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After NICAR, I wasn't really sure I ever wanted to go to any conferences ever again — the travel, the hassle, the expense... who needs it? But I am also apparently unable to moderate my extracurricular activities in any way, even after leaving a part-time teaching gig, so: I'm happy to announce that I'll be speaking at a couple of professional conferences this summer, albeit about very different topics.

First up, I'll be facilitating a session at SRCCON in Portland about designing humane news sites. This is something I've been thinking about for a while now, mostly with regards to bots and "conversational UI" fads, but also as the debate around ads has gotten louder, and the ads themselves have gotten worse (see also). I'm hoping to talk about the ways that we can build both individual interactives and content management systems so that we can minimize the amount of accidental harm that we do to our readers, and retain their trust.

My second talk will be at CascadiaFest in beautiful Semiahmoo, WA. I'll be speaking on how we've been using custom elements in production at the Times, and encouraging people to build their own. The speaker list at Cascadia is completely bonkers: I'll be sharing a stage with people who I've been following for years, including Rebecca Murphey, Nolan Lawson, and Marcy Sutton. It's a real honor to be included, and I've been nervously rewriting my slides ever since I got in.

Of course, by the end of the summer, I may never want to speak publicly again — I may burn my laptop in a viking funeral and move to Montana, where I can join our departing editor in some kind of backwoods hermit colony. But for right now, it feels a lot like the best parts of teaching (getting to show people cool stuff and inspire them to build more) without the worst parts (grading, the school administration).