My First Conference Ever :: 2024 Puddingcamp Conference Review
🍮 Overview
I formed a mentor/mentee relationship with Hannal at Naver Boostcamp.
And when I learned that Puddingcamp, which Hannal runs, was hosting a conference, I participated.
Although it was the first conference I ever attended, I was able to learn a lot.
This post is my review of attending the 2024 Puddingcamp Conference :: Conference, Unconference.
😁 Words of Thanks
To Hannal who hosted the event.
To the pioneers who worked day and night to host such a wonderful conference.
(Rather than calling them "organizers," I'd like to call them pioneers who pioneered a new conference together with Hannal hehe..)
And I'd like to express my gratitude to the speakers who gave talks that left a truly significant mark on my life.
Thank you so much for hosting and contributing to such a wonderful conference.
👍️ A Connection That Started by Meeting as Mentor / Mentee
Like any other job seeker.. I was living day by day with really big anxieties.
My development skills were lacking, I had no personal philosophy, and each day was just filled with question marks.
Thinking I should try something, wanting to grow somehow, I applied to Boostcamp.
And at Boostcamp, as a great blessing, I met Hannal as my first mentor.
It was a very strange moment. I had just been watching Hannal's lecture videos on Inflearn..
(The above is the video I was watching at the time, and it's so good to watch before writing a resume that I'm sharing it.)
The speaker I had been watching was my mentor.. At first, I thought it was a dream..
Before even exchanging greetings as mentor and mentee.. I was so desperate, so frustrated.. I asked Hannal a lot of foolish questions.
And Hannal gave wise answers to my foolish questions.
This was the beginning of my connection with Hannal and Puddingcamp.
This was the content of the question I asked at the time, and Hannal gave the following feedback.
This became my first connection with Hannal. Looking back now, it's a very strange yet grateful connection.
🤔 Conference, Unconference.. Is It a Place I'm Allowed to Go?
Through the mentoring process with Hannal, I learned about Conference, Unconference.
I learned that it was being hosted with a really good purpose.. and thinking I could meet Hannal in person, I immediately went to the application site.
However.. the moment I brought my mouse to the apply button.. I couldn't click it..
"Is it okay for me to apply?"
Looking back now, it's funny why I had such thoughts, but that's how it was then..
It was the first conference I would ever attend. Fear came first.
I felt like these kinds of places were only for cool people with impressive backgrounds.
"Is it okay for someone like me to go?"
This thought was very strong. But Hannal said.
That it's not such a heavy space. That it was planned for people like me.. So come and learn..
"Yeah.. even if I don't fit in, even if I don't understand the talks.. I can meet Hannal and express my gratitude. Let's just do it."
Only after hearing Hannal's words did I finally apply, half worried and half scared.
And I want to tell my past self. You did really well.
🏃 A Conference of Challenge and Growth :: Challenge and Growth Applied to Me Too
And so I came to participate in the conference.
Because it was the first conference I ever attended, I was really nervous. I don't even know why I was nervous.. it was just like that back then.
When I got there, there were so many people.
And there I was able to meet Hannal.
I greeted Hannal.. and honestly told them.. that I don't know what to do since it's my first time.
I came to the conference anyway.. but should I just listen to the talks?
And Hannal smiled and kindly told me.
If you're going to take one thing from a conference, it's not the talks. Technology is so good these days that you can watch them on YouTube or the internet.
While saying this, they took me to the conference guide poster on the wall.
(This is the first and last photo I took.. I didn't think I would write a review.. If I had known this would happen, I should have taken more photos hehe...)
While looking at the guide poster, Hannal told me the following.
Jaedo, if you can only participate in one thing at the conference due to various factors, I'd want to say make sure you attend the lightning talks. The advantage of offline conferences is that you can have direct conversations with speakers.
Strangely, after hearing these words.. the conference was no longer a difficult space.
I realized it was just a place for conversation.
Hannal went one step further and took me to a whiteboard.
What's written here are lightning talk topics. Proposers freely propose topics, participants vote, and we discuss about them. Anyone can write, so if there's something you want to discuss, Jaedo, go ahead and write it.
While saying this, they kindly told me about various other things.
Thanks to that, I gained courage.. and when I finished talking with Hannal, I found myself writing a topic on the whiteboard without realizing it..
"How to grow without getting exhausted"
That was the topic I wrote.
And fortunately, many people empathized with it and it got selected.. and many people participated in the topic I proposed..
I'll talk about this later hehe.
🗣️ The Best Talks
Before attending the conference, the first thing I did was subscribe to Puddingcamp's newsletter.
There are various reasons, but the biggest reason was that they kept sending pre-interviews with the speakers.
Since it was the first conference I was attending.. I didn't know what to do, so I just read through everything.
I thought that if I read and knew who the speakers were and what topics they would talk about, maybe I could do something when I got there.
See Pre-Interviews with Speakers
The pre-interviews I saw are shared on the Puddingcamp site.
Even if you didn't come to the conference, the interviews themselves provide great insights, so I'm sharing them because I think they're worth watching.
The talks I attended were Detective Rabbit's talk, Cheese's talk, and Chloe's talk.
I wanted to hear all of them.. but since they ran in parallel, I selected based on topics I've been interested in recently.
Through each talk, I was able to gain several learnings.
- Selfish Altruism
- Helping others is ultimately for yourself.
- How to Lead a Team
- A leader must be able to protect the team.
- How to maximize team productivity
- What's Important in Side Projects
- Common values
- Common goals
- Ground rules
- Looking at the long term when providing service
- Must set deadlines
I wrote this very briefly.. but in reality, I learned so much that it's hard to write it all down.
Interestingly, in Cheese's case, not long after, they came to give a talk at Boostcamp hehe.
So that was really fascinating.
The content from Boostcamp can be found above.
At the time of participation, I had a lot of thoughts.. but through the talks, I was able to find clues to solve my concerns.
At the same time, through Q&A, I was able to hear the speakers' opinions on topics slightly different from the talks.
😁 New Learnings After the Talks
What I remember most from the conference hosted by Puddingcamp was the Lightning Talks.
I mentioned earlier that the topic I proposed was selected, right?
So many people participated in the topic I proposed.
From juniors like me who hadn't gotten a job yet, to people who had been in the field for a long time, to speakers..
Here, I shared the fears, worries, and concerns I usually had, and we could discuss freely..
As a separate story, someone I became acquainted with at this time, I met again at K-Devcon.
Aren't you the person I met at the Puddingcamp conference?
They spoke to me first.. so in this way, it was a lightning talk that helped me in many ways.
I was also able to learn how to do networking.
At this time, Detective Rabbit sat next to me.. and this connection gave me the opportunity to talk for about an hour after it ended.
I shared various concerns I had, and it felt like Detective Rabbit was coaching me..
This experience stayed in my heart.. and recently became an opportunity for me to understand myself.
Just as Detective Rabbit achieved their goals by sticking to their own thoughts,
I learned that I too can stick to my thoughts as long as they don't harm others.
After much thought, what settled in was that I am a Romantic Developer.. I'll write about this later.
Jaedo, if you can only participate in one thing at the conference due to various factors, I'd want to say make sure you attend the lightning talks.
Hannal's words from the beginning come to mind again.
Really, the lightning talks were such a great help.
If talks had a more one-directional nature, lightning talks were exchange.
It was a place to exchange experiences, know-how, and thoughts of all participants.
From that perspective, it was a very meaningful time.
📝 In Closing
Since it was my first conference, rather than the content inside, I just wanted to write about what I saw and felt.
So the writing became quite messy. hehe.
But I think such honest writing isn't bad either, so I'm leaving it as is without much editing.
Since it's writing by an immature me.. I felt it would come to have great meaning when I look back later.
It was the first conference I ever attended, and because the experience was so good.. these days I'm looking for various conferences a lot.
Since it was a conference conducted with the keyword Challenge and Growth, I think it was a conference that really helped me.
I was also struggling for Challenge and Growth at a place called Naver Boostcamp..
I thought once I became a senior, all my concerns would be resolved.. but I learned that unexpectedly, they have similar concerns.
Also, since everyone went through the same period as me, they really cared about me and told me many stories, which was nice.
Because of the experiences I heard at the conference, I was also able to organize my own thoughts.
I recently joined Puddingcamp's Discord.. and by chance, I saw various episodes of preparation.
I also saw Hannal's writing about the conference preparation process.
Go to Hannal's Conference-Related Writing
I realized that I was able to have such a good experience because of the efforts of Hannal and the Puddingcamp people..
So I express my gratitude once again.
Thank you so much for hosting such a wonderful conference.
Here, I was able to get rid of my fear of conferences.
I was able to get a sense of how I should grow.
I learned what I like, and I learned that pursuing what I like is not wrong.
And because of the many conversations shared here, I can now understand myself and build my own beliefs.
Thank you so much for hosting such a wonderful conference.
I'll end my writing here. 😁
(Separately.. because it was such a good experience.. I've developed a hope that Hannal will host it again next year hehe... 😁)