The Conference Scrapbook: one of those things I always intend to find time for during a conference and rarely follow through on. I’ve been doing a better job at that for PyCon US 2025. I’m already enjoying the process, and I expect to appreciate the ability to look back on it in the future. If you’re an event organizer and have never kept a “scrapbook”, perhaps this post will encourage you to do so.

What do I mean by “scrapbook”? For me, this is not a physical scrapbook. Rather, it’s a document of some sort (usually starts as a note-to-self in my chat application) that will hold quotes, links, images, and anything else that might capture a moment of joy leading up to, during, and after a conference. The one I’m working on currently mostly consists of pull quotes from recap blog posts and some social media posts. These offer a window into the conference experience from your attendees’ points of view that you may not otherwise have the opportunity to see. (And this applies to everyone at a conference; every conference experience is unique, so those recap posts are worth reading regardless of your role.)

An important detail of how I approach this: there is no “finished product” here. I am not working toward a public post of my own. I don’t tend to care much what state my document ends up taking (though I try to get it to some form that lets me refer back to it in the future). My goal is to engage with the ways other people are experiencing events, from one-on-one conversations to social media posts and everything in between. If conference participants are going to take the time to share their experiences, I would like to give them the focus they deserve. The process is the purpose.

Why do this? And why write about it? My typical conference organizing experience takes place over many months (or longer). Other conference participants’ experiences will vary depending on their roles. Each of these will naturally have busy times and slow times. These experiences all converge at the event itself, which is often just a few days – far too short a time to meet, see, and talk with everyone. The stuff that goes into a scrapbook does not fully make up for that lack of time, but it sure helps. Conference organizing is a deeply fulfilling practice, and for me, much of that fulfillment is fueled by those personal interactions, anecdotes, and recaps. It is also often an exercise in delayed gratification. There can be high highs, low lows, and long periods of waiting before everyone’s work really comes together for the community to enjoy. Your conference scrapbook can be a valuable tool throughout that process to revisit past joys and cue up the future ones.

If this resonates with you, consider keeping a scrapbook of some sort for your events. And if you have a joyful story or conference recap, I would be thrilled to read or hear about it. And to the folks who already livepost, recap blog, and share their conference stories in other ways: thank you for doing so; it does not go unnoticed and is more important than you may realize.