I’m on the plane home from PyCon 2023 in Salt Lake City, thinking about the last week. PyCon recaps often say the same things, and this is no exception, but PyCon is an intense experience that should be noted. My notes here feel a bit disjointed, but I’m trying to just relate some impressions, not craft a narrative.

In some ways, this was the expected PyCon experience: lots of friends old and new, lots of good conversations, both technical and personal.

But this year was also different because I delivered the opening keynote. I talked about How to Talk to People, which may seem like an odd keynote topic for a technical conference, but that’s the way PyCon is: there’s a lot of discussion of people and the interactions among them. The video of the keynote is on YouTube.

The Python community is not perfect. As with any large community, there is conflict and drama, and not everyone stays. But the Python community is famous for being more welcoming and inclusive than you’d expect for a technical community.

PyCon is the kind of technical conference that welcomes things like a keynote about How To Talk To People. I had a lot of positive feedback, it was extremely gratifying.

But even beside being a keynote speaker, there are dozens of unexpected but authentic connections happening. A woman approached me and told me that in 2018, I saw her at PyCon and she seemed at loose ends, so I invited her to come to dinner with our group. She said that now at every PyCon she remembers that moment, because it was a tangible action that pulled her in and visibly welcomed her as a specific individual.

Similarly, I had a chat with a well-known member of the community, a person with a broad and visible presence in the Python world beyond the conference. They said that they remember the time at a previous PyCon they were walking down the hall, and I was sitting on a bench, and I called out to them by name, “as if we were best friends,” as they put it. Again, that was a moment they felt they moved from an outer ring more toward the center.

Of course, the only reason I knew who this person was back then was because they had already been gaining visibility, but it’s easy for people to underestimate the effect they are having on others. People don’t realize that writing blog posts, or making podcasts, or publishing libraries is a way to be known in the community. It may seem like a small activity when you are by yourself making it or writing it, but people see it, and people start to know you.

In an open source world like Python, you don’t need a corporate marketing department megaphone to make a difference. You don’t need to work at one of the big sponsors to be “big.” If you do good work, people will start to know you.

This year Mariatta was the chair of the conference, and she brought an intense authenticity to the plenaries. Each keynote was introduced with a personal story about why she wanted to give that person the stage. She said I wouldn’t remember, and I didn’t, that she and I first talked in the PyLadies Slack workspace when she was anxious before her first presentation, and I told her it was a good talk.

I’m telling these stories about reaching out to people not to pat myself on the back, but to show that a small kindness to someone, even a “nobody,” can have unexpected ripples across years. I said a small thing once to Mariatta and it helped her take a first step that eventually led to her being a Python core contributor and the chair of PyCon. You never know where things will lead.

For me that first interaction with Mariatta led to a keynote speech, and an ice cream selfie:

I haven’t been to a PyCon since 2018. The vibe is the same: people working together and collaborating. I talked to some attendees who contrasted it to other tech conferences which felt more like a gathering of competitors. They commented that even the big sponsors of PyCon (Meta, Google, Microsoft, etc.) didn’t seem at odds with each other.

One thing that I kept noticing all weekend was people who were missing. I kept remembering someone that I thought of as a fixture at PyCon who wasn’t there. I don’t know if it’s because I haven’t been in five years, or if lingering pandemic caution is keeping people home, or if it’s just the usual conflicts with the rest of life.

I had chances to hang out with specific people I wanted to meet, and also conversations with people I didn’t know until we started talking. Some non-technical topics included the war in Ukraine, Christianity, cancer, as well as less intense topics like comparative cuisine. It turns out people from Brazil have never seen a tater tot (“is this made of rice?”).

One off-topic tradition continued: juggling open spaces. We had one official one (posted on the board) Saturday, and another impromptu one during the sprints on Monday. It’s a good ice-breaker to meet people, and it’s fun to see both hidden talents and brave newbs trying it out.

I definitely should have had some Sleepy Snake merch, because people asked me about my t-shirt a number of times. A missed marketing opportunity!

One dynamic unique to our tail-of-the-pandemic times: I met two of my Boston Python co-organizers in person for the first time in Salt Lake. Emily Charles and Glenn Lehman both joined Boston Python during the pandemic and became organizers, and I had never met them face-to-face before. We’ve had plenty of good interaction over Zoom, so it was like meeting old friends for the first time. But again, in our online open source world, that happens a lot. At least one person said to me, “good to meet you; have we met before?”

One sprint day on Monday had a recurring dynamic that I always forget. I think of coverage.py as hard to get started with. But people show up willing to at least consider the rock face with me, and we make a dent in some things. Even if the contributions are small, at the very least it’s a chance to meet some new people and have some nerd discussions along the way. Small contributions are helpful! Sitting with people interested in the project gives me a chance to see it through new eyes, and have some energy reflected back to me, recharging me to do some work on it myself. Thanks to the people who joined me even when I disappeared for a few hours for ice cream and juggling!

A challenging aspect of PyCon is to make the most of your time there. Another challenge is to somehow keep the energy going as you re-enter your regular world, filled with other concerns and activities. If I come up with any clever approaches, I’ll let you know.