[Music] hi it's Mike with UGtastic today I am at the Gene Sisko Film Center and I'm with the WebVisions 2013 conference I'm sitting down with John Servum John has been with the conference for about six years as a volunteer and he's been helping out thanks for taking the time to sit down with me John I appreciate it sure so six years is a long time to be involved in the conference what's attracted you to WebVisions and kept you going for so long well originally WebVisions was based in Portland and the stage manager sort of in charge of all the tech crew and making sure speakers and the show stay on time is a guy named Ross Olson and I worked with Ross and the very first year that I worked with him he was my supervisor he said hey why don't you spend the week volunteering at this web conference and that's and don't do it as paid time yeah and I was hooked yeah I enjoyed the sessions as a volunteer I was able to listen to the sessions that I wanted to listen to and I started making friends with the speakers and I started making friends with the crew and then they couldn't get rid of me yeah and so it's been about three years since I've worked with Ross but I continue to volunteer he still runs the show in Portland but WebVisions flies me to Chicago to New York to Atlanta oh so you're still based you're not like local here they flew you off I still live in Portland and but I would like to think you know I did a good job for them I showed up on time and I worked hard and so they take me to all the cities and and I run the stage crew in the various cities so so as a volunteer you've been able to come in and give a key this is just cool because the conference grew and you were there in the beginning you were able to grow with right right I've grown with the conference I've they've generally given me more responsibility with each show until now I'm I pretty much run the show keeping it on time making sure all the tech works making sure speakers show up on time and I guess I the I lost what I was going to tell you let me see if we can find it again oh I was gonna say I think because I was there early on and and because I was there early on and because I was there early on I was able because they trusted me with so much I've had the opportunity to travel but I've also had the opportunity to meet the speakers and since some of the speakers are quite regular we've developed a relationship that now I think they trust me and they know if Johnny's at the show it's kind of good yeah the microphones will work the video is gonna work and so I think even for the speakers it's kind of nice that they see familiar faces when when they do the conference so they can come in and they know I don't have to worry about right whether or not this stuff's gonna work when I'm standing in front of a hundred people it's gonna be I can just focus I can deliver quality and I can be confident and comfortable right so do you have any funny anecdotes or anything that you've seen over the years or maybe something that when you came in you thought one way but it turned out to be a difference hmm you know I think many times I thought the speakers because so many of them are experts with whatever they do whether it's design or code or you know building little devices they're experts and I think there's a tendency to put them on a bit of a pedestal right and what you find out is they're just very regular people they they're afraid of spiders they're you know they they get out of the car the same way or they know they they only drink water with their left hand you find these little idiosyncrasies and it's sort of it sort of brings them down a little bit and when you get on a first-name basis with somebody like Jason Kanesh he he was in charge of all the UX for the Obama campaign right this guy was huge responsibility huge creativity and couldn't be nicer and couldn't be more down-to-earth and and you find out they're really just regular people and it gives you that feeling that I can do this right you know in this industry I can do this as well as them it's just you know they've had a knack or they've got a gift or they've created something special but it's it they're regular right well thank you very much for taking the time to stop sir appreciate it [Music]