Guest post by Massimiliano Giovagnoli, DevOps Engineer at Deltatre and Falco project contributor
This is just a story and thoughts about people. I begin with me, telling you about my first KubeCon ever. Since I couldn’t join the Europe edition, I joined the NA one, despite the timezone. For sure I knew it would have been a tour de force, joining it after working hours in Italy until 1 AM for 4 days, but I thought : “The schedule is so rich… Let’s do it!
So I joined Intrado (the chosen platform). WTF!? To be honest, I found the format, initially overwhelming and frustrating due to the large amount of parallel content and a lot of interactive channels. It was also frustrating because “a lot of things were happening ” and you still didn’t get what you wanted to follow or interact with.
This is mostly because it’s a big conference and also my first one. When you find your way, this format enables a lot of people who otherwise wouldn’t join as well as the people who participate but otherwise wouldn’t interact – hello! it’s me – to join the community and to feel like a family.
This is true in my experience because I found my way. Maybe we can better facilitate how to find it, because by the end of the day, the conferences are made by people, and I found this people inclusive and good.
And here it comes to the core of the matter.
The need to feel included is not about how we are, but about how we feel and how people make us feel. We should ask ourselves everyday “how do I feel?” and answer. Every one of us just is in a unique manner and that’s beautiful, the emotions make the difference.
We also should try to answer the next question: “why do I feel so?”, like for the 5-questions method. Moreover, try to tell ourselves our story, everyday, and how each chapter of it they made us feel.
The impostor syndrome is just one of the ways we feel but it’s just a label. Our feelings are unique by default. ManuelTrebbi is doing a great job here in Italy to make us think about it and help ourselves to reason about how we feel and why. talk video reg
Events may or may not make us feel part of a community, and that is a natural need as humans. Virtual events can remove many different barriers, not only logistical ones, but it’s not so easy. I think the CNCF is doing a great job by putting together the pieces and make us feel good and have fun, while learning something, not also tech, but also about people.
And that’s something sometimes we forget. POP deserves a special thanks, he’s like a dad of a big family, not because of the age – joking – but for the capability to understand people.
Also, a good example is Dario Tranchitella with the great work he does everyday with Kubernetes Italia group on Telegram.
But, hey! I’m a newbie and I’m sure it’s full of beautiful people in the community.
This comes to the next step, and it’s about also a question we should consider: “how others feel?”. Then: “how can I make other people feel good?”. We are a community, I try to remind myself every day, also when it’s hard to believe and you feel alone, and you should too.