Once[1] someone at a conference was attempting to convince me to attend Madison Ruby, and one of the reasons they gave for attending was “Steve Klabnik is speaking!!”

Little did they know, I get to hear Steve’s opinions on everything at basically every Pittsburgh Ruby Brigade meeting each month. Seriously, we’ve tried to have him NOT speak and it’s impossible. (<3 Steve!!!)

It was strange to me that someone saw Steve as this Ruby community celebrity while I see him as a personal friend, someone I run into and talk to about normal person things. I always logically knew that celebrities are real people too, but it’s easy to get star-struck and forget this. Talking to Steve as a peer helped give me the confidence to talk to other Ruby celebrities in the same way.

At conferences, one of the neat things is meeting in person the authors of blog posts, tutorials, books, libraries, and tools that you’ve used. It’s a great opportunity to let them know that you appreciate their work– they don’t hear that as often as they deserve to! But don’t let the conversation stop there– ask them what they think about the talks, ask what they’re working on now, and go from there.

In a related vein, don’t spend all your time at a conference tracking down the celebrities. Talk to anyone around you, because there’s a good chance that they may be the celebrities of tomorrow.

There are some careers, like NBA star, that people like me (at 5’4”) are never going to be able to attain. While there are still reasons like being in the right place at the right time that help people become well known, in the Ruby community it’s much more likely that if you learn, help people, and work hard that you will get to know enough people to be considered “well known” (if that’s what you want to do, of course). The current maintainer of bundler, Andre Arko, described on Ruby Rogues how he started by helping to answer questions, triaging tickets, offering patches, etc. Eventually he got commit access and is now one of the maintainers of an important Ruby tool. It could happen to you.

So get to know those around you, help each other, learn from each other. Treat everyone with the respect you would treat a celebrity, but don’t get star-struck. Be the celebrities you admire.

[1] This story actually happened to Andrew Cox, but we have a tradition of stealing his stories and telling them back to him.