 From the CUBE Studios in Palo Alto in Boston, connecting with thought leaders all around the world, this is a CUBE Conversation. Hi everyone, welcome to this CUBE Conversation. I'm John Furrier, host of the CUBE here in Palo Alto, California during the COVID-19 current situation. We're here with a skeleton crew, getting the content out there. I wanted to bring a special remote interview to you with two great remote guests, talking about how the digital events and how the digital interactions are evolving and how our community is reacting. Got two great guests, John Christ, the Senior Vice President of Marketing at Docker and Jenny Priscio, who's the advocate, community and DockerCon content lead at Docker. Jenny and John, thanks for joining me today. Great to be here, thank you. So you guys, Docker has been one of the most popular container platforms from the beginning of this cloud native movement. You have over millions and millions of developers out there. DockerCon is going virtual to the event that you guys have had physically over the years. Now it's going to go virtual, but this is not new to the developer world. And I want to get into that in the conversation, but first I want to give you guys a chance to take a minute and explain, John Christ, if you could take a minute to explain the new Docker because there were some changes over the past year, take a quick minute to explain that. Sure, thanks John and hello everybody. So we went through a change in November of last year to refocus Docker on, I'll say what it was the roots and the foundations of the company around developers and developer teams. And so at that time we took the action to split off the enterprise focus component of the business, sold it to a company called Brantus. And since that time, we've been working very diligently around refocusing Docker on developer tooling, developer chains and really developer productivity, individuals and teams. And that's something that has really revitalized our community, I'll say. The community has been strong and has come with us and I think is reacting very, very positively to this change. So that's something that we've been going on for about five months into that change and that's been positive so far. So it's a startup, kind of a reset, kind of a startup again, it's a startup roots, but with a huge community, millions of developers. Massive community, that's right. Millions of developers, more than two million Docker desktop downloads and installed on developer machines. Huge community around Docker hub, using that as their central collaboration point for developers for developing applications as they move those applications to the web and to the cloud infrastructure. So really just a tremendous community. It is a refocused company, but one that really is starting with a phenomenal foundation, as you mentioned in terms of the community that we have with us. It's a second chance to ride the big wave, certainly the waves are bigger now. I don't want to make this a real commercial about Docker or DockerCon, we're going to do a special video promo reel on that event, which we're kind of co-producing with you guys on a new collaboration. So look for the folks watching, look for a nice promo intro video on what's going to happen at DockerCon which will be a whole nother track. The reason why I wanted to bring you guys here is that this highlights to me the core impact of part of this crisis, the current situation around coronavirus, COVID-19, people are working at home more. So the mainstream world is seeing what it's like to work at home, people are understanding some of the pressures and the dynamics around how people communicate and work. And we, Jenny, we're talking about this from a community standpoint, open source community. They've been working at home for a long time. It's been one of the most biggest success stories hasn't been written is the success of how software developers have been productive in working in these groups on big projects with people from around the world. This isn't new. I'd love to get your perspective on how, what's your reaction to everyone else's reaction of the whole work at home digital world? Yeah, so I mean, if you look at what open source and what engineers have done generally, innovation doesn't happen within an office from nine to five and whatever time zone you're in. And so there's been with, you know, Docker, GitHub, Zoom, right? A number of tools in place and not just the ones I named that really allow anyone anywhere in the world to contribute their ideas and respond real time. We're not going through a huge change even, you know, within Docker or in tech of having to work from home, maybe kids in the calls is a little bit different. But for many of us, we're lucky to continue marching on during this time. What do you guys see as best practices of the work at home crisis or some of the collaboration techniques? I mean, everyone knows that, you know, the online troll. I mean, trolls just get put it out or moderated out of groups. Is there a certain best practice that you could share with folks that aren't learning this for the first time? Sure. So I highly recommend having a code of conduct and living by that code of conduct. So making it very visible to whomever you're working with, both internally at the company and, you know, an open source externally to anyone wanting to contribute to a project, giving grace in this time. As we all know, there's stress much beyond what's happening in our day to day work for all the community right now and writing things as much as possible. And I think particularly as in the last couple of weeks, there's been a real need to keep the written record of decisions and conversations out and make it out there and open so anyone can kind of participate. And even to that end, Dr. announced a public roadmap earlier this month. So now our entire community can jump on and vote for what they want to see or provide input and ideas on what we would do next. John, I want to ask you around DockerCon coming up. As you guys look to this being a first virtual event, digital event, we call it, it's more digital than virtual but I guess people use the word virtual more now but it's really digital. The content value has always been king on physical events, but as you move over to virtual events, you just can't make the same people make the same decisions around breakout room or what assignment on the calendar and just ship it over to digital as a whole. Another roles, new rules, new roles, new dynamics. What's your view on this as a marketer? Because you've been on both sides, successful on both sides of the table there. Yeah, it is a in a way whole new world. I mean, I've participated in virtual events in the past but I think this, the kind of scenario that we're in, it's a whole new impetus on making sure that these events as much as you can emulate the in-person experience, I think it's important that the experience you provide to your audience allows them to interact in a number of different ways above and beyond just simply watching and consuming content but really allows them to interact with each other that makes it so they can interact with speakers and other users and the kinds of people that they want to have. And one of the things that we're thinking about, for example, for DockerCon coming up is how do we emulate that hallway experience, right? That you're walking down the hall, you see somebody, you've been wanting to talk to them and you have a quick five or 10 or 20 minute conversation that allows you to have a really good, rich exchange. And that's something that we're working hard, Jenny's working hard on and the team's really worked hard to provide. So in this new world, it's how do we bring some of those things that make a great in-person event to the virtual world. And there's fortunately a lot of great tools out there now that do make that possible. You just have to bring them together in the right way. Yeah, I know that's something that we've been working on together with you guys. And everyone knows my rant. I think that the format's going to be multiple different types of formats from chats are different. We were chatting around, there's been a stream chat like on YouTube and Twitch versus threaded like Reddit and the hallway grabs those hallway tracks. It's all about the content of the people. And I want to get your thoughts on, as you guys look to take this asynchronous approach, try to make it synchronous with Dr. Kahn, has it changed some of your thinking around call for papers? I mean, call for papers is almost like an editorial call for a blood post now. So is it changing how you guys are thinking? Is there any insight that you could share as you guys are preparing? Also, you got to still got to get sponsors. You still got to get some funding, maybe not huge amounts because the physical space is venues not there. It's digital now. So can you guys just share your thinking, your reaction and any insights you can glean from those two dynamics, the format, the call for papers and the sponsors and things of that nature. That were proven methods the old way. I mean, just like all the papers, line up the schedule. There it is. And everyone shows up, but not anymore. What's different? So with virtual, we really have the opportunity to take the serendipity out of the conversations and the learning that happens at a in-person event. We ran a traditional call for papers. It closed on Friday. We've got a number of responses and great content that came in. But we're not going to set a speaker up to deliver that live in a session at DockerCon. We're going to prerecord their talks and have the speaker there live to actually chat with anyone in the audience. So answer questions. So you'll have actually a much greater opportunity to talk to that expert via this virtual event than you would in-person listening to that person speak. I think it really helps first-time speakers and speakers who aren't as confident to get up in a huge room to have the opportunity to prerecord their talk. So it adds to kind of the diversity and inclusion of the event to bring on some new speakers for sure. From a location standpoint, right? Now you don't have to give up a week to show up somewhere. You can spend that time working on your talk or whatever else to kind of share your knowledge. And then the conversation doesn't have to end there. You really, everyone has a way to connect with each other after the fact, which as event marketers, you're always looking for what is that way that you continue the wonderful connections and learning that happens at a live event beyond. And by having it all happen virtually, you're setting yourself up for success in that area. It actually makes it more interesting because you think about it, you give your talk and you're there after either giving people high fives or signing autographs or getting tomatoes thrown at you. So it's there, right? I mean, it is what's the product. That's the content product. You can engage with the audience after to take that follow-up, that sidebar, maybe the conversations. How about John sponsors? I mean, obviously, we have to include sponsors into these events. I've seen some software out there that's pretty old school. It's like, oh, here's a digital rendering of our booth. I mean, I personally think that's horrible. I think that's the wrong direction. But the content value of a booth is an event within the event. So there is a way to weave this in. What's your vision of that? How do you see the inclusion of a sponsor and how is it more intimate and more authentic for them? Yeah, I think there's multiple aspects in terms of benefits for a sponsor that we are thinking about. Certainly, as you said, you don't really get that walk into the booth kind of experience, but given that it's all digital, you actually have a much more scalable way to enable sponsors to interact. Firstly, just with how we're promoting the event, going into it, and the fact that as they create an asset, it can live in perpetuity, that we can continue to push out there to viewers. And we know that people can come and look at that content afterwards, and that gives yet another opportunity for those sponsors to interact with the people who are consuming it. So everybody has to really think a little bit differently, both the sponsors of these events and the hosts, as Docker is doing now, to how and what kinds of interactions. So we're thinking, how do we allow them to capture an interaction, what kinds of calls to action can they include within their digital content? And so everybody's got to think a little bit more digitally and more forward than just, hey, let me have people walk in my booth and pick up some swag. You know, it's interesting, we have this conversation that's still looking at you all the time. If you think about the end user, the consumer of the content, if you work on the strive for the content value, everybody wins. So it's like an upstream project in open source. If done well, everyone can reap the benefits. If the shared mission is audience satisfaction around the content, that's contextually relevant to the people at any given time, which is what digital is beautiful for. You can really create an environment for great activation and full on demand, consumer experience advantage, either learning or engaging or whatever. If you do that, if everyone shares in that mission, that's a success formula, whether you're a sponsor or an attendee or producer. Do you agree with that? That's what we were saying earlier today. This format makes content even more of the king, right? Like the way that you're going to get attention is by delivering value through that content and you'll probably have a better result of someone stopping by to learn what you're offering is or what knowledge you're bringing to table versus what that piece of swag plus that they're getting scanned for. And there's a role for everybody. I remember when back on the glory days when I used to do all code, I used to go show my peers, my software, they're like, yeah, John, the code's just not that good. But no, no, but it was a role for me. I wasn't the best coder, but if you have good code, you rise right to the top of the pecking where people recognize your software and open source. And content's kind of the same way. Everyone can produce content and some will be better than others, but it doesn't mean that it's just about the content producer, this curation, this other roles. Do you guys see some parallels between content development in this kind of way in similar fashion that say software, just making that metaphor, but it's just riffing out loud. It's a similar construct. Good software wins the day. Good community makes it all work. Sure. If your end goal is to educate others and share something that is of value, then it's going to be picked up. And of course, creating content takes practice, just like becoming an excellent coder. And so the stakes aren't as high in a virtual event that especially with the recording and some of the other things that you're doing, blog about it, do a video, do a session, take that content, deliver it different ways and practice, particular to DockerCon, both at our live events and what we will do moving forward. We have an extensive support system for all of our speakers. We assign a number of people internally to review outline, review talk tracks, review slides and run through actual practices so that our speakers are very attuned to what our audience is going to be expecting and feel very comfortable delivering their session because their success is our success. And ultimately we're looking for delivering that value to Docker's developers. I love the format you mentioned earlier pre-record but also there's a new format emerging that's very popular in the Twitch world which is streaming your video game. I still predict that people will be streaming their coding sessions, but you guys have a Docker captain in Brett who has his own streaming rig and he does the Docker birthday party recently. I think that's going to be a future format streaming to an endpoint, not just for gaming but for just life, life casting as some people call it but that's a good format. It fits perfectly into these digital events to host and emcee these sessions. So you can do the record on demand, record in advance but it's also there's a role for streaming doing the demos, doing the tech talks. I mean, think about your audience, right? They need something both in the moment and after the fact and sessions are going to get or something that you can watch now or later but running through an event with our captain like Brett Fisher. You want to be there to see what's going on. We did a birthday live stream on Thursday to celebrate a Docker's seventh birthday and it was amazing because we had so many members of our community come on. They can't go to meetups anymore with everything that's happening but we found a way to all connect, all chat, have a great time and have this group experience both fun and learning. And I think we will continue to see that not just in the conference form but increasingly now with COVID, right? People can't get together. People are zooming with their high school friends to make up for time loss. So I think beyond our industry, the world is going to get very used to connecting virtually. I'm going to have a Zoom session tonight, seven o'clock on my Facebook page. It can be interesting to see all my high school friends come out and who knows those words about that? There's kind of no moderator button on Facebook. I have to figure out, make sure they're all there. Final question on this whole event thing that we can get to the last section around DockerCon. John and Jenny, we both have friends that are in digital, have done events. I'm hearing a lot of pressure is on these digital teams because the physical events have proven a lot of great business value. Most companies know the economic value of physical event. Again, it's been standardized over decades but now all of a sudden these new teams, digital teams are being asked to provide the same business value that these physical events have provided. And these teams aren't equipped for it. So I'm getting a lot of phone calls and a lot of outreach for theCUBE saying we need help. That's the event or a digital team and the demand generation marketing teams. They're under a lot of pressure. Are you guys seeing the same thing? And what would you, if you are, what advice would you give the people out there? Because they're under a massive amount of pressure to deliver. Yeah. Yeah, it's a new world in that regard. I mean, yeah, there are a few platforms out there but in terms of something for demand marketers that emulates that live event, there's really not. I mean, as you know, we're innovating in multiple ways with you to bring a different kind of experience. But we're also having to think about how do we convert that into some kind of economic value? I mean, for example, DockerCon is a free event this year. A lot of the costs are lower, but it's a free event. That sort of changes that aspect of it. But the other part is, how do we make sure we connect with that audience so that we have an ongoing relationship? And the way we're looking at it, and I think one recommendation for other companies is, it is a component in a series of engagements. It's a very big one, one that we're investing quite a bit in in terms of resources, but it's really just a series of, one component of a series of engagements that we have digitally. And there's a lot of other ways that you can do it. And fortunately, but Jenny has online meetups or already has virtual meetups as component of our virtual experience. This is one that we're sliding in with that. And based on how we're expecting it to go, we'll continue to invest in it in the future. Jenny, 365 days in a year, that's digital. It's always on, right? It's like, you got to think holistically, not just have an event, stand it up, tear it down, move to the next one, you activate, and you got to keep it going always on. You have to keep a pulse, keep the community rolling. Yes, and whether it was a physical event or a virtual event, that's your goal anyways, is to continue that momentum and keep the community going. We are innovating on that with you, with Dr. Kahn, but we're also very much listening to our community and what their needs are and trying to figure out how to support their connections with their local community. Dr. has a pretty extensive meetup network all around the world. And the rise of virtual really allows us to take the physical limitations of local meetups out. And if they want to run virtual events, then great, how can we support them as well? That's awesome. And you know our mission from this area for the folks watching is to create the best experience possible for audiences. And that means putting the right content in front of them that matters or having them choose their own content, meet the right people, find out if their friends are there, make it a great engaging experience because if that happens, everybody wins. So we're looking forward to Dr. Kahn. If you guys could just give a highlight, quick teaser, John, give it quick teaser on Dr. Kahn and then Cheney, give the community update of what do you guys expect to have happen? What are you hoping for? What are you nervous about? What's the excitement? What's going on? John, we'll start with you. Yes, it's just, yeah, thanks, John. So just a brief on Dr. Kahn. It's May 28th of this year. It is a free event that is going to run for I think it's eight hours during the day. There's multimodal kind of consumption models. We're thinking in terms of different channels that people can come and consume. We talked a little bit about the live channel with our captains. There's a live channel with theCUBE with you guys. There's also the prerecorded track content. So there's a way for people to come and interact, come and participate in the chats and consume content that should be highly educational and focused. And we hope that it'll be a great experience we're really focused on the content and making sure that it's a great experience for our users and our audience. Jenny, how about the community? What's your take? What's your goal and aspirations? What are you hoping for? Hoping for the community to be able to connect both with the speakers, experts, captains, get their questions answered, have conversations with people on stage, if you will, but also with each other and just kind of strengthen the bonds of the community and getting everybody to a better place with developing with Docker and DevOps and kind of create those pathways beyond May 28. Yeah, it's a DevOps world. We're going to do our best, hopefully put a kick-ass program together. It's going to be fun and we hope we have good bandwidth. John went out a couple of times there one time but we're going to have some good time and hopefully learn a lot and iterate and just raise the bar on it and just get it going. So really appreciate collaborating with you guys and really thank you for your insight on this real, I think a clear vision for how digital is going to shape how people engage and how events will go. Even when they come back, I think this point in time, this current situation is going to emphasize the role of digital isn't just about marketing to people and getting them to come to an event. I think it's going to be a real productive network effect where there's value created. And I think the silver lining in all of this is, this is going to be now the new path for it. So thank you for sharing your cutting edge insights and I appreciate your time. Thank you. Thanks so much for having us. Okay, this is a CUBE conversation. I'm John Furrier here in the CUBE Studios in Palo Alto with the remote interviews during this time of crisis of COVID-19 current situation. I'm John Furrier at the CUBE. Thanks for watching.