Cloud-native approaches are now default software development practices - Highlights from a recent 451 survey. “Many organizations using cloud native expect their adoption of these technologies and architectures to become more ubiquitous over time. Among companies using cloud-native resources, approximately 60% say more than half of their applications are currently architected using cloud native, rising to 77% when organizations project two years into the future.” // “Homegrown cloud-native software development is strong. Looking specifically at how organizations are building and buying these services, 65% of organizations say at least 50% of their cloud-native software is internally developed.” // “Improvements to IT operations efficiency is accelerating as cloud native’s biggest benefit. Efficiency improvements continue to be the top benefit seen by organizations using cloud native (66% in 2023 versus 61% in 2022), while the role of cloud native in delivering sustainability is now moving front and center alongside security (respectively 45% and 44%). Improvements to developer speed and productivity (43%), cost reduction (40%), and improved time to market (40%) are other key benefits.” // “Fielded from May 4 through June 29, 2023, with a panel of IT decision-makers, 330 of whom were actively using or currently implementing cloud-native technologies and methodologies."

The next generation of developer productivity – O’Reilly - As ever nowadays, developer productivity is the top problem. Also, full CI/CD (or just good pipeline automation) is still hovering around 50% as it has been for a decade or more: “Over half of the respondents (51%) said that their organizations are using self-service deployment pipelines to increase productivity. Another 13% said that while they’re using self-service pipelines, they haven’t seen an increase in productivity. So almost two-thirds of the respondents are using self-service pipelines for deployment, and for most of them, the pipelines are working—reducing the overhead required to put new projects into production.” // I’m a little leery of survey like this because these the conclusions you’d make from there results seem to always be the case. But also, I didn’t read it in detail.

I’ve been off the publishing grid for awhile, even off the consuming the Internet grid. This is a mix of partial vacation, taking care of some family things, an obsession with D&D, and the first break in my workaholic nature for…20…even 30 years?

It is time for a few new habits, rather than swirling around the old ones. The most counter-whatyoudthink is probably to start going into the office more. My work has an OK-good office in upper west Amsterdam. It is a 40 minute bike ride, each way. That amount of biking a day would both give me more exercise than I’ve ever had in my life and also more lazy-mindfulness time than the same.

The office lacks offices, which is the core problem with the anti-WFH people. One, I have a whole desk studio setup for all the videos and podcasts I do. There is no place for that at a regular white-collar office. Two, I bet if there were actually close-the-door offices at work, people would want to return. But open plan offices are shit. Everyone knows this, you don’t need to go selective-bias find some HBR article.

But that’s not for here. I have a whole screed in this for the newsletter someday.

The second change: when I say I’ve been “doing nothing,” what I mean is that I have not been publishing my own work. I have been spending a lot of time editing others, writing an MC script, and otherwise doing work that, I don’t know, helps others. I’m pretty sure I’m very good at editing and general content-creation, uh, “pedantry.” I always have been. There’s something in the weird mix of my skills at writing, narrative, speaking/podcasting, and then my total unwillingness to be confrontational, and then my taste that makes for comfortable, welcoming, but effective editing and shepherding. I don’t know. I should edit more people’s stuff.

After all, the Rhetoricians were my favorite. While Socrates and his crew were talking about some mystical bullshit of Truth, the Rhetoricians were getting shit done with words.

So, the days note. They are passing, and I’ve almost done enough of nothing to be ready to get back to doing more of something.

80% of execs regret calling employees back to the office - Hmm. It seems really hard to tell what the effects of remote working and in-person working are. People just have to make shut up.

Bike maker VanMoof also files for bankruptcy in Germany - I had no idea that this luxury bike company was in such bad shape. Their bikes sure seem awesome, but are hella expensive compared to the €80 beaters you can get that, you know, do the job just fine.

As HashiCorp adopts the BSL, an era of open-source software might be ending - Is it too soon to say that open source businesses no longer work? (Unless you’re a bit public cloud or you do open core?)

Checking In On ChatGPT - Text-centric AI best used for text-centric toil: “The most common uses cited in the survey were for creating first drafts of text, personalizing marketing materials, identifying trends or communicating with customers with chatbots. AI isn’t quite doing iRobot stuff yet, but taking the sting out of some of the more “boring” corporate tasks will always have its place."

PDFs vs. web pages: what’s better for users? - Bad things are bad, and using a thing for something it’s bad at (or when a better way exists) is also bad. PDFs are great, just not when it should be a webpage, or something else instead.

Helen Garner on happiness: ‘It’s taken me 80 years to figure out it’s not a tranquil, sunlit realm’ - Project versus product for happiness. Also, living life by waste book/commonplace book - something I certainly can appreciate. (Bit it a ringer it being Helen Garner, but don’t let that stop you.)

A quick one today, no time to compile the links and stuff

Writing good MC scripts for the keynote sessions

I’ve been writing the MC script for our upcoming SpringOne conference. I was supposed to go be one of the MCs but had to cancel. It would have been awesome to know both sides of MC script writing - creating it, and reading it. I wrote the MC script last year. And, you know, I’ve watched lots of main stage keynote dog and pony shows (and plenty of goat rodeos). Here’s some quickly typed out tips on writing the MC script:

1. The content is important, but the timing is more. You need to get a sense for how many words you can put in the slots. Then you can change the words around as much as needed.

2. Account for walking on and off the stage. I timed myself and it took me about 8 seconds to walk five meters, stop, and say, “Hi!”, including turning a corner at the start (like walking out from behind a curtain). So, double that to 16, round up to 20 if you want to be safe. If the MCs walk off as the people walk on, you can save some time. But, account for them maybe shaking hands, etc.

3. If the MC is introducing a video, then maybe you can just have the stage go dark and start the video as the MC walks off - saving that walk off time.

4. Read it out loud a lot, record it. This is for timing, but also to see if its easy enough to say the words, if it sounds “natural,” and if it can be read from a teleprompter.

5. I record each chunk on its own, watch the recording and time it, work on the text, re-record it, etc. This is better than doing it all at once and matches what the MCs will actually be doing too.

6. Instead of having the MCs walk on stage, you can always use the “voice of god” (VoG) for super quick intros. The voice of god is an unseen announcer. Keep these very short just name, title, and, optionally, topic, e.g.: “now please welcome Chris Christopher from Acme Inc.” This will shave down walking time and longer intro time. I’d use the same person for the VoG each time.

7. It’s good to do in-person intros (not VoG) for people you want to respect: executives, customer speakers, inspirational speakers, etc.

8. You should have the MCs be the first humans the attendees see and hear (there’s usually some opening thing, then they come out). The introduction can be super short, or long if you prefer. At a minimum it should be something like “Hi, I’m MC One. And I’m MC Two. Wow, welcome - this is so awesome, right? You’re tellin' me! Today you’re doing to hear some great stuff like this, and that, and that other cool thing. All your people are great, and the thing we’re here for is great. You’re going to hear about some great things that have been going on, some new great things we’ve been working on for you, and some great stories about people using and benefiting from the thing. Let’s get started with So and So…”

9. The MCs should generally acknowledge what was just said in the previous section, maybe adding something like “boy, that was great, right?” sort of thing. Their main job in the show is mix together the sessions and to introduce people.

10. Before you lock down the final draft, you probably want to have 30 to 60 seconds free for last minute additions and shifts. And then, on the day of, there’ll be changes for that, it’s probably good to keep the total MC script time about 30 seconds under allotted. This can be bonus time for other unforeseen things too.

11. The biggest job is the closing, or “house keeping.” The MCs should tell people what’s coming next, when significant, fun events are, and send them off with some encouraging advice, like to take the time to talk with people. You’re priming people for what to do.

12. Also, there might be some rookie mistakes you can help attendees avoid. For example, at some conferences, you have to reserve your spot in sessions, and they fill up fast. If that’s the case, you need to tell the audience - I never think to do that so I end up missing a lot of talks that were pre-booked. What are other things you can help them with.

Upcoming

Talks I’ll be giving, places I’ll be, things I’ll be doing, etc.

Sep 6th O’Reilly Infrastructure & Ops Superstream: Kubernetes, online, speaking. Sep 6th to 7th DevOpsDays Des Moines, speaking. Sep 13th, stackconf, Berlin. Sep 14th to 15th SREday, London, speaking (get 50% of registration with the code 50-SRE-DAY) Sep 18th to 19th SHIFT in Zadar, speaking. Oct 3rd Enterprise DevOps Techron, Utrecht, speaking. Oct 5th & 6th Monktoberfest, Portland, ME. Nov 6th to 9th VMware Explore in Barcelona, speaking.

Logoff

I was reminded this week that it’s good to get out of the house. You might not be surprised to know that I am terrible at that. People are actually great and life affirming to hang out with!

Also:

I’ve been thinking a lot this week about starting up livestreaming again. I don’t know - for whatever reasons. After way too much work on a few seconds of intro and outro videos,1 fucking around with a new YouTube thumbnail), and re-setting up OBS,2 I did a pretty successful PoC this morning. By “success,” I mean all the technical stuff, the content was just “hey guys!” type of stuff.

OBS should be all set up now so that I can quickly go in and just do them at near clock time. Thankfully, I have somewhere around or over 20 years of podcasting and just showing up and talking, so if I have a topic, or a question, I can go on and on…and on. Speaking of: if you have any questions or topics, send them to me. I questions-driven show is the best: no prep, and people tend to ask things I’d never think to talk about.

LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE…mofos.