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Description
Don’t miss out! Join us at our upcoming event: KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2021 in Los Angeles, CA from October 12-15. Learn more at https://kubecon.io The conference features presentations from developers and end users of Kubernetes, Prometheus, Envoy, and all of the other CNCF-hosted projects.
Tackling New Challenges in a Virtual Focused Community - Bob Killen, Google & Alison Dowdney, Weaveworks
The pandemic has had many communities scrambling to find ways to capture, grow, and continue to strengthen the bonds of their community members. Virtual events, zoom burn out, and increased familial responsibilities are things that are impacting not only contributors but software communities as a whole. They do pose an opportunity - They can be made more accessible, there are less financial pressures for attendees, and they open up possibilities for others that might not be able to previously contribute to open source. In this talk, we’ll go over some of the successes and failures that we have encountered over the past year, share our experiences, and explore strategies to mitigate “virtual” fatigue. Attendees will learn the following things: - How to approach virtual events and activities, both as an organizer and an attendee - Set and manage expectations with themselves and others - Technical do’s and don’ts with virtual events
A
Now
before
we
kick
this
off,
I
do
sort
of
want
to
go
into
why
this
is
important.
Well,
everyone
is
virtual.
Now
we
are
forced
to
have
more
asynchronous
communication,
but
open
source
has
been,
you
know
mainly
remote
forever,
so
we
as
open
source
contributors
and
maintainers
should
be
positioned
quite
well
to
deal
with
this
sort
of
thing.
How
come
we're
running
into
problems?
Now
we
should.
You
know
we
should
really
be
experts
at
working
working
virtually
now
right.
A
Many
people
and
companies
are
honestly
grappling
with
becoming
remote
all
at
once.
There's
greater
isolation,
more
meetings
and
it
all
adds
up,
and
it
leads
to
sort
of
like
many
negative
experiences,
so
we've
adopted
some
strategies
to
help
like
mitigate
and
come
back.
The
combat
these
issues
reduce
the
zoom
fatigue,
strengthen
our
community
bonds
and
in
many
cases
we've
made
participating
way
more
accessible.
B
So
you're
probably
wondering
how
are
we
going
to
share
our
experiences
with
you
today?
Well,
fortunately,
kubernetes
has
become
so
popular
that
it
has
its
own
spin-off
located
entirely
within
this
slide
deck.
This
spin-off
includes
a
book
and
a
television
series
that
follows
two
fictional
maintainers
in
a
large
open
source
project
called
nottinetti's.
B
A
A
How
do
we
solve
this
problem?
What
tools
do
we
have?
How
else
do
we
communicate?
We
can
use
slack
so
pausing
here
for
just
a
moment,
sort
of
go
over
the
like
slack
meetings
and
some
tips
for
us
that
have
been
a
bit
more
helpful,
slack
or
chat
based
meetings
can
be
quite
effective
even
for
more
than
just
regular
touch
points.
A
A
Now
discussion
still
occurs,
and
it
may
just
be
like
a
few
hours
between
responses,
but
that's
okay.
This
is
also
a
huge
win
for
international
contributors.
They
can
be
actively
involved
without
having
to
be
up
at
all
hours
of
the
day.
Something
else
that
is
honestly
really
helped
us
is
slack
threads.
A
Honestly,
one
thing
we
found
is
like
very
few:
people
do
wind
up
going
and
read
the
notes
directly,
but
if
you
can
send
them
notes,
they'll
actually
read
them
now.
This
last
tidbit
is
important
and
it
is
hard.
No
decisions
should
be
made
in
something
that
is
ephemeral.
That
goes
for
either
chat
or
video
meetings.
A
Those
should
really
go
to
your
list
as
an
independent
item,
with
lazy
with
a
lazy
consensus
period,
lazy
consensus
is
essentially
giving
a
decision
a
comment
period.
If
there
are
concerns
that
can't
be
resolved,
then
the
decision
itself
is
postponed
and
this
gives
everyone
an
opportunity
to
review
and
get
their
word
in
now
with
that,
let's
return
to
the
story.
B
A
Over
the
next
few
hours,
contributors
worldwide,
chime
in
at
different
times
when
it
suits
them
a
day
and
a
half
later,
the
meeting
ends
the
next
big
part
of
fiona
and
frank's
frank's
work
then
begins
they
comb
through
the
meeting
threads.
Some
rising
points
made
in
an
email
to
the
mailing
list.
The
information
is
relayed.
B
A
A
A
The
other
thing
is
like
these
meetings
can
actually
be
great
for
growing
your
community.
They
provide
a
way
for
people
to
get
to
know
each
other.
Putting
a
face
with
a
name
and
talking
to
people
helps
strengthen
your
community
bonds,
but
as
an
unintended
consequence,
they
often
become
exclusionary.
Decisions
are
made
in
meetings.
B
So,
for
example,
we
were
quite
creative
with
the
communications
mediums
we
had
and
we
used
slack
to
do
the
meetings
so
also
many
projects
create
additional
meetings
for
different
regions-
europe,
north
america,
asia,
pacific-
to
give
them
a
space
at
a
time
that
is
convenient
to
them
and
to
make
them
feel
included.
The
intent
is
often
well
met.
B
B
You
can
also
mitigate
some
of
these
problems
by
scheduling
ad
hoc
meetings
for
specific
topics
with
the
right
people
if
it
means
a
person
or
two
staying
up
super
late
for
a
one-off
or
a
regular
discussion.
It's
way
better.
That
is
much
better
than
having
a
recurring
meeting
that
involves
folks
staying
up
till
2
a.m.
B
Keep
meetings
for
discussions,
not
decisions.
Decisions
should
go
to
the
mailing
list
where
people
can
respond
asynchronously,
not
everyone
may
have
the
bandwidth
to
attend
meetings,
even
if
they
are
on
slack
by
using
the
mailing
list
for
decisions.
It
goes
straight
to
their
email.
The
mailing
list
also
serves
as
a
decision
register
too
always
follow
up
with
an
email
to
the
mailing
list.
B
With
the
meeting
notes,
keeps
people
informed
and
makes
the
content
searchable
for
people
subscribed
to
it,
make
it
a
task
of
the
note
taker
or
the
meeting
post
just
make
sure
that
they
exist
in
the
place
that
people
will
see
it.
If
there's
any
big
action
items
or
follow-up
items,
putting
them
at
the
top
of
the
email
will
also
help
visibility.
B
A
B
B
Celebrations
over
summers-
virtual
events
can
be
great,
they
can
be
accessible,
but
people
truly
miss
the
hallway
track.
They
miss
the
social
aspects
of
meeting
in
person.
Don't
make
it
hard
for
people
to
participate
for
these
type
of
events,
where
the
socialists
focus,
let
people
invite
their
friends
and
family
or
give
them
some
way
to
interact
with
each
other.
You
can
still
have
technical,
educational
content,
but
don't
neglect
the
social
side
of
things
instead
of
summiting,
we
should
get
together
and
celebrate
our
wonderful
contributors.
B
A
A
B
B
A
Discord
is
a
chat
service
similar
to
slack,
but
it's
designed
honestly
with
communities
in
mind.
First,
it
was
originally
targeted
towards
gamers,
but
has
now
grown
to
support
many
other
groups
discord
itself.
They
have
really
gone
on
their
way
to
make
it
an
accessible
platform,
as
well
as
a
very
safe
space,
with
strong
moderation
capabilities.
A
You
can
do
things
too,
like
require
people
to
you
know,
agree
to
your
server
rules
or
abide
by
your
code
of
connect
before
joining
your
server.
The
other
thing
in
discord,
voice
and
video
aren't
second
class
citizens.
It
has
strong
support
for
both
and
they've.
Also
added
some
newer
features
that
sort
of
like
make
it
closer
to
like
something
like
zoom
or
webex,
with
a
presentation
mode
that
can
make
it
easier
to
host
these
sort
of
events
in
there.
B
Have
different
ways
for
people
to
participate,
having
multiple
mediums
of
communication
gives
people
more
way
to
more
ways
to
engage
with
each
other.
It
also
gives
them
the
opportunity
to
enjoy
the
event
on
their
own
terms.
For
instance,
some
folks
might
be
exhausted
with
social
interactions,
but
still
want
to
engage
with
the
main
event
by
providing
a
stream
on
youtube
they
can
watch
along
without
without
having
to
worry
about
joining
a
call
or
registering
for
yet
another
service.
B
A
If
you
could
fill
out
the
survey,
that
would
be
awesome,
so
you
are
probably
wondering
about
some
of
the
things
that
the
writers
of
the
show
happen
to
leave
out,
like
most
television
shows
based
on
real
life
events,
it's
not
quite
the
whole
story.
Well,
fortunately,
both
of
us
are
here
to
present
with
all
the
things
that
actually
happened
in
the
project.
In
fact,
we
worked
with
the
writers
of
the
show,
not
allison,
and
not
bob.
B
Two
totally
not
fictional
writers,
so
anyway
earlier
you
saw
the
contributors
in
the
show
suggest
events
that
they
wanted
in
the
celebration,
but
we
didn't
cover
all
the
thoughts
and
ideas
when
it
came
to
selecting
the
events
so,
like
I
said
earlier,
there
should
be
a
similar
to
a
point
I
made
earlier.
There
should
be
a
non-sign
up
way
to
access
main
events
doing
this
improves
engagement,
for
example.
The
great
cloud
native
bake
off
is
one
of
the
top
videos
on
our
youtube
video.
B
Social
should
be
a
priority,
but
having
engaging
technical
content
can
also
work
very
effectively
at
the
summit.
One
of
our
contributors,
laurie
apple,
ran
a
tea
and
time
management
workshop
that
wound
up
going
a
full
over
it's
a
full
hour
over
its
a
lot
of
time
due
to
a
larger
amount
of
participants,
even
though
that
was
more
technical
or
skill
focused,
it
was
very
engaging
so
awards
and
raffles.
B
So
if
you
can
backing
up
your
virtual
event
with
some
physical
items
such
as
awards
can
help
people
feel
connected,
and
you
can
also
use
that
to
incentivize
greater
communication,
we
had
a
reward
bot
that
would
send
people
a
code
to
the
cncs
store
so
that
they
could
get
a
shirt
or
a
hoodie.
The
reward
bot
would
also
reward
those
that
participated
more
and
we
turned
up
the
frequency
in
which
it
would
give
out
prizes.
B
During
our
main
events,
one
caveat,
though
international
shipping
can
be
a
huge
pain,
even
if
it's
outsourced
some
countries,
it's
just
very
difficult,
so
ships
items
too
in
these
scenarios.
If
you
can
try
and
find
something
in
their
own
country
or
as
a
worst
case
scenario,
you
can
even
do
a
gift
card.
A
So
when
we
gathered
feedback
from
the
event
people
really
liked
it,
we
received
pretty
much
non-stop
positive
feedback
and
85
percent
of
our
survey.
Respondents
actually
really
wanted
us
to
do
another
event,
and
only
15
or
the
remaining
15
was
actually
split
between
maybes
and
depends
on
the
pandemic.
There
was
not
a
single
no
virtual.
Events
like
this
are
more
broadly
accessible
and
we
actually
had
a
few
like
long
time.
Contributors
who
have
never
been
able
to
attend
a
kubecon
or
contributor
summit
show
up.
A
A
B
So,
to
recap
on
some
of
the
points
that
we've
made
chat
meetings
can
improve
contributor
accessibility,
the
people
who
are
in
different
time
zone
people
who
might
have
bad
internet
connections,
people
who
might
be
uncomfortable
with
calls.
They
now
have
more
ways
to
participate
in
the
community,
be
creative.
B
Better
social
bonds
means
people
are
more
comfortable
around
each
other
and
when
people
are
more
comfortable
around
each
other,
they
work
together,
better
they're,
more
likely
to
to
reach
out
for
help.
Also,
all
work
and
no
play
can
be
quite
a
drain.
Thank
you
very
much
for
watching
our
presentation.