About DDDEM
Contents
What Is DDD East Midlands?
A Conference Celebrating the East Midlands
The East Midlands tech scene is incredibly diverse - it is the perfect blend of professional corporates, innovative independents, and well-funded start ups. This unique and perfect mix of traditional and contemporary is reflected in the DDD East Midlands Conference. We are part of the multi-national DDD conference community, but with a focus on promoting the talent, companies and the amazing tech community that the East Midlands has to offer.
- We want to promote inclusivity, support and camaraderie.
- We want to encourage members of the local tech community to do a talk
- Hosted in a beautiful, modern building, which is one of the largest educational buildings in Nottingham City Centre.
- Talks submitted anonymously and voted on by attendees.
- A keynote and a range of talks split into 3 tracks.
What does the DDD stand for?
DDD stands for (in this case) Developer! Developer! Developer!
Developer! Developer! Developer! is an umbrella, open-source conference format. By naming ourselves DDD, and associating ourselves with similar events, we abide by certain principles. Other than that, this conference is by the East Midlands community for the East Midlands community and is unique in its own right. There is more information about Developer! Developer! Developer! further down this page for those interested.
DDD was first formed as a conference in 2005, the first event happening in Reading, UK. Since then it has generated many spin-off events across the world.
The aims of the original DDD was to provide free technical education. During it’s more than 10-year history, it has nurtured talented speakers, who have gone on to become Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals, Microsoft FTEs and to present at National and International Conferences.
Though the original DDD conference is focused on .NET, DDD East Midlands is going to be open to a range of talks within the field of technology. It is language and technology agnostic.
The Conference Principles
The event follows these DDD Principles:
- The event is hosted on a Saturday so that attendees do not have to take time from work.
- Tickets to attend the event are free.
As well as our own following principles:
- All talk submissions are anonymous.
- There is a democratic selection process for talks involving attendees voting for what they want to see.
- The event is arranged with the community in mind.
The Organisation Committee
The very first DDD East Midlands was organised by Moreton and Jessica. Since then we have grown to have an organisation committee. Rachel joined us to help organise the 2021 event, and now we have a full roster of organisers for 2023 including Steven, James and Mia.
Give them a follow on Twitter, say hi at the local events, offer them a coffee or some chocolate if they look in need. They will both be running around on the day of the event making sure your experience of it is the best they can possibly make it.
The Event Crew
We could not run the event without the support our fantastic event crew. They help with set-up, with looking after attendees and speakers during the day and cleaning up after the event.
Promoting Inclusivity
As an embodiment of the East Midlands tech community, we want to promote inclusivity, support and camaraderie. Here are just a few of the ways we ai to do this:
Accessibility Page
In order to remain transparent, we have tried to answer as many accessibility related questions as we could on our Accessibility Page.
Submission And Selection Process
The submission process is anonymous and the selection process democratic. This is a conference for the community, by the community. All talks that are submitted are anonymous. When the attendees vote on which talks they want to see, and when the organisers are sorting out the agenda, identifiable information about those who have submitted can't bee seen. This is to keep the process as fair as possible and ensure talks are picked on their advertised content, not by who is presenting.
As mentioned, attendees will get to vote on the talks they wish to see. Talks will be selected by popular vote, but with some discretion by the organisers of the conference. The discretion is to ensure variety at the conference. If two or more talks are nearly exactly the same, the most popular will continue through and the next most popular, different talk will replace the one with identical content.
We also ask that all talk submissions abide to the Code of Conduct. We want all attendees to feel comfortable at the event, so ask that no submissions or talks contain content of a graphic, violent or sexual nature or contain any language that may be considered marginalising or hateful. If you wouldn't want to say it to someone you respect, please don't include it in your submission. Organisers hold the right to remove anything that may be thought to cause distress.
Making speaking accessible
We would like to encourage more people to speak and to encourage a diverse range of backgrounds, experiences and tech related roles to come and share their learnings at our event. There are a number of ways in which we are trying to make speaking more accessible:
- Offering mentors for speakers that are selected and request extra help.
Speaking in front of a crowd of people isn't easy and we know it. There will be the option to highlight that you would like extra support, as a first-time speaker, or even just as someone who feels that they would benefit from it.
The East Midlands is lucky to host some amazing (and incredibly generous) international and experienced speakers. Some of these fine people are donating their time to any speakers that indicate they want extra support. This support covers ways to address nerves, timing a talk, structuring the content of a talk, making sure your talk aligns to its description and more.
- Arranging an optional workshop for all speakers to help them construct their talk.
All selected speakers will be invited to an optional workshop before the event. This contains advise on subjects such as talk structure, presentation styles, designing your slides. This is made possible by our very kind Workshop Sponsor. More details will be described here closer to the event.