[00:00:00] Coté, are you gifted socially?

[00:00:04] Well Uh, haven't we-- We've talked about this before, I think, right? I think, uh, I think, uh I think, I think I can turn on being gifted socially. How, how about, how about that? And it's just-- It's a, it's a very, very l-laborious process. Like, you know, in those, like, those, like, adventure movies where they, like, go into some ancient thing and they've gotta, like, dust off the cobwebs and then they find some, like, centuries-old mechanical device, and then the temple just, like, moves around and does stuff?

[00:00:42] I think, uh, I think it's a similar thing where I've gotta, I've gotta make sure that I've, I've, I've cranked the right, uh, things and aligned stuff, and then things happen.

[00:00:51] you, haven't done well socially in a while is what you're saying

[00:00:55] Well, you know, I, I, uh-- I, I'm also motivated by, by being, uh, what would you call it? I guess professionally respon- not only professionally, but, you know, you go through life in, in a professional context or, uh, you know, y-you dropping off the kids at school and you're like, "What I'm supposed to do now is talk."

[00:01:16] And, like, I've gotta, I've gotta be-- I need to, like, engage active listening and, and, like, figure out what's going on and ask, you know, and maybe ask some questions, listen. You always gotta ask the question that shows that you were listening to what they were saying, right?

[00:01:33] yeah.

[00:01:34] then, and then you've, you've got the thing on where, like, if they tell me something bad, I can't jump to right talking about myself when I had something bad happening.

[00:01:43] Instead, I've gotta kind of like stay on them and ask them to, like, express themselves. Like I'm, I'm like, a, you know, a leech on Henry VIII's leg kind of pulling out the bad humors or something, right? And on and on and on. Like I, I remember, uh, maybe, maybe when I was 16 to 20 or so, I found all the books I could about small talk and dynamics of, uh, conversation and relationships 'cause I was like, I gotta, uh...

[00:02:11] I mean, I knew how to program more or less at the time, and I was like, "Hey, I know how to read a programming book. Let me read these books." And then, uh, I don't know if it's really helped or hurt because

[00:02:20] Well,

[00:02:21] it's--

[00:02:21] now.

[00:02:22] Here I am. And, and,

[00:02:26] proves something. I don't know what.

[00:02:29] Yeah. It-- Yeah. It's, it's, uh, it's functional. I guess, I guess maybe another way to answer it is, um, uh, I feel like one only has...

[00:02:38] Do your whole-- The, the, the whole-- I rearranged your whole question to be like, how do you talk with people when you don't wanna talk with them? Because of course, when I wanna talk with people, it's fine, right? But the, the whole be social implies a certain like, you know, you're, you're in a situation where you, you are expected to engage instead of just being like, "Oh And then, you know, leaving

[00:03:04] that's, that's what-- I mean, I, I, I also have to turn on a piece of machinery that is, is, you know, it's well... Mine is well-oiled. It's not covered in cobwebs. But, but it's work. And

[00:03:16] Uh-huh.

[00:03:16] there's a point where I'm just out of fuel, and I do kind of like, "Okay, bye now. Thanks. I'm out," and I just disappear.

[00:03:22] Like, it's not... It's, it's where I have the most room for improvement, sure, for

[00:03:27] Oh, there you go

[00:03:29] place where I have room for improvement, and maybe you do, too, is when I see the same person around all the time, and at some point it becomes awkward how much I know their face and don't know anything about them.

[00:03:44] Mm, yeah

[00:03:45] in that awkwardness for a while before I, uh... I think it really takes them being shoved right next to me at a dinner or something before I finally

[00:03:54] Yeah

[00:03:55] "Hello." Yeah. Like, that's a situation I think I could identify and take control of sooner rather than later

[00:04:02] Yeah, yeah, that's true. That, that, that, that kind of... You know, when that, that arises, that, that usually works out fine 'cause you're just like... I, I guess, I guess I've learned later in life, uh, you can sort of... What would you call this? Is it, uh, is it the third wall or the fourth wall? I forget which wall it is where you, you break out of the story and you start talking about the story.

[00:04:21] But I think, I think you can kind of whichever wall it is, you br- you're, you're out and you're like, "Hey, we've never talked with each other. I see you ev- all the where, uh, everywhere. Isn't that weird? What's going on with that?" And then you can go back into the movie and, and things are, things are better.

[00:04:34] do you, see where I'm going with this though, Coté?

[00:04:37] Uh-huh, that's right

[00:04:39] Jason Yee. I, I'd like to welcome to the show our guest, Jason Yee, who Coté and Jason have been seeing each other around at conferences forever

[00:04:49] That's right.

[00:04:50] spoken before. So here

[00:04:52] we are

[00:04:53] situation unfolding before your very ears.

[00:04:57] Yeah. Yeah

[00:05:01] Welcome.

[00:05:02] I, I was...

[00:05:03] Oh.

[00:05:03] Oh, go, go ahead. Yes

[00:05:06] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:05:07] begins

[00:05:08] everyone, I'm, I'm Jason Yee. I'm a advocate at Datadog. I've been around and I do things and I speak and yeah, just don't speak to Coté.

[00:05:24] And, and vi- and vice versa, I guess. I, I, I was, I was, I was remembering, I mean, you, you come to, uh, Amster- or you have come to Amsterdam a lot for DevOpsDays and probably other reasons. And, and I think the last few times you've been here, you've had, like, very, like, uh, you've had, you've had fun, like, I've been here a lot talks, where you kinda go over, like, you know, you obviously have a, a comfort for, like, being in the situation and just talking about stuff here, which, which is nice.

[00:05:50] Like, I saw, uh, I saw a, um, a, a stand, an American stand up here once, and it does get... I don't know, this sounds like some kind of humble bragging, but, you know, I'm just talking. Like, it, it does get kind of tiresome to hear the same, like, cliches about Amsterdam over and over again. Like, you know, you can probably run through them, like bikes,

[00:06:10] Yeah

[00:06:11] et cetera.

[00:06:12] Bikes, marijuana, red light

[00:06:14] Yeah, yeah. But, but I, I, I rem- you know, in, in the, your commentary on it, it was just more like, "Hey, here's some stuff I think is interesting," right? It was, it was more, uh, more, more than just like, "Whoa, bikes are fast," and, and everything.

[00:06:28] A lot of that came from I was going to Amsterdam a lot for DevOpsDays and, and other events, and, uh, I was there so much that I started, uh, learning Dutch and just getting into, like, Dutch things, and I realized that lot of Dutch culture just kind of resonated with me. Um, and that somehow morphed into me speaking at DevOpsDays Amsterdam every year, giving Ignite talks, and they were always weird Dutch things from, like, an American perspective.

[00:06:57] Um,

[00:06:57] Mm.

[00:06:58] yeah, yeah

[00:06:59] that I would do

[00:07:01] Do you remember one, an example?

[00:07:04] Yeah. Uh, the two that I, I'm probably most proud of, one was, uh, called FaboOps, and in Amsterdam there's these, um, sort of like vending machine kiosky kind of restaurants, right? There's like a kitchen in the back, but you never talk to anybody. It's just like coin op, like

[00:07:23] Okay.

[00:07:23] holes. And so you, you just look around and you're like, "Oh, I want that random fried thing, and I don't know what's in it, but it's clearly fried, so it must be good." And you like put a euro in there, and it opens a door, and you grab the thing, and then a few minutes later you'll see a hand like pop in and like put another one there, right? Um, and I think my, my analogy for that was, was the notion of, at the time, thinking of DevOps and like the whole like self-serve concept this notion of like people were talking about, "Oh, it's all like platform engineering now."

[00:07:52] Like, so this means that like devs don't have to talk to ops anymore. There's just a platform in between them, and the devs put their coin in, and they get the fried thing out and, and that's it. Um, so that was one talk. The other one, uh, that I'm proud of is because I was learning Dutch, I wrote a Miffy book.

[00:08:13] Uh, Nijntje is her name in Dutch. It's a little rabbit cartoon character. Um, and so I basically wrote a kids book that's, uh, Nijntje Does DevOps, and it was in Dutch, and my Ignite was reading this book, uh, in my really, really bad Dutch. Uh,

[00:08:29] Brave

[00:08:30] don't go watch the video. If you're not Dutch, feel free, and think it's amazing.

[00:08:35] That's, that's the best time for an American to try to speak Dutch because there's no one there to stop you and start speaking English to you. You can just, like, you can just keep going and going and going, and they w- they w- no one will halt you. Yeah. I, you know, I, thinking of your... I, I, I, I must have seen those, I don't know, maybe, maybe not.

[00:08:52] But, like, the Febo one, that's a good... I- You could extend the joke and be like, 'cause nowadays, as I'm sure you've seen, you don't, you don't have to use coins. You go up and, of course, just tap your phone and, uh, use it. So it's like, so we decided we'd add platform engineering to Febo, so now you can pay with your card.

[00:09:08] It's same exact sit- situation and, uh, everything. But yeah, it is, uh... Yeah, those are called, um, auto diners or something. Remember they used to have those in, like, the '40s and the '50s and all those black-and-white pictures? I don't know if they have those anymore, but

[00:09:24] I, I think you being, like you sharing your like imperfect touch touches on something that I like about DevOpsDays, and that is I think that vulnerability is encouraged at DevOpsDays in a way it's not at other conferences. With Ignite talks, with, for those who don't know, they're five minutes long, 30 second long slides, and they auto-advance.

[00:09:45] Is that, I remembering that correctly? 15 seconds? Okay

[00:09:49] you've got 20 slides and you have zero control. They just go

[00:09:54] And then there's the, the part of DevOpsDays everyone has, is it called the Unconference? The, the part, yeah. Open spaces

[00:10:03] it's basically that, you know, for a good half the day, the content is whatever you make of it, right? Uh, so there's usually an opening and someone will explain the rules, and the rules are really basic. It is a thing that you wanna talk about and meet with other people that wanna talk about that.

[00:10:22] And if you feel that it's not interesting to you, uh, feel free to get up and leave and find something that's interesting to you and basically, like, go interact and learn from each other and, you know, you control your own destiny

[00:10:38] And you, a global DevOpsDays organizer, is that correct? And you've been a long, like a part of DevOpsDays since the beginning. So yeah, was this vulnerability designed into the conference?

[00:10:52] I don't know that vulnerability it specifically was. I think the, the idea behind DevOpsDays really was this notion that DevOps started, nobody knew what the hell they were doing, right? We were all kind of

[00:11:05] Mm-hmm.

[00:11:05] up as we, as we

[00:11:06] Unlike now, where we all are very certain.

[00:11:09] We clearly know what we're doing with this AI stuff. Let me ask Claude, uh, if I know what I'm doing. Yeah. But the, the conference itself, like I think that that, that sort of vulnerability, while not intentionally called out, was, was baked in from this notion that we're, we're... We don't know what we're doing. We're trying to learn from each other and figure out, you know, if you're doing something better than I am, I, I wanna learn from you.

[00:11:35] Or if I'm doing something and you give me the feedback that that's great and you wanna adopt it, then clearly I'm on the right track. Um, and so it, I think it's, it's mostly less about vulnerability and more about just being part of community, right? And, and inter-interacting with people. Um, yeah. And so I've been involved in that for a little over 10 years now.

[00:11:57] Um, started when I was unemployed and I had free time, and they needed some technical help doing like web stuff, so I was doing a lot of like just backend technical stuff. Uh, helped run the DevOpsDays, uh, event in Portland, all of the DevOpsDays conferences are run by local teams, and then there's a global core team that sort of oversees things.

[00:12:21] We, we serve as the team that gives direction for the conferences and provides advice and support, um, and things like that. Um, and then above the core team, there's three co-chairs. Um, and so co-chairs are basically the final escalation point. If something can't be decided by the core team, um, or if the core team needs a little bit of shepherding to go in a certain way, then that's what the co-chairs exist for. But largely all of the decisions, all of the, the leadership happens at the core team level. The co-chairs are largely just, you know, there just in case, uh, provide a little bit of leadership.

[00:12:59] The way you framed it, it sounds like the global team is there in case something goes wrong, or are you more proactive than that?

[00:13:07] Yeah. Uh, a little of both.

[00:13:10] Mm-hmm.

[00:13:11] uh, you know, the, the reactive side is we definitely hear code of conduct issues, um, especially when that involves somebody external to the organization and a local team. So if an organizer of DevOpsDays something, you know, that's really off, someone complains, that get, gets escalated to us. Um, we do try to be more proactive, and the proactive stuff largely revolves around, um, as we think about the future of DevOps and, and these series of conferences. And so we are largely thinking about, you know, are, are tough now. Um, there was a

[00:13:49] Mm-hmm.

[00:13:49] DevOps was hot and people were throwing money at you. Now it's harder, right? Um, DevOps has become pretty mainstream and, and so there's a question of like, how do conferences run if they can't get enough money? Um, you know, so there's, there's things like that where we're trying to figure out solutions and, and help guide all these, these regional local teams, um, and provide advice and hopefully we're, we're doing a good job in, in helping those conferences run.

[00:14:14] What, what do you do money-wise actually when, DevOps isn't... Well, it's, we'll say it's mature instead of uncool, 'cause people have kind of figured it out

[00:14:27] Yeah. Um, in terms of money, and, and I would say this is across the board at, at almost all technical conferences, uh, except for I guess AI, 'cause AI is hot. Um, money is... Money's tough, right? Um, we've, we've moved past the world where companies just throw money and don't really care about the results.

[00:14:47] They're, they're just... They know that they show up to a place and will see them, and that's a good thing. Um, and now, now as things have matured, they're like, "We need metrics. We, we have KPIs that we need to go against, and so is my dollar or euro or whatever currency worth the value of what I'm getting back?" Um, and so it's sort of twofold. For any conference organizers out there, I think a lot of it comes down to, you know, being mindful of your budget and having a

[00:15:16] Uh-huh.

[00:15:17] which a lot of organizers didn't have for a long time 'cause you could just show up and get money. Now it very much is like you need to know what you're spending money on, and you need to make those, those hard calls. Um, and with DevOpsDays, you know, the history was pretty scrappy, and so we're trying to revert back to that, right?

[00:15:36] it's so interesting because it's, uh, it's so much of... When I think of DevOpsDays, it's really like human to human connection, like community conference, like scrappy. And so to think like you have companies on both sides. You have companies that you need to sponsor and you need to demonstrate to them your sponsorship provides value. And then you have companies that are actually, um, paying for their employees to go and giving them the time off to go and making sure they see value in the investment from that side. how do you, how do you show the value of the investment from the, um, letting your employees go to the conference side or encouraging your employees to go?

[00:16:17] yeah.

[00:16:18] that one's, that one's interesting. Um, we, generally, or at least most of the, the local teams don't have the, the typical like here's a trip report template, which you see at a lot of like really big corporate conferences. Um,

[00:16:33] Ah.

[00:16:33] but I think the value is in a lot of those open spaces, uh,

[00:16:37] Yeah

[00:16:38] you know, you, you get the value that you bring to the table, right?

[00:16:42] Um, if you leave a DevOps days and you're like, "I didn't learn anything," kind of on you, right? Like, well, why

[00:16:49] Mm-hmm.

[00:16:50] propose the open space on the topic you wanted? Or why didn't you leave the open space that wasn't giving you value and go to the one that, that did?

[00:16:58] You know, my, my, my theory over the years has been the, there probably are other ones, but, but in, in our, in our part of the world, like DevOpsDays is the only conference, or only is, it's, it's the conference that on the chart that has the most regionalness and the most qualityness if, if you will, right? And so the regional thing I think an- answers, answers what you're asking, Whitney, where there are, uh, there's so many DevOpsDays in so many cities that a lot of the attendees are just like from where it is.

[00:17:32] So there's not like a huge... You, you know, obviously you're not going to work on that day or days, but it's, it's kind of like if you don't have to actually pay the employee for travel and they're just taking some days off, then it's not really that big of a deal. Now, there are people like, you know, for, for bigger ones like the Amsterdam one and, and London and other things, people will come from out of town.

[00:17:53] But I think that's, that's like one of the things, especially when I was, uh, when people would ask me my opinion about what we should sponsor, I, I would, I would emphasize, you know, we've got, we've got big customers everywhere in all these cities and like, we know that they don't come to our giant annual conference, I mean, all of them.

[00:18:11] Whereas like if we, if we just spend, I don't know what it is now, but used to be able to sponsor for, uh, like $5,000 for two days at a booth, done, right? Like to go to like a huge, a huge place. Like a good, a good ca- case study, a good example would be, um, uh, am I gonna get the... Yeah, like in, uh, Des Moines, right?

[00:18:30] Uh, Iowa, insurance capital of the world, except Switzerland, I guess. But like you, you've got like three major, uh, like enterprises there that, that sell insurance, like Principal and I think Caterpillar's there too, like, and like no one ever has a conference there. But if you have-- they ha- they have a DevOpsDays there every now and then, and so like, I don't know, 800 people who are in your market show up and it only costs you $5,000 plus travel and expenses for the two or three people who went there.

[00:18:58] But on, I don't know, on, on, on that angle, it seems like, uh, seems like a good deal if, if, if you're in the, uh, the, the, the right region there. But you know, and, and, and given all that, I wonder, uh, like do you think-- How if, if, if all of a sudden, so you know, if you're working at your present employer and they're like, "Love what you've been doing, but what we want you to do now is you're gonna run event sponsorship."

[00:19:24] And like, what, what do you think, uh, what do you think you would do? What would you bring to that, that, that was different? Other than, you know, like you kind of-- There, there's always a thing of like as you were, as we were alluding to, event planners are sometimes a little too metrics-focused instead of like being there is important.

[00:19:42] Which is-- It's difficult to quantify, but there is any-anyone who's like been in a commercial situation, and they're like, "Why aren't they buying our product instead of us- in, in, in, instead of using that open source thing that they're using?" Like they've experienced the effect of this. But I don't know, what would you do differently?

[00:20:00] What would you bring to, to, to that situation that you don't necessarily see event sponsor people and event people doing?

[00:20:08] That's a really great question. I mean, the challenge that I see a lot of current sponsors doing is their, their metric is leads, right? And DevOpsDays, one of our fundamental core rules is we do not distribute, uh, attendee information. Um, and so there are-- aren't like QR codes on badges. There's nothing to scan. If you want somebody's contact info, you have to collect it yourself. And so often that's like a sponsor will do right? They'll bring some cool gadget or toy or whatever and be like, "Don't you want the thing? Fill out your info in this form on my iPad or on your phone or whatever." And

[00:20:51] it's, it's, uh, le- leads for Lego is, is usually the

[00:20:55] Yeah, yeah.

[00:20:57] Yeah exactly.

[00:20:57] And then on, you know, you asked me, like, if I was running events, then, you know, the conundrum is always like, "Oh, what's the hot Lego that I've gotta get?" Right? Like, I don't know what that is. Like, if I had kids, they'd tell me,

[00:21:12] The question is if you, uh, if you're at an organization and you get to choose what, what conferences to sponsor, how do you choose? And maybe less about which Legos are cool, although it's certainly relevant to your job

[00:21:23] thing, you know, back to I think what, what Coté was actually asking was maybe it's not leads, right? And maybe it's not what conference will get me the most leads. It's what conference and what audience will, will actually deliver what I want, and that is people using my product. Um,

[00:21:42] Mm-hmm.

[00:21:42] and to that end, you know, a lot of what I did early on for Datadog as an advocate was not at all about Datadog. Uh, and sometimes it wasn't even truly about monitoring, 'cause I think everybody, like, knows that they need observability, they need to know how things are working. And so a lot of what I was doing early on was teaching people just like the fundamentals of building good systems and building good applications. Um, and that naturally led to then like, well, how, how do you know it's good? Well, it

[00:22:14] Hmm

[00:22:15] what you measure. And I think for, the, the sponsors that we're looking at, the, the ones that have been really successful with DevOpsDays have understood that, that it's not about the leads. It's like, how can we get out to a place and teach people about how to do a thing? And then naturally, if I've got a good product, like built a thing that helps you do that, and you land on that. And so oftentimes what I see the successful folks doing is if there's workshops available, they will sponsor, but largely they're more interested in the workshop, um, and teaching you about a thing, um, and, and how to do it.

[00:22:55] Uh, and so that has been far more successful than the like, let's give away Legos and, and get a bunch of random people who probably don't care. They just wanted the Lego. Now they've got like a group of people that are like, "Oh, that actually... I was so interested that I sat there for two hours. I learned about this problem, I learned how to solve it, and I got into your tool." Um, and they see the value of it now, right?

[00:23:18] Yeah, I, I think, I think, you know, the, the, the workshops are interesting. Uh, it, it, it seems like I don't have a lot of first-hand experience working with like do- doing a-- working with a broad swath of event people, but it seems like overlooking workshops is something that happens frequently. Like the, uh, it's, it's a good, it's good on all fronts, right?

[00:23:40] Usually, you know, uh, depending on the conference, it's, it could be completely free or you pay some sponsorship to do it, and the attendees get like, I don't know, let's say three to even five hours, depending on the conference, of just like learning something. And then you as the... I suppose one could have a workshop with no commercial interest, which would be delightful.

[00:24:01] But you know, you as the person who wants people to use your product, you're like doing-- you're having like the fourth meeting in, in, in a series of like getting someone to use your, your product. And it does seem like I d- I d- do-- It seems like that would be a high-value thing, uh, to, to sponsor and do, uh, at, at, at most conferences.

[00:24:21] I don't know. They usually seem full, so, so maybe there is that kind of realization for things.

[00:24:27] Yeah. I think the challenge for, for most people, and, and maybe it comes back to the, the, uh, foundational philo- philosophy of DevOps, right? Of bringing groups together and teams together, is that often marketing is the one that's sponsoring, and they don't have that resource. There, there is

[00:24:44] Hmm.

[00:24:44] on their team that they can tap and be like, "Hey, run this workshop." Right? They're like, got a marketing guy that'll write copy and sell the product to you, I don't have anyone that can actually, like... That is an engineer that can talk to you on

[00:24:59] Right. The, as, as you, that I can tell to go to the workshop. Right, right. Yeah, yeah. As, you know, I, it's, it's an ironic DevOps problem is like, well, just the, the organization structure is the problem. Like, like we, we have all the capability we need in the organization to do it. We just, uh, you know, people are in the wrong offices.

[00:25:19] That's, that's the, that's the situation. Yeah.

[00:25:22] So DevOpsDays Portland, you're an organizer for that, and it's coming right up September 8, 9, 10. But,

[00:25:30] so 8th is when we've got workshops and, uh, for folks who are in the Pacific Northwest, you should come to DevOpsDays Portland. Also plan to come the 8th because Whitney is gonna be leading a workshop,

[00:25:43] Uh-huh

[00:25:44] am.

[00:25:44] wanna stay for that. And then obviously the main conference where Whitney is also giving a talk on the 9th, so you should also

[00:25:51] trying to h- promote your thing, but you've just promoted me. But I, I guess, so DevOpsDays Portland, amazing, amazing speakers I hear. But besides that, I was curious, it seems like you haven't had a DevOpsDays in Portland since like 2021 or something. Is that correct?

[00:26:09] Yeah.

[00:26:10] Why did you decide like now's the time to bring it back?

[00:26:13] now's the time. Uh,

[00:26:15] Yeah.

[00:26:16] decide. Um, so a, a few folks who have been around, um, Josh Berkus, uh, who works for Red Hat and is involved in a lot of open source stuff, and Ben Ford, who used to work at Puppet and now runs his own thing, um, and some other folks got together and they were like, "Hey, we haven't run one of these in a while." Um, they weren't on the, the team that ran it last, but they were like, "This thing should get revived." And then a couple of us who were on the team were like, "Yeah, it's been a while. We should do that." Um, so we, we decided that we were gonna do it. Um, we had a little bit of money left over from previous DevOpsDays, so we kind of had a little bit of the financial funds to, to restart things.

[00:26:59] Um, Yeah.

[00:27:01] So no one said why. They were just like, "It should happen. I'm willing to put in the work." There were enough people.

[00:27:06] This will be fun.

[00:27:08] Yeah, I'm sure it is fun.

[00:27:10] mean, I think that is the, the why, right? Is, is it's community connection, and it was fun, and we just haven't had that. Um,

[00:27:19] Yeah

[00:27:20] it was-- We did it virtually twice. We did it online, and that was okay, but it wasn't quite the same. Um, but you know, people move on and, and they get busy, so

[00:27:33] And back to up top, like whether we're good at being social or whether, um, like it's easier-- We said it's easier if it's someone you like, but it's also easier if it, if there's a topic you're passionate about. So like, if there is-- Like if you're sitting down at the, um, oh, I keep wanting to call it an open space, uh, then you're like, "Oh, this is a real problem I'm having.

[00:27:54] I can't wait. I'm so animated and talking about it, and I'm genuinely asking you all the questions about how you're doing it, and I'm not doing the thing in my head where I'm thinking of the social rules I have to follow to be a normal human. I'm just talking because I'm excited." Um, I think that's-- Getting to have that experience as an adult is, is invaluable. Yeah.

[00:28:15] It is. I, I think, you know, a lot of us are, are sort of that, you know, no- I don't think anybody's fully a, an introvert or, or an extrovert, right? We're all

[00:28:25] Mm-hmm.

[00:28:25] the middle. so there is that notion that people, even if you consider yourself an extrovert, like you need a little bit of a push, uh, with other people, especially people that you may not know. so this is one of those things, and

[00:28:42] What, what do you tell people who are like, "Oh, I don't know anything, so the... And there are gonna be all these technical conversations around me, and that's intimidating, so actually I don't wanna go 'cause it's scary"? Do you get that?

[00:28:58] Not really, to be honest. I

[00:28:59] How,

[00:29:00] most of the

[00:29:00] how do you create safety? Y- yeah

[00:29:04] Um, you know, I would say that, like, if you don't know anything, like you, you recognize the need to learn, and this is a great opportunity to learn, right? So that's

[00:29:14] Yeah

[00:29:15] one. You know, I think the safety thing is, is recognizing that we're all trying to figure things out, and we're all in various stages of these things.

[00:29:25] Um, and so the people that generally come to DevOpsDays because they know that they're willing... They're, they're predisposed to want to share their knowledge with you. Um, it reminds me of a meme that, that people have of, um, and I've seen it pop up a few times.

[00:29:42] There's always the clickbaity thing of like, "10 things scientists don't want you to know," or whatever, and you talk to any scientist and they're like, "That's bullshit." Like, you, you give them the subject that they're into, and they will your ear off for hours. They want you to know the thing more than you actually want to know it. Um, and I feel like it's the same with, with a lot of technical people, right? you someone talking about the latest random technical thing that they did, and they will dive deep on like how crazy it was and how much of a challenge, just 'cause they, they solved it, right? And they're, they're proud of that and

[00:30:19] I think seeing people being risky and vulnerable with Ignite talks sets the tone for people to, to be more vulnerable in the open spaces. And then my experience with open spaces too is everyone is very kind. Like, there's no one being like, "Oh, that was a bad idea," or, "I can't believe you said that," or any-- There's no disparagement.

[00:30:38] Everyone's like, "Oh," you know, rooting for each other and helping. It's nice. Yeah

[00:30:43] So where, where I,

[00:30:44] again, and I,

[00:30:46] Mm-hmm.

[00:30:47] chime in with that 'cause a lot of people are super intimidated by that format, uh,

[00:30:52] Yeah. Myself included.

[00:30:54] cons... Yeah, yeah. There's-- It's auto-advancing and you're like, "Oh, what if I get off track?" Or, "What if I forget what I was gonna talk about and the slides just keep going?"

[00:31:02] And the, the thing that I always remind people too is, like, people go to see good talks, and of that, they are rooting for you. They want you to give a good talk. They're, they're all behind you and supporting you. Even if you flub, like, they want you to do well. Nobody's thinking like, "Oh, that speaker is horrible," like, "We should have brought out the cane and, like, yanked him off stage," like that hook. Um, yeah, so definitely, like, if you're interested in giving a talk at a local conference, there's probably a DevOpsDays near you. They probably need Ignite talks.

[00:31:38] Yeah, there, there's, there's always, uh, because people are afraid to submit to them. So they're always, uh, the, the-- lots of them are open. And, you know, I, I don't really remember, um, I'm gonna s- uh, may-maybe you remember when at some point, like this, uh, this kindness angle or human angle, like inserted itself into DevOps and has managed to persist.

[00:32:00] I always have to think what year it is. Like, I don't know, let's say over 16 years. Like, like almost, right? And then, you know, very, uh, maybe not quickly 'cause I don't remember the timeline, but it just became part of what, what DevOps was. So much so, I think that when, uh, I, I don't know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be a little un-unkind here, but when platform engineering came on, it was almost like, "Oh, we got the, the human soul part taken care of with DevOps.

[00:32:27] Let's talk about this other stuff," right? It was just like, "Let's bring this in here," and then we got the human thing. And in contrast, like as we're talking about this, I'm thinking like, I don't think they really have that in like the AI world. There's probably not like AI open space, and let's have a talk about like, um, I don't know, conquering your social fears.

[00:32:46] Like, you know, there's always like one or two talks at a DevOpsDay of just like, "Hey, everything's cool, man. Calm down." Like, and, uh, so like how, w- uh, be-be-be-between like, you know, the old, uh, the old, uh, uh, that velocity talk about Flickr and then like, I don't know now, like where did all this human stuff get injected in?

[00:33:09] And like, how has it managed to persist for so long?

[00:33:13] That's a great question. I don't know that I could pinpoint exactly the, where that came from. Um,

[00:33:20] I mean, it must have been like several years in because early on a lot of DevOpsDays stuff was like Chef and Puppet pretty much, and then, you know, and then also like, well, and then we got to name check CFEngine and like these other things. Uh, but like, but then at some point there was just like this pretty hard turn into like blameless postmortems and maybe that was the first thing and then it just kind of like went off from there into lots of burnout talks, all sorts of things like that.

[00:33:46] And it is, I, I don't know. It's, it's odd. Odd and not in a bad way, but that doesn't really show up in other tech subcultures so much.

[00:33:58] I think, you know, if I were to, to give a guess at pinpointing it, I would probably say... probably blame John Allspaw. Um, and, and so John Allspaw, I think actually was the person that gave the talk that you were referring to about... And then the gist

[00:34:16] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes

[00:34:18] like, 10 deploys a day

[00:34:20] That's right. With, with the guy whose name no one can remember

[00:34:23] yeah, one deploy a month. And, and John, like, started getting into safety science and, um, uh, re- like resilience and reliability engineering and stuff, ended up, uh... I guess there's a program, like a, a master's or doctorate program out of the University of Lund in Sweden that studies things like air crashes and, like, you know, all, all sorts of, like, other safety areas where people are actually dying. And he went and, like, did this whole thing and then ended up learning about, like, how industries view safety and failure and, you know, reliability. And re- at least he was the first person that I know that I heard mention this notion that, like, nobody goes to work trying to blow up systems, right?

[00:35:16] Everyone goes in thinking they're gonna have a great day. gonna new code. They're gonna make things amazing. Uh, and, and that's the foundation. Like, we all go to work to do a good job. And so when things fail, you have to ask, like, what information did somebody have that caused them to make those decisions?"

[00:35:36] 'Cause they clearly weren't making the decision of, like, "I'm gonna blow everything up, push the button, and, and do it." They were thinking, "I'm gonna do something amazing," and they pushed the button and it did the exact opposite. So, like, why did they think that? Um, so I'd probably blame John for, for a lot of that.

[00:35:55] I wonder

[00:35:55] in a good

[00:35:56] too if, if, people who are attracted to systems are just, um... I, I think we're just certain type of person, who's, who's tends to be more, be more sensitive or, you know, a certain kind of neurospicy as they say. Where, so Jason and I are on the same team at Datadog and, and we're, uh, advocates and we are involved in conferences and, and technical storytelling and at, we, uh, Datadog has a big conference every year called Dash, and there's always an after party after Dash.

[00:36:34] And it's like the marketing people are there, the salespeople are there, like, and then like the, like we're... Not a lot of engineers are there, but we're there. And our little group just gets as far away from the speakers and into the corner, and we're just all talking about how like this is oppressive and it smells weird and like everyone's like, like talking too loud and not like, but also not loud enough 'cause we can't hear them over the music.

[00:36:58] Like, I, I just feel like we, we, like in that moment we are a different species of human maybe we like we're, we're extra in tune with our feelings. So being able to acknowledge that within ourselves and w- within each other helps us to do our best work. What do you think of that? It's quite a tangent.

[00:37:18] That, wow, yeah. That kind of took a, uh, a turn there. Uh, the, the p- the after party is the employee after party.

[00:37:27] Yes. Yes

[00:37:29] it's, it's an interesting thing, right? Because it's all of the people who worked at the conference, and

[00:37:35] Mm-hmm.

[00:37:36] it ends up being, yeah, marketing folks or, um, a lot of product folks, uh, and a

[00:37:42] Product folks, not... Yeah

[00:37:45] Not so many engineers because engineers are back in the office, like, working on, know, writing code and, and shipping things. And so, uh, yeah. I think... I don't know. Your perspective is probably very different than mine. Mine is just I am flat out exhausted.

[00:38:06] Yeah,

[00:38:07] my, typical play for this party is, like, I go and I figure out what's the best whiskey that I can get, and then I

[00:38:13] Uh-huh.

[00:38:13] chill and hang out, and I really don't talk.

[00:38:16] Like, people will wanna talk with me, and I just kind of do the conversational jujitsu of, like, "You do all the talking, and I will just sit here and listen to you."

[00:38:30] Uh, w- okay, but so do you disagree that, um, that we're, we're different, like engineers or at least systems engineers? Like, uh, basically I was trying to make a connection between DevOpsDays having such a human aspect to it, or in general DevOps, like we like to talk about our feelings and make sure everyone feels safe and seen, um, which I think is wonderful. And whether that's related to, um, the type of person we are that draws us to this type of work

[00:39:01] Oh I honestly don't know. I mean,

[00:39:06] Yeah

[00:39:07] I could see that it's a valid point. Um,

[00:39:09] Well, I think, I think, I think there's, there's, uh, there, there's, you know, a c- a connection you're making of there is, uh... If, if, if, if to use your word, Whitney, right? Like, if, if you like systems and then you're operating in this, this DevOpsy world system where

[00:39:25] Uh-huh

[00:39:25] doing, uh, uh, you know, you're diagnosing why things went wrong, trying to keep them up, right?

[00:39:30] Like the, you know, we're, we're not-- I shouldn't say we, I'm one of those marketing people nowadays. But like, you know, DevOps people aren't dealing with like lives being lost usually, just systems going down. But still, it's the same thing. You, you want to, uh, prevent failure. And then if, if you accept the idea that humans are part of the system just as much as like some weird piece of software or some storage array, then you start to widen out to like, "Oh, I need to pay attention to the s- the human's role in this system."

[00:40:00] And so you do have like that, that interesting system angle for it. And, uh, you know, I don't think-- I think, uh, this is not a very scientific way of diagnosing it, but I think th- the, the fact that there is so much like navel-gazing about system thinking is indicative that not many people do systems thinking, right?

[00:40:20] Like, you, you wouldn't have to like, you know, everyone's got like the, that one book by that professor who tragically died before it became famous, uh, like I forget what her name is. And, you know, there's all these things of like, "Here's systems thinking." And you can see like when people-- you can spot, like you can clock like a system person 'cause they'll be like, "Have, have you read the book, 'Thinking in Systems?'"

[00:40:41] And then, you know, they wanna tell you about the good news that they found, uh, you know, in their hotel drawer. And, um, like it is like there is-- I, I think you're, you're onto something, that there's a, there's a small set of people who like systems stuff, and they aren't necessarily like very engaging in random chaos of an after party, right?

[00:41:02] Uh, you know, that's, it, it-- that's, that's the, that's a good, uh, a, a, a good, a good social tool I learned late in life is you can always ask people about themselves and then just nod.

[00:41:14] okay, I would argue you've, you've presented, Coté, like a lot of rules that you, a system you have developed in your own mind about how to interact with people,

[00:41:23] Mm-hmm

[00:41:24] know? I think, um, the systems people also are applying systems to all, all kinds of their lives. I know I am. I have mental models for everything, and the sooner I can identify a pattern and, like, get it out of my brain, the better.

[00:41:37] Right, right, right

[00:41:38] And I definitely have systems for interacting with

[00:41:40] Like you could, you could probably ask people how do you load a dishwasher? And you could figure out how much of a systems person they are or not. And, and then, you know, you could kind of challenge them about like, "Hmm, well, what about this?" You know? "Uh,

[00:41:53] Yeah

[00:41:54] have you, have you considered that if you put the knives face up, sure, it's not gonna wear down the knives, but you're gonna cut your skin.

[00:42:00] Like what are you, what are you going for here?"

[00:42:04] here for your dishwasher loading system? I have a dishwasher loading

[00:42:08] and, and in fact, I think, I think there have been a couple of DevOps talks about laundry ops, maybe even dishwasher ops.

[00:42:16] What does it say if you load the dishwasher different every single time?

[00:42:21] Oh, that says you're my kids, I think is

[00:42:23] 'Cause that's my wife, uh, and, and so I also wonder that, like,

[00:42:28] Well, you know, this is,

[00:42:29] way versus the other way?

[00:42:31] this is, this is a great topic that I think about a lot because, you know, we have the kids doing the, the dishes, and it's just, there is-- I don't know what they're thinking. And, and, and I think to be charitable, to be DevOpsy about it, every time I, every time I-- I think every time I see it, the thought that I, I try to land on is, well, they haven't spent a lot of time learning how to do this or caring how to do it, so they don't put a lot of mindfulness into it.

[00:42:59] And maybe

[00:43:00] Hmm.

[00:43:00] we should have an Open Spaces about how to load a dishwasher and make a nice little safe space, and we could just talk about dishwasher loading. But I, I think, uh, yeah.

[00:43:10] and walk away 'cause they don't have to be a part of something they're not interested in

[00:43:14] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:43:15] rule.

[00:43:17] Yeah. Yeah. So that, you know, always a good question. How do you-- What-- Uh, you know, I think, I think, I-- We've tried this a few times. We, we used to ask what-- if we open people's Tupperware drawer or, or their c- whatever you wanna call it nowadays, what it would look like. And that kind of so- works sometimes.

[00:43:30] But I think the, uh, I think the one, uh, I think we've only asked this w-with one person, which is like, if you open a dishwasher, and this sounds like this happens to you a lot, Jason, you open the dishwasher, and if you see that it's loaded incorrectly, what do you do?

[00:43:45] Oh, yeah. I definitely reload it. Uh, but it's mostly like when I'm doing that, and the reason why is like if I'm opening it, I'm putting something in. If there's not enough space, I'm always like, "No, no,

[00:43:59] Mm-hmm.

[00:43:59] can rearrange this and get more space and like cram things in."

[00:44:03] Yeah. Yeah

[00:44:04] is what you're not supposed to do, along with like not like pre-rinsing your dishes and stuff.

[00:44:09] They're like, all the dishwasher makers apparently tell you that you should put things in like dirty, just make sure there's no giant pieces of food, yeah, don't, don't cram them together. Whereas I'm just like, "Pack it all in there." Like

[00:44:24] You want to batch a huge job of it together

[00:44:26] Yeah

[00:44:27] Have you been reading dishwasher manuals? How are you so up to speed on this topic?

[00:44:33] It comes up in like random Instagram feeds. I don't know. I don't know what the algorithm is thinking

[00:44:42] We've really touched on something big 

[00:44:44] here, I think.

[00:44:45] You know, may- maybe, maybe, uh, maybe it's probably, uh, especially not only living in Portland, but probably all, most all of the world that you ha- If you're a human, you have an affinity for dishes, and, you know, it just, it would come up, uh, and, and I'm surprised we don't see more, more ads. What... You know, speaking of, so what, uh, what, what, what does one do in Portland?

[00:45:05] Like, what, what's, what's up with it nowadays? Like, do you, uh... D- Is it, is it kinda like the same thing, same way people would view Portland? You can go out and have some nice coffee, like relax, or, or is it... Or, or what? Like, what's the character of it nowadays? What do people do there?

[00:45:21] Relatedly, did the show Portlandia change Portland?

[00:45:26] Oh, these are, these are really good questions. Um, Portland largely in my view is, is pretty much the same, I would say. Like, I don't know, it's definitely not the war zone that, uh, a lot of conservative media makes out to be. Um, it has its issues, but overall it's still pretty vibrant. There's of good restaurants, lots of great coffee. Um, it is still very quirky. Um, when I first moved to Portlandia, I actually ran into Fred Armisen,

[00:45:59] Yeah

[00:46:01] And he was, like, he was, like, getting ready to film a bit. Uh, there's, like, a bit that he has that's like this Portland cyclist where he's got these, like, earplugs, the big, like, gauges in his ears.

[00:46:13] Uh-huh.

[00:46:13] I remember I was, like, walking on this street and I'm like, guy looks familiar.

[00:46:19] I know him from somewhere." And I passed, and then it, it just, it like, it finally dawned on me. I'm like, "Oh, that's, like, an actor." Also, those, those ears are fake. They're, like, prosthetic earlobes. Like, it was so bizarre. Um, but since I thought that I... It was just, like, a random guy that I knew that I couldn't place, I just, like, gave him that, like, "Hey, how's it going?"

[00:46:40] Like, head nod thing, and he did the same thing back. So clearly we were friends, we just didn't know how, um, 'cause we were at conferences together, always at the other end of the table, just like Coté.

[00:46:52] But something was wrong with their ears

[00:46:59] Yes. So what draws you to conference organizing, Jason? Why do you wanna do it at all?

[00:47:05] I'm, a masochist, I guess. Um, I don't know why. Um, for context, uh, and maybe why, why Whitney's asking this is because, uh, within advocacy, Whitney has the fun job of going-- like writing cool talks and fun talks and going and traveling and speaking. And I have managed to find this niche job where I work with Datadog customers, I talk with them about the technical work that they're doing, and then I help them write talks, and I put them on stage at Datadog events and other events. So I don't actually speak a whole lot anymore. Um, the only times I speak is if something has gone wrong for one of our conferences and, like, we need a backfill, then I, I jump on stage and I try to give some sort of talk, uh, to fill the, fill the space. Um, Yeah.

[00:48:01] how do you, how do you get, how do you get people to, uh, to, to do a talk? 'Cause I find it very, you know... I, I see all these people, I'm like, "You should give a talk 'cause you got something interesting to say," and they're like, "No." And, and like it s- it sounds like you're doing a lot of, uh, dooleying of just like getting people through the process, like getting them to talk.

[00:48:22] Like, I mean, I know, yeah, so, so what's, uh, what's your secret? How does it work? What's the playbook?

[00:48:28] I mean, the secret is getting people to realize that the work that they do is interesting and that people can learn from it. And it, it's always the thing that, like, job that you're doing day in and day out is not interesting to you. I mean, it's interesting enough that, like, you do it as a job and you're, you probably like your job.

[00:48:48] Hopefully, for those listening, hopefully you like your job. Um, but when you're that close, it doesn't seem like you're doing anything groundbreaking

[00:48:58] about

[00:48:59] yeah, worth talking about. And so for me, it's always a thing of, of getting people to realize that your unique situations are different. And so, you know, the thing that you're, you think is boring is only boring because you see it every day. But for somebody on the outside looking in, um, even if they've maybe solved that challenge before, the constraints have been different, and so your solution is different. Uh, and that's something that they can then react to and that they can learn from. Um, and

[00:49:31] And

[00:49:32] just having that is, uh, usually enough for them to be like, "Oh, okay, well then I'm willing to share my story." And then it's just the hard work of, like, building the talk and everything else.

[00:49:43] There's some vulnerability there too, I think there's like we've, we built a thing that we know works for us, but we don't know what's gonna work for others, and I don't know that I'm using it in the right way or a weird way or like if things could be better. And if I share my way, then, uh, you know, I'm inviting critique of my way. Yeah.

[00:50:01] I mean, and

[00:50:02] Again

[00:50:02] in the job too, right? Occasionally I talk to people and they're doing a thing and you're like, "Objectively, that is an awful way to do things. You shouldn't be doing that." Um, and, you know, I can't tell them that directly, but like since I do run these conferences for Datadog, it is very much like, cool.

[00:50:21] I'm glad that you solved this problem. Um, we'll see if it fits into our program." And then ultimately like, "Sorry we didn't have space for you. It didn't align with, with what we, what we wanted on stage." Um, know, it's, it's a letdown. Uh, for a lot of those folks though, I do try to keep in touch and, you know, as they mature, as they keep doing like different projects, you know, it's always changing and so the next thing that they could-- that they're doing or the next evolution of what they're building might be amazing.

[00:50:49] Um, and they might have other things to share.

[00:50:53] So what, what's your sense over the years to go, to go really, uh, in- insider-y here of like how do you manage the amount of like prep work that, that people you're helping speak want to or don't wanna do? Like, m- I don't know. What... Like, what's the default? What's too much? What's too little? What, what happens there?

[00:51:13] Yeah, my default has become to do a whole lot more. Um, I would, I would say like the early days when we first started, uh, Datadog's Dash Conference, didn't do a whole lot of hand-holding. Um, we just found a lot of really good speakers who would go super technical, and they would... They just were fantastic.

[00:51:33] Um, recently, as we've started talking with more engineers and, you know, it's the case, I think everybody listening has experienced this, that you're doing far more work these days. Um, and I don't know if it's just like the speed of technology and everything's faster, so you're expected to, to do more. Um, definitely with AI, you're expected to do a whole lot more. And so everyone's super busy. And so my job has gone from, gonna just do the coaching of it," to a lot of it is I am ghostwriting a lot of these. Um, and I've realized that a lot of that is like people have the, what we call the blank page problem, right? If I were to tell you like, "Cool, we've talked about your work.

[00:52:20] Here's what you should talk about. Now give me a, a session description and an outline," you would have no idea where to start. You're just staring at that blank page and like, "What do I type?" of what I do ends up being doing that for them, writing up a draft session description, writing out an outline, and pitching that to them, being like, "Even if this is garbage and you don't wanna do this and pitch it out, you've at least now reacted and you're like, 'I don't like that. Here's what I wanna do instead.'" Right?

[00:52:49] Mm-hmm.

[00:52:49] if they do like it, they're like, "Yes, this, but change these things." Like, "Cool. It's your talk. You change as much as you want. Um, but now you have a head start. You've got that momentum."

[00:52:58] And I imagine the more status they have or the more responsibility have, they have the, the less time they're able to spend on this thing, this thing that's very important to you. Their talk is not necess- not the most important thing to them. you're managing that disparity

[00:53:16] Yeah. Yeah, especially I also help, um, Datadog product and engineering folks, and so definitely have worked with directors, VPs, even wrote talks for our executives, and it very much is the higher up you go, the less time you have, uh, and the more opinionated you are. So makes

[00:53:34] I think what's, what's very interesting to me is that your team is, is, is it officially called the storytelling team? You're in charge of a storytelling team within...

[00:53:44] it technical storytelling

[00:53:47] What does that-- Does your job title have technical storyteller in it?

[00:53:52] Uh, it technically doesn't. I mean, I guess

[00:53:55] Does,

[00:53:56] it, right? Like, it's

[00:53:57] is there s- such a team or an equivalent at other places? 'Cause I'd never heard of a storytelling team before I was at Datadog, no

[00:54:06] Uh, as far as I know, I'm the only, like, only, uh, group or team within any of tech that I know of that, that actually does this as, like, an official thing. Usually it's, it's kind of spread out. Like, I know some advocacy or evangelism teams do it, but it's kind of, you know, only lightly and it's largely spread through the whole team. Uh

[00:54:34] And surely other orgs have like, you're, you're talking about writing talks for people within Datadog, like speech writing teams and that sort of thing. Where does that usu- usually sit?

[00:54:46] I would say it's not that common, and then

[00:54:49] Okay

[00:54:50] marketing. Like product marketing tends to

[00:54:53] Mm-hmm.

[00:54:54] for, for other organizations. But

[00:54:58] For sure

[00:54:58] that we, we do it differently at Datadog is product marketing just has a different end goal, and that largely influences what they're writing and how they're writing it.

[00:55:09] And not to say that that's bad, right? Uh, definitely like you need people that are out there craft the message to sell the product. Um, it is ultimately different, uh, depending on the audience and how they receive it.

[00:55:23] And, and how does Datadog do that differently?

[00:55:26] Yeah. So Datadog, again, like I'm doing a lot of that. Um, we still do have product marketing folks and

[00:55:33] Mm-hmm.

[00:55:34] uh, contribute their share as well. Um, so working on the product keynotes for our summits, summit events. Um, and those are largely around like, you know, the products that we've released and highlighting those. Um, usually what I try to do, especially when I'm working with our, our very senior leaders, is try to get them to talk less about the products. 'Cause anyone can do that, right? Anybody

[00:56:01] Uh-huh

[00:56:01] Datadog can talk about Datadog products. reason that people wanna see a leader on stage is to get their perspective, to, you know, hear what they're

[00:56:11] Hot takes

[00:56:12] Yeah. Um, or cool takes or, you know, just takes in general. Like,

[00:56:18] Just a take.

[00:56:19] it's a take. Give me a take. Uh,

[00:56:24] I'll take what I can get.

[00:56:26] right? Like, I

[00:56:27] Absolutely

[00:56:27] way that people listen to this podcast is like listening not really for me, the guest. I'm, I'm kind of... I, I view myself in a way sort of as like I'm fodder or like something for, for Coté and Whitney to react to.

[00:56:43] Uh, like you are the, the,

[00:56:45] Oh, don't sell yourself short now.

[00:56:47] right? I mean,

[00:56:49] yeah, that's ab-

[00:56:52] largely, like, you know, there's a reason why you have the, the cold intros that you do and like you have these personalities and people wanna hear your take on things. And then secondarily, like you get cool, interesting guests and so that gives you like topics to discuss and, and new perspectives.

[00:57:10] Um, and I, I feel like it's, it's the same with, with a lot of the speakers that I work with. Um, to them to understand like similar to the question before, right? About like do you convince people to get on stage. It's less about their work, it's more about what they're thinking about.

[00:57:27] Do the speakers you work with, do they, um, do they see your help as a gift or do they see you as a nag?

[00:57:38] Both. I try, I try very, very hard not to be a nag. but we do have... Uh, we, we as in like Datadog and the events that we run, and then me personally, like I hold myself to a very, very high quality bar. Um, I just always have. And, and so With that, I want the speakers that I work with to always be good, uh, to be the best that they can be. And that inevitably means, like, having a timetable and ensuring that things get delivered. Um, and, and yeah, so sometimes it can be nagging them. And I, I get it, they're busy, and so that's why I try to help as much as I can. Um, I, I constantly have to remind our speakers to, like, use me as a resource.

[00:58:33] Like, that's the other challenge that they have is, like, they have a story, they wanna tell it, don't have time, but they don't wanna be a burden on me either. And I have to remind them that,

[00:58:46] Ah.

[00:58:46] that's what I'm there for. Like, I am here for offload anything you can, everything that you can to me. I'm here to make your life easy so that when you get on stage, like, you are amazing. Um, yeah.

[00:59:02] So not, this is, okay. Coté likes to regularly ask about Tupperware, as he said. He said we, but it's, it's all him. I've never asked anyone about their Tupperware ever in my life. I like to ask people, I like to ask people for a failure story. when have, when have you seen in your organizing, Datadog or otherwise, probably otherwise, uh, someone you've helped or yourself just, like, fail or fail and recover?

[00:59:31] Ooh That's a really good question

[00:59:44] Maybe they've only failed. There's no recovery

[00:59:48] I don't, I, I don't know. I'm trying to think of one, especially like with organizing, um- Organizing is interesting in that, like conferences, they're gonna happen no matter what. And so generally I haven't had Haven't had any, like, major failures, Like,

[01:00:11] Yeah

[01:00:11] that's, that's always the thing when you're organizing a conference, like it's happening and ready or not, like it's something's gonna go. Um, and, and so like for me, the, the question is whether attendees come away with it with like good feelings, whether speakers are, are happy with what they've done. I would say Thinking about You know, we did have one of the DevOpsDays Portland, uh, conferences early on when we were in person, so pre-pandemic It was a, it was a failure that nobody actually saw, but basically we had a speaker that, like, did not show up. Um, and they, they ended up showing up, but like missed their time. And, and so that one like, you know, again, the conference is gonna happen, so what do you do? And we ended up like talking with a- another speaker and just shifted them up.

[01:01:15] And then

[01:01:16] Mm-hmm.

[01:01:17] that was supposed to be on showed up late, it was just like, "Cool, you're up next." Um,

[01:01:22] Go, go, go

[01:01:23] it like, yeah, it just kind of... It, it went, um-

[01:01:27] I, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm guessing for you, a certain type of failure is freaking out too much, right? Like, wheth- whether someone's putting together a talk and they're just, like, worried about it and they're stressing out, or you're even at a conference and a speaker doesn't show up, it's kinda like, well, I mean, it's happening.

[01:01:44] Like,

[01:01:44] Yeah

[01:01:45] no, need to like, you know, blow your head over it. Like, of course you wanna try to fix it and stuff, but like it's... Tomorrow the sun will rise. It'll be fine. Like, and, uh, you know, uh, you know, the, the, you can build out a system where, uh, where, uh, things are, are kinda chill like that. Or, and/or you also just kinda decide that it's fine.

[01:02:05] Like, you don't, you don't need to, uh, freak about it so much and, and worry about things

[01:02:10] I, I

[01:02:11] It

[01:02:11] a, a saying with events that there's, like, always a hitch. There's always, like, one thing that's gonna go horribly wrong. And w- I, I guess I, I would tell myself that, uh, just as the preparation of like, yeah, don't freak out. Like, hey, like, things exploded. Okay, well, like, something was bound to break and, and fail, so this is our thing. We knew something was coming, like, let's just deal with it. Um, yeah.

[01:02:38] Well, I bet this year at, uh, DevOpsDays Portland nothing will go wrong, right? And nothing probably has gone wrong.

[01:02:44] in every way.

[01:02:47] And, and so, uh, whe- when, when is it again? Where, where can people go look that up?

[01:02:52] Yeah, so if you go to devopsdays.org, uh, it's got the list of all DevOpsDays around the world. So if you're listening and you're not in Portland, you can find a DevOpsDays near you. Uh, if you are somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, uh, you can find Portland on that page. Click

[01:03:08] And the map

[01:03:10] Yeah, and, uh, we're September 8th through 10th, so the 8th is gonna be a half day of workshops.

[01:03:16] They start in the afternoon, and then the 9th and the 10th are full days. We've got talks in the morning and open spaces in the afternoon.

[01:03:24] Well, great. Well, thanks for being on. It, it was, it was, it was fun talking through all this stuff. It's, it's always nice to, uh, uh, I don't know, see how other people operate in, in the undocumented world of running conferences, getting people to talk, and, uh, I don't know, figuring out DevOps, things like that.

[01:03:41] How about, how about yourself? Do you have a, a, a homepage on the World Wide Web or anywhere where you would point people?

[01:03:49] I really don't. Uh, I gave up social media back. I mean, I'm, I'm on the things, but I don't use it too much. Uh, I'm on LinkedIn and you see me and engaging, it's usually because, like, I'm hiring or I'm helping somebody else hire. And so, um, yeah. I guess, uh, maybe my, my thing to follow or do is to log off of social media. go, don't go look for me. Like, in that time, go touch grass, get outside, get some fresh air

[01:04:24] There you go. Well, hopefully, hopefully people who are, some people who are listening are getting fresh air as, as they, they wander around, entertain themselves, and, uh, you know, if not, it's, it's often available free of charge out there. And, uh, you know, also things that are free of charge, this podcast, which is, uh, Software Defined Interviews.

[01:04:43] We'll put some links... Well, it sounds like not links to very many things, maybe a LinkedIn profile, but definitely to DevOpsDays Portland, uh, over, over there in the show notes at, uh, softwaredefinedinterviews.com/126, and, uh, you should check out the other interviews there. Lots of stuff going on. And with that, we'll see everyone next time.

[01:05:02] Bye-bye.