The Perfect Recipe for STARWEST
Each night my family sits around the kitchen table and eats dinner together. Usually, it’s something prepared out of a box, but there are those special nights (like Thanksgiving) when we call an all-out war on the kitchen to make the best meal we have ever tasted.
As I think about all the elements and hard work that go into creating a conference like STARWEST, I’m reminded of that Thanksgiving culinary masterpiece. Much like a great recipe, the STARWEST conferences have added a dash of this and a pinch of that over the years so our attendees have the best learning experience we can provide. The recipe for such a great event takes a lot of highly skilled chefs. Let’s take a look at what they do to make STARWEST a great learning experience for hundreds of software testers each year.
Lee Copeland is the program chair, or head chef. Each year he receives hundreds of speaker submissions for STARWEST. He reads every proposal, and for those he thinks may work for the conference, he calls each of the submitters and asks about their presentations to gather more information. At this point Lee assigns a track, or topic, and a score. When he’s talked with all the possible speakers, he separates the proposals by track and then sorts based on scores. Finally, invitation letters go out to the selected speakers, and voila! We have the perfect recipe for the conference sessions.
Rachelle Sawal is the conference manager and probably the hardest working cook in the kitchen. Rachelle has the task of making it all come together seamlessly. Speakers, presentation materials, hotel space, program guides, the mobile app, conference sponsors, the exhibit hall—all fall under her expert coordination. She maps out the logistics of how the conference will flow for each event and assigns the hotel space that will fit the classes and sessions accordingly.
The pace of the week picks up as we ready to go from the tutorial and training days to the conference days with concurrent sessions. The keynotes go through rehearsals on the “big stage,” and the virtual conference crew sets up and tests the equipment to stream some of the presentations to our live virtual audiences. The vendors are setting up in the Expo hall, booths are being built, materials are unpacked, and those prizes and swag are displayed.
The rest of the staff or the sous chefs (that includes me!) have their parts. One thing most people don’t realize is that the conference is staffed by the host company—TechWell/SQE—which means we have accountants, writers, marketing managers, training consultants, the company president, and even the CEO himself personally available to assist our attendees. You will see us in our black TechWell shirts all over the event hotel but most commonly at the registration desk checking in attendees, answering questions, and assisting all special event and food functions.
Having a staff highly knowledgeable about the software industry makes it easier to run a conference, and each staff member truly cares about the attendees and their learning experience.
Come join us at STARWEST in Anaheim, CA, October 12–17, to see what we’ve got cooking for software testers. For more information, visit http://starwest.techwell.com.
