I had a great time speaking at #AndroidSummit today.
Here are the slides from my talk “Focus on What Matters by Automating the Small things”
Continue readingSpeaking At Android Summit 2019 – Focus On What Matters By Automating The Small Things
conference
How To Get The Most Out Of Attending A Tech Conference
1️⃣ Above All Else
If you take nothing else away from this post, I hope you may at least consider the following as a framework for how to approach a conference, a meetup, or any other gathering of peers where you plan to learn something.
Learn 3 New Things, and Meet 3 New People
That’s it.
Continue readingGoogle I/O 2018 Recap
This was my first Google I/O, and I must say, it was quite an experience.
I went in to the week excited for new announcements and to maybe get my hands dirty with new tools/features.
That all happened, but a week removed from the event it’s not the big announcements that have stuck with me (though I do have my eye on Android Studio running on a Pixelbook 😉)
No, a week later I keep coming back to these 2 phrases:
“make good things together”
“build things that matter”
Experiences of a first-time conference speaker
The notion of conference speaking both excites & scares me.
I just gave my first 2 android conference talks
When I finally worked up the courage to submit conference talk proposals, I did so with the intention of documenting the speaking process if I were selected.
I hoped that by openly sharing my experiences that I could perhaps connect with others that are considering taking the same leap. And that, by seeing my excitement/fears/anxiety/joy, they may recognize that there is nothing special required to add your voice to the public forum.
ChicagoRoboto 2018
I had the great fortune of attending ChicagoRoboto this week. I really had a terrific time learning, meeting new people, speaking, and playing with Legos 🙂.
Check out my ChicagoRoboto 18 Twitter Moment
Let’s start off with some well deserved high praise
Jorge Coca on Twitter
What I like about @chicagoroboto is that it gathers, under the same roof, all your favorite and known expert developers with the local Android Chicago community (and more). What an amazing two days we are going to have!
Sudhanshu Siddh on Twitter
My first #chicagoroboto. Amazing 1st day! Brilliant talks, so much knowledge! Incredible people sharing their experiences, on and off stage. For a newbie like me who is about to start their career, it feels like a Utopia of knowledge! @chicagoroboto @Android
A very sincere thank you to all the organizers, volunteers and sponsors!!
Nate Ebel on Twitter
Thanks @jwilker @rharter @jerrellmardis, all the sponsors and volunteers, for all the hard work making #ChicagoRoboto happen 😀
. . .
I really loved the way Yash Prabhu included some calls to action in her opening keynote:
- Learn 3 new things
- Make 3 new friends
It immediately gave the audience some common ground and provided an easy ice breaker for meeting new people.
Jibreel Powell on Twitter
Who wants to be one of my new #ChicagoRoboto friends?
I thought I’d use those takeaways to focus my notes/thoughts from the event
. . .
New Things
You Can’t Know Everything
Okay, so this isn’t necessarily “new”, but I think it’s worth reminding ourselves every once in a while. In fact, this topic came up in at least 3 different talks.
It was great hearing this during the keynote because it helped keep things in perspective as the conference kicked off and we experienced an overflow of useful information.
Honestly, this whole talk was great! You should definitely check it out.
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So much goodness coming in ConstraintLayout 2.0
I’ve been dabbling in ConstraintLayout for a while now and starting to play with some of the interesting features it provides.
After John Hoford and Nicolas Roard gave us a preview of some of the things coming in version 2.0, my list of reasons to explore ConstraintLayout got a whole lot bigger. I particularly loved a couple of examples for making resizable layouts work great (such as on a Chromebook).
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Espresso Testing with the Robot Pattern
The “Robot” testing pattern was an interesting thought I hadn’t considered before. Big thanks to Adam McNeilly for sharing it with us.
It provides some very nice abstraction between test boilerplate and configuration making Espresso testing much more maintainable.
Also, big shout out on a very successful first Android conference talk 👍 👍
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No More Tofu
(I love that title 🙂)
I had no idea that emojis were so complicated… but had a lot of fun learning about it from Miquel Beltran 😀
Sounds like EmojiCompat is definitely the way to go nowadays.
Nate Ebel on Twitter
No More Tofu: Mastering Emoji by @Miqubel 4000+ emojis rendered differently between manufacturer and OS (I miss sideways blobs 😢) differences in rendering can convey different emotions Is EmojiCompat the greatest thing ever? 🤔 😃 👏 – setReplaceAll() #ChicagoRoboto
The Future of the Community
Dan Kim gave a pretty amazing talk on the importance the Android developer community.
There was a big focus on 4 specific ways anyone can become involved in contributing and benefitting from the community.
https://twitter.com/jibreel_powell/status/984908150557106176
Nate Ebel on Twitter
ChicagoRoboto @dankim Mentorship – very rewarding – 100% expertise not required 🙂 – advertise yourself – guidance > answers Open Source – can make huge impact 💥 – great way to learn – resume builder – every bit helps “Remember, everyone is incredibly nice” 👍👍
. . .
New Friends
Meeting new people is one of my favorite parts of attending a conference.
It builds connections
Those connections become part of your support system, they motivate and inspire you
It prompts interesting conversation, and can lead to exciting opportunities
(I started to list out people I had met this week, but the list quickly grew quite large… you’ll have to trust me when I saw it was more than 3 people 🙂)
. . .
Another Chance to Share
I was really excited to have the chance to speak on a topic I think is really important.
Tips From the Time Machine: Things I Wish I Would Have Known Starting a Career as an Android Dev
Starting a career into Android development (or anything really) is filled with challenges. If I could go back in time to give myself advice, I would encourage myself to: – have courage: ask questions, take risks – practice self compassion: remember that it’s okay to not know everything or do everything – connect with others: embrace connections with the community and build a support system Check out this tweet thread to see what others have shared regarding their challenges when starting out.
A big thank you to everyone who shared their thoughts/struggles/challenges/advice as I was prepping my talk and to the other speakers who were also so wonderful and supportive.
Sudhanshu Siddh on Twitter
Thnx to all the speakers, the organizers & volunteers for such an amazing conference @chicagoroboto Gr8 feeling meeting everyone! Brilliant advices! Feeling a lot more confident and hopeful #ChicagoRoboto #NeverGiveUp #androidcommunity #android
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Lots More to Love
Miguel Beltran on Twitter
Being More Than An Android Developer by @yashvprabhu opening keynote at #chicagoroboto!
Britt Barak 🇸🇬 @droidconSG on Twitter
This is even better than I expected. @n8ebel gathered adviced from the #android community & shared them ever so openly & honestly in @chicagoroboto. My fav: “you’re not alone”, u have the #community.😍 Wonderful in so many levels. Thank u! 🙏 #chicagoroboto #androiddev
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Had a really awesome time at the party. Thanks to The Nerdery for hosting a great event. I was particularly excited about the Legos 🙂
Ugur Kilic on Twitter
Thus is fun 🙂 Starwars-lego after party with @n8ebel @AdamMc331 @ @chicagoroboto
speaking of Legos…
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Hope to see you next year for ChicagoRoboto 2019
I love to meet/talk/discuss and help where I can. If you want to chat or ask a question you can follow me on Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and Facebook.