Developer Community And Conference Conversations: Mike Hall Interviews Ryan Slobojan

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🚀 Meet Ryan Slobojan, a software developer and InfoQ contributor, as he shares his journey into interviewing at tech conferences. 🌐 Learn about his approach, the value he finds in the process, and the diverse range of professionals he has met. 📚 Dive into the world of tech with Ryan's insights and knowledge. 🌍 #TechCommunity #Interviewing #RyanSlobojan #TechConferences #DeveloperLife
The Interviewer

Mike Hall

Interviewer, UGtastic

The Guest

Ryan Slobojan

developer community and conference conversations

The Conversation

Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic
Hi, it's Mike with UGtastic again. I'm here again at GOTO Conference Chicago 2013. Today I'm sitting down with Ryan Slobodin, who is also doing interviews here, but you're doing them as part of the GOTO Conference. And that's very interesting for me. I'm just curious, well first, thank you for sitting down, but how did you get involved with interviewing and who exactly are you interviewing here at the conference?
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations
So I first got involved with the general software developer at the Graduate University of Waterloo in Computer Science in 2003, doing lots of software development. In 2007 I went to a user group meeting in Toronto, and that was being given by Floyd Maranescu, who was the founder of GOTO Conference. Oh, okay. And so I asked him a couple questions during the talk, and then afterwards he asked, "Oh, are you interested in writing for this InfoQ news site? " Right. He was about a year old at that point. And I thought, "Oh, that seems interesting. " And so I started writing news for InfoQ, and that's just news about what's going on in the tech space, so things that developers care about. Which, one of the nice things about writing for an area where you have an expertise in, like for me as a software developer, I code. Mm-hmm. So I have an idea what people with my background would like to hear.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic
Right.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations
So I try and use that to inform content that I create.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic
I look at it and I say, "Do I really care about this?
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations
" Mm-hmm.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic
"Yes?
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations
" "Awesome.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic
" "No?
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations
" "Okay, well then I'm not going to write about it. " Mm-hmm. So that ends up being a good metric, and it helps things out. So with that, I also started getting involved in InfoQ's conferences, which are QCons.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic
Right.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations
So starting with QCon San Francisco 2007. Mm-hmm. That's where I met the Triforq team, and Triforq is who puts on. They're a partner on QCon, and then they put on GoTo, and they help out with the YOW conferences as well, I believe, in Australia.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic
Okay.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations
They do quite a bit in the conference side.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic
Right.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations
And so was helping out with some of the organization and some of the editorial content stuff for the conferences after a few years. Mm-hmm. And also as far as doing interviews, I just tried to find people that I thought were interesting, that had good stories. I mean, Dan North is ...
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic
Yeah.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations
Any time I talk to Dan, it's a great discussion. I learn a ton. Mm-hmm. And so I just try and find people like that and have a good discussion with them. It helps me in front of the video camera. Mm-hmm. And there's an interview.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic
Okay.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations
So that's kind of how I got into it. That's the long chain that led to it.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic
Okay.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations
I noticed in your style, it seems like you sit behind the camera and have the subject in front of the camera.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic
Was that a conscious decision to go with that structure, or was that just the natural thing to do?
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations
Well, I mean, there's a major and minor aspect to it. The minor side is that I'm slightly camera shy. Mm-hmm. It's also I tend to take a lot of pictures, is when you're the one behind the camera, you're not the one that shows up on camera. But that's more of a minor thing. From my perspective, when I'm doing an interview, I essentially consider myself to be a beat prop. Mm-hmm. And because I'm not the subject of the interview, I'm okay with not being on camera.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic
Right.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations
So I can just sit behind, and I can make sure that ... Mm-hmm. And I can make sure that the cameras work correctly, because there's oftentimes not a whole team to manage all the equipment. So I watch the camera, I make sure things are going well, and I'm also just asking questions from that perspective. So that's just ... It's become my style.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic
Yeah.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations
It's interesting, because I was comparing and contrasting the style of interview I do with what you're doing. And I studied a different perspective, but I certainly feel the pain with managing equipment. What you can't see here is that there was a computer underneath the camera, and lights, and all kinds of things, and every now and then I have to glance down and be like, "Oh, yeah, it's still going. " And some people might notice it's me sitting up and getting down at the tail end of the interviews. So I'm sure that kind of alleviates some of those pressures and allows you to have ... But I like to be with the person on the camera, so that way it's ... To me, it's like there's three people in the room. There's the camera, which represents you, the audience, and us having a conversation But how many interviews ... Are you doing this a while now, or ... Well, I think the last time I did a count, I think I was somewhere north of 70 interviews with a variety of people, spread out amongst several years at different conferences. So interviews at QCons, Go-To's, at Strange Loop, Spring One, a real mix. Actually, also, there's some Ruby conferences in Toronto, so I helped out with some of those interviews. A wide variety.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic
Okay.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations
And is this something that's been ...
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic
Is this more of a hobby for you, or are you doing this as part of the conference?
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations
It's something that I have great interest in. So one of the reasons that I got involved in InfoQ to begin with and got involved in the new space was that, one, I wanted to be able to learn things. And I find that ... Well, there's an old saying that when one teaches, two learn. And so I found that learning about the news, finding out all this information about the news, and then being able to turn around and synthesize it into a reasonable article to explain it to others, by having to go through that process, I had to learn about it myself, because otherwise I couldn't intelligently learn about it. So that really increased how rapidly I was learning, because I had to do this for every single article.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic
Right.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations
And then similarly with an interview, I'm speaking with arbitrary random people where there are arbitrary random backgrounds. I need to learn a lot about what they're doing, because I want to be able to ask intelligent questions about what it is that's going on. I mean, you're going to have different questions for Dan North than you have for Eric Meyer, than you have for Jim Weber, than you have for I know Corey. Just a very large and diverse set of things. And so because I'm an information junkie, because I constantly want to learn, that helps to satiate that part of it. But I also want to share that knowledge with the community. I believe strongly that knowledge should be free. And I think that the more knowledge we can get out there and the more communication that happens in our space, because communication can be a real problem at times when developing software. I mean, almost every problem I can think of in software, every issue that comes up that scuppers a project is not a technical issue. It's a people issue. It's some kind of other issue that can often boil down to communication. If we can get these ideas out there, we can understand the background behind things, and we can understand why these things are happening. Human stories behind them. We're in a much better place to say whether this technology is applicable to me, whether I could use it for X or for Y. We can see how other people are doing it. Software is a creative process. And so if you hear how others are creating things, and you assume that somebody is reasonable, then if you assume that given their background, given their factors, you would do the same thing, knowing about their decision process helps you to make better decisions yourself. So it's just general, just trying to get as much knowledge as possible out there, because I want to learn as much as possible. And then share it with others. And there's one more thing about the doing it on camera versus, one of the philosophies I had with was, a lot of people that I'm interviewing write, tweet, blog, they blog, they write books, they come up and they speak, but that's a limited audience. And some do screencasts, I mean a video, I forget the word, audio cast. But you don't get to see them talk and move. And I think there's so much you can learn about a person just through their actions, their gestures. But there's also a double edge to that, where sometimes when you get people on camera, they're not so comfortable. And you have a nice, wonderful conversation, and then the camera goes on and . I have seen that a couple times.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic
Do you have any tips or techniques that you've used or learned to help people relax on the camera? Sure.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations
So with the interviews that we do, usually there will be some kind of post-processing. And one of the things that I'll do to set the interview at ease is to intentionally flub a couple questions. Like I'll screw something up and be like .
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic
Yeah.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations
Okay, let's do this again. Because then it's, you feel a little bit more relaxed because it's not like, "Oh, you're under the gun. It's high pressure. You've got to do it. There's one take and that's it. " And it allows you to be more relaxed about it. I also try and have a conversation. I want it to be a conversation that we're having and there happens to be a camera there.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic
Right.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations
And that's actually one of the reasons that, going back to the perspective thing, I'll sit just slightly offset from the camera because then the discussion is between me and the person on camera.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic
Yeah.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations
You still have eye contact with that individual.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic
Exactly.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations
Or very, very close. And given the resolution of a video box, it looks like the person's looking at you and having that discussion. So I try and have that very, very casual atmosphere because I find that really helps. It doesn't help in all cases. I can think of one or two where the person did completely freeze up and you kind of felt the pressure of the situation.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic
Right.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations
But I do find that helps a lot. You just want it to be as relaxing and casual as possible. It's just a discussion. We can edit things afterwards, yadda, yadda, yadda, yadda.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic
Okay.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations
And about the learning, you were talking about your learning process when you're writing. One thing I've gotten from doing these is when you're sitting here, and you can probably relate to this, you're trying to balance listening, active listening.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic
Yeah.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations
With preparing the next question.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic
Yeah.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations
And the next follow-up. Because a lot of this is you know a little bit about the person, but you're trying to respond to their inquiries. And I go back and I re-watch the video afterwards, and it feels like I'm watching the conversation for the first time.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic
Yeah.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations
Even though I've said that.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic
Is that something you've experienced?
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations
Yeah, definitely. And one of the things I try and do is, if I have time in advance and I've got a good set of lists, let's say I get a list together a day or two before the conference, which is nice when it works out, it doesn't always work out that way.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic
Right.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations
I try and have say five questions written down. And so you have a few things that you can refer back to as part of the discussion. Or sorry, you have a few things that you can jump to in case the discussion stops at a point and there's not necessarily an immediate pick-up.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic
Right.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations
But you can also feel free to pursue a conversation and just ditch the questions that you had planned based on how things develop.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic
Right.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations
So there's kind of that little bit of pre-planning, but also just going with the flow to see what the discussion is.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic
Would you mind describing a little bit about what your setup is like? When somebody's watching one of your videos, what's behind it?
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations
So typically there's just a camera and then I'm sitting behind.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic
Are you talking about the physical setup?
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations
Yeah, yeah.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic
Okay.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations
No, I mean the equipment. I'm pointing at the camera and the lights for here.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic
Yeah. But what is your setup?
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations
So a lot of it depends on the venue. That's something where because you go between different venues, the lighting situation can differ dramatically. So like for instance, in this room there, and in the room that we're filming in as well, there's a lot of down light in that because sometimes it's caused by cast-away shadows. So what I've done is actually, because we don't have any proper spotlights, we just grabbed a couple of the incandescent lamps that they have in the room and we set them up just off camera. So I mean, there could be an entire elephant right here in the room.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic
Right. Yeah.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations
So what I've done is I've taken a couple of the incandescent lamps that they have in the room and we've set them up just off camera. So I mean, there could be an entire elephant right here in the room and you couldn't see it because of the magic of photography.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic
Yeah.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations
And so there's a couple of these lights that are set at eye level so that that casts a natural light on the face. And so usually lighting is kind of the biggest issue you want to sort out. I mean, you want to minimize shadows as much as possible and try and sort all that out. So you can try to minimize shadows as much as possible and try and sort all that out. So I've done a couple of these different things. So I've done a couple of these lights that are set at eye level so that that casts a natural light on the face. And so usually lighting is kind of the biggest issue you want to sort out. I mean, you want to minimize shadows as much as possible and try and sort all that out. So you work with the lighting that you have and try and get all that cleaned up. And then after that, ideally you would have a couple of mics on the speakers, although you don't necessarily have that. It depends on the situation. In this case, we don't.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic
Right.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations
There's an omnidirectional mic that's on the camera itself. And it's just a camera and a tripod. And then I'll be listening in with headphones, monitoring the conversation to make sure that audio levels aren't spiking or dropping. And I can see if there's anything in the background that picks up information. And that's another benefit to being in a camera.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic
Yeah.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations
So I've done a couple of these lights that are set at eye level so that that casts a natural light on the face. I mean, you want to minimize shadows as much as possible and try and sort all that out. And then you can actually monitor it as it's going. And you can see whether there's something which, okay, well, I'm going to have to edit that. So let's restart the question. So that's the typical setup. It's fairly lightweight. It fits in carry-on. And you can take it pretty much anywhere. So, yeah. That's all typically. And as far as post-processing, you're probably on a Mac. I'm assuming you use iMovie or... I haven't actually post-processed anything myself, typically.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations
I haven't actually post-processed anything myself, typically.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic
Yeah. Okay.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations
I typically want to work with, like, with doing that there is somebody else who will do the editing afterwards. So the post-processing is actually not something that I've done not within the context of this. When I was in high school, I took a lot of video classes and I was involved in the editing there, which was all about tapes and stuff like this. And that can be a rough pain, trying to get things synced up just right to the second or frame.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic
Yeah.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations
It can be a pain in the butt. I think Mac does tend to be the winner in this space, though.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic
Right.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations
All right.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic
Well, thank you very much for taking the time to sit down. Appreciate it. Thank you.