Social Media Portal interview with Geoff Domoracki from DeveloperWeek

Social Media Portal (SMP) profiled interview with Geoff Domoracki, CEO at seven-day DeveloperWeek conference

Social Media Portal (SMP): What is your name and what do you do there at DeveloperWeek?

Geoff Domoracki (GD): I?m the CEO and founder of DeveloperWeek. My role is the creation and production of technology conferences including Data 2.0 Summit and DataWeek.

SMP: Briefly, tell us about DeveloperWeek (for those that don?t know), what is it, how long has it been going and what does the conference strive to do?

GD: This is our first annual DeveloperWeek, but it is actually our fourth week-long tech conference. We founded Techweek in Chicago, grew it to 5,000 annual attendees, and decided to focus our efforts on San Francisco-based conferences like DeveloperWeek. Our goal for DeveloperWeek is to showcase as many tools, technologies and languages for developers as possible ? as well as turn the city of San Francisco into a week-long app incubator for any developer with an app idea.

The conference is from 01 February to 07 February 2013.

SMP: Who are your target audience and why?

GD: We target developers who are doers. Entrepreneurial developers tend to work in start-ups or Silicon Valley tech companies, tend to experiment with new languages and tools and are exploratory in discovering new better ways to build apps.

SMP: What is it that DeveloperWeek does that?s different to other conferences in this space?

GD: DeveloperWeek is the largest San Francisco (SF) based conference taking a landscape view of development tools. Other tech conferences may focus on Oracle or MongoDB or Ruby. We?re the first large-scale conference that takes a holistic view on development!

SMP: How are the days structured ? what?s on offer?

GD: The weekend (February 1-3) is our hackathon where we?re expecting over 150 attendees. Monday of the conference focuses on product and user interface (UI), Tuesday on web and mobile app development, Wednesday on data and analytics, and Thursday is our Prototype Day where anyone can get on stage and talk about what they?ve built!

SMP: What are some of the top reasons for developers to attend the event?

GD:  8 Reasons to Attend DeveloperWeek 2013

• Join a DeveloperWeek Hackathon team - the top 5 teams get to demo and pitch at the DeveloperWeek Conference!
• Learn how to build your first app in HTML 5, Android, iPhone, Node.js, jQuery, and more
• Hear from 100+ speakers representing Adobe, Microsoft, Google, Oracle, and more....
• Hire developers or get hired at our DeveloperWeek Hiring Mixer
• Demo new dev tools such as Koding, Keen.io, Mashape, and Typesafe
• Attend our 12+ DeveloperWeek events including SF Beta :: DeveloperWeek Edition
• Vote for and demo our DeveloperWeek award nominees!
• Apply for and win cash scholarships to build on our sponsor's technologies

SMP: What will be some of the highlights of the DeveloperWeek conference in addition to your ?Reasons to attend DeveloperWeek??

GD: I?m excited about speakers who are going to demo completely new and potentially revolutionary development technologies. For example, Steve Newcomb is the founder of Famo.us, which promises to enable developers to build in one language across all mobile devices. Devrim Yasar has a new tool called ?Koding? that enables developers to code apps in their browsers in a collaborative environment. Two-years ago, these technologies didn?t exist!

SMP: What are the most important things that attendees can take away from DeveloperWeek?

GD: Amateur and hardcore developers should be able to take away one big lesson ? that development requires a ?polyglot? approach. Being an entrepreneurial developer means you are willing to experiment with and adopt several (if not dozens) of programming languages, APIs, and development tools in order to build the next great app.

SMP: Tell us a little bit about the Hackathon.  What is it and what does it strive to do?

GD: Our hackathon aims to empower developers to build apps that will become actual start-up tech companies. The top five winning teams from the hackathon go on to receive coaching and free services from our advisors so they can present again on Wednesday at our conference to a group of actual investors!

SMP: What are the low moments of what you have been doing so far?

GD: As a conference organizer, I wouldn?t call them low points ? but one of our biggest challenges is empowering other organizations and companies to host events during our week. After all DeveloperWeek isn?t just a conference, it?s a week-long series of events! Currently, that includes a hackathon, conference, hiring mixer, VIP reception, three meet-ups, two after-parties, and an SF Beta start-up demo event.

SMP: What are the high moments of what you have been doing so far?

GD: Personally, the high point for me is nerding out with entrepreneurs who are building truly fascinating technologies for other developers.

SMP: What do you see as your biggest challenges and opportunities for the conference?

GD: The biggest opportunity for DeveloperWeek is to change the way people think about tech conferences. Tech conferences are not just about hearing commercials from vendors about their product?s RIO. Our tech conferences help empower entrepreneurs and developers to build new start-ups using the knowledge and connections they acquire from DeveloperWeek.

SMP: If developers (and similar folk) were to have New Year resolutions, what do you think they should / would be?

GD: Always back up your code.  Actually, I think non-developers should have a New Years Resolution to learn at least one programming language!

SMP: What?s the next big step for social media / networks and what impact may this have for developers?

GD: Developers are already insane consumers of social media. In fact the only way to get proficient at a programming language is to search forums, blogs, or Google+ posts about the trials and tribulations of other coders. Social apps like GeekList are a next major step for developers ? helping identify and recognize developers based in Github commits or expertise.

SMP: What was the most challenging part of building on the brands presence in digital environments (including social media)?

GD: Because our conference takes a horizontal approach to development technologies, it is a challenge for us to target developers across dozens of languages and technologies. To be honest, that?s why we targeted tech start-up entrepreneurs ? who tend to also be developers.

SMP: What?s going to be the most interesting aspect regarding social media / technology for the next 12 to 18-months?

GD: The explosion of APIs will make it easy for new entrepreneurs to build on top of thousands of data sources and technology tools with practically no upfront cost.

SMP: What are your top five predictions for social media for the next 12 to 18-months?

GD replies with:

• We will see more influence scores like Klout and Kred
• It will be easier to search for public social data about friends
• More major brands will experiment in the mobile / social intersection
• Data privacy will be an even larger concern
• Many industries will get their own ?social networks? like Geeklist is for developers

SMP: Best way to contact you and DeveloperWeek?

Twitter @developerweek
Twitter @gffre


SMP: What did you have for breakfast / lunch?

GD: Vegetable Chilli from Whole Foods

SMP: What?s the last good thing that you did for someone?

GD: Held the door open for them

SMP: How many hours do you work a week?

GD: 40-80 depending on your definition of work

SMP: If you weren?t running or working on DeveloperWeek what would you be doing?

GD: Solving global warming

SMP:  When and where did you go on your last holiday?

GD: I drove to Tomales Bay for Oysters on Christmas Eve

SMP: What?s the first thing you do when you get into the office of a morning?

GD: Tweet about my vegetable chilli

SMP: If you had a superpower what would it be and why?

GD: The ability to see through clouds because? what are they hiding up there?

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