BeerJS vol 10 - Survey Results and Retrospective

Vol. 10 “rocked” on several levels. It was the largest in terms of attendance (we’re not counting officially, but it was obvious.). Kudos to the community, we’re truly grateful for the support and participation. The audience was very active again. There were more questions than we could allow due to time constraints. We have a few ideas on how to improve this, and we’ll experiment a bit with it at the following events.

BeerJS vol 10. in numbers:

~13% were newcomers and had not attended a previous BeerJS edition. A decrease in the new audience from the last time, which is expected.
The average rating we received for the organization of the event is 4.51 (on a scale of 1-5). No major technical issues, fortunately. The big exception is the audio behind, which I will write about in more detail below.
The average rating for the presentations is 4.48 (on a scale of 1-5). Again, if you want to leave us detailed feedback, write to us on any of the social networks or at [email protected].

Additional comments about the organization

“Due to the larger number of visitors in the open area, there was a lot of noise from the back rows and it was difficult to follow the presentations. Also, due to the great interest and numerous questions, the visitors lost attention by the third presentation, maybe it would be better to return to the format with two presentations in order to keep the attention of the attendees until the end” - I think both notes are fair. Regarding the noise, we tried. Part of the BeerJS team was in the back, but we couldn’t control it. We will try to improve that at the following events. Part of the problem is also the venue. Usually, those who are interested in socializing go to the terrace when we’re in the “cozy room”. In this situation, unfortunately, we’re in the same space. Regarding the duration, it’s our fault. Personally, I don’t think the number of presentations is a problem as much as the duration, i.e., our “looseness” on the topic. Namely, the official duration of the presentations is 25 minutes + questions. As you can conclude from the videos, they often go up to 60+ minutes for just the presentations. We will definitely be stricter on this topic starting from the next one.
“In my opinion, BeerJS was better organized, mostly due to it being in a closed space and I think there was more space last time than now.” - I think both have advantages and disadvantages. Last time there was more space because there were fewer attendees. The event is still open, but we will see what we can do about the numbers. If you think registering for the event is a good idea, please write to us.
“Everything was super organized. Maybe the temperatures were not yet suitable for an outdoor event but all in all we had a great time.” - Thank you for the kind words! The temperatures were definitely not suitable for outside towards the end of the event, we will keep that in mind for next time.
“Perhaps a little work could be done on the timing of the presentations and to keep the audience’s attention, maybe they could be a little more interactive?” - I completely agree about the length of the presentations. As for interactivity, it mostly depends on the presenters. We will certainly remind them of this 😉
“I think it would be better to have 2 speakers, considering that the presentations last for almost an hour, and if the time for a presentation is shortened, it won’t be presented as well. In the back rows near the tables, nothing could be heard due to the large number of people talking to each other and not following the presentation.” - This is almost the same as 1, the answer is the same 🍻
“The audience should be politely reminded about laughing/yelling and similar things while presentations are ongoing” - we will go to impolite if it continues to happen 😄
“A bit cold haha” - seems it was too early for doing this outside, next time we will start later with outdoor events 😅
“It was great, just the code was a bit harder to see” - I agree. It was visible up to where the chairs were and nothing could be seen behind. Maybe a projector screen or monitors in the back next time, we will find a solution.
“A little louder sound system behind the chairs, but it wasn’t bad now either” - we will improve the sound system for the next time, we have ideas.
“The organizer could have reacted during the first presentation about the noise coming from the back” - they did react, it just had no effect. I didn’t wanr them directly on the microphone to stop, which I think is not the best idea, especially when the speaker is active. In any case, we will find a way to improve this as well.
“Too much noise in the back rows. Maybe better spatial separation of the presentation followers and those who are there for networking and friendship” - I agree 100% about the separation. As I wrote above, the “cozy room” was great for this, outdoors it’s different. We will figure something out.
“Make sure there is enough space for everyone to sit” - seating is primarily limited by the location we have for the event. Unless we find a better and larger hall, it’s hard to improve. Fundamentally, the problem is that we are slowly transitioning to a conference format, which opens up an entirely different set of problems from organizing an “informal meetup”.

What topics would you like us to cover in the next edition of BeerJS?

“I will mention the topic from the last survey again, which is MOBILE APP DEVELOPMENT!” - Honestly, I would like to see it too. I don’t have anyone interested in something like this, so I would ask you to suggest someone for this. I would be more than happy to invite them to vol. 11 🍻
“More backend topics in the next editions / Node” - We’ve been increasing the backend topics in general. We’ll look for more 😄
“Game development in Javascript” - They’re fun. Mario did a great presentation last time. I’ll try to find someone for this topic.
“Some devops topic, cloud, nodejs design patterns” - There was something in the 10th edition, there will be something in the 11th. And we’ll look for more 🍻
“More backend topics” - because I see this repeated in the survey, I would like to invite all of you who left feedback of this type to give a presentation. DMs are open 😄
“Monorepo, NX Console” - I think it’s hard to cover in a presentation format, but we’ll see what we can do 🍻
“Testing, more of three.js” - well, in the 11th edition there will be something for you 😉
“I would like to see a developer who is developing their own library or API” - Me too! If you know someone, feel free to send them our way. Maybe we need to bring someone from abroad for this topic 🤔
“Storybook, Whitelabeling a React app” - storybook is cool, would make a nice topic. For whitelabeling, I think it’s something more suitable for a workshop?
“TypeScript, React.js in more detail, useQuery() vs useEffect(), Next.js” - 🍻
“React Server Components” - it would be very good, especially because there is a lot of controversy and Twitter drama on the topic.
“Maybe more backend.” - see 5 😉
“Architectures (e.g. clean architecture), the n+1 problem, short war stories” - good ideas, short war stories sound esepcially interesting…

The elephant in the room - the timing and duration of the presentations

It is often repeated in surveys that the audience gets tired due to the number/duration of the presentations. I agree with the duration completely. For the number of presentations, not so much. However, the format is 3 x 25 (+5) on “paper”, which translates into an active time of ~90 minutes. Currently, each the our presentations can take up to 60 minutes. The plan in the future is to be much stricter with the allowed presentation time. If it still seems too long, we will consider reducing the number of presentations as well.

The other elephant in the room - the size of the event (this one is also about the audio, for those looking 😉)

BeerJS Skopje continues to grow, despite our best efforts to keep the event in a meetup format. I think it’s time to have a deeper conversation on the topic. I will write a blog post about this soon, with an invitation for an open discussion.

In short:

We are increasingly transitioning to a conference format
The logistics of conferences are very different from the logistics of meetups
We are a small team, and if we want to have a “tight” event with this number of visitors, we need to grow to avoid undisciplined visitors, have better audio, and better quality in general
One of the implications of all this is finances

In the meantime, before I publish the post and the invitation for discussion, I would invite you to join our discord server for any comments and ideas on the topic.

Vol. 10 was a great continuation of the good start of the year. The enthusiasm and activity of the audience were excellent! I would like to publicly thank everyone on the team, they did a great job as always. BeerJS is above all, an open and non-profit event for the community. As such, if anyone wants to help, we are open to anyone who wants to help and participate in the realization of the event. If that sounds interesting to you, write to us at [email protected].

If you can and want to, you can support our work with a small donation.

PS: Pictures from the event —> click here