Just a veeeery quick blog/survival guide that could be useful for new KubeCon attendees or for experienced ones that still need some hints.
Let’s start:
- Build your schedule ahead Please, do not go with the wind, the wind blows faster than you think and you’ll end up overwhelmed by all the talks and events.
- Include after hour events in your schedule, do it now!
- Leave some room for breaks, eating, drinking water, going to the bathroom (yep, forgetting is a thing), breathe some fresh air, smoke a cigarette (or not, it’s not that healthy)
- Use Too Good To Goo instead of eating in a restaurant every single night, it could save some money and you could discover some hidden gems / small grocery shops and typical food as well.
- Still fit some exercise and no, walking during the conference doesn’t count.
- Networking is king, but if your social battery is empty just let other people know, give them your LinkedIn name and ask them to follow up the day after or something, no shame in kindly refusing a conversation if you are not >80% committed to it.
- Learn some French, typically English won’t get you anywhere. English only will he survivorship, French? Gets you far. I won’t personally learn any because I really suck at languages (not programming ones tho) on top of a thing called 2006 soccer world cup. Jkjk, but still, Italy won.
- Take pictures, take small notes and at the end of each day, try to upload them in a safe place, you’ll get to reorder and organize everything later, no worries.
- Pair with a “senior” attendee (or group of) if you can.
- Call your loved ones once in a while (e.g. lunch break), try to dedicate some time to them.
- Dedicate some time for self reflection, try to understand if you are getting what you want/need from this conference and embrace changing your schedule if needed.
- Forget your company for a minute just be yourself and try to enjoy the ride, do your best and you’ll eventually reach your goals or even break them! The last one is especially for my DevRel colleagues, or whoever has booth duties and lead goals. I wish you good look, it’s going to be wild but we’re gonna crush it!
Happy KubeCon EU 2024 :)
That’s all for now, from your favorite Developer Avocado🥑 Find all my links 👉 here.
See you around, ciao!
Originally published on blog.mb-consulting.dev