AI Prompt: From Meetups to Mega‑Conferences

Stop Planning Developer Events Like Corporate Retreats

It's re:Invent season, and I thought I'd dive into some of my observations, AI prompts, and best practices for events. Most developer events fail because marketers plan them like sales conferences. They book flashy venues, hire motivational speakers, and wonder why developers don't show up or engage.

Developers aren't impressed by your keynote about "digital transformation." They want to solve real problems, learn practical skills, and connect with peers who understand their daily struggles. Your event succeeds when it delivers tangible value, not when it delivers branded stress balls.

The Four Pillars of Developer Event Success

Chapter 8 of "Picks & Shovels" establishes that successful developer events rest on four foundational principles:

Authenticity over showmanship. Developers smell marketing BS from across the room. They'll walk out of your "workshop" if it's actually a product demo. Focus on education and problem-solving, not lead generation theatrics. As I write throughout my book: Be Helpful.

Community over campaigns. One-off events generate one-off results. Chapter 7 of "Picks & Shovels" explains how your credibility comes from long-term engagement, not isolated marketing pushes. Think continuity, not conquest.

Substance over swag. Your attendees want actionable knowledge they can use Monday morning. Great content beats great catering every time. But also: don't skimp on the food. Developers always love food. At Twitter, we once had a hanging pizza station (pizza hanging from paper clips) in New York. It's a lot cooler than it sounds, trust me. It generated a TON of social media engagement. At Supabase, recently, we had Supabase icon-shaped lollipops. Insanely cool (and tasty!)

Listening over lecturing. Treat events as feedback collection opportunities. The conversations happening in hallways matter more than the presentations happening on stage.

The AI-Powered Event Planning System

Instead of starting with logistics, start with strategy. Chapter 3 of "Picks & Shovels" ("You Are What You Measure") emphasizes defining success metrics at the project's outset. This AI prompt forces you to define success before you book a single venue or print a single t-shirt.

The Prompt

You are a developer event strategist with 15 years of experience planning technical conferences, hackathons, and developer meetups. Your expertise includes understanding developer psychology, community building, and measuring event ROI based on the frameworks outlined in "Picks & Shovels: Marketing to Developers During the AI Gold Rush."

Based on the inputs I provide, create a comprehensive event strategy that prioritizes authenticity and education over marketing theatrics, following the principles established in Chapter 8 ("Developer Events").

REQUIRED INPUTS:
- Primary business objective (brand awareness, product adoption, community growth, user retention, feedback collection)
- Target developer personas with specifics: programming languages, experience levels (junior/senior), company sizes, geographic regions (refer to Chapter 2 frameworks for persona development)
- Budget range and internal resource allocation
- Preferred event format and scale (20-person workshop, 200-person conference, virtual summit, hybrid event)
- Timeline constraints and planning lead time available
- Core product or technology themes to highlight
- Existing community assets (email lists, Slack/Discord channels, social media following)
- Success metrics and measurement capabilities (following Chapter 3 measurement principles)

STRATEGIC OUTPUTS REQUIRED:
1. **Event Positioning Statement** - One sentence describing what attendees will achieve
2. **Agenda Architecture** - Session types, timing, and speaker criteria that serve the audience first (using Chapter 5 content development guidelines)
3. **Venue and Format Recommendations** - Specific venue types and hybrid/virtual considerations
4. **Pre-Event Community Building** - 6-week nurture sequence to build anticipation and gather input (applying Chapter 7 community building strategies)
5. **On-Site Experience Design** - Interactive elements, networking facilitation, and feedback collection methods
6. **Post-Event Engagement Plan** - Follow-up sequence that converts attendees into community members
7. **Success Measurement Framework** - Specific KPIs with tracking methods and benchmarks (Chapter 3 methodology)
8. **Budget Allocation Strategy** - Spending priorities that maximize educational value
9. **Content Distribution Plan** - How recorded sessions and materials extend event value
10. **Risk Mitigation Checklist** - Common failure points and prevention strategies

INTEGRATION REQUIREMENTS:
- Align event planning with the Developer Launch Checklist (Appendix 1 of "Picks & Shovels")
- Ensure events support broader product-led growth strategies (Chapter 4)
- Design feedback collection mechanisms that inform product development
- Plan content that can be repurposed across multiple marketing channels

CONSTRAINTS:
- Prioritize educational value over promotional content
- Design for authentic peer-to-peer learning
- Include mechanisms for bidirectional feedback
- Ensure content remains useful after the event
- Plan for community continuity beyond the event

TONE: Direct, practical, and focused on measurable outcomes. Avoid marketing jargon and corporate speak.

Using the Prompt Effectively

Before running this prompt, gather these critical inputs from across your organization. Chapter 18 of "Picks & Shovels" provides detailed frameworks for this stakeholder research:

Stakeholder alignment sessions. Interview product, sales, and engineering teams to understand their event expectations. Misaligned internal expectations kill more events than bad venues. I literally just made this mistake last week. We're all always learning, and sometimes re-learning.

Customer research deep dive. Survey existing customers about their event preferences, learning goals, and format preferences. Don't guess what developers want. Chapter 2 outlines specific research methodologies for understanding developer personas.

Historical event analysis. If you've run developer events before, analyze attendance patterns, engagement metrics, and post-event survey results using the measurement frameworks from Chapter 3. Learn from your failures. For conferences I run, I try and capture the date people apply to attend, the date they actually register, the time they show up and scan their ticket, and, if possible, any sessions they attend. I use LLMs to identify patterns and that informs my outreach for subsequent events. I have also been tracking no-show rates across cities + weather combinations for over a decade now, and that also helps me predict attendance.

Competitive landscape review. Research successful events in your space. What formats work? Which speakers draw crowds? What content themes resonate? If you can, try to attend a few events and take copious notes and pictures. If anyone on your team, engineering, marketing, anywhere, attends a trade show of any kind (even if it's a legal show or an HR show), ask them to take pictures and notes. The best marketers steal the best ideas from anywhere.

Resource reality check. Be honest about your team's bandwidth and budget constraints. Overpromising leads to underdelivering. I just spent an event season working until 2am every night for 4 weeks, and turning around and starting the next day at 6am. I probably should have scaled back my events ambitions, but in the end it was worth it. Be aware of your limitations.

Why This Approach Works

The prompt forces strategic thinking before tactical execution, following the systematic approach outlined throughout "Picks & Shovels." It demands specific inputs that prevent generic, ineffective events. It prioritizes educational value over marketing messaging. Most importantly, it treats events as community-building investments, not lead-generation expenses.

The developer community remembers authentic experiences. Chapter 7 of "Picks & Shovels" explains how authentic engagement builds long-term credibility. Developers recommend genuinely helpful events to colleagues. They return year after year when you deliver consistent value. They become advocates for your product because you've demonstrated respect for their time and intelligence.

The measurement framework prevents vanity metrics. Instead of celebrating registration numbers, you'll track meaningful engagement and long-term community growth using the methodologies detailed in Chapter 3. You'll know whether your event actually advanced your business objectives.

The follow-up plan captures momentum. Most events end with a thank-you email and very little follow-up. This system converts event attendance into ongoing community participation and product engagement, supporting the community-building strategies outlined in Chapter 7.

The Bigger Picture

Events represent just one component of comprehensive developer marketing strategy. Chapter 8 of "Picks & Shovels" shows how successful developer-focused companies integrate events with content marketing (Chapter 5), community building (Chapter 7), product-led growth (Chapter 20), and strategic partnerships (Chapter 22).

The book's Developer Launch Checklist (Appendix 1) coordinates events with product releases, while Chapters 3 and 6 provide frameworks for measuring cross-channel attribution and community growth. You'll learn how events amplify other marketing efforts and how other efforts amplify event impact.

Because in today's AI Gold Rush, the companies that win developer mindshare don't just build great products. They build great relationships. And as "Picks & Shovels" demonstrates, great relationships start with great events that actually serve the people you're trying to reach.

Order Picks and Shovels today!