Internal conference this week at Grainger, and I’m presenting two lightning talks. Excited to see my team again, but traveling is hard (especially without the family).
Two separate Kanban talks: an overview and one focused on two different styles of boards (time versus project based).
Recently attended the 2023 DataDog DASH conference, and it was a lot of fun. This was the first in-person multi-day conference for me in a while (I did crash the PowerBI SQLSaturday Atlanta conference back in February, but attended no sessions and mostly just went to see friends). I had a blast; the conference space was amazing, and the content was thought-provoking. Here’s my key takeaways.:
I’ve been a manager for over 10 years now, and I’ve struggled to convince upper management to send multiple key individuals to conferences. Thankfully, my director at Grainger is a big believer in education, and not only did he encourage me to send a team, but he also wanted to come as well. It was awesome to have feedback on topics both upstream and downstream. I had team members with a variety of experiences (junior, mid, and senior), and they raised some insightful questions. We split up often, so I still managed to make some new networking contacts but it was good to come back together and discuss new ideas.
Sometimes being on the production side of the development pipeline you get the feeling that the world is burning and there’s absolutely nothing you can do to save it. While we were at the conference, my slack channels were screaming about several ongoing issues that my team was having to deal with. At times, it’s overwhelming.
But talking to folks at the conference from companies in all types of verticals from health care to automotive to financial to manufacturing, we’re all dealing with the same issues. Changing enterprise systems is hard, and modern development methods often accelerate faster than production systems can respond. Additionally, systems that have been in place for years have often grown connections to other systems in unexpected ways; things break, and they break fast. Observability systems offer hope, but we shouldn’t feel like we’re the only ones struggling with implementing that vision.
Artificial Intelligence and Large Language Models are here. DataDog offers some compelling use cases to accelerate MTTx (Mean Time to Detect, Acknowledge, Respond, Repair, Resolve), but it will take some time to get the plumbing set up for it to provide value. Additionally, users have to be trained on how to do their jobs with a co-pilot. They have to trust the system, and know when to dive deeper than the initial responses. They have to know how to phrase questions in such a way to help the assistant understand them, and they have to understand what the assistant is suggesting. That’s going to take time.
AZURE DATAFEST
I’ve been meaning to write this post since we wrapped up the event, but life, as usual, gets in the way. Overall, I was very pleased with the whole event; things (for the most part) ran very smoothly. However, in the spirit of continuous learning, here’s a few lessons (in no particular order) for anyone considering hosting an Azure DataFest in the future.
We used Sessionize and EventBrite to handle speaker submissions, schedule building, and attendee management. Both tools worked great, but both are a little pricey (Sessionize charges $250 for the event, and EventBrite added a $3.54 fee to every ticket sold). The benefit is that it was very easy to generate a professional looking schedule, review abstracts, and manage attendees (from fee collection to attendance rosters). The one downside is that the tools don’t integrate (no way to easily export speakers into Eventbrite), and we really need a central website for people to hit rather than each individual tool. I also had a small issue where some attendee badges didn’t print; that was probably user error.
Still a lot of work to do, but this is the initial draft of the schedule. There were a lot of tough choices, but we’ve managed to pack some great content into a couple of days.
If you’re interested in joining us, now’s the time to sign up! More details to follow, but please check out the schedule below.
As I’ve mentioned on twitter (what, you don’t follow me?), I’ve been involved with a new conference that’s focusing on the Microsoft Data Platform – Azure DataFest. It’s still very much in the works, but there’ have been a few events around the country so far, and we’re bringing one to Atlanta in August (as well as working on a national standardized presence). If you want to help build a community of data professionals that are passionate about the next generation of analytics and data science, please feel free a topic. Text for the CFP is below, but the actual call for speakers is here: https://sessionize.com/atlanta-2018-azure-datafest-microsoft.
More details to come (after I get through Atlanta SQLSaturday).
This is a call for speakers for the inaugural Atlanta Azure DataFest: Microsoft Azure Advance Analytics and Big Data Conference, a 2-day event to be held on August 16-17, 2018, 9:00AM to 5:00PM at the Microsoft Technology Center, 8000 Avalon Boulevard Suite 900, Alpharetta, GA 30009.
We are looking for 10-12 speakers to present on the following Azure Advanced Analytics and Big Data topics:
Planned Schedule (Thursday, August 16)
We plan on delivering a keynote, and three sessions to the at-large audience, then breaking into tracks after lunch.
8:00AM – 9:00AM – check-in/breakfast/networking
9:00AM – 9:50AM – Key Note, Room # All/Combined
10:00AM -10:50AM – Session 1 Room # All/Combined
11:00AM -11:50AM – Session 2 Room # All/Combined
12:00PM – 12:50PM – Partner/Sponsor Lunch and Learn – Room # All/Combined
1:15PM – 2:15PM Breakout sessions
2:30PM – 3:30PM Breakout sessions
3:45PM – 4:45PM Breakout sessions
Sessions should be 1 hour in duration, level 300 or higher. You can use best practices, case studies, demos, chalk talks, etc.
Planned Schedule (Friday, August 17)
The second day is intended to build on the first day with workshops, allowing attendees to have hands-on experiences with the applications.
8:00AM – 9:00AM – check-in/breakfast/networking
9:00AM – 11:50AM Workshops
12:00PM – 12:50PM – Lunch – Networking
1:00PM – 3:50PM Workshops
Workshop sessions should be 3 hours in length, and relate to material covered in the sessions on day one. If you would like to submit a workshop session, please ALSO submit a single-hour session for the first day.
The session submission deadline is Friday, July 13, 2018. We will announce the speaker list and alternates on Monday, July 16, 2018.
If you have questions, please contact stuart.ainsworth@azuredatafest.com
I’ve recently gotten involved with Azure Data Fest, a new tech conference focused on the cloud version of the Microsoft Data Platform. The second event is being held in Boston on March 1, 2018. They’re actively looking for community speakers, and their call ends on February 9th.
Sessions should cover one of more of the following:
Azure Data Warehouse
Power BI
Cosmos DB
Azure Analysis Services
HDInsight
Machine Learning
Stream Analytics
Cognitive Services
Azure Bot Services
Data Lake Analytics
Data Lake Store
Data Factory
Power BI Embedded
Data Catalog
Log Analytics
Apache Spark for Azure HDInsight
Dynamics 365 for Customer Insights
Custom Speech Service
APIs: Emotion, face, Bing Speech, Web Language Model, Speaker Recognition, Bing Autosuggest, Bing Spell Check, Translator Speech, Translator Text
Very excited to be presenting an Ignite talk at #DevOpsDays #Nashville (October 17-18, 2017): Tactical Advice For Strategic Change In A Brownfield
It’s only a 5 minute presentation (20 slides; slides change every 15 seconds), but I’m stoked about it. It’s going to be my first DevOps talk that has absolutely nothing to do with SQL Server; finally starting to go in a new direction, and focus on Culture, Lean, and Sharing. It’s a great little conference, and I’m grateful to go back for my second year (this time as a speaker).
Now, I just got to develop the slide deck J
I’ve been meaning to write this post for a while, but life rolls on, as it always does. I had the privilege of attending DevOpsDays Atlanta back in April. This was my second DevOpDays event to attend (the first being Nashville), and overall, I’ve enjoyed the events. However, as a long-time organizer and speaker with the SQL Saturday events, it’s hard for me not to compare my experiences between the two conferences. They’re both community-run, low-cost, voluntary technical events; however, there were some things that I really like about the DevOpsDays format (and some things I wish were different).
The cost models of the two conferences are different; in short, SQLSaturday’s are free to the attendees (although a lunch fee is usually provided as an optional service), and DevOpsDays charges a small fee ($99-$150). Both rely on sponsors to pick up the tab for the bulk of the expenses (usually location fees). Speakers are volunteers, as well as event management staff. The benefit for the attendee is guaranteed swag (an event t-shirt is typical) and a great lunch (food was fantastic at DevOpsDaysAtlanta).
Charging a higher fee does a couple of things; it allows organizers to get a more accurate attendance estimate; if an attendee pays more to go to a conference, it’s more likely that they’ll show up. This has a trickle effect on luring sponsors; it’s easier to justify sponsoring an event if you know that you’re going to get a certain amount of foot traffic. A fee also guarantees amenities that are important to technical folk; good Wifi, and livestreams (although sessions weren’t recorded at the Atlanta DevOpsDays event). You can also direct some of those funds to getting a premier meeting space.
On the other hand, a free event with a nominal lunch has the potential of bringing in a much larger audience; DevOpsDays Atlanta was hosted in a 230-seat theatre, so attendance was probably around 250 (with standing room, vendors, and speakers). Last year’s Atlanta SQL Saturday had over 600 attendees, and this year’s event had slightly over 500 attendees. Attendance counts shouldn’t be considered a metric of superiority, but it does provide a different incentive for pursuing sponsors. As an attendee, I like the SQLSaturday model; as an organizer, I like the DevOpsDays model.
DevOpsDays is a highly decentralized model (true to the agile underpinnings of the movement). The parent organization appears (from the outside) to be very hands off; local event organizers handle their own sponsorships, registration, and other details. This allows for a lot of fluidity when it comes to branding, networking, etc. For example, see the differences in advertising logos for the DevOpsDays organization, the Atlanta 2017 event, and the upcoming Nashville 2017 event:
| DEVOPSDAYS (GENERIC) | ATLANTA 2017 | NASHVILLE 2017 |
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In contrast, PASS (the Professional Association for SQL Server) retains tight control over the marketing of SQLSaturday; registrations and event planning are handled by their internally-developed tools, and the branding has recently evolved to provide a more consistent association with the parent organization (although not without some concerns).
| PASS LOGO | SQLSATURDAY LOGO |
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From an attendee perspective, branding probably doesn’t make much of a difference; however, the tools used for registration are highly visible. Both DevOpsDays events I attended used EventBrite, a well know tool for managing, well, events. SQLSaturday relies on a custom registration site that has improved over time, but still often leaves attendees confused (despite all the best guidance from organizers). Furthermore, if a SQLSaturday event has a precon, those events are usually managed by EventBrite, which leads to an additional disconnect between the precon event and the actual SQLSaturday. Despite my love for SQLSaturdays, I think the DevOpsDays approach to branding and tooling is better.
One area that SQLSaturday feels more comfortable to me is the format of the sessions. SQLSaturdays typically follow the traditional multi-track model in a single day (not counting pre-cons), where attendees can choose from multiple sessions at the same time; for example, SQLSaturday Atlanta 2017 had 10 concurrent tracks, each with sessions lasting about an hour. Note that this format is not required; smaller events may only have a single track, or have multiple tracks with longer sessions.
In contrast, the DevOpsDays standard of delivery is multiple days, with a single track in the morning of longer talks, followed by a single-track of short talks (“Ignites“), and then open-space sessions in the afternoon. For me, this is a mixed bag of effectiveness; bringing everyone in the conference together to hear the same discussion can (in theory) promote better cross-communication between the various stakeholders in the DevOps audience. For example, having managers and deployment specialists hear a programmer discussing pipelines may promote perspective-taking, one of the fundamentals of good communication. In reality, however, my experience has been that many presenters don’t do a great job of relating to all of the stakeholders in the audience, making it difficult to bridge that gap. Granted, I’ve only been to two events, but of the 16 main talks that I heard across the two events, about half of them seemed relevant to me. Ignites have some of the same limitations, but the time constraints mean that they hold attention spans for longer.
Most people either love or hate open spaces; letting the audience drive discussions is a great concept in theory; in reality, discussions are typically dominated by a few extroverts in the group, and most people merely observe. Although there are usually self-appointed moderators, the dynamic selection of topics just prior to the discussion makes it difficult to engage or guide. When they work, they work well; however, too often open spaces lend themselves to the seven-minute lull Ideally, I think the most effective method of delivery would be a blended approach; a couple of keynote sessions in the morning, followed by a few Ignite sessions. Do multiple tracks in the afternoon, including open-space discussion, both free-form and guided. However, this is mostly a matter of personal preference; I’d love to try it and see what people think of it.
I’m enjoying the transition of my career away from being a SQL Person to a DevOps person; both communities seem vibrant and engaged, and I plan on attending more DevOpsDays conferences in the future (and perhaps even help with planning one). Events like these offer a lot of opportunity to learn high-quality material in a low-cost setting, and I only expect them to get better (or I’ll get better) over time.