Aran: I’m Aran, for CUSEC Promotions and I’m sitting with Linda, co-chair of CUSEC 2009.
Linda: Yay!
Aran: Linda, icebreaker question: What software product would you be and why?
Linda: I would be one of those miniature games because I have a short attention span and I’m cute and cuddly.
Aran: OK, cute and cuddly. What are the great things about past CUSECs that you’re aiming to preserve as last year’s chair?
Linda: I love the fact that it’s been mostly academic. So, people who come here actually get to learn a lot. The speakers are at the right level, it goes into really detailed technical stuff for people who are more advanced and we also have less technical, a lot of fun, really inspirational talks from some great speakers that really motivate people to continue in software engineering and to be passionate about software. I think that’s really important and we want to keep it that way. Obviously there are lots of fun parties which we want to keep because we want to make sure that everybody has fun.
Aran: What will be different about CUSEC ’09?
Linda: This is the first time a girl has been a chair or a co-chair. I think there will be more female speakers. In general, in the past, CUSEC has been mostly male-dominated. I guess in SE that’s usually the case whereas this year we’re going to try to get more women to come out and enjoy it and I think there’s going to be more little feminine touches here and there you guys should look forward to.
Aran: What kind of feminine touches?
Linda: We’re going to spice things up a little more this year, I think instead of a sit-down dinner that we normally have we’re going to have a mixer, looking into getting a cocktail thing going. It has not been finalized but we want more interactions between people.
Aran: So we should all look forward to the 2009 cocktail party.
Linda: We should definitely look forward to the 2009 parties in general!
Aran: What’s your philosophy as an organizer?
Linda: Communication and teamwork. I think that’s really important. Listening to everyone [the organizer team], making sure that everybody has a voice and they know that their opinions matter to us as chairs. I really believe that everybody should have a group. As long as make our ultimate goal that everybody that comes in has fun I think we [the co-chairs] have done our job. Not-so-much titles and stuff.
Aran: You’ve helped to organize CUSEC in the past. What did you learn from that that has affected the way you’re leading CUSEC this year?
Linda: One of the main things was empowering the organizing team. It’s not about the chairs. It’s about putting on a good conference and making sure that each individual organizer feels that what they do is really important, that it matters, make them want to contribute, make this as great as it possibly can be
Aran: How is CUSEC different from other conferences?
Linda: A very loaded question there. The main thing that separates us from other tech conferences is that it’s definitely more academic than corporate. We make sure that all our talks go through a review system so that it’s not just companies that sponsor us that will get it to advertise the product. It really has to based on something that is relevant to the software engineering world. We’re also a student-run conference so that it’s run by students for students. The fact that our audience is students is always on our minds.
Aran: You mentioned corporate sponsors. Sponsors have been an important part of CUSEC in the past. How do you see their role for the upcoming conference?
Linda: They are a huge part of CUSEC because without the sponsors we wouldn’t have CUSEC. We couldn’t afford it. There are two roles. One would be giving the students the opportunity to meet big companies, big HR people, so that they [students] can show “Hey, we’re passionate people!” They get a step up in terms of getting hired by these companies. At the same time it’s a great opportunity for these companies to find the best and smartest and most passionate software engineers around Canada for them to hire.
Aran: Is that why you think companies sponsor CUSEC?
Linda: I think that’s a huge part. The other thing is that we treat sponsors really well. We make sure they’re well taken care of, we make sure that they’re there whenever we party. They’re going to be out partying with us. I think that’s a huge difference from other conferences. The sponsors, they come out and party with us! You could be out at a club, and you could be chatting with either speakers, or HR people, or project managers from huge companies. That’s great because everybody communicates, everybody hangs out. Aran: The sponsors get very intimate access to the delegates.
Linda: Sponsors get intimate access to students and vice-versa. [Ed: This sounds worse in writing than in real life…]
Aran: Why should students who have never been to a conference consider CUSEC?
Linda: It’s a great opportunity for you to see what software engineering is really about. You get to know what the domain of software engineering that you don’t get to leran in a classroom. It’s not lecture-style. You also get the opportunity to meet some of your idols in software engineering. You get to rub shoulders with really well-known software engineers. Plus, it’s a great opportunity to have fun, take some days off of school. Why not?
Aran: You mentioned well-known software engineers. Tell me the story about Zed Shaw and the giant paper airplane.
Linda: Oh, the giant paper airplane! On the last day of CUSEC 2008, we were taking down everything. The conference was over, we were packing up. We had this huge poster! A brilliant guy, by the name of Aran, came up with the idea to make a paper airplane out of this huge poster! So, we did. Except the paper airplane wouldn’t fly. We kept on trying to make it bigger so it would fly better. Zed Shaw walks by and says, “You know, this is one of the biggest software engineering problems. Everyone keeps thinking, to make it better, you need to put more stuff on it! So then, you just take stuff off of it and it works perfectly!” So he goes in, he rips apart the paper airplane [Ed: He ripped off about a third of the plane] and suddenly it flies wonderfully. So that’s the story of the paper airplane. A little lesson from Zed Shaw. Sometimes the best way is to take it rip it apart as opposed to adding more stuff to it.
Aran: Thanks Linda
Linda: You’re welcome.
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