In an interview, Baruch told how he is preparing for reports, how foreign conferences differ from Russian ones, why participants should attend them, and why to speak in a frog costume.
Let's start with the simplest. What do you think, why even speak at conferences?
Actually, for me, speaking at conferences is work. If you answer more globally to the question “Why my job?”, Then this is for that (at least for JFrog) in order to achieve two goals. Firstly, to establish contact with our users and customers. That is, when I speak at conferences, I am available so that everyone who has any questions, some feedback on our products and companies, 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 you some interesting things, people are interested in what kind of JFrog it is, and as a result it gets into our developer relations funnel, which ultimately goes to our users funnel, which ultimately goes to our customers funnel.
Tell me, please, how are you preparing for your performances? Is there any preparation algorithm?
There are four more or less standard preparation steps. The first is inception, like in a movie. Some idea should come up. An idea appears, and then it ripens for a rather long time. It is ripening, you think how it is better to present this idea, in what vein, in what format, what can be said about this. This is the first stage.
The second stage is writing 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, 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 runs, rehearsals. At this stage, it is important to make sure that the story arch has turned out, that the story is connected, to make sure that everything is normal 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 type material for reports?
I don’t know how to answer, it somehow somehow comes. Or it’s “Oh, how cool it turned out here”, or it’s “Oh, nobody really knows and understands about it” 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 this is more literature, articles. If this is something practical, it will be writing code, some demos, finding the right pieces of code in products, and so on.
Baruch's performance at the recent DevOps Summit Amsterdam 2019
Fear of performances and excitement are some of the most common reasons why people don’t go on stage. Can you give some advice to those who are worried during their performances? Are you worried and how do you deal?
Yes, I have it, it should be, and, probably, at that moment when I will cease to worry at all, this is an occasion to tie up with this matter.
It seems to me that this is completely normal when you go on stage and there are a lot of people in front of you. You worry because it is a big responsibility, it is natural.
How to deal with this? There are different ways. I have never had it at such a level that I need to fight directly, so it's hard for me to say.
The most important thing that helps me too is the friendly face - a familiar face in the audience. If you ask someone you know to come to your report, to sit in the front row in the middle so that you can always look at it, 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 and 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 audience? In the organisation?
I see two big differences. It is clear that the conferences are different both in Russia and abroad, but if we take the average for the 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 accustomed to, perhaps thanks to such major conferences as Joker, JPoint, Highload, which were always based on hardcore presentations. And the people expect from conferences exactly this. And for many, this is an indicator of whether it is a good conference or a bad one: there is a lot of meat and hardcore there or there is a lot of water.
To be honest, maybe because I speak a lot at foreign conferences, I do not agree with this approach. I believe that reports on soft skills, “semi-humanitarian reports” are no less, and maybe even more important for conferences. Because some technical things can be read in books, you can understand the user manual, but with regard to soft skills, with regard to psychology, with regard to communication, there is nowhere to take it all, 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 conferences on DevOps, such as DevOpsDays, because DevOps is not about technology at all. DevOps is just about communication, it’s about ways to work together for people who have not worked together before. Yes, there is a technical component there, because automation is critical for DevOps, but this is just one of them. And when the DevOps conference, instead of talking about DevOps, talks about site reliability or automation, or about pipelines, 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 take the average for the hospital and general cases, not private ones. Abroad, it is assumed that most people have undergone some training in public speaking in their life. At least in America, it is part of higher education. If a person graduated from college, then he already has considerable experience in public speaking. Therefore, after the program committee looked at the plan and understood what the report would be about, there are no more trainings on speeches for the speaker, because it is believed that he most likely knows how.
In Russia, they don’t make such assumptions, because few people have public speaking experience, and therefore speakers are much more trained. Again, in the general case, there are runs, there are classes with speakers, there are courses in public speaking to help speakers.
As a result, weak speakers who speak poorly, are screened out, or are helped to become stronger speakers. The fact that in the West public speaking is considered a skill that many have as a result gets the opposite effect, because this assumption often turns out to be false, erroneous, and people who do not know how to speak in public openly mess up on stage and get disgusting reports. And in Russia, where it is believed that there is no experience in public speaking, the result is much better, because they were trained, tested, chosen good, and so on.
These 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 was probably at several dozens of 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 front-end conference presentations, and much time is devoted to the open spaces format.
Open spaces is a format in which the topic for which most people voted is discussed with other participants. The one who suggested this topic - he is the host, he makes the discussion begin. This is an excellent format, because, as we know, communication and networking are no less important part of any conference than reports. And when the conference lays half of its time under the networking format - this is very cool.
Plus DevOpsDays often hosts Lightning Talks - these are short five-minute reports that let you learn a lot about things and open your eyes to some new things in a boring format. And if in the middle of a regular report you realized that it’s not yours, then time is wasted, 30-40 minutes of your life are lost, then here we are talking about reports for five minutes. And if you are not interested, then it will end soon. “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, these are the things. It is interesting both that and another, and it is interesting when there is both that, and another. It seems to me, today, this is one of the best franchises of conferences about DevOps.
Many of your performances are similar to performances or performances: then you tell a report in the form of a Greek tragedy, then you play the role of Sherlock, then you act in a frog costume. How do you come up with them? Are there any additional goals besides making the report boring?
It seems to me that the report does not have the right to be boring, because, firstly, I spend time on my students, they are less involved in a boring report, they have learned less, they have learned less, and this is not the best waste of their time. Secondly, my goals have not been achieved either: they don’t think anything good about me, they don’t think anything good about JFrog, and for me it's 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 the same thoughts that are stated in the form of a regular report, set out in an unusual format.
How do I come up with this? It's not always the same. Sometimes it’s some ideas that come to my mind, sometimes it’s some ideas that come to me when I make runs or share my thoughts about the report and they say to me: “Oh, this can be done like this!” it happens differently. When an idea appears, it is always very joyful and cool, which means that a more interesting and involved report can be made.
Whose appearances from the IT sphere do you personally like? Are there such speakers? And why?
There are two kinds of speakers whose appearances I like. The first is the speakers I try to be like. They tell interesting and involved, try to make everyone interested and listen.
The second type of speakers are those who can tell very interestingly and excitingly about any usually boring hardcore.
Of the names in the second category, this is Aleksey Shepelev, who talks about some deep performance garbage collection and the inside of the java virtual machine, which is interesting and humorous. Another opening of the last DevOops is Sergey Fedorov from Netflix. He told a purely technical thing about how they optimized their content delivery network, and he told it very interestingly.
From the first category are Jessica Deen, Anton Weiss, Roman Shaposhnik. These are those speakers who tell interestingly, with humor, and deservedly receive high ratings.
Surely you have more invitations to speak at conferences than time for this. How do you choose where you go and where not?
Conferences and speakers, like almost everything else, are governed by market relations of supply and demand and value from one another. There are conferences that, so to speak, want me more than I need them. In terms of the audience that I expect to meet there, and the impact that I expect to bring there. There are conferences which, on the contrary, I want to get much more than they need. In terms of value to me, I decide where to go.
That is, if this, for example, is some kind of geography, where I strategically need to get into, this is a big well-known conference, which has a good reputation and which people will attend, then obviously I really need it. And I would prefer it to other conferences.
If this is some kind of small regional conference, and maybe where we are not very interested, then it may be that a trip there does not justify the time costs that will be laid on this business. Normal market relations of demand, supply and value.
Good geography, good demography, potentially good contacts, communication are the key to the fact that the conference will be interesting to me.
In one of your interviews, you mentioned that during the year you speak at about forty conferences. 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 part of my work. Of course, there is everything else: there is preparation for reports, maintaining yourself in technical form, writing code, learning new things. This is all done in parallel with the conferences: in the evenings, on the plane, the day before, when I have already arrived at the conference, and it will be tomorrow. Something like this.
It is difficult, of course, to maintain work / life balance when there is so much time on business trips. But I try to compensate for this by the fact that, at least when I am not on a business trip, I am 100% with my family, I do not 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 this is family time, then this is really 100% family time. Does this work and does it solve the problem? Not. But I hope that this somehow compensates my family all the time that I am absent.
One of Baruch’s reports is “We have DevOps. Let's fire all the testers ”
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 reports and other activities at the conference. These are all kinds of technical demos, some mini-reports that we hold at the stands. This is not programming, this is more integration, but it is at least some technical work that I try to do. In this way, I maintain knowledge of our products, new features, and so on.
Of course, to say that I am now the same hardcore encoder as I was 7 years ago is probably already impossible. Not sure if this is bad. This is probably some kind of natural evolution. This is less interesting to me, and there is less time, so, probably, God be with him.
I still consider myself a strong technical specialist, I am still aware of what is happening, I keep myself in good shape. Here is my hybrid situation today.
Please tell me a couple of funny stories or extreme situations that happened to you: you were late for the plane / deleted the presentation / turned off the electricity during the report / did not arrive baggage?
Of the funny situations, I remember most all sorts of nightmare fails that happened on reports. Naturally, because this is the most stressful situation, because it is the public, 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 was once, on the Mac a couple of times. This, of course, is stressful, but we somehow solve this problem, the computer restarts, I continue to tell something at this time, but the stress is huge.
Probably the funniest situation I had at the Groovy conference. I don’t remember exactly where the conference was held, it seems, in a hotel, and in front of this hotel there was some construction or repair. And so I was talking about some kind of code that I wrote, it was a demo. This was the first iteration of the demo, which was understandable, but maybe not written in the best way. And I was going to just refactor and improve it, and mentioned some kind of phrase like “self deprecating” about the fact that it is “shitty code”. It was on the second floor, and at this time the crane at the construction site opposite was just lifting the portable toilet. And the scene was opposite the window. That is, I look through this window, say “shitty code”, and the toilet is floating outside the window. And I tell everyone: "Turn around, we have an illustration here." It was probably the best slide of my thoughts - the flying toilet in my talk when I talked about shitty code.
Baggage didn’t come from stories like this - in principle, it’s a normal story, there’s nothing to talk about. We can arrange a separate interview about all kinds of travel tips, where you can talk about baggage that did not arrive, but there was nothing critical.
I try very hard at all costs to always fly in, come in and attend all the conferences that I promised, because, again, it's time for people. People’s time is priceless because it is the kind of credit of trust they give you. And if this loan is fooled, then you can’t get it back then.
If a person took the time, came to the conference to listen to my report, but I took it and did not come, this is bad, because there is no way to return the time to this person. 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: “Why go to conferences at all? You can watch the video on YouTube, and you can always chat online. ” What do you think, why should participants attend the conference?
Great question! You need to go to the conference for networking. It is priceless and cannot be obtained in any other way. I have already mentioned the importance of communication, communication, and soft skills. Watching a vidosik on YouTube, unfortunately, does not give experience in soft skills. Therefore, the conference must go for 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 this is purely with me, but I suspect that being in the hall for a report and watching a video on YouTube are completely different things. Especially if the report is good, I think it is much, much better to hear it live. It's like listening to a live concert and record.
And once again I repeat: networking and communication - this is not to take from YouTube.
Joint report with Leonid Igolnik at DevOpsCon
Please give some parting words to those who are just going to become a speaker or have just begun to speak?
Look for local mitaps. Local mitaps are a great thing to start a speaker career for several reasons. First, local mitaps are always looking for speakers. It may be that without experience and not being a well-known speaker, it will be difficult for you to go to some famous conference, or the program committee after talking with you will understand that maybe you are a little too early. In contrast, local mitaps are always looking for speakers and the level of entry there is much, much lower, so it is much easier to get there.
In addition, stress levels are completely different. When 10-15-30 people come, this is not at all what it is when there are 150-200-300 people in the hall, therefore it is much easier.
Again, the costs for a local mitap 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 that it is important to have a friendly face among the public, it’s much easier to come to a local meeting with someone, because it does not cost money. If you speak at a conference, you as a speaker come for free, but this one of yours, who will be a friendly person in public, needs to buy a ticket. If you speak at the meeting, there is no such problem, you can bring one, two or three friends with you who will be a friendly person in the hall.
And an additional plus - the organizers of mitaps have much more opportunities to help you. Because the conference organizers will, for example, have 60 reports that need to be viewed, trained and prepared. And the organizers of the mitaps have one, two or three, so you will naturally receive much more attention.
In addition, it is much easier to get feedback from local mitaps.You have finished your report and now you and the public are already talking 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 a gray mass during the report has left, and you don’t know anything more about them, don’t hear, you won’t get any feedback.
Anyway, local mitaps are a great topic in general and for beginners in particular.
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