From Attending KubeCon to Speaking at KubeCon: A Journey Full of Learnings.

Nǐ hǎo (Hello, in Chinese), In this blog, I’m pleased to share my experience of giving my first-ever talk at an international conference, KubeCon + Open Source Summit China, 2023, which took place in Shanghai this year ✈

I attended my first KubeCon in April 2023 in Amsterdam, where I saw a few excellent presentations that inspired me to take the stage and give my own session. I was working as an intern at VMware then, helping with the upstream Kubernetes project’s contextual logging efforts.

A month later, Mengjiao, a fellow Kubernetes contributor, posted a message in the contextual-logging Slack channel expressing her desire to submit a call for proposals (CFP) for KubeCon China and seeking community collaborations; I contacted her to discuss the proposal idea. However, we later learned of a policy stating that individuals can only participate in one talk during the Maintainer track session. We decided that I would submit the talk on my own, and with the help of sig-instrumentation maintainer Patrik Ohly, I accomplished that goal and submitted a CFP with the title “Revolutionizing Kubernetes Logging: Structured Logs for Enhanced Monitoring” ✅

And hey, it was easily accepted because the talk was in the maintainer track! Did you know when I got the acceptance email? I received it on my birthday, the best birthday present ever! ❤

BTW, I met and had a good long discussion with Patrik in Amsterdam - just thought of mentioning it here :)

A Day Before

Since my talk was scheduled for the first day of KubeCon, I arrived a day early, settled into my hotel, had lunch, took a nap, and began rehearsing. I was a little concerned since, although I finished my presentation slides before flying to China, I never practiced giving it. Thus, I practiced it a lot until midnight, until I felt comfortable speaking and presenting the content on my slides. Why did I put in so much practice? Because I knew where I was going to take the stage, it’s KubeCon dued! and it has a very sharp audience 🤯

That Day

I reached the venue in the morning, although my session was scheduled for the afternoon. I first met Mengjiao, who was also preparing for her talk. After that, I attended a couple of sessions to get the vibes of the conference and become comfortable there.

I then walked to the solution showcase hall to network, where I met Shuting Zhao, a former Nirmata colleague. We could not have been more delighted to see each other in person for the first time. After a while, she shared her experience of the talk she gave that morning and asked me how I felt a few hours before my talk. I told her about my last rehearsal day and that I wasn’t feeling particularly frightened or excited — just regular 😌

That Particular Moment

I took the stage, connected my laptop, held the mic, and welcomed the audience. That’s how it started. Would you like to know how it went?

The session is recorded and is publicly available on the CNCF’s YouTube channel, here’s the link.
Drop a 👍 and let me know your thoughts in the comments.

What Happened Next!

It was fascinating that I delivered my first international conference talk without any hesitation or nervousness on stage in front of so many clever and curious minds of the cloud-native community 😀

Mengjiao notified me that because the majority of the audience was Chinese, I was speaking too fast for them. However, I got a positive response from my Indian friends, who attended my session to show their support and increase the crowd in the room, LOL.

Key Takeaways!

• Being active in the open source community so that you can say Yes to such opportunities which comes your way.
• Practice like never before, I don’t know how many times I practiced my talk.
• Just be yourself and people will love you. Authenticity is key for a great presentation. 💪
• Dream big and have the belief that you can achieve it! 🚀

What’s the plan moving forward?

Our plans should always be private, but as a hint, I’m planning to attend and speak at more such conferences in the future ;) Writing a blog on my entire experience during this conference is also on my TODO 🗒

Xièxiè (pronounced Shi-Shi, Thank you in Chinese)