Introduction
This blog is the second of a series of four blogs describing how I lived KubeCon Europe 2023 from different perspectives.
The first blog was about the Community point-of-view, and while it had some more personal aspects, this one is the more intimate point-of-view and I'll be fully transparent about the first Willy Wonka game I held during KubeCon EU.
But first, let's have a short recap on the rollercoaster leading to KubeCon EU.
The decision
The leading to KubeCon EU this year was by far not an easy task, mentally speaking. Somehow, the MVP summit was held at the exact same dates and, it's no secret, I'm a huge Microsoft fanboy and since 2020 where I should have visited Redmond, I truly want to go there once and see my friends there.
However the fact both major events were at the same time, provided a lot of unnecessary stress to decide which event I should go to. However the karma decided that I would be sponsored by my own company to go to KubeCon EU and help at the booth. This came after a colleague couldn't join, so initially I was paying the whole trip by myself.
Fast forward to the end of KubeCon EU, and I think now that the decision was the good one. And this is a bit thanks to my friend Isidora that went to Redmond and enjoyed meeting the friends she knows there. I could fully relate to what she was living by being at KubeCon EU and seeing my own friends.
I do know the Microsoft team, however I realized that MVP community wise, I only know few persons and the experience would have been totally different.
So in the end, like I said, the best decision was to be at KubeCon EU.
My own MVP summit
While I wasn't in Redmond for the MVP summit, my Microsoft friends that came to KubeCon EU made it so special for me that I felt I was having a mini-summit. And I really thank Andy, Vinicius and Jeremy for their kindness and support. I had the chance to hang out with them and other Microsoft employees during few dinners, one during Rejekts, another on Thursday and the last one on Saturday before I left Amsterdam. And I trully felt home, speaking about Microsoft, Cloud Native and without any fear of judgement.
Andy even made it more special by giving me the first gift for this KubeCon EU. He's just an amazing human being.
While I had the chance to meet other persons from Microsoft, Lachlan and Ralph, very special to my heart, also brought me almost to tears when they came to me and either hugged me or told me how important my (crazy) work in Cloud Native from a WSL point-of-view was. This means the world to me.
So I'll keep being me, talking about WSL and Windows in the Cloud Native community, because I know that other persons around the world need this representation and my work matters to them.
Willy Wonka
Before I go through the whole story, I must give a huge shoutout to David Flanagan a.k.a Rawkode! So if you're reading this, please go to his [Rawkode academy](https://rawkode.academy/) and show support. If your company needs any help or advice, then David is definitively the person you need.
For anyone who knows me from the past conferences, I tend to bring chocolate to my friends and few "lucky" random persons. This KubeCon EU was no different, however I had the idea on bringing it further and have conference size Willy Wonka type of game. The price would be half of my "Ambassador purse", 125$, split in five golden tickets of 25$.
When I suggest the idea to Katie from the CNCF team, she absolutely loved it and made everything so I would the five coupons ready. Then before the conference, I tweeted about the idea and suggested that some companies could participate by offering also 5 coupons for their services. I thought it would be a win-win situation. Well, nobody answered, but that's OK, I mean it was just before KubeCon EU and my tweet might have not be as seen as I wanted.
So on Tuesday, I get the five coupons from Katie and I start tweeting about the game. Few interactions, and again I really thought it might simply be me and the tweet disappears in the masses.
Friends to the rescue
So while my close friends knew about it, the reach didn't seem to spread that much. But in Cloud Native community I trust, and that's when two friends came to the rescue. First I crossed Bart in restricted area (at least for me), and to help me get through to a session, he told me "you know what, I have to go there, so let's pretend I'm filming you, nobody will stop us".
And that's exactly what happened, he started "fake filming", asking random questions about the event while we were moving to the restricted area (again, for me only). But then, Bart being the professional he is, actually started recording and asked about this Willy Wonka thing. I answered, and few minutes later he sends me a DM with a video asking if I liked it. Well that captured the moment perfectly and I said yes it was great.
Bart posted the video, and it finally went semi-viral (at KubeCon EU level). People started to like his tweet and showed appreciation to the initiative. And here's where Rawkode came also by offering to participate to the golden tickets. For the ones who follow him, like I do, this particular gift is worth a 1000x my own tickets. He's self employed, and yet he was the only one to offer those tickets!
This is not a shot at other companies, it's really only about how exceptional Rawkode is. That's it.
From idea to reality
So with ten golden tickets hidden in twenty chocolate bars, I decided to spread the game over the three KubeCon EU days. While at booth duty, I would not play, and once free I would go in the booth area giving chocolate, asking random people to play.
While initially I truly wanted to have people find me, again my lack in communication really didn't make it visible, so on Wednesday I gave two tickets and came up with another strategy for the two remaining days.
Starting Thursday I really wanted to give a proper thank you to those "booth invisible" persons that make it run smoothly and who might not be that well known from the community. I mean, I was in the SUSE "fun booth", and I truly felt the impact on me (more on that in the corporate point-of-view blog). So while there's a lot of booth persons that get attention, have fun discussing, behind the scenes there's a lot of people making it running smooth.
Of course, Willy Wonka game is still a game, so I went in different booth, brought three or four chocolate bars out with only one with the golden ticket and asked the persons to pick one. Told them the rules and that they would get chocolate anyway. The smiles and appreciation made me the real winner here. They loved the idea and played along.
If you can't go to Rome, then bring Rome to you
This expression is one that I used since ever, and it's certainly a twist of another one. However this represents my state of mind for the last day. I still had few tickets to give, however I would work from start to finish at the booth and couldn't go around. So once more I had to rely on a friend and asked Marino if he knew two persons that worked hard on their booth and deserved some chocolate? I didn't have to ask twice, he told me to wait for couple minutes and he was back with the next two winners.
Finally, all week we were near a booth where the team was really friendly to us, came great us every morning, so I decided to thank them and three persons of the booth played and the last winner of the Willy Wonka game was found.
The future for the Willy Wonka game
I truly still don't know if this was a one and done type of game. I mean, I'll continue bring chocolate on my own, but the golden tickets might not appear on all events. It still might feel special and not something you might expect all the time. First there's a price tag, between 200 to 300$ in chocolate alone, and then the prices. When I bring chocolate, my friends know it's not the cheapest ones as I truly want to give my them my proper thanks and tell them how happy I am to see them again.
So if I ever run it again, then I'll be sure to have a proper communication prepared, but one thing I won't change is to believe in my friends as I know they'll get my back!
The untold stories
There's many other stories to be told, and I'll keep them for when I meet people in-person. But to give you an idea, here are some special moments:
- I gave a chocolate bar to Kelsey, thanks to my friend Matt that didn't had to convince him too much 🍫
- I went in the same restaurant twice in a row the same evening with two different group of friends (Hi, I'm Nuno 🤣). Trust me when I say the waiter really looked puzzled the second time
- I could enter in restricted areas/events twice, thanks to friends (*cough*Bart/Shimon/Itay*cough*) and acted like I was invited (Rotem, I'm sorry I shouldn't be there 😇)
- I witnessed people eat ice cream at 22h30 while freezing outside and it gave me an instant brain freeze 🥶
- I was called a fanboy for another technology other than WSL and it felt just great (❤️ you too Wolfi)
- I know a secret that I'll keep with me alone, forever, but that makes the person just more exceptional. My new Hero in the real life ⭐
- I witnessed someone eating 5x the same plate during the same dinner. And I'm now part of the Tulsi gang 🖖
- I told a friend to be careful during KubeCon EU, she didn't believed me and 1h later she wrote me I was right (we laughed about it as it was nothing serious, but still...) 🚶
Conclusion
From the decision, to meeting with so many friends, KubeCon EU really felt special in so many ways. I truly believe I'm a lucky guy surrounded by amazing persons. I also really hope it's the last time I have to make a decision between two communities, this really was somewhat painful!
I'm sure I forgot to mention some moments here, so if you have a good story about how we met or a discussion, then please tweet about it, I really will love to read about it.