Welcome to Madison

Madison+ Ruby 2024 was held August 1st & 2nd in Madison, WI, following a 5 year hiatus. Despite being in the Midwest and being a smaller regional conference, attendees came in from all over the US and even from international locations.

In this part of the US, Madison can pull from other Midwest metro markets like the Twin Cities, MN where I’m based, Milwaukee, WI and Chicago, all within driving distance.

The hotel and venue are part of downtown Madison and the UW Campus. State Street is a famous street with loads of good restaurants. Although school wasn’t in session, the area still has an urban density, vibrancy, and accessibility that make it a fun place to be.

I had a fun drive down from Minneapolis and crammed in loads of podcasts!

Kicking Things Off

Jim Remsik is the lead organizer of the conference, and kicked things off on the first morning.

Madison+ Ruby Conference 2024 Jim on stage kicking off Madison+ Ruby 2024

Talk Recaps

Since I spent time in the “hallway track” meeting people, I wasn’t able to attend all of the talks.

In this section I’ll recap the talks that I did attend.

First up was Saron, delivering an authentic and inspirational morning keynote titled “Our Superpower.”

Saron connected with the audience through her stories, including her story transitioning into programming and entrepreneurship.

Madison+ Ruby Conference 2024 Saron delivering the morning keynote: “Our Superpower”

I loved getting the chance to meet Saron and Rob later one on one, at a dinner event after the first day. I got to hear about Saron’s project BCM.club and nerd out with Rob about Postgres database topics.

Having written a book with the Pragmatic Bookshelf, I was especially happy and impressed to hear that Saron wrote the foreword for the 20th anniversary edition of the Pragmatic Programmer after being encouraged by Dave Thomas to bring her unique perspective.

Next up was Chantelle, who gave a fun talk that used D&D characters and their attributes as a basis for listeners to rate their own strengths and weaknesses. Chanetelle provided a worksheet and did a great job facilitating and interacting with the audience, challenging listeners to think about their roles on teams.

Later, John gave a great talk using technical topics like firewalls or networking protocols, to frame points about feelings, mental health, and connectedness with those around us. I liked the job about being connection-oriented: be like TCP.

Madison+ Ruby Conference 2024 John presenting: Hacking Your Emotional Firewall

Craig gave a nice talk looking at physical architecture and comparing it to software architecture. Craig pointed out that buildings require constant maintenance and evolution to serve the needs of their users, and that maintenance is part of the evolution process.

Madison+ Ruby Conference 2024 Craig presenting: “Architecture Big and Small”

Mark Yoon gave a great talk on designing resilient APIs. Mark has a great presentational style, balancing technical depth and high level perspective, with good pacing.

API design has many subtle challenges that are in conflict: standardization, customization, performance, testability, and more. Mark covered some of those challenges and provided guidance.

Next was Allison who gave a nice talk targeting effective communication and team work. Allison does a great job covering these topics.

Finally, “Madison+” included “local flavor” presentations on Madison related topics. Jim explained part of why this was the case, that the conference was meant as something of a love letter to his formative experiences in the Ruby and Madison communities, thus both are

Presenter experience

I was honored to present on database performance topics with Active Record, PostgreSQL, and index design.

For speakers, Madison+ Ruby offers an “elevated” experience…literally. The venue is a performing arts theater, so there’s stage lighting and sound. Presenters get a mic pack, emerge from backstage into the lights, and are free to roam.

Madison+ Ruby Conference 2024 Andrew Atkinson presenting: Mastering Query Performance with Active Record. Photo credit: Jared Norman.

Hallway Track

While I was in promotional mode for the book, I wasn’t in sales mode as much for consulting services at Madison+ Ruby compared with a larger and perhaps more commercial conference like RailsConf. In fact, I even forgot to mention that I offer consulting services in my talk. Part of my talk is to serve as a demonstration somewhat for content readers can find in my book, and the types of database performance solutions I could bring to your team as a consultant. However, in the hallway track I was focused on more of meeting and greeting programmers.

Another interesting thing Madison+ Ruby did was have a separate gathering space with coffee with a closed circuit television.

Lunch Out

Madison+ Ruby did a cool thing where they give attendees money for lunch, and encourage them to form groups and go out to launch together. Both days I had great lunches and good conversation. I thought that was a great way to structure lunch. Jim shared with us he really doesn’t like soggy conference sandwiches!

Madison+ Ruby Conference 2024 Lunch out with Mike and others from the conference, Wisconsin capitol building in background.

Book giveaways and signings

I donated three paperback copies to raffle off for winners at the conference. Pragmatic Programmers gave me four more ebook codes as well. Had a blast handing these out, and even signing some copies in person.

Tim purchased a copy earlier and brought it along, and it was an honor to sign it. This was my first in-person book signing. It was great to hear that Tim is enjoying the book.

Madison+ Ruby Conference 2024 Andrew signing Tim’s copy of High Performance PostgreSQL for Rails.

Conclusion

Madison+ Ruby 2024 had a great mix of talks covering business concepts, team structuring, inspiration, and technical topics. As a regional conference, it was a big success for me in connecting with more local Rubyists. Jim also gave me air time on stage handing out promotional copies of my book, and I appreciate that.

Thank you to Jim, Jen, Joyce, and all the staff that put the event on. It was a great experience.

Madison+ Ruby Conference 2024 Closing out Madison+ Ruby 2024 with a group photo on stage

If Madison+ Ruby comes back for 2025, I recommend it!