perfect for you (my work email is damian at yowconference.com), but don’t worry, I’ll probably be knocking on your door soon.
I can’t wait to kick off, and I look forward to seeing everybody in December.
