This is your community

A presentation at Scale 17x in March 2019 in Los Angeles, CA, USA by Karthik Gaekwad

Your Community Karthik Gaekwad @iteration1

Your Community Goal: Case study of tech community building in Austin, and how to replicate.

Hello • I’m Karthik Gaekwad • NOT a DBA • https://cloudnative.oracle.com/ • Cloud Native Evangelist at Oracle Cloud • Past: Developer on the Oracle Managed Kubernetes Team @iteration1

Hello • Been around for a while…. @iteration1

Hello • In general, I like building stuff with friends. • Maintainer for Gauntlt- Open source security scanner. • Love Teaching and building community. • Run Devopsdays Austin, Container Days, Cloud Austin. • Chair All Day Devops Cloud Native track. • LinkedIn Learning Author for Kubernetes courses. @iteration1

Cloudnative.oracle.com • Blog, Tutorials and solutions • Cloudnative related content. Send me a note @iteration1 if you really want us to research something for you or http://bit.ly/iheartcloud @iteration1

Community @iteration1

Community “Small or large social unit (a group of living things) that has something in common, such as norms, religion, values, or identity.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community @iteration1

Austin Tech Community • Vibrant! • Various regular conferences in town (Serverless Days, Longhorn PHP, Devopsdays, Data day, LASCON, Keep Austin Agile, BSides Austin, SXSW, Innotech Austin). • Many many many monthly meetups (AustinDevops/Cloud Austin for cloud and devops stuff). @iteration1

ATX Tech Events

Story of Cloud Austin @iteration1

Cloud Austin Today • Coming up on ~ 10 years • Over 2600 folks • Monthly meetup • Average ~75 folks attending • ~2 talks per meetup @iteration1

Austin Today • “Silicon Hills” • Over 138,000 tech-related jobs in the Austin metropolitan region. • $31 billion into the area’s overall economy, about 35 percent of the total. • New announcements: Apple expansion campus, Army Futures Command. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/25/us/ austin-apple-hub-silicon-hills.html @iteration1

Things were different 15 years ago… @iteration1

15 years ago: Tech Employers in ATX Primary: Major: Public Sector: Startups: @iteration1

10 years ago: User Groups • Language specific groups for developers… • Java (Dating back to early 2000’s) • .NET, PHP • OWASP Chapter (Since 2006) • User groups inside companies.. • Java Technical Exchange @National Instruments @iteration1

Changes… @iteration1

Changes (2008-2009ish) • Everyone trying to figure out cloud… @iteration1

Changes (2008-2009ish) • Some of us at NI working on building cloud products • Met some folks doing similar stuff at Pervasive @iteration1

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Birth of a meetup…. @iteration1

Journey 2009 2019 • Google Group + Eventbrite • Google Group + Eventbrite + Meetup • Google Group + Meetup • Meetup • Random Meetups->Monthly meetups (3rd Tuesday) • Festive end of the year meetup “12 Clouds of Christmas” @iteration1

But…not always great… @iteration1

But…not always great… • Last minute food sponsor cancelations @iteration1

But…not always great… • Jeff Barr Road trip (2013). @iteration1

Today…. • Group growth to 2600 folks • 3rd Tuesday of the month • Always @Rackspace! • Food/Drink sponsorships whenever we can @iteration1

Internal Tooling…. • Org Team of 8 • Google group with all orgs. • Emails go to the group. • Org Slack for communication. • Google form for speaker/sponsor pitches • Zapier integration with slack @iteration1

What have I learned? @iteration1

Content is King What have I learned? @iteration1

Say NO to Vendor pitches What have I learned? @iteration1

Attendees love free food What have I learned? @iteration1

Be Transparent What have I learned? @iteration1

Have a code of conduct What have I learned? @iteration1

Try the buddy system What have I learned? @iteration1

Gratefulness for organizers What have I learned? @iteration1

Gratefulness for organizers • Organizing can be hard. • Mostly voluntary. • Need to take time off work to do it. • If you’re an attendee: Thank your orgs, and ask how you can support. @iteration1

Organizer Tips What have I learned? @iteration1

Organizer Tips • Have a fixed venue • Have a fixed date/time • Understand what folks are interested in • Experiment with format • Be inclusive • Have a team! @iteration1

Organizer Tips • If you’re an organizer, watch for burnout. • Get a team, make it fun! • Try to distribute the effort. • Give everyone opportunities. @iteration1

Build great communities! • Austin is friendlier today than 15 years ago • Tech folks know each other (ish) • Okay to ask questions culture @iteration1

Thank you! This is your community @iteration1

Karthik Gaekwad
@karthik

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A talk on building a tech community that I gave at Scale 17x in LA. I covered the meetup and tech conference scene in Austin, Cloud Austin, Devopsdays Austin, and some best practices for meetups orgs and attendees