KubeCon, Kindness, and Legos with Michael Chenetz

Break Things on Purpose

Today we chat with Cisco’s head of developer content, community, and events, Michael Chenetz. We discuss everything from KubeCon to kindness and Legos! Michael delves into some of the main themes he heard from creators at KubeCon, and we discuss methods for increasing adoption of new concepts in your organization. We have a conversation about attending live conferences, COVID protocol, and COVID shaming, and then we talk about how Legos can be used in talks to demonstrate concepts. We end the conversation with a discussion about combining passions to practice creativity.

• We discuss our time at KubeCon in Spain (5:51)
• Themes Michael heard at KubeCon talking with creators (7:46)
• Increasing adoption of new concepts (9:27)
• We talk conferences, COVID shaming, and blamelessness (12:21)
• Legos and reliability (18:04)
• Michael talks about ways to exercise creativity (23:20)

Links:

• KubeCon October 2022: https://events.linuxfoundation.org/kubecon-cloudnativecon-north-america/
• Nintendo Lego Set: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08HVXMQ87?ref_=cm_sw_r_cp_ud_dp_ED7NVBWPR8ANGT8WNGS5
• Cloud Unfiltered podcast episode featuring Julie and Jason:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep125-chaos-engineering-with-julie-gunderson-and-jason/id1215105578?i=1000562393884

Links Referenced:

• Cisco: https://www.cisco.com/
• Cloud Unfiltered Podcast with Julie and Jason: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep125-chaos-engineering-with-julie-gunderson-and-jason/id1215105578?i=1000562393884
• Cloud Unfiltered Podcast: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/cloud/podcasts.html
• Nintendo Lego: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08HVXMQ87

Transcript

Julie: And for folks that are interested in, too, what day it is—because I think we’re all still a little bit confused—it is Monday, May 24th that we are recording this episode.

Jason: Uh, Julie’s definitely confused on what day it is because it’s actually Tuesday, [laugh] May 24th.

Michael: Oh, my God. [laugh]. That’s great. I love it.

Julie: Welcome to Break Things on Purpose, a podcast about reliability, learning from each other, and blamelessness. In this episode, we talk to Michael Chenetz, head of developer content, community, and events at Cisco, about all of the learnings from KubeCon, the importance of being kind to each other, and of course, how Lego translates into technology.

Julie: Today, we are joined by Michael Chenetz. Michael, do you want to tell us a little bit about yourself?

Michael: Yeah. [laugh]. Well, first of all, thank you for having me on the show. And I’m really good at breaking things, so I guess that’s why I’m asked to be here is because I’m superb at it. What I’m not so good at is, like, putting things back together.

Like when I was a kid, I remember taking my dad’s stereo apart; wasn’t too happy about that. Wasn’t very good at putting it back together. But you know, so that’s just going back a little ways there. But yeah, so I work for the DevRel at Cisco and my whole responsibility is, you know, to get people to know that know a little bit about us in terms of, you know, all the developer-related topics.

Julie: Well, and Jason and I had the awesome opportunity to hang out with you at KubeCon, where we got to join your Cloud Unfiltered podcast. So folks, definitely go check out that episode. We have a lot of fun. We’ll put a link in the [show notes 00:02:03]. But yeah, let’s talk a little bit about KubeCon. So, as of recording this episode, we all just recently traveled back from Spain, for KubeCon EU, which was… amazing. I really enjoyed being there. My first time in Spain. I got back, I can tell you, less than 24 hours ago. Michael, I think—when did you get back?

Michael: So, I got back Saturday night, but my bags have not arrived yet. So, they’re still traveling and they’re enjoying Europe. And they should be back soon, I guess when they’re when they feel like they’re—you know, they should be back from vacation.

Julie: [laugh].

Michael: So. [laugh].

Julie: Jason, how about you? When did you get home?

Jason: I got home on Sunday night. So, I took the train from Valencia to Barcelona on Saturday evening, and then an early morning flight on Sunday and got home late Sunday night.

Julie: And for folks that are interested in, too, what day it is—because I think we’re all still a little bit confused—it is Monday, May 24th that we are recording this episode.

Jason: Uh, Julie’s definitely confused on what day it is because it’s actually Tuesday, [laugh] May 24th.

Michael: Oh, my God. [laugh]. That’s great. I love it. By the way, yesterday was my birthday so I’m going to say—

Julie: Happy birthday.

Michael: —happy birthday to myself.

Julie: Oh, my gosh, happy birthday. [laugh].

Michael: Thank you [laugh].

Julie: So… what is time anyway?

Jason: Yeah.

Michael: It’s all good. It’s all relative. Time is relative.

Julie: Time is relative. And so, you know, tell us a little bit about—I’d love to know a little bit about why you want folks to know about, like, what is the message you try to get across?

Jason: Oh, that’s not the question I thought you were going to ask. I thought you were going to ask, “What’s on your Amazon wishlist so people can send you birthday presents?”

Julie: Yeah, let’s back up. Let’s do that. So, let’s start with your Amazon wishlist. We know that there might be some Legos involved.

Michael: Oh, my God, yeah. I mean, you just told me about a cool one, which was Optimus Prime and I just—I’m already on the website, my credit card is out and I’m ready to buy. So, you know, this is the problem with talking to you guys. [laugh]. It’s definitely—you know, that’s definitely on my list. So, anything that, anything music-related because obviously behind me is a lot of music equipment—I love music stuff—and anything tech. The combination of tech and music, and if you can combine Legos and that, too, man that would just match all the boxes. [laugh].

Julie: Just to let you know, there’s a Lego Con. Like, I did not know this until last night, actually. But it is a virtual conference.

Michael: Really.

Julie: Yeah. But one of the things I was looking at act...