DevOps Conference Returns: Global DevOps Experience

As mentioned in our event introduction post, the Global DevOps Bootcamp, a premier learning opportunity for those interested in DevOps, returned to the community this June as the Global DevOps Experience.

This year's Global DevOps Experience saw community leaders host 40 events across 25 countries. The 'Event-in-a-box,' which included session materials, videos, and more, provided to all organizers fostered a sense of unity and ensured a consistent level of learning across the global community. Additionally, local organizers and speakers, well-versed in their regional DevOps trends, enriched the events with unique insights, enhancing the learning experience for all participants.

We had the opportunity to speak with two core team members who led the Global DevOps Experience: Marcel de Vries, a Developer Technologies MVP and Regional Director, and Rene van Osnabrugge, a Developer Technologies MVP. They shared behind-the-scenes stories of the event's inception and execution, as well as their thoughts on DevOps.

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What inspired you to develop the concept of Global DevOps Experience, and how do you see events evolve?

Before COVID-19 we had a thriving Community in DevOps Space. COVID was devastating to this community. We witnessed the downfall of many communities with the absence of in-person events and people connected on a human level. We saw a steep decline in contributions and participation and engagement.

After visiting MVP summit 2024 and reconnecting with many of the MVPs in person and hearing the same stories, we felt a need to try to reboot the DevOps community. We suggested thinking about this and got overwhelming positive responses from community members, Microsoft and GitHub, and were confident this could be successful. That made us decide to take the plunge and build a whole new experience that would connect the communities around the world again and also advance the DevOps ecosystem with everything that is new.

We see the event evolve with the revitalized community that really enjoyed this edition. Hopefully we get full support again from Microsoft and GitHub sponsoring the event, so we can run a new event with a new story and new learnings next year.

Considering the unique 'Event in-a-box' format of the Global DevOps Experience, could you share some insights into the challenges and rewards of creating such an immersive, worldwide event?

We wanted to create an experience that goes beyond the traditional hands-on labs or presentations for a group. This is something we’ve learned over the years: when you build something that is easy to adapt and deliver in a local environment you boost the participation of the community. We strongly felt we needed to put the local organizers in front of their groups and make them stand out as the organizing hero.

Reaching both organizers and participants was extremely challenging. The social media usage has shifted, hence making it more difficult to get the message out. E.g. twitter is not “the” platform anymore, LinkedIn only reaches business and a small part of the audience and as golden oldies we have not fully wrapped our heads around platforms like TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram to reach a more diverse audience.

Coordinating and building the total experience was also of course quite challenging. Finding a group of passionate professionals that want to become a ‘movie star’, wants to  build challenges for the storyline, or automating the infrastructure we build for the event is quite an ask. The team spent over 500 hours of their spare time and did all this because we felt it was cool, what we could accomplish. That drove the group to work late hours.

The responses we got from people on social media - where we see they all embraced the story, the learnings and the personal connections - was really rewarding. Of course, also the responses we got from people at GitHub, Microsoft and our own company made it worth the effort.

How do you envision AI-powered developer tools transforming the day-to-day work of developers, and what role do you believe they will play in the next wave of DevOps evolution?

Software development as it exists today will probably become quite different. Where software development is now only in reach for the happy few, in terms of education, it will be democratized. Meaning a more diverse and broader group of people with different backgrounds and skillsets will be able to build software. Not by writing in a programming language, but probably by using natural language and AI tools that will transform this into executable code. This is pivotal for our industry and will make software even more ingrained in our society. As Marc Andreessen said, ‘software is eating the world’, this is accelerated by the use of AI. With this evolution of how we build software, the notion of DevOps will also change significantly, supporting the new way of work.

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Lastly, we are pleased to share photos from some of the local events. As noted in the comments above, there is growing excitement for future events. We hope these images capture the atmosphere of each venue and build anticipation for future events. Keep an eye on the official website for further updates: https://www.globaldevopsx.com/

Global DevOps Experience 2024 in Zaragoza, Spain (LinkedIn post from Dotnetters Zaragoza)

Global DevOps Experience 2024 in Lisbon, Portugal (LinkedIn post from Microsoft Azure MVP, Pedro Sousa)

Global DevOps Experience 2024 in Lima, Peru (LinkedIn post from Microsoft User Group Perú)

Global DevOps Experience 2024 in Skopje, Macedonia (LinkedIn post from Security MVP, Dimitar Grozdanov)

Global DevOps Experience 2024 in Tokyo, Japan (Developer Technologies MVP, Takashi Takebayashi)