DevOps Days during the pandemic

Floor Drees: I mean, no one's gonna believe that at home. So I needed to take a picture. , my mom was like, another conference. I was like, yes, but this is different because this is with other, all other people that go to conferences all the time. So these are my people. So Matthew promised me that if I'm take over the slot, it made total sense in the timeline of the event because I am talking about how we adapted for like, COVID situation, right? Like how did DevOps days as a worldwide event series adapt to events being canceled or being postponed? and some of the events when they, they totally canceled. Some of the events went totally virtual. and then there were some events that of course, like took place just before some regulations hit them or Lockdowns started or that took place at a time that they could just about hold an event with like a smaller attendance.

So I wanna have a little conversation about how that went down. So DevOps Days during the pandemic. What is a DevOps Days? I don't know if anyone has ever been to a DevOps Days event, if you have raise your hands. alright. It's a worldwide series of technical events covering topic in software development and IT infrastructure operations. And sort of like everything in between First dev days was held in hand in Belgium in 2009, and since then there have been a lot of different, that's me. there have been a lot, lot of different events in different cities. every city event is run by a team of volunteers. If there is no DevOps Days in your city, then you can consider maybe organizing one. Or if you've never been to one may I suggest that you make 2023 the year that you finally attend a dev days event. And if you're considering going to a dev days event, registration for dev days, Amsterdam is open. Also, the CFP is open. So, you know, maybe you wanna have that, have that go. But there's many other cities where we host dev days events, and these are just the ones that are still taking place this year. and then the ones that are planned for next year. Alright. so is the, yeah, the, the, it's so many screens for like a minority report pulling everything up. alright, so these are, this is a little graph of all of the events have taken place since 2009, since that first event. and you don't need to be a data scientist to see that there's a little dip in 20 20, 20 21 something happened. and so events needed to adapt to the situation, right?

And in 20 20, 20 21, but in some regions also well into 2022. and when I wrote the abstract for this talk that was slated as the backup talk we were all still sort of as def state's organizers were still responding to like, cases in our countries, in our cities and figuring out how we could still deliver an event because we still wanted to engage with our communities, right? so many chapters decided to cancel. some organizers went entirely virtual. Some went through sort of like a hybrid version if regulations loosened. and I wanna talk about sort of like how they how they sort of adapted to this new event. so I did a little survey, it's not super academic, but sorta and I just wanted to present some of the results. So who am I? I am a staff developer advocate.

I got a wonderful introdu introduction already. previously I was in DevRel roles at Microsoft and at Grafana Labs. I am the organizer of DevOps Space, Amsterdam and DevOps Space in Hova. I'm a Microsoft MVP for developer technologies. and I host way too many meetups. Like, it's not good. too much. Alright, so starting point is DevOps days.org. I wanted to figure out how many events were hosted and how many were canceled, and then compare that with sort of the survey results and see what, what happened there. so there were supposed to be 82 events in 2020 from 50. We're pretty sure they were canceled. Like we don't really know because there is, there is the thing that you have to update org, but then some cities will opt to have their own event website off platformhich we have feels about. I'm looking at some other core team people. but, so there's sometimes there are offsite and sometimes people opted to show that they were canceled in different ways. So it's really hard to sort of like par parse that information in one go. A lot of was very manual work, alright? and then there were some organizers teams that teamed up with another event in the same country. So dev days OV was supposed to have their like big reveal in 2020. then that didn't happen, and they teamed up with Amsterdam and we brought DevOps days online and then capitalized NL for Netherlands. Great pun. 11 events still took place in person just before lockdowns mostly or in some in some countries and cities, like later down the year when restrictions loosened a little bit there.

And 19 events actually took place online virtually in cyberspace. Alright? There were 42 events planned for 2021. 13 of those were sadly canceled, and 19 went virtual. seven cities managed to host an in-person event. and there were again, a couple of teams that teamed up to bring a virtual event or any other event together. 2022 saw 52 planned events were, so we're not quite back at the 2019 level of amount of events. and we've seen 16 p event pages so far, or last time I checked for 2023. alright, I've been saying words like online and hybrids, and so it's definition time a little bit. I think the past few years have been like a watershed moment for hybrid events. but like anything in life, we need to have the same understanding of what hybrid actually means.

And everyone you ask, you'll, they'll give you a different answer. I thought Dev stays Amsterdam and I, tofa was hybrids because we had a couple of the hosts in the speakers in the same room and we were sort of like broadcasting from there. Apparently I was wrong because, and I will quote Matt, who is the boss because not only is he the co-chair of, you know, def day score, but also he literally my manager, so he's the boss. only when the event has a mix of attendees d that are, you know, like participating in person, but also remote, then it's a hybrid event. So we're focusing on the ET and d, not on anything else. Okay. Now that we got that out of the way, we can, we can have a, we can have the same conversation. So I said I had a survey, I sent it out.

If you're curious about how not academic, my survey is, you can have a look. I sent it out to 89 a respondents and I got 37 replies. It's fine. Organizers are busy lio. So I'm, I'm happy that I got some response. and at first I was just interested in sort of the team size. so there's varying team sizes. Some are really large, some are like a lot smaller. and I wanted to figure out if the holding of maybe an online or a hybrid event had anything to do with team size. Turns out doesn't. so none of the smaller events hosted an online or event, okay, I'll give you that, but the largest team size wasn't more likely to host an event than any of the smaller team sizes. So for context, like the largest group size was between 13 and 15 people.

And that's for instance, Austin, Chicago, and Dallas. but they were not more likely to host an online event than the group of nine to 12 organizers, which, for instance, Amsterdam and Paris and Detroit. they were like, they 37, 30 6% of the nine to 12 host an online event versus 25% for the 13 to 15 size teams. And even the six to eight people size teams hosted 20 per for 20% of those hosted an online event. and that's for instance, Berlin or Tokyo or Denver. Alright, 2020 for a lot of cities. And it's so sad this was supposed to be the, the, the year of their first event, right? So Birmingham and UK in Tofa and Prague all got ready to host their first F dayss. And then stuff happened 25 out of the 37 events, or that, or the organizers that replied to the survey did not host an event.

And the ones that did host an in-person event either took place before the lockdowns as said or they had very stringent covid regulations and policies that they communicated clearly upfront and at the venue with big standing banners and so on. Jakarta was a good example of that one. All right, for the online events, what kind of tooling did they use? so a lot of the responses came back that there was sort of a combination used of Zoom and Discord, and then it was streamed over YouTube some of them. So Chicago for instance, and I think that was an outlier did pre-recorded talks and pre-recorded ik Nice, which is a different format that I should probably introduce real quickly. it's a five minute talk with 20 slides that are auto advancing. So it's a very challenging format live already.

And then it's really hard to do this online as well. But those were pre-recorded. and then the speakers would join for a live q and a, which was a, which was a nice format. they received really, really positive feedback and especially Ignite speakers were really happy to have that opportunity sort of like practice too. they did a cute thing, which I think a couple of conferences did in this online time where, you know, like the one speaker would hand the microphone like to the side of their screen and the other one would pick it up. So it was like, we're all in the same room, but we're not which I thought it was really cute. they even did Open Spaces. And Open Spaces is a format where anyone that is attending the conference can suggest any topic that they want to talk about and then just gather interest from the rest of the room, and whoever joins in that room is the right crowd.

Might be really small, might be really large. but then we saw for some of the online events that used platforms that they couldn't fit everyone in a room. and also is is much harder as we know from meetings to see when someone wants to speak. And so it could get a little, little messy sometimes. Stockholm used Zoom for Talks and Discord for discussions as well. Sao Paulo used Streamy Yard and they were really satisfied that they could host an event, even if interaction was lower, because they didn't expect anything else and they were just excited to be able to bring something. I wanna do a special shout out to Zurich who did like a DevOps Tuesday, which was one talk every Tuesday in September. And they solved it in that way because they felt like people wouldn't wanna to stick around for an online conference and sit you know, like behind their screens for a longer time.

And so they sort of like they made a little like chunks and bits here and there. All right, 2021. of the 37 responses that I got, 25 29 teams didn't host an event in 2021. so that's more than teams that didn't host an event in 2020. interesting. some took place in person again where it could take place. So for instance, Montreal who again, did a really great job in communicating all of the guidelines and policies Amsterdam and Anfa teams up for a virtual event. Again there we definitely had the limiting factor of the platform of only having 10 people being able to join at a table. We thought we were totally going to be able to sort of manage that and have like breakout tables, but that was super hard.

We also chose a platform that once a talk would start, everyone would be rallied in. And so there was no hallway track and we all know how important hallway track is. So we've learned a lot from using that platform. Alright Tokyo invited the team and had some speakers onsite as did Amsterdam and ov Minneapolis ran in-person open spaces and then separate virtual open spaces, which I think is a wonderful thing. So like where otherwise they would interrupt the livestream for people that were joining remotely. Now they had something of an experience to offer to their remote participants as well. Texas was, did a virtual event using Discord and talks through Zoom and mentioned that folks were just really, really grateful that they were able to talk with other DevOps days. People aren't generally other devs people and, and have something, something there.

So yeah, everyone mentioned they were happy to have that opportunity. What came back is that there is like, I don't think that there's, you find a lot of people that will tell you that virtual is their absolute favorite format. but, you know, we sort of, kind of had to a little and I got a lot of feedback from the, from the survey from especially the people that didn't particularly like hybrid or, or virtual or thought that it would be really hard for them to pull off. so for instance, Portugal mentioned that they didn't have the knowledge to set it up well and they particularly weren't sure about how it would be received by the community. they referenced their own experience with virtual events where they felt like sitting and behind the screen for a long time wasn't great, and they had a hard time on focusing on the content.

Denver also decided against organizing a virtual event because no one in the team and I quote, was up for trying to manage such a different style of event. They did try a couple of things out, but they didn't like any of the platforms that they were trying out. Del Aviv did a in-person event in 2020 one right before Omni Chrome. and they tried their hands on a virtual event in 2020 but it wasn't called Dev days. They called it Community Summit, and it included dev days and a couple of other sort of like, types of events to be able to bring it to, to still bring an event experience. they didn't go for hybrid because they didn't feel like they could support it. And I thought this was an interesting quote, it's that their experience was that it's like running two events simultaneously and it's really hard to sort of sync up between the two sort of tracks.

Instead Tel Aviv then decided to like many other cities published Talk recordings post event, which we do for a lot of fans these days, which wonderful, wonderful way to make sure that other people can also consume the content. fast forward to 2022, it sort of suggested it's very, that now everything was very digital. It's not actually really true. So that's a bit of a . and I wanna talk about attendance over the years because a lot of teams were, were afraid that, you know, like attendance would drop once we go back in person again because we had this sort of like big long break. so attendance over the years in terms of numbers be Minneapolis, Paris, Toronto, there are definitely outliers in number of attendance. and Toronto and Paris both didn't host events in 2020 or 2021 but Indianapolis and and Indianapolis and Detroit didn't either.

so a lot of the city events are actually not even back to going into in person, alright? Most cities today are around the same number of attendees for their 2022 events as they were for their 2019 events or the amount of event people that they got attracted to their virtual events. I wanna call out like particularly sorry, Chicago, who typically has 600 people participating and their 2020 virtual events attracted double that amount. So that's, that's pretty cool to see. There were a couple of other chapters that had a similar experience. and in 2022, there were back for a more intimate event. Again, with 350 people, that's also what you see a lot, is that even if you are looking at numbers that some events did attract less people at their 2022 events, is that they, they wanted a smaller event just to make sure that they could spread people out over location more and people wouldn't be huddled in like small spaces. Berlin for instance, made sure that the, they limit their attendance and they found a time that it was still warm enough outside that they could open up the windows and that they have a lot of air cleaners in smaller workshops rooms just to make sure that people feel more comfortable.

I think there's a lot of interesting things that happened in this sort of virtual time where we're trying to bring these online experience. the overall feedback from ETS and DS of DevOp days to virtual events was very was very positive. People were just happy that organizers were trying something in order to stay in contact with their communities and that they just made the best out of it and then sometimes really excelled in bringing a virtual experience. some organizing teams made changes based on the 20 20 20 21 event types, just seeing what worked and what they could still bring in person and adjust it back to in-person events as well because the, the two sort of staple formats of DevOps days open spaces and ignites are really hard to do online. So they, they adjusted for instance, the Amsterdam and Antifa chapter made sure that we didn't do ignites because it's, it's difficult, but turn it into lightning talks instead.

So like regular 10 minute talks. that's it. Amsterdam and OV two tried for their virtual event doing virtual escape rooms and a virtual after party and a virtual bingo and a cahoot to make sure that people would stay, you know engaged Jakarta found out that the prerecorded videos actually work wonders for marketing for their next events. and so they didn't do it before, and now because of this, they, they, they did the prerecorded talks and they found out that that's actually like a really good thing. So for their following events, they will always record the talks. London in 2020 two took place and they had a very stringent covid policy, so everyone was required to wear a mask unless you were on stage. They had banners all through the venue making sure that everybody knew of the covid policy. And they made very clear to everyone that if they didn't feel well, they could just swap their ticket for a virtual ticket and they would get a refund. So that way, making sure that no one would show up with like, sniffly noise or anything, and everyone would be like, okay, well then that, that's, that's a really, really good option. I thought one interesting reply that I got from Indianapolis is that they said that they will specifically not have an online element to their 2023 event because they want to encourage people to join in person, and they're afraid that if they would offer a live stream or anything that would prevent people from actually coming to the event.

All right. I love the reply of one organizer from Texas who is saying that we're, I think that we're doing our communities a disservice by not continuing to work towards effective hybrid events or coming up with another way to bring DevOps stays local and our global community to folks that can't or won't join us in person. I must say I am very biased towards this as well. I think that if we're offering a in-person event and a virtual component to it, we're making the pie bigger and we're not making it smaller. So yeah, I want to just too early, I dunno what's, what's happening. This is a little bit behind going back and forth a little bit. All right. So again, like, while very few people will tell you that virtual is their preferred event, foremost my hope in going into 2023 is that DevOps events will offer an online experience alongside their real world event.

And at minimum offer a livestream with a live chat functionality. the same opportunities for people onsite as the remote participants to ask questions and to offer speakers who can't manage otherwise to their talk remotely or to pre-record their talk. I'd love for teams to go even further than that and introduce interactive element and organize virtual after parties, have virtual breakout rooms where speakers can hang out with the remote viewers and have hosts a particular host, like specific host for the online event which at this point actually deserves the name event. and they could take the viewers on a tour of the venue while the open spaces are going on or have pre-recorded sessions that they can play during the open spaces. And so really making sure that there is an end to end sort of event that are given.

And it, it does seem like that would almost be sort of two different events because you're experiencing partisan of the conference differently. but I think it's something that we should be able to offer our community. Do you think Signal lost ? It's good to know. few people have the luxury of attending events in person. It costs time, it costs money. There's the stress of attending, you know, like arranging care for family members and using vacation days maybe when you don't get that time from your employer. and we might not want to fly people to events all the time because our planet is fucked as it is. Yeah. and I think it's totally manageable to get a volunteer or a small volunteer team to be entirely on top of this and get this. They don't even need to be in the same space as you are. They don't need to be in the same city as you are. That means that more people that want to actually commit to being a volunteer for an event can do so now because they don't need to be there. It's a win-win really. And with that now, I really do want to thank , thank you. and ask you as a group to at least talk to the organizers or defense that you are attending Dev days or otherwise to ask them about their hybrid strategy. I think we've learned a big deal in this last few years, and it would be said if we, you know, lose that entirely. so let's put that into practice. Thank you.

Audience member 1: Thanks. thank you so much for the lovely talk. Y you shared a bit about how the attendance levels are going back to where they were pre pandemic. Is the attendee mix the same?

Floor Drees: Ooh, that's a really good question. I should probably, that, that should be a, I don't know. I can only speak for the DevOps days events that, that we did. so we definitely reached a different audience for DevOps days, inov and Amsterdam than we normally would because they attended the, the virtual events and wanted to see what it's like in person. So I can't, I can't answer that for the entirety of DevOps days. I don't know if Maddie or Dan has any idea, but anyway, like, so I, I can't answer that, but it's a really good follow up question, so thank you.

Audience member 2: What's the benefit of colo? no, how do I say this? What's the benefit of doing a virtual and a physical event at the same time, rather than consecutively? Like isn't it like if it's two events, you know, organizing at the same time, why not just ... Why not spread them?

Floor Drees: Well, I think for, for this, this type of thing, like you can't have q and a if they're, if the, if you're then doing the pre-recorded versions after, or the, the recordings that you made at the physical event provided that you do the physical events first and then, or you would do like a repeat. So you do the talk at the physical event and then, and again, well,

Audience member 2: I , so if you, if you want to have the same content maybe like a slow watch, like I've seen this in the complexity community that they do like a slow watch with the audience that they'll like go through the like a watch party. Yeah. Kind of like watch party where you can like hit balls and then talk about it or something.

Floor Drees: Oh, I like that.

Audience member 2: Yeah. Which might give an even more immersive experience but then not force it, force the organizers to like, you know, carry all the weight to coordinating all that stuff. Yeah, yeah. Well, I dunno, Hey, I don't, it might be that there's, there's a like a, like a marketing angle, but I'm, I'm not sure. I, I just was wondering if you had an idea.

Floor Drees: We'll talk later and we're considering this. No, I think, I think for things like interaction, this, it might be nice if it's at the same time because you get the sort of same feel of the event. but yeah, I like it. It's interesting,

Audience member 3: Reverse refactor whatever attendance to conferences from the point on island, because in many companies, I won't tell names I love them all, , but mm-hmm.

**Floor Drees: **. Yeah.

Audience member 3: I believe you don't check where I work. It's nice company, really, but we offer policy. We, there's a policy we can go to conference, we'll pay you and so on. But some companies don't monitor if people actually use this opportunity and then it end up with people actually paying the money from their pocket. And business is like, okay, they're grown up adults do you monitor this one and, and do this, this stupid extra step of coming and asking like, friend, why didn't you use our amazing opportunity with this perfect business process?

Floor Drees: Okay, so this is about people attend...

Audience member 3: Event, attend events, and what, finding, what is stopping them? Because like with your friends from states, our friends from states, so they thought that if they do it this way, then people will not come. So instead of Right. Yeah. Asking Minneapolis people and fixing.

Floor Drees: Yeah, it's a really good question. Like, I think this there's a couple of those like stories going around, like, right? Like, so if you offer a virtual event or if you if your, if your event is free, nobody will show up or like, because they don't value it as as much, or so if your live stream is freely available, then then it's easier for people to sort of like, leave again because it's free anyway, so it mustn't be worth something. So like, I feel like there's a couple of those sort of like, stories going around. Same as like, oh, if you offer a live stream, people don't, won't show up because they'll, they'll just wanna sit on the couch. But that's mostly not where, and I think we all know that that's not what you go, go for a conference for like, you don't go for talks usually.

I mean, maybe a little bit you wanna learn a thing here and dear, I just, I don't wanna discredit our, our entire existence, but you wanna learn a thing or two, but mostly you wanna connect with people, right? So I don't think the people that will skip on your event, because they can watch the event from the comfort of their couch are the events or are the people that would normally do show up at your event. So I think that's a, like, that's a separate crowds and you don't, I don't think you need to be afraid that that's gonna hurt your attendance numbers if that answers your question at all. Question. Thank you. Cool. Thank you. Thank you.