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**Dan Mangum:** Absolutely.
**Break:** \[48:14\]
**Gerhard Lazu:** So I know, David, that this is your first KubeCon, and I am very curious to hear what was it was like for you.
**David Ansari:** It was very interesting. I really enjoyed the hybrid format of this KubeCon, because unfortunately I couldn't be there in person. I would like to go there in person, but unfortunately there was still a travel ban for most of Europeans... So it was still very interesting to participate virtually, and t...
**Gerhard Lazu:** Okay. Did you slack? How did you reach out to people? Zoom? How did that work for you?
**David Ansari:** Yeah, so mainly over the MeetingPlay platform. When I was attending a talk, I could just ask my questions and they got live-answered; so that was a nice experience. There was the possibility to reach out via Slack, but I didn't use Slack too much.
**Gerhard Lazu:** What about Zoom? Were there any Zoom sessions that you attended? I know that Priyanka used to do happy hour... I don't know whether she did this KubeCon, but that was one of my favorite sessions at a previous KubeCon EU, which was also a virtual one. No Zoom sessions.
**David Ansari:** To be honest, I missed all the Zoom sessions. I wasn't aware that those Zoom sessions existed. Did you attend some?
**Gerhard Lazu:** Yeah. That's what I said - not this one; I attended the previous one, and that was actually my favorite part of the conference, so that KubeCon EU. This was -- I was going for a different experience. I was going more like talking to people like I'm talking to you... I attended a few talks, there were ...
**David Ansari:** That's correct.
**Gerhard Lazu:** How was that for you? Tell us about it.
**David Ansari:** It was a lot of fun, and the experience was very good from start to end. I first applied (I think) a few months ago, directly after KubeCon Europe. I was actually listening to Ship It episode 2, where some tips were given on how to submit an abstract... So I submitted my abstract I think just two days...
\[51:53\] There was very good content being given to the speakers on how to prepare, with checklists and deadlines, and the communication was very good from start to end. Especially Cody - he was answering very quickly, so that was nice. I pre-recorded the talk and I submitted it one month before the conference; that w...
**Gerhard Lazu:** I attended the talk, I have to say, and I really enjoyed it, especially how quickly you're answering questions... And I think there is something very unique about pre-recorded talks. Maybe the interaction isn't -- obviously, it's not the way you would interact if you were giving it in-person and you h...
**David Ansari:** Thank you very much.
**Gerhard Lazu:** You're welcome. During the talk, what was it like when you could -- basically, you were attending your own talk, and also you were answering questions. What was that like?
**David Ansari:** So the experience was very good, and I think the talk being pre-recorded has many advantages for both speaker, but also for the attendees. Because for the attendees it is just frictionless. They have a better experience. They can ask questions live when they don't understand something, and I can direc...
And as you mentioned, you can just pre-record the videos, you have multiples tries, you can edit it if you want... And to be honest, I was even having some parts of the videos which I had to edit and pre-record five times, just because the demo didn't work, for example... And it just results in a better end version, wh...
So the questions came in, and I could just answer them during the talk, and as the video was playing, I couldn't even pay attention to the video itself, because I was focusing on the Q&A part, and also the conversation thereafter was great.
My problem was a bit that my video was 32 minutes, and I had 35 minutes in total, so just 3 minutes left for Q&A. That was a bit short. But you can always continue the conversation after the talk.
**Gerhard Lazu:** So are you saying that you wish the talk was shorter, so that you would have had more time for Q&A?
**David Ansari:** Yes. So if I had to do the talk again, I would shorten it by probably 3-4 more minutes, just to leave enough room for questions in the end... Because I think that's one of the most valuable parts of the talk, so that you have a vivid discussion. Because that's the most important part of a talk, the di...
And you even see how advanced your users are... I was a bit surprised, because people that joined didn't even know what RabbitMQ is, which made me think that maybe I should have introduced RabbitMQ even better at the start of the talk.
**Gerhard Lazu:** So I think the level at which the talk was was intermediate-experienced, I believe. It wasn't a beginner talk. I also think - you're right, making it shorter is great, because there's two rules. Don't give out all of the information. And I won't tell you the second rule. That's it.
**David Ansari:** \[laughs\] I'm curious now... Do you hold it for the end? \[laughter\]
**Gerhard Lazu:** \[56:09\] No, I mean - there's two rules, and you only say one, right? Like, don't give out all the information; that's it. \[laughs\]
**David Ansari:** Okay, now I get it. Now I get it.
**Gerhard Lazu:** Okay. \[laughs\] So the idea being that you want the audience -- I mean, that's basically what prompts the questions, right? If you tell them half the story... I mean, there's so much more than you could tell them, but what do THEY want to know? And then they come to you asking about questions that yo...
I'm wondering if maybe had you maybe spent more time in Slack, you could have continued some of those conversations there. I don't know. But what I do know is that another talk which I attended, that was Liz Rice's talk on eBPF, in the talk the Q&A didn't work. We could ask questions, but she couldn't answer, and then ...
So I think that's a good idea, to say "Hey, if you wanna know more, if you wanna talk o me, I'll be there. Leet's hang out. Again, it's just an idea. Who know if it works out until you try it.
Okay, so what I'm hearing is that for first-speakers I think that having the talk prerecorded may be a better experience, because that's stage fright, being there for the first time, being overwhelmed by emotions, being overwhelmed by what's happening... There's too much stuff happening, right? Especially at a big conf...
**David Ansari:** So as I started the talk, I was very relaxed, because I knew that everything was pre-recorded, so nothing could go really wrong. I know that it can be intimidating when you go on stage, because if you do a live demo for example, many things can go wrong. So the talk being pre-recorded is just much mor...
**Gerhard Lazu:** So what are you thinking about the next KubeCon? Will you attend it in person, virtually, will you give a talk? Would you prefer to give a talk virtually, or would you like a pre-recorded one? Or do you prefer to give a talk in person? What are you thinking?
**David Ansari:** So if I have the chance to go to a conference in person, I would go there in person, because it's really about meeting the people. For me, a conference has two sides. The first side is really learning something, hearing talks, and having technical conversations, and the second part is meeting people a...
**Gerhard Lazu:** Are you thinking of giving a talk, or submitting one?
**David Ansari:** I would like to.
**Gerhard Lazu:** \[01:00:04.16\] So if the talk - let's imagine that it gets accepted. Are you thinking of giving it in-person, or pre-recording, as you have this time?
**David Ansari:** The next time I would give it in person, just to also practice.
**Gerhard Lazu:** Yeah. So what I'm looking up here - I just wanted to confirm because I sometimes get his name wrong. So there's this person that I admire when it comes to public speaking. His name is Matt Abrahams, and he gave a couple of talks about memorable communication, even wrote a book, a very good one - small...
Cool... So what did you enjoy the most about this KubeCon?
**David Ansari:** I enjoyed most that there were so many different tracks that I could choose from. The whole ecosystem is very wide. I think there were around 8, 9 or even 10 tracks in parallel. There was a lot of topics and talks to pick from, so that was a very good experience.
**Gerhard Lazu:** So it was a variety. Yes, it is a big conference, you're right. It's one of the biggest ones I know, and it's just so diverse. I love the diversity of KubeCon. I'm not aware of any conference that gets diversity better... And I mean diversity from all perspectives.
Any favorite talks, anything that stood out, that was memorable? ...because we spoke about memorable communication.
**David Ansari:** I didn't watch --
**Gerhard Lazu:** There were too many. \[laughter\]
**David Ansari:** So for me it was quite late, since I'm in Europe... So on Wednesday my talk started at 11:30, so before that I just watched one talk, to see how things are working with the platform, and after I was too tired to continue watching talks at 1 AM in the morning. The next day I was watching one which was ...
**Gerhard Lazu:** You do know that all these talks - first of all, you can watch them on-demand, in the platform, before they become available on YouTube. So what I tend to do - and this KubeCon this is what I've done... While I haven't watched the talks as they happened, only a few, what I've done - I would go back to...
**David Ansari:** What was the most valuable content to you?
**Gerhard Lazu:** I really enjoyed eBPF, I have to say. Something like the whole eBPF ecosystem - super, super-interesting, Liz Rice's talk, "Cloud-native superpowers with eBPF." Because I just love the kernel, I just love that observability, understanding what's happening inside the kernel... That's the talk that real...
\[01:03:59.03\] I didn't even know that there's actually an eBPF foundation. I learned about that at this conference. And yeah, it's just really interesting - networking, and the kernel, and performance and metrics, and that sort of thing.