React Loop Mission Statement
A mission statement I wrote
In 2019 I hastily threw together what turned out to be a very successful developer conference. It was called React Loop.
React Loop took place in June of 2019 even though planning didn't really begin until mid February of that same year. For reasons I wont explain here, after about a month of solid planning in January I found myself on my own with a 129 day outline of everything I would need to do in order to launch the conference by myself. I needed help and reached out to anyone I could.
Once I knew I was bringing in folks who may not understand why I even wanted to start a conference or how I hoped it would be different from other conferences I quickly scaffolded out some documentation to help them get on board with what was then "my" mission. This mission statement served as a starting point for dozens of pages in a wiki I put together for us.
Mission Statement
React Loop brings together React users to learn and network. Our goal is to provide the best possible experience for every attendee, speaker, sponsor, and volunteer.
That’s it. That’s our big awesome Mission Statement. You can stop reading.
… but a little more on that
The best parts of a conference are seldom just sitting in a chair listening to a speaker. It’s laughing together when the demo gods screw things up and cheering when a presenter overcomes. It’s the conversations in the hallways with new friends that were so good we missed a speaker and it was worth it. It’s finally meeting the people we only know only as contributors and maintainers and letting them know we had the same idea, but they beat us to it. This is not a business gathering, it’s a geek festival.
Logistics are important. A thing happening on time is important, but it is not everything. Our success is measured by people connecting with others and enjoying themselves. That and if the place didn’t catch on fire and the speakers showed up. Extra points if we don’t go bankrupt.
I've always been very proud of this doc. It was thrown together in haste and therefore benefits, or suffers depending on how you look at it, from a very raw and definitely naive perception of what a developer conference is supposed to be. Hasty or not this doc became the mission and I like to think we lived up to it.