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This year I helped organize the inaugural PromptConf, a one-day tech conference showcasing the joy of computers.

We divvied up responsibilities among six co-organizers. I’m writing about some parts in which I invested time and energy; views are my own, and do not necessarily reflect the organizing team’s positions.

Until now, we have talked mostly about conference preparation. This time, we’re talking about a specific day-of-conference responsibility: hosting. You might know this role as the “master of ceremonies,” or M.C. (pronounced and spelled ’emcee’ for clarity). I prefer the term hostess (or host, or hostex). We’ll go with hostex moving forward.

To explain why, I need to give you some context: I am extremely deliberate in my professional choices. I put a lot of thought into the career impact I want to have. I work backward from that to articulate what I’m looking for in my work, in volunteering/activism roles, in talk opportunities, in conferences, in colleagues, in mentors, in career advice.

Here’s what I’m looking for as an organizer: I want to create events that challenge folks to raise their game while still feeling like a warm, familial gathering. Who orchestrates a warm, familial gathering? A hostex. So that’s why I use the word. For the same reason, I also think of the audience as guests at our event. They are not “attendees” or “conference-goers.” Stodgy corporate events have those.

One of our speakers described the feel of PromptConf as “an atmosphere of a conversation among friends.” This wording conveys exactly my hope for how the conference would feel.

I keep it relatively personal with the audience.

A hostex makes sure that the guests have a good time. So I had a couple of topics on hand to keep folks entertained while speakers switched computers or pulled up their slides to present. Sometimes, this included encouraging folks to post on social media, or reminding them to purchase a copy of The Quick Python Book. It’s useful for a hostex to maintain a list of conference announcements and reminders that they can (or must) say at any point during the day. I didn’t do this for PromptConf, but in the future I would.

I also wanted things to feel a little spontaneous, though, so much of what I said between talks focused on things that were happening at the conference in real time. I sometimes shared a brief reflection on the most recent talk or featured a PromptConf-related tweet from one of our guests. On one occasion, I managed to maintain possession of the mic for long enough to share my recipe recommendations from the ingredients found in the host company’s snack dispensers.

I only made one political joke the whole day, and I did my best to make it a good one.

I also found myself with the mic for the closing remarks. I used that time to share our original vision for the conference and my thoughts on whether we had achieved that vision. I think there might be video of it up someday, so I’ll post that here if it arrives.

I want the speakers to feel prepared and focused.

We brought up speakers in batches of four prior to their talks so I could collect names and pronouns. Then, when I introduced each speaker, I would give their name and say “please welcome [him/her/them] to the stage.” This created an opportunity to clue in the audience to the speaker’s pronouns without tacking it directly onto their names.

We had a pretty late slide submission deadline and little slide/sound check time, so slides did not go as we would have hoped. We had more than one situation where a speaker figured out onstage that their slide/demo setup wasn’t going to work.

In the future, I would insist on having slides 48 hours in advance and give speakers the opportunity to come in the day before to do slide/sound check. Maybe we can find a sponsor and turn it into a speaker dinner, too. I’d also offer free conference tickets to two alternate speakers with the caveat that, if someone does not submit slides, does not communicate that they will not be using slides, or has to cancel at the last minute, the alternate speakers could step up.

I try to check on people throughout the conference.

During the snack and meal breaks, I’d ambulate around the space to ask people how they were doing. That’s what a hostex would do at a party, so it made sense for the atmosphere we wanted to create. This also produced some useful feedback for me with respect to the audio equipment, or where folks could see the stage. One of these conversations also grew into a guest-organized post-conference gathering that I was able to announce onstage before one of the talks.

I’d be thrilled to host more tech events so I can continue practicing and running tests to see what works for transferring the concept of hosting to professional events.

Conclusion

This year I helped organize the inaugural PromptConf, a one-day tech conference showcasing the joy of computers.

Until now, we have talked mostly about conference preparation. This time, we’re talking about a specific day-of-conference responsibility: hosting. I am extremely deliberate in my professional choices: I want to create events that challenge folks to raise their game while still feeling like a warm, familial gathering. Who orchestrates a warm, familial gathering? A hostex. So I use that term rather than M.C. (’emcee’) to describe the role.

A hostex makes sure that the guests have a good time. So I tried to keep it personal with the audience. I kept track of a few announcements, but also clued guests into each others’ social media posts as well as the conference vision (and whether we seemed to have achieved it).

I also wanted to create an environment that made speakers feel prepared and focused. We brought up speakers in batches of four prior to their talks so I could collect names and pronouns. We had a pretty late slide submission deadline and little slide/sound check time, so slides did not go as we would have hoped. In the future, I’d move up the slide submission deadline to make more time for slide check.

I also tried to check on people throughout the conference, and ended up with good feedback this way.

I’d be thrilled to host more tech events so I can continue practicing and running tests to see what works for transferring the concept of hosting to professional events.

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