Leave out a piece of information and humans will want to…?

It’s been more than a decade since I met Neil Mansilla and you’re still thinking about how I didn’t finish that first sentence, aren’t you?

We really like to complete things. And developers are even more that way. Not only are they humans, but it’s also their job to solve problems.

API management company Mashery used to roll into developer events with really fun puzzles for the solving. Neil Mansilla and his co-worker Jason Cormier crafted API scavenger hunts that attracted dozens of devs to their booth after the conference was already over.

Since I associate these with Neil, I’ve started calling them Puzzillas from Mansilla. I think it’s catchy. Jason might prefer Games-to-Play from Cormier.

But it’s Neil who I hopped on a call with recently to talk through his experience with this event engagement strategy and how he would implement something similar today.

And because I was thinking about you at the time, I’ve published my notes.

Read it and see how you can implement these ideas at conferences or within your content.