# Want to go to RailsConf?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/want-to-go-to-railsconf/63564>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [June 16, 2006, 9:18am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/want-to-go-to-railsconf/63564 "2006-06-16T09:18:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jennyw](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/7feea3/32.png) [@jennyw](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jennyw)\
**Post date:** [June 16, 2006, 9:18am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/want-to-go-to-railsconf/63564/1 "2006-06-16T09:18:04Z")

</div>

Hi, everyone!

I have a ticket to RailsConf in Chicago, but I think I’m going to have  
to give it up. I’d be happy to sell my ticket to someone else for the  
original price ($400).

Of course, that’d be boring (but totally acceptable), so in the interest  
of getting to work with more people in the Ruby and Rails community I  
thought I’d also offer an option for a trade … If you don’t have the  
dough (or would prefer a warmer fuzzier alternative to paying with cold  
hard cash) I’d be willing to pay for your ticket (or even for the ticket  
plus airfare, hotel, and car) in exchange for your time. The  
requirements for this are:

- You need to be a good programmer. By good programmer, I don’t mean the  
walk-on-water-look-at-me-I-can-do-super-fancy-metaprogramming-while-chewing-gum-backwards  
type. After all, only about 20 percent of programming requires mad  
skillz (and I think we have that covered). It’s the other 80 percent I  
need help with, and that just requires someone with a good foundation in  
programming, common sense, and the ability to get stuff done without  
much direction. And programmers who have a great foundation in other  
languages (e.g. Smalltalk, Python) but who are relatively new to Ruby  
and Rails are welcome to try to convince me.

- You think you’d enjoy working with me and my company. To get an idea  
of the sort of person I am, you might want to check out my blog:  
[http://jennyw.dangerousideas.com](http://jennyw.dangerousideas.com). Also, some info about my company. It?s  
called Colorful Expressions (to evoke the feeling some people feel with  
their computers; [http://www.colorfulexpressions.com/](http://www.colorfulexpressions.com/)). We?re a  
consulting company (we don?t have a fancy money-generating Web  
application ? yet, anyway) that works mostly with small businesses and  
non-profits. We have an interest in working for social justice  
organizations and often end up charging a lot less than your typical  
programming shop would as a result.

- You’d be willing to negotiate a favorable rate of exchange and be  
willing to work (paid) for time in addition to the trade if necessary.  
After all, I have no idea who you are and I’m going to be making more or  
less a snap judgment, and it’s also hard to just stick a person into a  
project for a very few hours and expect something great to happen.

It might be that no one will want to take me up on a trade – heck, even  
I’m not sure whether it’s a good idea or just silly – and I’ll just end  
up selling the ticket. But at least I tried to be creative … 😉

If you are interested in either buying the ticket or working out a  
trade, please e-mail me at removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid with “RailsConf”  
somewhere in the subject (this address gets huge amounts of spam), or,  
if you want to share your thoughts on this idea with the world, post a  
comment on my blog (but either e-mail me separately or include your  
contact info).

[http://jennyw.dangerousideas.com/articles/2006/06/16/a-ticket-to-ride-the-rails-to-chicago](http://jennyw.dangerousideas.com/articles/2006/06/16/a-ticket-to-ride-the-rails-to-chicago)

Jen

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jennyw](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/7feea3/32.png) [@jennyw](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jennyw)\
**Post date:** [June 18, 2006, 2:39am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/want-to-go-to-railsconf/63564/2 "2006-06-18T02:39:25Z")

</div>

Fyi, the RailsConf ticket has been traded. Thanks to all the people who  
expressed interest!

I’m glad I offered a trade in addition to just offering to sell the  
ticket! It was a great experience, and I got to meet a lot of people I  
think I’ll be working with, including Sarah Mei (the person I’m sending  
to the  
conference). If the logistics work out, I’ll be making a similar offer  
for RubyConf (this time with advance notice so people can plan for it!).

If you want to hear more about the process, I wrote a blog post about  
it:

[http://jennyw.dangerousideas.com/articles/2006/06/17/railsconf-ticket-traded-anyone-want-to-go-to-rubyconf](http://jennyw.dangerousideas.com/articles/2006/06/17/railsconf-ticket-traded-anyone-want-to-go-to-rubyconf)

Jen