 So, we are going to be hearing from one of our keynote speakers, Naomi Cedar. She is the outgoing chair of the Python Software Foundation, board of directors. She's the author of the quick Python book, third edition, and has taught Python to diverse audiences for many years. She helped organize PyCon North America and PyCon UK, originating in the poster sessions, education summit, intro to sprinting workshop, and last PyCon, Charlottes, wow. She's very accomplished, very busy. She's also the open source development manager for Dick Blick Art Supplies, which I love that because I actually get all of my spoopy clay from Dick Blick. So, that is great, so everyone please welcome Naomi Cedar. Okay, well, it's a special delight for me to be talking to you today. My first year of Python was back in 2014, where as I recall, I committed the cardinal sin of running over a little bit into lunchtime. And I remember Alexander waving at me frantically trying to stop me, but to no avail. And I promise you that I will not run over into the dinner time, which actually for me here in Chicago will be lunchtime this time. So, I've been a fan of EuroPython since my first one. I've been a member of the EuroPython Society since 2015. And today, as I sort of look in the discourse channel and see lots of familiar names, I guess I'm filled with feelings of, well, in Portuguese they say Saudades, this sort of feeling that you're missing people in good times and I'm delighted to be here, but I really do as most of us wish could be in person. But yeah, to continue here, I have to admit I'm going to do some things that probably will give the presenters nightmares. So what I'm going to do is actually I'm not going to use any slides. There are slides and they do reflect what I'll be speaking, be saying, but I'm not going to be showing them to you. Instead I'm going to abuse the background feature. Let's see how this works. And I can blame all of this on EuroPython because it was at that 2014 EuroPython, the first one I was at, that Peter Hinchins gave a really great keynote without using slides and that's kind of been behind my temptation over the past few years to not use slides. I also, it is true, have been known to say that bullet point slides will suck the intelligence right out through your eyeballs. Please don't take offense if you're using bullet point slides. I just say things, okay? So yeah, that's sort of what's going on. As mentioned, up until a few weeks ago was the chair of the board of directors of the Python software foundation and I stepped aside this year and that had been something that honestly I had been planning for really for a couple of years that I was going to do that. I felt that five years as vice chair and then chair of the board was plenty and I had, I wanted to give other people a chance and I'd hope that maybe this would be an opportunity to increase the diversity on the board. I certainly admire all the people that were elected but I think like a lot of people, the diversity part I was hoping for hasn't quite happened yet. I know that the PSF will be working to improve that and I hope everybody will join me in supporting the board and the staff as they work through things that we might do in order to make sure that we have a truly global board to go with a truly global community. So as I say, my stepping aside was part of my plan. I had a lot of other plans though. I had plans to go to PyCon US as I was, you know, back in January thinking about how the year would shape up, I was going to go to PyCon US, I was going to watch some of those things that, you know, they kindly read the list for me so I guess I don't have to of things that I kind of worked on to get started at PyCon and I was going to enjoy that. I had even done a painting that I was going to donate to the PyLadies auction. You can see it behind me. I painted, yes, painted 45 different PyLadies logos as something that I was going to give away. And you know, I had various other plans for the year beyond that, you know, when Euro Python was going to be in Dublin, that was pretty tempting, it's easy to get to Dublin from Chicago. There was PyCon Latam in Puerto Vallarta. I had actually bought a ticket to go to Spain for PyCon Espana again. And so I had all of those things kind of lined up and then to me, as to everybody else in the world, 2020 happened and COVID-19 and all of the things that went with that. And particularly being on the board, there was the agonizing process of canceling PyCon. This was something that developed in January. It didn't seem like there was really going to be a problem. It was just this thing that was far away. In February, it started to seem like it was going to be a problem but I was hoping maybe we could have at least a small PyCon before it hit the U.S. and was a serious issue. By about the beginning of March, I was starting to do the math, you know, if we've got a population of so many people, we've got a conference of 3,500 people and we have this infection rate, what are the odds we're going to have people with the virus at that? And that was when I realized that it was pretty certain we weren't going to have a PyCon U.S. at that point. And a bunch of us on the board of directors, we were in the PSF board Slack channel pretty much 12 hours a day every day trying to figure out what was going on, following the news, comparing notes, tracking things. And I know a lot of people at the time, we saw the tweets, we heard the comments. A lot of people at the time were asking, well, why doesn't the PSF just cancel PyCon now? And as it has come out, and I, you know, you will hear other people talking about this as well, the reason we couldn't do that is because with the contracts we had for the venue and for food and for hotels, we would have lost, the PSF would have lost more than a half a million dollars if we would have just unilaterally pulled out when we saw things starting to get bad. We had to wait for the local governments to actually shut us down officially so that we could get out of those contracts. And that wasn't happening. I know I for one was watching the Pittsburgh area, they've got cases. Why aren't they canceling? Can't they see? And eventually that did happen. And then we went to all of our suppliers and we managed to get out of most of those contracts without much of a loss. And of course, people were very generous in not claiming their registration. Many of our sponsors were very generous in not claiming a refund for their sponsorship. So, you know, that enabled us to do all of the things that we could do. So, it was probably one of the longer months of my life to tell you the truth as we kind of came to this conclusion that that's what was happening. And of course, it didn't really end with that. After that happened, the outbreaks continued to get worse. Places all around the world went into lockdown. I know here in Chicago, we went into lockdown officially in late March. Knowing what was coming, I kind of did it unofficially about a week earlier. But, you know, all of that happened. Travel was shut down everywhere. And then, you know, just as things were starting to look like we were improving, a cop in Minneapolis murdered George Floyd. And that set off a wave of protests both in the United States and around the world. And, you know, Lord knows those protests were justified as long overdue to address systemic racism. But it was a case where there was yet more turmoil and it just sort of didn't seem to want to stop for a while. I think, you know, now we're in a better place. After all, we're at at least an online version of EuroPython. And that, I think, basically made me start thinking back to some of the other EuroPythons. And, you know, I think back to Bilbao because I think Bilbao was one of my favorite spots for EuroPython. I loved the water and the Guggenheim and there was the park. It was a nice venue and I liked the city. Just in general, a lot of really good memories about my time that I spent on both 2015 and 2016 there. And I also then have to remember that I gave a keynote at EuroPython in Bilbao in 2016. And it was, as I often do, it was about community. As I often do, I quoted Brett Cannon, his line about, I don't know about the rest of you. I came for the language, but I stayed for the community. And as you might be able to see on the slide that's behind me a little bit, I talked then I was worried a little bit about Python community. I was worried that there were forces of division, that there were forces that were going to make communities have a harder time to stick together. We had just been, just had the Brexit vote. Right wing populism was starting to gain a foothold that seemed in many places in the US, in Europe, and in other places as well. And so I was a little bit worried about community. And as I think of myself back in 2016 from the vantage point of 2020, all I can do is just sort of shake my head and say, Naomi, Naomi, you sweet, innocent summer child, you don't know the half of what is coming. Because, you know, indeed, if things were maybe a little bit concerning now, I would say that we're in a situation that really puts the notion of community under siege. And I think there are a lot of forces that are very seriously going to make building community more of a challenge. Or to put it this way, I think I'm not alone in saying I would go back to the summer of 2016 in a heartbeat, if I had that choice. We've got a lot of things that we need to worry about. In some places, the virus situation seems to be under control, but we still have no idea whether or not there's going to be a second or third wave, particularly as the weather changes, winter comes in in the northern hemisphere and things like that. And while some places have done a pretty good job of managing things, I think certainly on a national level, the US has given a master's class in what not to do to manage a pandemic. And sadly, we're not alone. We have company in doing things almost exactly the wrong way. All of which means that, you know, on sort of a global scale, the pandemic doesn't really seem to be that much more under control, certainly not as much as we would think it should be. And I think going along with this, we will continue to have fatalities. And I think the thing I dread most about that, I haven't heard of any really in the Python community yet. There must have been some I haven't heard of many deaths of people active in the Python community. But I really dread if the situation continues to worsen if we don't get this under control that we might start losing people from our Python community. I really don't want that to happen. And, you know, sadly, that's only part of it. Because of course, we also have the economic fallout coming from this. And I think that we are just starting to really see the long-term consequences of this. You know, being Python programmers, Python developers, we've been sort of spoiled over probably the last 10 years, at least in that our skills have been increasingly in demand. We can find employment. It's pretty easy to find a job, trade up to a better job. I mean, if you have any experience at all, this starts to be relatively speaking, has been a good job market. And I think we're going to see that change. And we're going to change because companies are cutting back on their budgets in a lot of ways. I think startups, particularly if they're not taking in revenue yet, are going to be in a hard place to find funding. All of this will mean that there will be probably fewer people hired. There will be more demand. It will become a buyer's market rather than a seller's market as far as our employment skills are concerned. And I think going along with that, we're going to see sponsors for community events, support for things that we do in the community also be kind of pulled back some. I think with the fact that all conferences in person have pretty much been shut down now for a few months, I think there are a certain number of big sponsors are even starting to rethink the notion of whether or not they will be spending as much money to sponsor in person events when they do return. So that's all said to say pretty sobering. I think in a more general way, we're also facing a continued growth of polarization and conflict. And while protests and the drive for improved justice to get rid of systemic racism and all of the other things, it's way past time that this should be done. But I am afraid that we will have repressive governments regimes that will try to use that sort of protest as an excuse for repression to remove the rights of all sorts of minorities, racial, religious, LGBTQ. I think we're seeing that in places already where there is an attempt to pull back rights and restrict rights. And some of this will be done in the name of the current crisis. And I think that will be a huge challenge for us as a community going forward. That said, I have before confessed to being quite old. It's true. I've been around longer than many of you. And I have seen some various things that are have been kind of challenging. I do recall the 60s and the 70s when again, we had lots of protests, we had some economic issues, things like that. But I think I would also say that I have not seen something on the level that we are seeing now and that we will be seeing. In fact, the closest thing I can think of more is the 1930s and 1940s when we had a depression and World War II following upon that. And that was the era when my parents came of age. And I know that that period shaped them in ways that I really couldn't understand coming several years later. I think that the impact of what we are seeing today will similarly last a generation. So what are we looking at as we move forward? Well, it's not that I really know, but having watched things, there are certainly some possibilities. We will be moving, are moving, as they say, into the new normal. One thing I can say is that I don't think the new normal is going to be much like the old normal, at least not for quite a while. I think we will continue to see greatly reduced travel as all of the airlines and everything has cut back, has gone ground down to just a tiny fraction of what it was. I do not think that those things will come back right away. I don't think that there will be the market for those things to come back right away. So I would expect that travel will be less frequent, more trouble, and more expensive, certainly in the next couple of years. And who knows as we start to consider the environmental cost, the climate change costs of travel. I'm not sure that it will ever come back. I think conferences, when they do come back in person, are going to be smaller. They're probably going to be mixed events where a large part of it is online. I think this will be a very different thing than what we have had in the past. As I say, in general, I think we will have fewer resources for community events, for starting companies. I think everything is going to be a bit more expensive. I just have a hard time seeing how we're not going to over the next few years have those sorts of impacts along with, as I mentioned before, a tougher job market as well. So that's all pretty gloomy. I admit it. You may be wondering, so is there anything good going on? And I just sort of saw earlier in the lightning talks, we have more translation of the documentation into Portuguese. That's good. In Spanish, that's good. But I think there is in fact some other good news as well. I think the good news basically is that we're adapting and that we can adapt. And I think there are a lot of things going on with this. For one thing, meetups have moved online and seem to be flourishing. The picture behind me is from Pilates Guatemala. And I seem to be invited to at least a couple of meetups a month these days. They seem to be popping up all over or ones that were there before don't seem to be having maybe even more events. And I think this is actually kind of an interesting and encouraging thing to watch because when everybody's meetup is online, the organizers are free to get speakers from wherever. They're not just limited to the people around them. And on the flip side, when everybody is online, if you get asked to speak someplace, it doesn't matter whether it's in Guatemala or Amsterdam or next door, you can go ahead and speak at that. So I've seen a lot of international exchange, a lot of communities getting to know each other. I know there are even a few meetups that I've seen where two similar groups in completely different cities, completely different continents, will have a meetup together. And I find all of that really, really cool. I love to see that going on. I think that we're adapting also when it comes to conferences. I think that conferences are experimenting. I think that this conference, EuroPython, is the grandest experiment in making a conference go online that I've seen so far. EuroPython always had many parts and was well organized and all of that. But the effort and the experimentation to put on this conference has been, to my mind, truly stunning. I mean, for one thing, I mean, I checked their speakers guide. The speakers guide is 38 pages long. They have thought of everything. They've tried everything to try to get as much of a conference experience in online formats. I mean, we're using two formats. We're using Zoom and we're using discourse, all of these things. So I think that as we continue to experiment with these things, we're going to see all sorts of interesting things happening with conferences. And I'm proud that EuroPython has been such a leader in thinking these things through and experimenting with all of that. We're also doing a lot to share knowledge here. This is a shout out to Chuck. I stole a screenshot of Chuck's Twitch channel because she's got so much stuff. But everyone is doing it. There are all sorts of free training courses springing up online, training videos. People are doing Twitch streams. We have Twitch talking about Python. We have Twitch streams where people are demonstrating Python. And I did several episodes myself of one I called exploring Python that I may come back to when I get time. There have been all sorts of groups that have been putting on online workshops. So there has really been, as far as I can tell, an explosion of people sharing content, of people trying to get the word out and help each other through their knowledge, which is, again, it's stunning when you think about the number of things that you can find that people are doing these days. We're also contributing and trying to make the situation better through what we all do best, which is code. And that may be people contributing data analysis. It may be people actually setting up sites to share the data. I know there are several cases where the actual data involved in, say, the virus situation would not be getting out if it were not for the efforts of people in the Python community, in fact. And we're also even finding ways that we can use our skills to help support other people. The image behind me is from Ayuda Pi, which was created by a member of the Python community in Paraguay. And it's meant to be an easy place for people who need help to put up a request and for people who want to help to find people near them that they can help. And these are requests. They're all very basic things. They need diapers. They need food. They want books for their shut-in elderly mother who can't get out because of the quarantine or various things like that. And this was all sort of just done by, as I say, a member of the Python community who wanted to help out. So there are so many things like that. And it's also the case that while the employment market is getting tighter, the fact that work has moved online, I think, is hold some potential for a lot of people. It's probably no surprise, but it did take a pandemic for a business in general to realize that most of us in our business can do our jobs from almost anywhere. But this willingness to distribute and accept remote workers makes life easier for a lot of people. I think increasingly we will not have to move to an expensive hot spot city in order to get a tech job, but instead we'll be able to work from where we have family or just where we want to be or whatever it might be. So that, I think, is an interesting and a positive thing that is coming out of all of this. So I guess that kind of brings me to the last part of what I want to say. And that is, you know, what does that mean? Where are we now? What can we do as our global community of Python programmers? And I have at least my suggestions. I'm sure that there are many more. But one thing that I think we are doing and that we can do more is we can start to really use the technology that we've got. It's sort of interesting. We've had video conferencing now for years. And until this came along and we really didn't have much choice, we didn't come anywhere near using it effectively. I think as we're pushed now we can really explore these tools. We can really test them. We can drive their improvement. And I think as a community we're kind of positioned to be at the front of that in making these tools really useful for everyone in a lot of ways in developing the noise that they haven't been. We can also continue to take care of each other. I think this is really important. I think we can continue to draw upon our communities to fight isolation, to be there for each other. I know this has happened to me a lot over the course of the past few months. People will reach out or I'll reach out, hey, how are you doing? I haven't heard from you a while. Are you okay? And I think that helps everybody when you do that certainly makes your day better to have somebody check in and say, hey, are you okay? Yes, great. Oh, well, I'm fine too. So I think we need to make an effort to do that. We need to make an effort to nurture all of those friendships that we've made in the various times that we've been able to go to conferences. And we need to make an effort to use these new tools to continue to find and develop friendships there. Maybe someday we will be able to meet them in person at a conference if things get back to that point. So we need to do that. I think we also need to be optimistic. And when I'm thinking of here in particular, Chomsky wrote something to the effect that optimism is a strategy for making a better future. Because unless you believe that the future can be better, you're unlikely to step up and take responsibility for making it so. So I think we've all had our days in the past few months maybe of doom scrolling and being unable to shake it off. I think as much as we can, we need to try to choose to do things that reflect optimism. I think I've found over the years that sometimes acting, doing things as if you were optimistic can actually help you be a bit more optimistic. But I think we need to keep in mind that as tough as things have been and may continue to be for a while, that we can be optimistic and we can expect things to get better. And we can act in ways that will make things better. I think it's important for us to keep that in mind. In particular, I think we can continue to work on building community on making our communities more inclusive, making our communities more just. We can continue to push for that. We can continue to organize, volunteer and contribute to the community. Some people may say, ah, this is a crisis. We can't worry about building inclusive communities now. I think that's exactly wrong. I think that because this is a crisis, one of the important ways we will get out of it is through communities and building inclusive and just and welcoming communities is probably one of the best things we can be doing in the face of this crisis. We can continue, as I mentioned, to use our skills with code to help improve the situation. We can share data. We can continue to educate people. Think of the impact having hundreds or thousands more people educated in data analysis would have, particularly on some people in government who want to promote misinformation. As I say, we can share data behind me is from Brazil I owe where with a bunch of volunteers, they are able to get out a more complete picture of the virus situation in Brazil than I think the federal government of Brazil itself can. So we can continue to do that. We can continue to create services that help people find the resources they need. Help people connect with others. We can help develop means of communication and sharing information. All of those things are things that we in the Python community are particularly able to help achieve. And I think that we need to do those things. And then finally, I think we can we can lead. And by that I mean we tend to have in the Python community the backgrounds that we can be informed citizens and we can speak out. I think that with our experiences in developing community as part of the Python community, we are particularly able to advocate for things that are good for communities in general. I think we have an appreciation of building community that is useful in a wider sense. Not to mention that the experience we have in organizing our Python communities is directly applicable to organizing other communities. If you can organize a Python meetup, you can organize a meetup of other people to work on other issues that are in your community. If you can bring together and organize a PyLeadies chapter, then you know about building up groups of people and how to get people together, communicate, get the word out. All of those things. So I think we as the Python community are particularly well positioned to lead, to be at the forefront as we work through the changes that we are going to experience as we go through this. I think that that can't really be emphasized enough. And I think that it is our responsibility to do that. And, you know, I think I promised you I wouldn't come close to getting into the dinner time, and I'm going to keep my word on that. But I just want to say that, you know, we are facing times, I think, that will really reshape the world. And I think that the Python community, with its understanding of the importance of community, how to build it, how to bring people together, how to be inclusive, how to be just, we are going to be very important in how that gets shaped. And it's our responsibility to step up and do help shape it. Now, you know, I don't know how profound or insightful any of this has been. I think sometimes it's important to just have someone say things. And I hope that that's what I have done here is just say out loud some things that need to be said. And I guess, you know, on that note, let me close here by saying one last thing that in my mind needs to be said. And that is, everyone, everyone, take care of yourselves and those close to you. Be safe. And wear the damn masks. I don't want to lose a single one of you. So thank you, everyone. That's what I've got. Thank you so much for that Naomi, some very poignant and silent thoughts for our era. I have a couple of questions here in Q&A. Would you be willing to answer those? Sure, I'll give it a shot. All right, so Oliver asks, he said, there are forces dividing, you said that there are forces dividing or endangering the community. Can you provide more details on that, please? I think we're entering an age where we are going to have a rise in xenophobia and things like that. And I think we have had a rise in xenophobia. I think that directly works against our efforts to build a global community. If in fact you want to have someone from another country come and visit your conference when we get back to that point or having a government that is increasingly hostile to foreigners entering becomes a real drag on trying to bring people together. So I think that's kind of an example. I think that even the divisions of opinion that people will have politically will be a force that will tend to drive people apart within communities. Not everyone in the Python community is going to agree on everything. And we're entering an age now where I think there's a lot more polarization, a lot less willingness to compromise and get along. I would say there are certain things upon which you cannot compromise, but the problem is when we enter such a stage of polarization, it becomes impossible to win everyone over. We simply enter kind of a fight to the death stage. So that makes it hard to coalesce a community. So on that same note, I've got another question here kind of on this idea of mentioning coalescing a community. Trevon said, while many organizations including EuroPython have been able to shift to virtual venues, do you feel this will make it harder to form strong and diverse communities as those who do not have internet access will not be able to participate? And how should we reach out to them? I think in some areas that will be a bit of a problem. I think that over the past few years, we have done that access to decent internet bandwidth that would allow you to take part in something like this has increased, but it's by no means universal. There are lots of places where this is a problem. I think that will be a challenge for us. I don't have honestly some great answers. I know that bandwidth has been for a lot of communities a perennial problem, and it may be that some things like this will have to be rethought. I don't know if anybody has tried having an audio-only channel or not. One of my developers is in Lagos, Nigeria, and I know we sometimes have to kill videos so that we can actually talk. And yeah, with the interaction you need to build a community, that is going to be a challenge. And then kind of along those same lines, Thomas is from a limited experience with the Linux user group, a mixed event, some people on site, some online. It does not work that great. For example, audio is a problem. People on site don't share with the online people. Do you have a specific idea on how we can do that better? Specific ideas, no. I think that the general thing is that we need to be aware of those issues and actually try to fix them. And I say that having had mixed remote teams as well, in that I've managed, it's really a challenge when you have half of your people in the office and half of the people scattered out remote because there's always this temptation to turn around and say to the person behind you, oh, did you do this thing? And the remote people have no idea what that's happened. So for conferences, we have the same challenge. I think people have made progress in just trying to delineate what the best practices are and how to get around that so that it can be improved. I also don't know that that differential will ever go away. But there again, that's something that as we move into this era and actually try to solve the problem, we may come up with better solutions than we've got now. But I think awareness and actually addressing it is the first step. Awesome. Yeah. And I know we only have a few seconds left, but I feel like this last one's important. Nicholas said, how can we integrate the PSF more with Python communities that are not in the Europe or US? I think one of the things that needs to be done is what I alluded to at the top of my speech, which is that we need to find ways to get people from those communities involved at a leadership level of the PSF. And I am no longer on the board. So this both gives, this kind of gives me the luxury of shrugging and sort of ducking the whole thing in that I cannot speak for the board. I know that they are passionate about addressing this. And I also know from my experience, because I've been around and I've met them all, that there are so many qualified people in all of these other countries, other continents beyond, you know, right now the board is kind of strong on US, Northern Europe, Australia. There are lots of places where we have plenty of gifted people who would be great to have leadership. But as I say, I'm reluctant to speak for the board as to what that might be. I would expect it will go beyond just selecting people to be on the board of the Python Software Foundation. I think other things will be tried that will also help bring people into leadership of the PSF from around the world. That is my hope. All right. Well, thank you very much, Naomi, once again for that fantastic talk. We appreciate having you. It was a pleasure. And if anyone else has any questions for Naomi, please feel free to chat with her on Discord. So there's a whole room for this. If you search for talk conferences during COVID-19. Was that the one? No, I'm wondering if we even have a breakout room for you. Yeah, I think it's there, staying for the community, I think is what you would search for. Oh, yeah, there it is. Talk staying for the community. Yeah, see, there's a similar talk. So it got lost. Okay, so it's talk staying for the community in Microsoft Breakouts. And if you have any other questions or want to discuss this with Naomi and everyone else, definitely pop in there. So thank you again.