If you managed to get a ticket to DevFest Florida, congratulations! It’s the Sunshine State’s biggest tech conference covering Googly matters, and it offers more bang for the buck than a lot of conferences that charge ten times as much. I’m looking forward to attending (and speaking at!) this event.

I’m sure that you’ve perused the schedules and picked out the ones that you’d like to attend (and hey, if you’re into Android development, I have some recommendations). But have you planned out how you’re going to work the room?

At DevFest — and hey, any conference you attend — you should keep in mind that while we spend a lot of energy on the presentations and sessions, the opportunity to meet and talk to the other people there is just as important. I’ve observed that some of the most important things I’ve learned at conferences didn’t happen at the presentation, but in the hallways, lounges, lunches, and social gathering, conversing with the other attendees. This observation is so common that it’s given rise to “unconferences” like BarCamp, whose purpose is to invert the order of things so that the conference is more “hallway” than “lecture theatre”.

It’s especially important to talk to people you don’t know or who are outside your usual circle. Books like The Tipping Point classify acquaintances with such people as “weak ties”, but don’t let the word “weak” make you think they’re unimportant. As people outside your usual circle, they have access to a lot of information that you don’t. That’s why most people get jobs through someone they know, and of those cases, most of the references came from a weak tie. The sorts of opportunities that come about because of this sort of relationship led sociologist Mark Granovetter to coin the phrase “the strength of weak ties”.

The best way to make weak ties at a conference is to work the room. If the phrase sounds like sleazy marketing-speak and fills your head with images of popped collars and wearing too much body spray, relax. Working the room means being an active participant in a social event and contributing to it so that it’s better for both you and everyone else. Think of it as good social citizenship.

If you’re unsure of how to work the room, I’ve got some tips that you might find handy…

Have a one-line self-introduction

A one-line self-introduction is simply a single-sentence way of introducing yourself to people you meet at a conference. It’s more than likely that you won’t know more than a handful of attendees and introducing yourself over and over again, during the conference, as well as its post-session party events. It’s a trick that Susan RoAne, room-working expert and author of How to Work a Room: The Ultimate Guide to Making Lasting Connections In-Person and Online teaches, and it works. It’s pretty simple:

• Keep it short — no longer than 10 seconds, and shorter if possible. It’s not your life story, but a pleasantry that also gives people just a little bit about who you are.
• Make it fit. It should give people a hint of the cool stuff that you do (or, if you’re slogging it out in the hopes of doing cool stuff someday, the cool stuff that you intend to do.)
• Show your benefits. Rather than simply give them your job title, tell them about a benefit that your work provides in a way that invites people to find out more. Susan RoAne likes to tell a story about someone she met whose one-liner was “I help rich people sleep at night”. That’s more interesting than “I’m a financial analyst”.

My intro will be something along the lines of “I’m a rock and roll accordion player, but in my side gig, I’m a mobile/AR app developer who helps design apps for Tampa’s coolest software company.”

How to join a conversation

At DevFest, you’ll probably see a group of people already engaged in a conversation. If this is your nightmare…

Click the photo to read the Onion article.

…here’s how you handle it:

1. Pick a lively group of people you’d like to join in conversation. As people who are already in a conversation, they’ve already done some of the work for you. They’re lively, which makes it more likely that they’re open to people joining in. They’ve also picked a topic, which saves you the effort of having to come up with one. It also lets you decide whether or not it interests you. If they’re lively and their topic of conversation interests you, proceed to step 2. If not, go find another group!
2. Stand on the periphery and look interested. Just do it. This is a conference, and one of the attendees’ goals is to meet people. Smile. Pipe in if you have something to contribute; people here are pretty cool about that.
3. When acknowledged, step into the group. You’re in like Flynn! Step in confidently and introduce yourself. If you’ve got that one-line summary of who you are that I talked about earlier, now’s the time to use it.
4. Don’t force a change of subject. You’ve just joined the convo, and you’re not campaigning. Contribute, and let the subject changes come naturally.

Feel free to join me in my conversational circles! I always keep an eye on the periphery for people who want to join in, and I’ll invite you.

More tips

Here’s more advice on how to work the room:

1. Be more of a host and less of a guest. No, you don’t have to worry about scheduling or if the coffee urns are full. By “being a host”, I mean doing some of things that hosts do, such as introducing people, saying “hello” to wallflowers and generally making people feel more comfortable. Being graceful to everyone is not only good karma, but it’s a good way to promote yourself. It worked out really well for me; for example, I came to the first DemoCamp (a regular Toronto tech event back in the 2000s) as a guest, but by the third one, I was one of the people officially hosting the event.
2. Beware of “rock piles”. Rock piles are groups of people huddled together in a closed formation. It sends the signal “go away”. If you find yourself in one, try to position yourself to open up the formation.
3. Beware of “hotboxing”. I’ve heard this term used in counter-culture settings, but in this case “hotboxing” means to square your shoulders front-and-center to the person you’re talking to. It’s a one-on-one version of the rock pile, and it excludes others from joining in. Once again, the cure for hotboxing is to change where you’re standing to allow more people to join in.
4. Put your coat and bag down. Carrying them is a non-verbal cue that you’re about to leave. If you’re going to stay and chat, put them down. When you’re about to leave, take your coat and bag and start saying your goodbyes.
5. Show and tell. We’re geeks, and nothing attracts our eyes like shiny, interesting pieces of tech and machinery. It’s why I carry my accordion around; I think of it as a device that converts curiosity into opportunity (and music as well). I’ll be doing the same with my Windows Phone 7 device as well! Got a particularly funky laptop, netbook, smartphone or new device you just got from ThinkGeek? Got a neat project that you’ve been working on? Whatever it is, park yourself someplace comfortable in the hallway, show it off and start a conversation!
6. Save the email, tweets and texts for later, unless they’re important.They’ll draw your attention away from the room and also send the message “go away”.
7. Mentor. If you’ve got skills in a specific area, share your knowledge. Larry Chiang from GigaOm says that “It transitions nicely from the what-do-you-do-for-work question. It also adds some substance to party conversations and clearly brands you as a person.”
8. Be mentored. You came to DevFest to learn, and as I said earlier, learning goes beyond the sessions. One bit of advice is to try and learn three new things at every event.
9. Play “conversation bingo”. If there are certain topics that you’d like to learn about at DevFest, say Angular, Android, mixed reality, and so on, put them in a list (mental, electronic or paper) of “bingo” words. As you converse at the conference, cross off any of those topics that you cover off the list. This trick forces you to become a more active listener and will help you towards your learning goals. Yelling “BINGO!” when you’ve crossed the last item on the list can be done at your discretion.

See you at DevFest Florida!

Click the image to see it at full size.

In writing yesterday’s article about DevFest Florida 2017, I noticed something unusual while going over the speaker list: 13 out of 31 of the conference’s speakers are women. You’d expect this to be a notable thing in 1917 (remember, the 19th Amendment wasn’t ratified until 1920), but it’s sad that in 2017, a tech conference with 42% women speakers is still an unusual thing.

Also noteworthy: out of those 13, 8 are women of color. That’s also unusual.

Some people will brush off this observation as unimportant. Those people are not just part of the problem; they are the problem. 

I could write a long essay about how representation matters, but I’ve got work to do and a DevFest presentation to polish (mine’s at 3:00 p.m., and it’s on Android development for people who’ve been avoiding it). So I’ll leave you with these words of wisdom from Nigerian author and MacArthur Genius Grant awardee Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche and her TED talk, The Danger of a Single Story:

You should go watch her whole TED talk, but this should give you her thesis:

I’m a storyteller. And I would like to tell you a few personal stories about what I like to call “the danger of the single story.” I grew up on a university campus in eastern Nigeria. My mother says that I started reading at the age of two, although I think four is probably close to the truth. So I was an early reader, and what I read were British and American children’s books.

I was also an early writer, and when I began to write, at about the age of seven, stories in pencil with crayon illustrations that my poor mother was obligated to read, I wrote exactly the kinds of stories I was reading: All my characters were white and blue-eyed, they played in the snow, they ate apples, bout the weather, how lovely it was that the sun had come out.

Now, this despite the fact that I lived in Nigeria. I had never been outside Nigeria. We didn’t have snow, we ate mangoes, and we never talked about the weather, because there was no need to.

My characters also drank a lot of ginger beer, because the characters in the British books I read drank ginger beer. Never mind that I had no idea what ginger beer was.

And for many years afterwards, I would have a desperate desire to taste ginger beer. But that is another story.

What this demonstrates, I think, is how impressionable and vulnerable we are in the face of a story, particularly as children. Because all I had read were books in which characters were foreign, I had become convinced that books by their very nature had to have foreigners in them and had to be about things with which I could not personally identify. Now, things changed when I discovered African books. There weren’t many of them available, and they weren’t quite as easy to find as the foreign books.

But because of writers like Chinua Achebe and Camara Laye, I went through a mental shift in my perception of literature. I realized that people like me, girls with skin the color of chocolate, whose kinky hair could not form ponytails, could also exist in literature. I started to write about things I recognized.

Now, I loved those American and British books I read. They stirred my imagination. They opened up new worlds for me. But the unintended consequence was that I did not know that people like me could exist in literature. So what the discovery of African writers did for me was this: It saved me from having a single story of what books are.

Kudos to DevFest Florida for this accomplishment! I look forward to being there — and speaking as well! — this Saturday.

This Saturday, I’m speaking at Tampa Code Camp 2017, a free community event run by developers for developers. My topic will be ARKit, the framework for augmented reality programming for the iPhone and iPad.

Among the topics I’ll be covering in my presentation will be the ARKit equivalent of “Hello World”…

…a simple iPhone version of the 3D painting program Tilt Brush…

…a game where you have to poke the creepy floating eyeballs coming at you…

…and a baby version of IKEA’s “what if I put this couch here?” app:

(In the photo above, the mousepad and table are real; the cup is computer-generated.)

You can see this presentation and others at Tampa Code Camp this Saturday, October 28th at Keiser University. The event is free to attend — just register at TampaCC.org so they know you’re coming!

I gave a talk at BarCamp Tampa Bay 2017 titled Programming Games in (Mostly) Plain English. I my talk, I presented the audience with a couple of tools that would allow them to build interactive fiction or “Choose Your Own Adventure” games with minimal programming or a programming language that looks a lot like plain English.

To find out more about BarCamp and its history, see my article on the topic on the Sourcetoad blog.

One of the tools that I showed the audience was Twine, a tool whose developers describe it as “an open-source tool for telling interactive, nonlinear stories.” You can use it to create “Choose Your Own Adventure”-style games without any programming. If you’re willing and able to do some programming — and it’s nothing terribly fancy or complex — you can throw in some additional sophistication to your Twine-based interactive creations.

In this article, I’ll walk you through the Twine “story” — that’s what the interactive stories or games that you create with Twine are called — that I presented at BarCamp Tampa Bay. You can follow along and try out Twine either by downloading the MacOS, Windows, or Linux desktop versions, or by using the online version (which is pretty close to the desktop versions).

An Aunt’s Story is a simple “choose your own adventure” tale starring an oft-overlooked character from a film that you may or may have not heard of. She lived on a desert planet a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away with two characters that I’ll call Grumpy Husband and Whiny Nephew, and she was plotted to free herself and live a better life. This story is told from her point of view.

The adventure begins

Let’s start by creating a new story. Click the + Story button on Twine’s home screen:

You’ll be asked to give the story a name. Enter An Aunt’s Story:

After you click the Add button, you’ll be taken to Twine’s storyboard, which shows a single passage, which represents a “page” in a story:

It has the default title of Untitled Passage. The  icon beside the title marks the passage as the one that the story will begin with.

Let’s try editing the passage. Double-click on the passage. You should see something like this:

Do the following:

1. Change the title of the passage from Untitled Passage to kitchen.
2. Double-click on the passage text and change it to:

You could [[try talking to Grumpy Husband]] or perhaps it might be better to [[see what your Whiny Nephew is up to]].

What you just entered is the text that will appear on the page that corresponds to the passage. The text in [[double square brackets]] does a couple of things:

• It links to another passage, whose name is the text in the brackets. For example, [[try talking to Grumpy Husband]] links to another passage named try talking to Grumpy Husband.
• If the other passage that it links to doesn’t already exist, it creates that passage. Since the try talking to Grumpy Husband passage didn’t already exist, Twine creates it.

The passage editing window should look like this:

Click the X in the upper right-hand corner to exit the passage editing window. You’ll return to the storyboard, which will now look like this:

Note that there are two newly-created passages: try talking to Grumpy Husband and see what your Whiny Nephew is up to. Twine inferred that you’d need them because the kitchen passage links to them, and they didn’t exist yet.

To make the story a little more complete, do the following:

• Edit the try talking to Grumpy Husband passage so that its text is “This is the Grumpy Husband passage.”
• Edit the see what your Whiny Nephew is up to passage so that its text is “This is the Whiny Nephew passage.”

The storyboard should now look like this:

Now we have enough of a story to play. Press the  Play button to play the story. You should see this:

If you click on the try talking to Grumpy Husband link, you get taken to this passage:

And if you click on the see what your Whiny Nephew is up to link, you get taken to this passage:

Congratulations — not only have you written your first twine interactive story, but you also now know enough to write basic “Choose Your Own Adventure” stories!

Separating link text from passage titles

With simple links in Twine, a link called [[link text]] links the text “link text” to a passage whose title is link text. If you’ve done wiki or Markdown links, you’re probably wondering if there’s a way to make links whose text is different from the title of the passage that it should link to.

Such a way exists, and the format is like this:

[[link text|name of passage to link to]]

For example, to link the text try talking to Grumpy Husband to a passage titled talk to owen, you would format the link like this:

[[try talking to Grumpy Husband|talk to owen]]

This format of link lets you link long passages of text to passages with shorter names that might be more meaningful to you as a story author. Let’s take advantage of these links by doing the following:

• Change the title of the try talking to Grumpy Husband passage to talk to owen.
• Change the title of the see what your Whiny Nephew is up to passage to talk to luke.
• Open the kitchen passage. You’ll see that Twine has changed the text in the links:

You could [[talk to owen]] or perhaps it might be better to [[talk to luke]].

• Edit the kitchen passage so that it looks like this:

You could [[try talking to Grumpy Husband|talk to owen]] or perhaps it might be better to [[see what your Whiny Nephew is up to|talk to luke]].

The storyboard should now look something like this:

Now that we’ve got a way to give passages short titles that are useful to the author and link to them with long strings of text that are meaningful to the reader, we can now craft our story.

Let’s make a story!

Now that you know the basic mechanics of working with Twine, let’s make a story.

An Aunt’s Story is based on Star Wars: A New Hope, a.k.a. Episode IV, a.k.a. the first film, and is told from Aunt Beru’s point of view.

In this interpretation of the story, Beru’s fed up with her life— she’s as a moisture farmer on a desert planet who’s married to a guy who seems never to be anything other than grumpy and stuck with a whiny nephew.

Your best way to get a feel for the game is to play it online. Go and try out all the options — there are only 9 passages in the story, so I shouldn’t take you too long to see them all.

1. Edit “kitchen”

We’ll start by setting the editing the starting passage, kitchen, to give it a more complete text:

<h1>An Aunt’s Story</h1>
Wiping away the last of the blue milk from the table, you realize that the chores are done. You sigh as once again, the men in the house have failed to help clean up and stuck you with all the work.

Perhaps it’s time to talk to them.

You could [[try talking to Grumpy Husband|talk to owen]] or perhaps it might be better [[to see what your Whiny Nephew is up to|talk to luke]].

Note that there’s an <h1> tag in the text. HTML tags work in Twine in the same way they work on web pages. Here’s how the passage will look:

2. Edit “talk to owen”

Change the text in the talk to owen passage to this:

Grumpy Husband did what he always does does after dinner: slouched into the living room sofa, flipped on the holoprojector, and put on the pod races. He’s mesmerized by the action, taking occasional sips from his beer. He’s halfway through the 12-pack as you enter.

“Don’t bother me, woman,” he slurs, his eyes not moving from the race.

Looking at him, it becomes clear to you that [[going ahead with your big plan to change everything|proceed with plan – owen]] is the right way to go. But there’s a part of you — the part that always tells you to “stay in your lane” — that tells you that sometimes he’s nice, that he’s a good provider, and hey, what other prospects do I have living on this rock? Maybe I should just [[accept things as they are|accept fate]].

Since this text includes links to passages that don’t yet exist, Twine automatically creates them: proceed with plan – owen and accept fate. The storyboard will look like this:

3. Edit “accept fate”

Edit the accept fate passage so that it has this text:

The movie continues as scripted, which is good for Whiny Nephew; not so good for you.

THE END.

Note that there are no links in accept fate. That’s because it’s one of the story endings. In a more fully-produced story, you might want to provide a link that allows the reader to start over from the beginning.

4. Edit “talk to luke”

Edit the talk to luke passage so that it has this text:

You walk into the garage, where Whiny Nephew spends what little time he has when he’s not helping Grumpy Husband on the farm, eking the scant moisture from Tattooine’s arid atmosphere.

He’s sitting at his tool table doing what he does best: moping and bellyaching. So what else is new? At least he has those droids to keep him busy.

Whiny Nephew turns to you. “Aunt Beru,” he says, “I think these droids are stolen.”

Oh, great, you think to yourself. That throws a wrench in my plans.

“I think you should report this,” says Whiny Nephew, who’s always been a bit too much of a goody two-shoes for his own good. You wonder if his dad was this much of a crybaby, and what his mom saw in the guy.

You could [[get the cops involved|call cops]], or simply [[proceed with your original plan|proceed with plan – luke]].

once again, you’ve provided text that includes links to passages that don’t yet exist, Twine automatically creates them: proceed with plan – luke and call cops. The storyboard will look like this:

At this point, you might want to drag the passages around so that it’s easier to follow and the arrows don’t overlap. Twine will preserve the connections between passages, so don’t feel leery about moving those boxes around.

Here’s how I rearranged the passages:

5. Edit “call cops”

This is one of the story’s endings. Edit this passage’s text so that it looks like this:

You slip into your room and quietly call up the local constabulary on your comlink. In a matter of minutes, a couple of nice friendly stormtroopers arrive.

The ’troopers put your Grumpy Husband and Whiny Nephew under arrest, slapping binders on their hands behind their backs. You allow a slight smirk to cross your face as they are led away, never to be seen again.

They put restraining bolts on the stolen droids. Now immobilized, it’s very easy for them to use laser cutters to slice into the R2 unit, from which they retrieve some kind of data tape (this movie was made the 1970s, so yes, data is stored on tapes).

“You’ve done a great service to the Empire, ma’am,” says the commanding officer. “There’s a 250,000-credit reward for these droids.”

“Oh dear,” are the last words you hear the protocol droid say before it and the now-headless R2 unit are taken away for scrap.

After all this fuss, it’s time for a nice vacation. With a quarter million credits in your account, you can go anywhere and do anything you like! Hours later, you’re flying first class to a place you’ve always wanted to visit: the lush, beautiful, fantastic vacation desination of Alderaan.

THE END.

6. Edit “proceed with plan – luke”

Edit the proceed with plan – luke passage so that it has this text:

“Don’t worry,” you reassure Whiny Nephew, giving him a gentle kiss on his forehead. “There aren’t my first stolen droids. I’ve got a bulk eraser in the closet, and we can wipe their memories clean tomorrow. I’ll also show you how to file off their serial numbers.”

Whiny Nephew looks at you with big bantha eyes and nods. You send him off to bed. The protocol droid shuts down for the night. That leaves the R2 unit.

[[Looking at the R2 unit, you get an idea|deal with R2]].

This text includes a links to passage that doesn’t yet exist, so Twine automatically creates it: deal with R2. The storyboard will look like this:

7. Edit “proceed with plan – owen”

Edit the proceed with plan – owen passage so that it has this text:

Your plan to deal with Grumpy Husband requires no witnesses. You need to get Whiny Nephew away from the house for a few hours tomorrow morning.

You get an idea. Later that night, after you’re sure that everyone has fallen asleep, you [[sneak into the garage to check up on the droids|deal with R2]].

Note that the link in this text is to a passage that already exists, so Twine simply makes the connection:

8. Edit “deal with R2”

Edit the proceed with plan – owen passage so that it has this text:

Looking at the R2 unit’s head, you see that it’s got some kind of data tape inserted into it. You press the “eject” button below its eye, and out pops the tape.

You recognize the tape’s case and markings not just as Imperial data storage, but highly secure Imperial data storage. This droid’s way too hot, but it gives you an idea.

You reinsert the tape back into the R2 unit, boot it up, and tell it that you know where to find the master it’s been beeping and booping about since its arrival.

“Of course your master is the crazy old hermit who lives on the far side of Beggar’s Canyon. EVERYBODY knows that old BEN Kenobi is OBI-WAN Kenobi. That has got to be the DUMBEST witness protection program name.”

You pull the restraining bolt from the R2 unit. It lets out a quiet “squeeee!” of delight, and wheels away. (Once outside of the camera’s field of vision, it pops little rockets out of its sides and FLIES to Beggar’s Canyon.)

Now it’s time to [[deal with Grumpy Husband|deal with owen]].

This text includes a links to passage that doesn’t yet exist, so Twine automatically creates it: deal with owen. The storyboard will look like this:

9. Edit “deal with owen”

This is the last passage in the story, and it’s also one of its endings. Edit the deal with owen passage so that it has this text:

In the morning, Whiny Nephew realizes that the R2 unit has broken free of its restraining bolt. He and the protocol droid hop into the landspeeder in the direction of Beggar’s Canyon.

With all witnesses out of the way, you take something from a hidden panel in the pantry and walk into the living room, where Grumpy Husband passed out last night. He slowly wakes as you walk in, staring dumbly at you, a single drop of spittle dangling from his lips.

“Owen,” you say as you level the blaster at him, “it’s over.”

One shot would’ve been sufficient, but you wanted to be sure. You fire repeatedly until the blaster becomes too hot to hold.

Hours later, you’re at Mos Eisley spaceport, flying off into a brand new life. You left a fake corpse beside Grumpy Husband’s ruins; Whiny Nephew’s not all the bright and will simply assume that you and Grumpy Husband were killed by itinerant Tuskens, meandering Jawas, or who-know-what-else.

Much later, you find out that Whiny Nephew made the news. He’s a terrorist now!

THE END

The storyboard will end up looking like this:

You now have a Twine story with 9 passages and 3 endings!

Publishing the story

When you have a complete story, you may want other people to play it. You do this by publishing it to a file.

To publish your story, go back to Twine’s home page by clicking on the  Home icon at the lower left-hand corner of the storyboard screen. You should see the icon for your story:

Click on the  Settings icon. This menu will appear:

Select Publish to File from the menu. You’ll be asked for a location to save the file to. The end result is a self-contained HTML file that you can load in your browser, or even publish on your site!

Want the source?

If you want the source file for this story, get it here, then use Twine’s Import From File command to load it.