Developer Community And Conference Conversations: Mike Hall Interviews Mike Lee
Developer Community And Conference Conversations: Mike Hall Interviews Mike Lee
🚀 Meet Mike Lee, the creator of the Amsterdam Movement, who shares his insights on the importance of community and continuous learning in the tech industry. 🌐 The Amsterdam Movement aims to create a constant sense of inspiration and collaboration among tech enthusiasts. Join us as we explore how this movement has spread to other cities and countries, including Chicago. 🌍 #TechCommunity #ContinuousLearning #AmsterdamMovement #TechConferences #MikeLee
The Interviewer
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
The Guest
Mike Lee
developer community and conference conversations
The Conversation
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Hi, it's Mike again with UGtastic. I'm here still at the GoToCon Chicago 2013. Right now I'm sitting down with Mike Lee who's created the Amsterdam Movement. He was a keynote, end of the day keynote speaker yesterday talking about mobile development, but also you have this thing that you're calling the Amsterdam Movement. Well first, thank you for sitting down with me, and what is the Amsterdam Movement?
Mike Lee
developer community and conference conversations
Well, you know, Amsterdam is an organization that started two years ago in Amsterdam, and it was really about this idea of going to these tech conferences, especially these really community focused ones like GoTo, and being really inspired by the way that when we're with each other, when we're together with other people who are into the same stuff that we're into, it makes us somehow smarter. You know, we share ideas freely, we can, you know, easily bounce things around. I mean every time I come to a conference I just feel like my brain has just really, really gone somewhere, you know. It's a fantastic feeling, and I thought we should have that feeling all the time, and so we tried to come up with ways to try to make it like there was a technology conference in the city of Amsterdam all the time. It very quickly ended up spreading to other cities and other countries, even all the way here to Chicago. Right, right, yeah. One of the people who I'm drawing a blank on, I bumped into yesterday, we have an Amsterdam here in Chicago.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
So is it a user group or is it something else?
Mike Lee
developer community and conference conversations
It's kind of in between, because the thing about Amsterdam versus pretty much any other like technological organization is that it's open to everybody, right? So it's not a particular platform, it's not a particular technology. We like apps, and if you like apps, we want to talk to you, and not just the technologists who like apps, the designers who work on apps, but also, you know, lawyers, marketeers, other people who are interested in apps, or even imagine if you were, say, a publisher. And you don't know anything about apps. You don't really want to know anything about apps, except that apps are destroying your business, so you need to know about apps.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
And where do you go to talk to people about apps?
Mike Lee
developer community and conference conversations
That's what Amsterdam is. It is, in the spirit of Amsterdam, a middle ground where everyone is welcome to come together in the spirit of creativity and commerce.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
So when you say apps, you are specifically talking about mobile, iOS, Android? Really?
Mike Lee
developer community and conference conversations
We don't care. Bring your own definition. If it means mobile, if it means Android to you, that's fine. If you are more concerned with, like, web stuff, we are not in the business of lawyering the definition of an app. Really, we're just a friendly bunch of technologists and lots of people who like to handle technology. Well, at the very least, it sounds like it's people who like to deliver product. It's not, "I like to obsess over this algorithm. " It's, "We want to deliver things. We want to make things that people get into their hands," whether it's on an iPad and a phone or it's on a computer, via a website or whatever. It's about delivery, is what it sounds like to me. Well, it really is, but at the same time, there are so many different aspects to what we do to the making of an app, you know?
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Like, when you're trying to hire somebody, you want to look for things like, "Is this person a musician?
Mike Lee
developer community and conference conversations
" Right.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
You know, "Does this person have adventures?
Mike Lee
developer community and conference conversations
" This has nothing to do with making apps per se.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Right.
Mike Lee
developer community and conference conversations
And yet, it does. There's this kind of gestalt about all of this kind of thing. So, yes, we are people who like to deliver apps. But if you want to talk about some crazy algorithm, you'll probably find somebody who wants to talk with you about that.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Right. So, do you have monthly meetings or are these bi-monthly? How do you structure it? And is there, like, an overarching, like, "This is how you do Amsterdam in X?
Mike Lee
developer community and conference conversations
" Yeah, there kind of is. You know, there's kind of the Amsterdam formula. And so, if you look at the way it's done in Amsterdam, it's not necessarily the way that it's done everywhere else, because when an embassy opens up, like in Chicago, for example, they might decide, "You know, we don't want to meet at 7:00 on a Wednesday.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
" Right?
Mike Lee
developer community and conference conversations
And the point is not to meet at 7:00 on a Wednesday. The point is that you should have a regular meetup that happens at a regular time at a regular place, so that it's not moving everywhere, so that it's easy to find.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Right.
Mike Lee
developer community and conference conversations
But that's just one of the things that we do. In Amsterdam, we have some kind of event or meetup or get-together, on average, every other day. Oh.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Okay.
Mike Lee
developer community and conference conversations
So, this is way beyond the monthly... It is really about there being a tech conference all the time. If you come to the conference, if you come to Amsterdam for a week, there's going to be at least one lecture for you. There's going to be at least one, you know, get-together-and-drink event for you. There's very likely to be some kind of a workshop or a casual weekend get-together to play games or go to a museum or, you know, get our families to know each other. We do all kinds of crazy stuff. So, this sounds like it's really about... you're really focused on building a community. Very much so.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Yeah.
Mike Lee
developer community and conference conversations
Not, "Let's get together and have our little social club. " It's far beyond the social club. For example, the reason why I know that we have an event on average every other day is because the University of Amsterdam has a research project to measure Amsterdam and its effect on the city.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Oh, really? Yeah. Really? So, what have they found?
Mike Lee
developer community and conference conversations
Well, for example, if you were to look at the... they have some criteria of, like, you know, Amsterdam-related businesses.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Okay.
Mike Lee
developer community and conference conversations
And then they looked at the Chamber of Commerce and they looked at business registrations and you can see something like a 50% increase in the number of technical businesses opening up since the advent of Amsterdam. Or they did a comparison of the top technology-related meetups in the city of Amsterdam, for example, and found that if you stack all those bars up in terms of, like, number of events, Amsterdam has more events than basically everyone else in the city combined. Wow. This is kind of a surprise here on the camera for me because this is the first time I've heard of any kind of quantifiable research into what technical communities... what the impact of them is. Is there any links to this off of the Amsterdam site or where could one go find out more about that? So, the name of the project itself at the University of Amsterdam is called InnoViz. That's I-N-N-O-V-I-Z. And we probably have some link to it or something on Amsterdam. rs, which is our homepage.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Okay.
Mike Lee
developer community and conference conversations
Yeah, that boggles my mind that there's been this community here in Chicago and I've not heard of it, but it's helpful. It sounds like it's a really vibrant community. Very nice. And that also, I think, kind of reveals just how big technical community can be. Yes. That there could be stuff going on right underneath your nose and it takes effort to go out and dig into it and find these things. That even, you know, as small as you might think our communities are, they are spread out over a large area. And we don't maybe communicate as well as... We're not good at communicating.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
We're not really people people, right? Yeah.
Mike Lee
developer community and conference conversations
But we work on this as well at Amsterdam, for example. We have a lot of different speaker training programs. You know, I used to work at Apple and so we had this conference called WWDC.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Right.
Mike Lee
developer community and conference conversations
And every year the engineers would have to be trained on how to speak so they can get up on stage and give their presentations. Oh, okay. And so there's this sort of weekly series that happens every Wednesday called Spotlight On. And people get up and they talk about what they're working on and then they get speaker training. So we took that idea with us with Amsterdam. So then we have the weekly Wednesday lunchtime lectures where somebody gets up and blah, blah, blah and we have speaker training. And then we have another speaker training program which is kind of like a Toastmasters thing that meets once a month. And then we have another speaker training program called Pitch Club, which is actually a speaker training program based on Fight Club.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Okay.
Mike Lee
developer community and conference conversations
Now I've heard of pitch groups where you get together and you learn how to pitch and you get critiqued on your delivery, on how terse you were and how direct and things like that.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Is that kind of like what that is or is it something else?
Mike Lee
developer community and conference conversations
A little bit, but first of all, you get the feedback from me and, well, I've been known to be a bit direct. Oh, okay. Hence the Fight Club.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Hence the Fight Club, right? Yeah.
Mike Lee
developer community and conference conversations
But really it is. It's a 60-second pitch. And then you get feedback basically on, you know, first of all, how do you overcome the natural wall that someone puts in front of them when a stranger turns around and starts talking about something? How do you communicate effectively, especially, you know, this is Europe we're talking about, so a lot of people are not speaking English. They're speaking English as their first or even second language.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Right.
Mike Lee
developer community and conference conversations
And so, you know, for example, if you have a strong accent, that's going to affect the way that you're able to communicate. A lot of people aren't going to want to talk to you about your accent, but that's the reality of what you're going to have to deal with, right?
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
And not only that, but once you have my attention, what are you going to do with it?
Mike Lee
developer community and conference conversations
You have 60 seconds.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Are you grabbing my attention? At the end of 60 seconds, are you converting me to your side?
Mike Lee
developer community and conference conversations
That's kind of the full pitching cycle.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Yeah.
Mike Lee
developer community and conference conversations
And in the Fight Club fashion, if it's your first time, you have to pitch. The person who comes has to pitch.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Okay.
Mike Lee
developer community and conference conversations
So there's no lurkers. No lurkers around.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Okay.
Mike Lee
developer community and conference conversations
And if somebody is in a city that doesn't have an Amsterdam event, where do they go to learn more about this? I'm assuming there's a website and all that, but who can they get in contact with to learn more about how to start something in their community?
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Sure.
Mike Lee
developer community and conference conversations
I mean, if you want to start something in your community, then you should probably write to probably info@absterdam. org.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Okay.
Mike Lee
developer community and conference conversations
That would probably be the right email address for that sort of thing.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Okay. Well, thank you very much for taking the time. My pleasure. It's fascinating to find out that there's this, I don't want to say underground community, but this community that's been underneath my nose, I'm going to be digging into here in Chicago. Fantastic. Thanks. Cheers.