Baruch Sadogursky is a Developer Advocate at JFrog, co-author of the book "Liquid Software", a well-known IT speaker.
In an interview, Baruch told how he prepares for reports, how foreign conferences differ from Russian ones, why participants go to them and why they should speak in a frog costume.
Let's start with the simplest. What do you think, why speak at conferences at all?
Actually speaking at conferences is a job for me. If you answer more globally to the question “Why my work?”, then this is in order (at least for JFrog) to achieve two goals. First, to establish contact with our users and customers. That is, when I speak at conferences, I am available so that everyone who has some questions, some kind of feedback on our products and company, can talk to me, I can somehow help them and improve their experience in working with our products.
Secondly, it is necessary to increase brand awareness. That is, if I tell some interesting things, then people are interested in what kind of JFrog this is, and as a result it falls into our developer relations funnel, which eventually goes into the funnel of our users, which eventually goes into the funnel of our customers.
Tell us, please, how do you prepare for performances? Is there any training algorithm?
There are four more or less standard stages of preparation. The first is inception, like in the movies. There must be some idea. An idea appears, and then it matures for quite some time. It matures, you think about how best to present this idea, in what key, in what format, what can be said about this. This is the first stage.
The second stage is the writing of a specific plan. You have an idea, and it begins to grow into details about how you will present it. Usually this is done in the format of some kind of mind-map, when everything related to the report appears around the idea: supporting arguments, an introduction, some stories that you want to tell about it. This is the second stage - the plan.
The third stage is writing slides according to this plan. You use some abstract ideas that appear on the slides and support your story.
The fourth stage is run-throughs, rehearsals. At this stage, it is important to make sure that the story arc turned out, that the story is coherent, to make sure that everything is fine in time. After that, the report can be declared ready.
How do you understand that “this topic” needs to be addressed? And how do you collect material for reports?
I do not know how to answer, it somehow comes by itself. Either it’s “Oh, how cool we did it here”, or it’s “Oh, no one around really knows or understands about this” and there is an opportunity to tell, explain and help. One of these two options.
The collection of material is very dependent on the report. If this is a report on some abstract topic, then it is more literature, articles. If this is something practical, then it will be writing code, some demos, finding the right pieces of code in products, and so on.
Fear of performances and anxiety is one of the most common reasons why people do not go on stage. Do you have any advice for those who get nervous while performing? Are you worried and how are you coping?
Yes, I have it, it should be, and, probably, at the moment when I stop worrying at all, this is a reason to tie up with this matter.
It seems to me that this is a completely normal phenomenon when you go on stage and there are a lot of people in front of you. You are worried because it is a big responsibility, it is natural.
How to deal with it? There are different ways. I have never had it at such a level that you need to fight directly, so it's hard for me to say.
The most important thing, which also helps me, is a friendly face - some kind of familiar face in the audience. If you ask someone you know to come to your presentation, sit in the front rows in the middle so that you can always look at him, and the person will be positive, will smile, nod, support, I think this is a huge, huge help. . I don’t specifically ask anyone about this, but if it happens that there is a familiar face in the audience, it helps a lot, relieves stress. This is the most important advice.
You speak a lot at Russian and international conferences. Do you see the difference between reports at Russian and foreign conferences? Is there a difference in the audience? In the organisation?
I see two big differences. It is clear that conferences are different both in Russia and abroad, but if we take the average for a hospital, then in Russia the conferences are more technical in terms of the depth of reports, in terms of hardcore. This is what people are used to, perhaps thanks to such major conferences as Joker, JPoint, Highload, which have always been based on hardcore talks. And that's what people expect from conferences. And for a lot of people this is an indicator of whether this is a good conference or bad: there is a lot of meat and hardcore or there is a lot of water.
To be honest, perhaps because I speak at foreign conferences a lot, I do not agree with this approach. I believe that reports about soft skills, “semi-humanitarian reports”, are no less, and maybe even more important for conferences. Because some technical things can eventually be read in books, you can understand the user manual, but as for soft skills, as for psychology, as for communication, there is nowhere to take all this, at least easy, accessible and understandable. It seems to me that this is no less important than the technical component.
This is especially important for DevOps conferences like DevOpsDays because DevOps is not about technology at all. DevOps is just about communication, it's just about ways to work together with people who have not worked together before. Yes, there is a technical component, because automation is critical for DevOps, but this is just one of them. And when a conference on DevOps, instead of talking about DevOps, talks about site reliability or about automation, or about pipelines, then this conference, despite the fact that it is very hardcore, in my opinion, just misses the very essence of DevOps and becomes conferences about system administration, not about DevOps.
The second difference is in preparation. Again, I'm taking hospital averages and general cases, not individual cases. Abroad, they proceed from the fact that most people have undergone some training in public speaking in their lives. At least in America, it is part of higher education. If a person graduated from college, then he already has a lot of experience in public speaking. Therefore, after the program committee has looked at the plan and understood what the report will be about, then no more training in speaking for the speaker is done, because it is believed that he, most likely, already knows how to do it.
In Russia, such assumptions are not made, because few people have public speaking experience, and therefore speakers are trained much more. Again, in general, there are run-throughs, there are classes with speakers, there are public speaking courses to help speakers.
As a result, weak speakers who do not speak well are eliminated, or they are helped to become stronger speakers. The fact that in the West public speaking is considered a skill that many have, in the end, it has the opposite effect, because this assumption often turns out to be false, erroneous, and people who do not know how to speak in public frankly screw up on stage and get disgusting reports. And in Russia, where it is believed that there is no experience in public speaking, in the end it turns out much better, because they were trained, they were tested, they chose good ones, and so on.
Here are the two differences.
Have you been to DevOpsDays in other countries? How do you think they differ from other conferences? Are there any features?
I have probably been to several dozen DevOpsDays conferences around the world: in America, and in Europe, and in Asia. This conference franchise is quite unique in that it has a more or less established format that you can expect anywhere from any of these conferences. The format is this: there are relatively few frontal conference reports, and a lot of time is devoted to the open spaces format.
Open spaces is a format in which the topic that people voted for the most is discussed together with other participants. The one who proposed this topic is the leader, he makes sure that the discussion starts. This is a great format, because, as we know, communication and networking is no less important part of any conference than reports. And when a conference devotes half of its time to the networking format, it's very cool.
Plus, Lightning Talks are often held at DevOpsDays - these are short five-minute reports that allow you to learn a lot about and open your eyes to some new things in a non-boring format. And if in the middle of a regular report you realized that it was not for you, then time is lost, 30-40 minutes of your life is gone, then here we are talking about reports for five minutes. And if you're not interested, it will soon be over. “Tell us, but quickly” is also a very good format.
There are more technical DevOpsDays, there are those that are tailored specifically for what DevOps is: processes, collaboration, stuff like that. Both are interesting, and it is interesting when there is both. I think this is one of the best DevOps conference franchises today.
Many of your performances are like performances or performances: either you tell a report in the form of a Greek tragedy, or you are in the role of Sherlock, or you perform in a frog costume. How do you come up with them? Are there any additional goals besides making the report not boring?
It seems to me that the report has no right to be boring, because, firstly, I waste the listeners' time, they are less involved in a boring report, they learned less, they learned less new things, and this is not the best waste of their time. Secondly, my goals are also not achieved: they don’t think anything good about me, they don’t think anything good about JFrog, and for me this is some kind of fail.
Therefore, boring reports have no right to exist, at least for me. I try to make them interesting, attractive and memorable. Performances are one way. And, in fact, the method is quite easy. All that is needed is to come up with some interesting format, and then put the same thoughts that are presented in the form of a regular report in an unusual format.
How do I come up with this? It's not always the same. Sometimes these are some ideas that come to my mind, sometimes these are some ideas that are given to me when I arrange runs or share thoughts about the report and they say to me: “Oh, you can do it like this!” It happens differently. When an idea comes up, it is always very joyful and cool, which means that you can make a more interesting and involved report.
Whose performances from the IT sphere do you personally like? Are there such speakers? And why?
There are two types of speakers whose speeches I like. The first is the speakers, which I try to be like. They tell stories in an interesting and engaging way, trying to make sure that everyone is interested and everyone listens.
The second type of speakers are those who are able to tell in a very interesting and exciting way about any usually boring hardcore.
Of the names in the second category, this is Alexey Shepelev, who talks about some kind of deep performance garbage collection and the insides of a java virtual machine in an interesting and humorous way. Another discovery of the latest DevOops is Sergey Fedorov from Netflix. He told a purely technical thing, how they optimized their content delivery network, and he told it in a very interesting way.
From the first category - this is Jessica Deen, Anton Weiss, Roman Shaposhnik. These are the speakers who tell interesting stories, with humor, and deservedly receive high ratings.
You probably have more invitations to speak at conferences than you have time for it. How do you choose where you go and where you don't?
Conferences and speakers, like almost everything else, are governed by market relations of supply and demand and the value of one from the other. There are conferences that, let's say, want me more than I need them. In terms of the audience I expect to meet there and the impact I expect to make there. There are conferences that, on the contrary, I want to attend much more than they need me. According to the value for me, I decide where to go.
That is, if this is, for example, some kind of geography where I strategically need to go, this is a big well-known conference that has a good reputation and that people will go to, then, obviously, I really need it. And I will prefer it to other conferences.
If this is some kind of small regional conference, and, perhaps, where we are not very interested, then it may be that a trip there does not justify the time spent on this matter. Normal market relations of demand, supply and value.
Good geography, good demography, potentially good contacts, communication are the guarantee that the conference will be of interest to me.
In one of your interviews, you mentioned that you speak at about forty conferences a year. How do you manage to work and prepare for performances? And do you manage to maintain work/life balance with such a schedule? Share your secrets?
Traveling to conferences is the lion's share of my job. Of course, there is everything else: there is preparation for reports, keeping yourself in technical shape, writing code, learning new things. This is all done in parallel with conferences: in the evenings, on the plane, the day before, when you have already arrived at the conference, and it is tomorrow. Something like this.
It's hard, of course, to maintain a work/life balance when you have so much time on business trips. But I try to compensate by the fact that, at least when I'm not on a business trip, I'm 100% with my family, I don't answer emails in the evenings, I try not to participate in any phone calls in the evenings and on weekends. When I'm not on a business trip and it's family time, it's really 100% family time. Does it work and does it solve the problem? No. But I hope it somehow compensates my family for all the time I'm away.
With such a tight schedule, do you manage to maintain a technical level or have you already moved away from programming?
I try to do some technical things while preparing for my talks and other activities at the conference. These are all sorts of technical demos, some kind of mini-reports that we hold at the stands. It's not programming-programming, it's more integration, but it's at least some technical work that I try to do. In this way, I maintain knowledge about our products, new features, and so on.
Of course, to say that I am now the same hardcore coder that I was 7 years ago is probably impossible. Not sure if this is bad. Probably some kind of natural evolution. This is less interesting for me, and there is less time, so, probably, God bless him.
I still consider myself a strong technical specialist, I'm still aware of what's going on, I keep myself in good shape. This is my current hybrid situation.
Please tell us a couple of funny stories or extreme situations that happened to you: missed the plane / deleted the presentation / cut off the electricity during the report / did not arrive luggage?
Of the funny situations, I remember most of all all sorts of nightmarish fails that happened at the reports. Naturally, because this is the most stressful situation, because this is the audience, time, and you need to make sure that they do not waste it in vain.
I had a "blue screen of death" on both Windows and Mac during the talk. On Windows it happened once, on Mac a couple of times. This, of course, is stressful, but we somehow solve this issue, the computer restarts, I continue to tell something at this time, but the stress is huge.
Probably the funniest situation I ever had was at a Groovy conference. I don’t remember exactly where the conference was held, I think it was in a hotel, and there was some kind of construction or renovation going on opposite this hotel. And so I was talking about some code that I wrote, it was a demo. This was the first iteration of a demo that was understandable but maybe not well written. And I was just going to refactor and improve it, and I mentioned some phrase like “self deprecating” about the fact that this is “shitty code”. It was on the second floor, and at that time the crane at the construction site opposite was just lifting a portable toilet. And the stage was opposite the window. That is, I look out this window, say “shitty code”, and a toilet floats outside the window. And I tell everyone: "Turn around, we have an illustration here." This was probably the best slide of my thoughts - a flying toilet in my report, when I talked about shitty code.
Luggage didn’t come from stories like this - this is, in principle, a normal story, there’s nothing to even talk about. We can arrange a separate interview about all sorts of travel tips, where you can talk about the luggage that did not arrive, but there was nothing critical.
I try very hard to always fly in, come and be present at all the conferences that I promised, because, again, it's people's time. The time of people is priceless, because it is such a credit of trust that they give you. And if this loan is squandered, then there is no way to get it back later.
If a person spent time, came to the conference to listen to my report, and I took it and did not come, this is bad, because there is no way to return this person's time. Therefore, it is super important for me to keep all my promises in this regard, and so far everything is working out.
Many people think this way: “Why go to conferences at all? You can watch the video on YouTube, and you can always chat online.” Why do you think participants need to attend conferences?
Great question! You need to go to conferences for the sake of networking. It is priceless and there is no other way to get it. I have already mentioned the importance of communication, communication and soft skills. Watching a video on YouTube, unfortunately, does not give experience in soft skills. Therefore, one should go to conferences for the sake of communication.
In addition, at least for me, when watching videos on YouTube, the involvement is completely different, and the material comes in and is remembered much worse. Maybe it’s purely for me, but I suspect that being in the hall at a report and watching a video on YouTube are completely different things. Especially if the report is good, I think it's much, much better to hear it live. It's like listening to a live concert and a record.
And I repeat once again: networking and communication are not taken from YouTube.
Can you please give some parting words to those who are just going to become a speaker or have just started speaking?
Look for local meetups. Local meetups are a great way to start your speaker career for several reasons. Firstly, local meetups are always looking for speakers. It may be that without experience and without being an eminent speaker, it will be difficult for you to apply to some well-known conference, or the program committee, after talking with you, will understand that maybe it’s a little too early for you. In contrast, local meetups are always looking for speakers and the entry bar is much, much lower, so it is much easier to get there.
Also, the stress level is completely different. When 10-15-30 people come, it's not at all the same as when there are 150-200-300 people in the hall, so it's much easier.
Again, the costs for a local meetup are much lower: you don’t have to fly anywhere, you don’t have to spend days, you can just come in the evening. Remembering my advice about the importance of having a friendly face in the crowd, it's much easier to come to a local meetup with someone because it doesn't cost money. If you speak at a conference, you as a speaker come for free, but this +1 of yours, who will be a friendly face in the public, needs to buy a ticket. If you are performing at a meetup, there is no such problem, you can bring one or two or three friends with you who will be a friendly face in the hall.
And an additional plus is that meetup organizers have much more opportunities to help you. Because the organizers of conferences will have, for example, 60 reports that need to be reviewed, practiced and prepared. And the organizers of the meetups have one, two or three, so, naturally, much more attention will be paid to you.
In addition, it is much easier to get feedback from local meetups. You have finished your report and now you and the audience are already communicating and discussing something related to your report. For large conferences, this is often not the case. You made a report and that's it. The audience that you had as a gray mass during the report has left, and you don’t know anything more about them, you don’t hear, you won’t get any feedback.
Whatever one may say, local meetups are a great topic in general and for beginners in particular.
December 7 Baruch will speak at the conference . In the report, Baruch will analyze the real fails that occur daily and everywhere when updating software. It will show you how different DevOps patterns fit into different scenarios and how applying them correctly could possibly save you.
Also on the program: Alexander Chistyakov (vdsina.ru), Mikhail Chinkov (AMBOSS), Roman Boyko (AWS), Pavel Selivanov (Southbridge), Rodion Nagornov (Kaspersky Lab), Andrey Shorin (DevOps consultant).
Come get acquainted!
Source: habr.com