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 ▶ Speaking
Hi, it's Mike with Uptastic again. I'm here again at GOTO Conference Chicago 2013. Today, I'm sitting down with Ryan Slabojan, who is also doing interviews here, but you're doing them as part of the GOTO Conference 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? Sure.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations ▶ Speaking
So, I first got involved with the general software developer, graduated 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 Marinus, who was the founder of InfoCube. Oh, okay. And so, I asked him a couple of questions during the talk, and then afterwards, he asked, "Oh, are you interested in writing for this InfoCube 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 InfoCube, 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. So, I have an idea of what people with my background would like to hear.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
Right.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations ▶ Speaking
So, I try and use that to inform content that I create.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
I look at it and I say, "Do I really care about this? " Yes?
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations ▶ Speaking
Awesome.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
No?
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations ▶ Speaking
Okay, well, then I'm not going to write about it. So, that ends up being a good metric, and it just helps things out. So, with that, I also started getting involved in InfoCube's conferences, which are QCons.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
Right.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations ▶ Speaking
So, starting with QCon San Francisco 2007, and that's where I met the TriFork team, and TriFork is who puts on their partner on QCon, and then they put on GoTo, and they help out with the YOW conferences as well, I believe in Australia. They do quite a bit on the conference side.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
Right.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations ▶ Speaking
And, so, was helping out with some of the organization, and some of the editorial content stuff for conferences after a few years. 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, anytime I talk to Dan, it's a great discussion, I learned a ton. And so, I just try and find people like that, and have a good discussion with them, and have some in front of the video camera, and there's an interviewer.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
Okay.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations ▶ Speaking
So, that's kind of how I got into it. That's the long chain that led to it.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
Okay.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations ▶ Speaking
I noticed, you know, in your style, it seems like you sit behind the camera and have the subject in front of the camera. Why did, was that a conscious decision to go with that structure, or was that just, like, the natural thing to do? Well, I mean, there's kind of a, there's a major minor aspect to it. The minor side is that I'm slightly camera shy. 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 meat prop. And, I'm not, because I'm not the subject of the interview, I'm okay with not being on camera.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
Right.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations ▶ Speaking
So, I can just sit behind, and I can make sure that the camera's working correctly, because there's oftentimes not a whole team to manage all the equipment. So, I watch the camera, I make sure things going well, and I'm also just asking questions from that perspective. So, that's, that's just, it's become my style. Yeah, it's interesting, because I was, I was comparing and contrasting the style of interview I do with, with what you're doing. And, you know, I, a slightly different perspective, but I certainly feel the pain with managing equipment. What you can't see here, is that there's a computer underneath the camera, and lights, and all kinds of things. And, every now and then, I have to glance out and be like, oh, yeah, it's, yeah, it's still going. You know, and, and, and some people might notice, it's me sitting up and getting down at the tail on the interviews. So, I'm sure that, 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, it's, to me, it's like, there's three people in the room. There's the camera, which represents you, the audience, and, and, and us having a conversation.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
So, you know, but how many interviews, have you been doing this a while now, or?
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations ▶ Speaking
Well, I think, last time I did a count, I think I was somewhere north of 70.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
Okay.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations ▶ Speaking
Interviews with a variety of people, spread out amongst several years, at different conferences. So, interviews at Q-Cons, Go-To's, at, uh, Strange Loop, Spring One, a, a, a real mix. Actually, also, there's Ruby conferences in Toronto, so, helped out with some of those interviews. But, a wide variety.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
Okay.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations ▶ Speaking
And, you know, is this something that's been, is this more of a hobby for you, or are you doing this as part of the conference? 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 news 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.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
Right.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations ▶ Speaking
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 ▶ Speaking
Right.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations ▶ Speaking
And then similarly with an interview, I'm speaking with arbitrary random people with 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.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
Right.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations ▶ Speaking
Then you have for Jim Weber. Then you have for, I know Corey. Just a very large endeavor 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. But if we can get these ideas out there, we can understand the background behind things, and we can understand why these things are happening, the 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 doing it on camera versus... One of the philosophies I had with UGtastic 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. 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, their... 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 ▶ Speaking
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 ▶ Speaking
So with the interviews that we do, usually there will be some kind of post-processing. And one of the things I'll do to set the interview at ease is to intentionally flub a couple questions. Like, I'll screw something, I'll be like, ah, 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 ▶ Speaking
Right.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations ▶ Speaking
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, the discussion is between me and the person.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
Yeah.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations ▶ Speaking
But exactly. 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 that's... 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 kind of felt the pressure of the situation.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
Right.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations ▶ Speaking
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 ▶ Speaking
Okay.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations ▶ Speaking
And about the learning, you were talking about your learning process when you're writing. And one thing I've gotten from doing these is when you're sitting here, and you can probably relate to this. It's you're trying to balance listening, active listening, with preparing the next question. And the next follow-up, because a lot of this is you may 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, even though I've said that.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
Is that something you've experienced?
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations ▶ Speaking
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, like say I get a list together a day or two before the conference, and it's nice when it works out, it doesn't always work out that way. I try and have, say five questions right now. And so you have a few things that you can refer back to as part of the discussion. Sorry, you have a few things that you can jump to in case the discussion stops at the point and there's not necessarily an immediate pick-up.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
Right.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations ▶ Speaking
But you can also feel free to pursue a conversation and just ditch the questions that you had planned based on how things develop. So there's kind of that, a little bit of pre-planning, but also just going with the flow to see what the discussion is.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
And would you mind describing a little bit about what your setup is like? What is it, when somebody's watching one of your videos, what is, what is, what's behind it?
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations ▶ Speaking
So typically there's, well typically there's just a camera and then I'm sitting behind, you're talking about the physical setup? Yeah, yeah.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
Okay.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations ▶ Speaking
The equipment, like I'm pointing at the camera and the lights and for here.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
Yeah. But what is, what is your setup?
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations ▶ Speaking
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 downlight in that, and that can sometimes cast weird 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 and you couldn't see it because of the magic of photography.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
Yeah.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations ▶ Speaking
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 make the shadows as much as possible and try and sort it out. So, you work the lighting that you have and try and get all that and clean 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 ▶ Speaking
Right.
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations ▶ Speaking
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 off camera because 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, fits and carry on, and you can take it pretty much anywhere. So, yeah. That's what I'll typically do.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
And as far as post-processing, are you probably on a Mac?
Ryan Slobojan developer community and conference conversations ▶ Speaking
I'm assuming you use either V or 5. I haven't actually post-processed anything myself, typically. Oh, okay. Typically, when I work with doing that, there's somebody else who would 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 is all beta tapes and stuff like this. And that can be a broad pain, trying to get things synced up just right to the second or frame. Yeah, it can be a pain in the butt. I think Mac does tend to be the winner in this space, though. All right.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
Well, thank you very much for taking the time to sit down. Appreciate it. Thank you.