Category → Meetups
Bootstrapping the Infrastructure Coders Meetup
Earlier this year, David Lutz and I were discussing the lack of an infrastructure as code meetup in Melbourne. We sat down and mapped out our vision for the meetup:
- Regular meetup - Monthly meetups, held in the second week of every month.
- Technology agnostic - No preference on tools. We want all conversations, from concept to implementation.
- Fresh, relevant content - Being techno-agnostic, this also keeps the content fresh so we had to ensure it is relevant to the meetup.
- Interesting venues - Bad venues can break a meetup. Ensure that the location is comfortable and central to the members.
- Minimal sponsorship - Sponsorship is great, but it doesn't mean editorial control. We will accept sponsors, however no sales or marketing talks.
Having established our vision, we needed to prove if Melbournites wanted such a meetup, so we created an Infrastructure Coders meetup and promoted it via Twitter. We had a great response, but it wasn't enough. We approached the organiser of Devops Melbourne for a short speaker slot to promote Infrastructure Coders and within a few days we doubled our members.
David and I soon realised we had reached critical mass, so we had a discussion around hosting the meetup. We required a hosting strategy that allowed the meetup to remain free for members; bootstrapping the meetup ourselves, we decided we would find a host for each meetup. The host would be an organisation in Melbourne that recognised the relevance of infrastructure as code, with the value being - we organise the meetup and speakers; they provide food, drinks and a space. Hosts are given a speaking spot, provided it is on topic and it is an opportunity to promote their company. We needed to test this concept, so I approached my employer to host the inaugural meetup.
The date was set, drinks were purchased and food was ordered. The first meetup was small and informal, so we took the opportunity for everyone to introduce themselves and what they wanted out of Infrastructure Coders. Afterwards we retired to the kitchen for dinner, where discussions on infrastructure as code continued.
We marked the meetup a success and David immediately organised the second host, 99designs.
So what did we learn from this experience?
- Have a vision - What is the goal of the meetup? Where do you want to take it?
- Know your audience - What does your audience want? What will they take away from your meetup?
- Validate your meetup - Create an online space where people can register their interest. We used Meetup.com (pricing available at their website), but other online event tools, such as Eventbrite would work too.
- Market your meetup - Twitter is a great way of getting the word out. Register an account for your meetup and decide on an hashtag. Go to other meetups and promote your meetup.
- Gather feedback - Feedback will allow the meetup to improve organically with your audience. We have had some great, our members really enjoyed going into workplaces of companies in Melbourne. This also allowed the employees of that organisation to stay back and listen to a few talks before heading home.
If you are interested in hosting Infrastructure Coders or starting a new meetup, please contact me.
Kanban and DevOps Roundtable (Video)
Ok so it's more of a semi-circle than a roundtable... I was at the first ever Kanban for DevOps class this past week in Sunnyvale, CA and after looking around the room I couldn't let these folks go without getting them on video:
- Luke Kanies (Puppet Labs)
- John Willis (Enstratus)
- Gene Kim (Author)
- Dominica DeGrandis (David J. Anderson & Associates)
Lucky for our readers, they didn't disappoint. We talk about why we think Kanban is an excellent tool for solving DevOps flow problems and our Kanban experiences thus far.
Here is the video:
Update: If you are in the Atlanta area, John Willis has started the Atlanta Limited WIP Society!
Kanban and DevOps Roundtable (Video)
Ok so it’s more of a semi-circle than a roundtable… I was at the first ever Kanban for DevOps class this past week in Sunnyvale, CA and after looking around the room I couldn’t let these folks go without getting them on video:
- Luke Kanies (Puppet Labs)
- John Willis (Enstratus)
- Gene Kim (Author)
- Dominica DeGrandis (David J. Anderson & Associates)
Lucky for our readers, they didn’t disappoint. We talk about why we think Kanban is an excellent tool for solving DevOps flow problems and our Kanban experiences thus far.
Here is the video:
Update: If you are in the Atlanta area, John Willis has started the Atlanta Limited WIP Society!
The post Kanban and DevOps Roundtable (Video) appeared first on dev2ops.
Kanban for DevOps Class and Meetup
I normally don't announce commercial classes... but this is a special case. On Thursday (3/22) and Friday (3/23) there is going to be a Kanban for DevOps class here in Silicon Valley (Sunnyvale, CA to be precise).
The class is being taught by Dominica Degrandis who has been following the DevOps movement for David J. Anderson and Associates (widely recognized as an authoritative source of Kanban knowledge and training... probably because they wrote the book).
;)
Kanban has been around for a while in the Dev world (and of course for decades in the manufacturing world). Recently, the idea of using Kanban to being Dev and Ops together under a common visualization of flow is picking up steam in the DevOps community. This is going to be the first class of its kind. In addition to Dominica's curriculum, I'm just as excited about the interaction with the other attendees (Gene Kim, Alex Honor, John Willis, etc.). The discount rate is $800 (use the code DEVOPSDELIVER). I have no financial stake in the class. I just think it will be well worth it. If you have questions please direct them towards Dominica at dominica@djaa.com.
But wait there is more....
On the evening of Thursday (3/22), we are going to be having a special eddition of the Silicon Valley DevOps Meetup. Most of the attendees from the Kanban for DevOps class are going to be there. Of course we'll talk a lot about DevOps and Kanban but Gene Kim is also going to be there to discuss the research (and perhaps do some live reading) from his new book "When IT Fails: The Novel". Like all SV DevOps Meetups, this is a free event (and rumor has it that Enstratus is springing for the pizza).
Kanban for DevOps Class and Meetup
I normally don’t announce commercial classes… but this is a special case. On Thursday (3/22) and Friday (3/23) there is going to be a Kanban for DevOps class here in Silicon Valley (Sunnyvale, CA to be precise).
The class is being taught by Dominica Degrandis who has been following the DevOps movement for David J. Anderson and Associates (widely recognized as an authoritative source of Kanban knowledge and training… probably because they wrote the book).
Kanban has been around for a while in the Dev world (and of course for decades in the manufacturing world). Recently, the idea of using Kanban to being Dev and Ops together under a common visualization of flow is picking up steam in the DevOps community. This is going to be the first class of its kind. In addition to Dominica’s curriculum, I’m just as excited about the interaction with the other attendees (Gene Kim, Alex Honor, John Willis, etc.). The discount rate is $800 (use the code DEVOPSDELIVER). I have no financial stake in the class. I just think it will be well worth it. If you have questions please direct them towards Dominica at dominica@djaa.com.
But wait there is more….
On the evening of Thursday (3/22), we are going to be having a special eddition of the Silicon Valley DevOps Meetup. Most of the attendees from the Kanban for DevOps class are going to be there. Of course we’ll talk a lot about DevOps and Kanban but Gene Kim is also going to be there to discuss the research (and perhaps do some live reading) from his new book “When IT Fails: The Novel”. Like all SV DevOps Meetups, this is a free event (and rumor has it that Enstratus is springing for the pizza).
The post Kanban for DevOps Class and Meetup appeared first on dev2ops.
Devops at REA – Enhancing the Culture
Last night I discussed "Devops at REA" at the Devops Melbourne meetup. It was a great turnout, with some great conversions afterwards.The next meetup is tentatively scheduled for January 2012 and I would really like to hear from smaller businesses and how they are practicing devops.
Devops at REA - Enhancing the Culture
You can view more of my presentations on SlideShare
DevOps Days Mountain View 2011: Escaping the DevOps Echo Chamber (Video)
"Escaping the DevOps Echo Chamber" panel at DevOps Days Mountain View 2011.
Gene Kim (Founder of Tripwire / Author of "Visible Ops")
Ernest Mueller (National Instruments)
Lee Thompson (Hewlett-Packard)
Tom Grant (Forrester Research)
John Christian (TSYS)
Jez Humble (Thoughtworks)
John Alioto (Microsoft)
Moderator: Damon Edwards (DTO Solutions)
See all videos from DevOps Days Mountain View 2011
DevOps Days Mountain View:
http://devopsdays.org/events/2011-mountainview/
Special thanks to LinkedIn for hosting DevOps Days Mountain View 2011.
Also, thank you to the sponsors:
AppDynamics DTO Solutions Google MaestroDev New Relic Nolio
O'Reilly Media PagerDuty Puppet Labs Reactor8 Splunk StreamStep
ThoughtWorks Usenix
DevOps Days Mountain View 2011: DevOps… Where is the QA? (Video)
"DevOps... Where is the QA?" panel at DevOps Days Mountain View 2011.
Stephen Nelson-Smith (Atalanta Systems)
Pascal-Louis Perez (Wealthfront)
John Allspaw (Etsy)
Greg Albrecht (Splunk)
Kwsik Guruswamy (Mu Dynamics/ Blitz.io)
Moderator: Kit Plummer (Maestrodev)
See all videos from DevOps Days Mountain View 2011
DevOps Days Mountain View:
http://devopsdays.org/events/2011-mountainview/
Special thanks to LinkedIn for hosting DevOps Days Mountain View 2011.
Also, thank you to the sponsors:
AppDynamics DTO Solutions Google MaestroDev New Relic Nolio
O'Reilly Media PagerDuty Puppet Labs Reactor8 Splunk StreamStep
ThoughtWorks Usenix
DevOps Days Mountain View 2011: Josh Timberman on Kanban and Services Work (Video)
Joshua Timberman (Opscode) gives a short talk at DevOps Days Mountain View 2011 on using Kanban to deliver professional services.
See all videos from DevOps Days Mountain View 2011
DevOps Days Mountain View:
http://devopsdays.org/events/2011-mountainview/
Special thanks to LinkedIn for hosting DevOps Days Mountain View 2011.
Also, thank you to the sponsors:
AppDynamics DTO Solutions Google MaestroDev New Relic Nolio
O'Reilly Media PagerDuty Puppet Labs Reactor8 Splunk StreamStep
ThoughtWorks Usenix
DevOps Days Mountain View 2011: Jason Cook on CDNs and avoiding caching problems (Video)
Jason Cook (Wikia/Fastly) give a short talk at Days Mountain View 2011 on caching and CDN issues.
See all videos from DevOps Days Mountain View 2011
DevOps Days Mountain View:
http://devopsdays.org/events/2011-mountainview/
Special thanks to LinkedIn for hosting DevOps Days Mountain View 2011.
Also, thank you to the sponsors:
AppDynamics DTO Solutions Google MaestroDev New Relic Nolio
O'Reilly Media PagerDuty Puppet Labs Reactor8 Splunk StreamStep
ThoughtWorks Usenix