You don't need permission to go and do the event thing. A reflection on attending London Community Week.

I'm finding myself pulled towards logging all the things in my tech career in the MoTaverse. Sometimes it's links. Sometimes moments. It feels good and a natural way for me to process my world.

Last week I was at London Community Week. It's my third time, this year I hosted a workshop. It was fun to explore AI Minimum Viable Community. I absolutely love that I can build things in the MoTaverse and then directly share my experience back with community professionals.  It was my first go at doing a workshop, I think I would like to do more. I even gave out physical stars to everyone and encouraged them to gift them to one another for their contributions.

In previous years, I've done talks, both solo and also a duo with Simon Tomes.

I chuckle as I look back at London Community week, as I can see how I've personally grown from the experience. Sometimes this shows up in the annual catch-ups I now have with certain people. Or how far I feel I've come with my 'speaking' journey—like, I don't get nervous anymore. That feels wild to me. (I'm not saying that what I say is any good, but at least I don't suffer from nerves like I did before!)

It's also pretty amazing to meet people from across the country and globe. What a privilege! Really, it's such a career building and underrated thing. There's often a correlation of when people's careers start taking off, and often it's when they start attending events.

And then there are little surprises, like seeing Marie Cruz there, a fellow member from the MoTaverse. She then even joined us live on This Week in Community. Amazing! To me, it validates that our work crosses over in so many ways.

I know it can be easy to assume it's easy for me, but it's not. I'm a terrible traveller. Even to London, which is not far away from me. And my energy levels afterwards are pretty much non-existent. I've gotten better at managing my own neurodivergent nuances, finding my limits, gifting myself taxi rides instead of battling over crowding, and I always have my headphones to hand. Recovery can be hard, but mostly worth it.

I think it's safe to say, events are real ecosystem, community and organisational glue work. Every professional deserves to go to events to help build their tech careers. You might not see the benefit straight away, but the more you go, the more confidence you find and the more people you connect with, before, during and after—it all adds up and creates resilience that nobody can take away from you.

Ask your employer for support to attend as part your of professional development, or consider it as part of your own professional development budget.

Make time for events. It's worth it. A a recent conference I went, I was doubting the value of it, but then one talk did it for me. It totally opened my mind about things we were working on. That alone made it worth it as it's really helped define the work we do. Sometimes you don't know how it will make a difference.

As we like to say in the MoTaverse, just go for it.