Chicago Devops Community Organizing: Mike Hall Interviews Jerry Cattell | GOTO Conference 2015
Meet Jerry Cattell, an organizer of the Chicago DevOps Group, as he discusses the evolution of DevOps, the challenges of breaking down silos, and the benefits of being an organizer for both personal and professional growth. 🚀 #DevOps #DevOpsDays #ChicagoDevOps #TechCommunity #Interview
The Interviewer
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
The Guest
Jerry Cattell
Chicago DevOps community organizing
The Conversation
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Hi, it's Mike with UGtastic . I'm here at GOTO Conference 2015. I'm sitting here with Jerry Cattell, who is one of the organizers with the Chicago DevOps Group. Thank you very much for taking the time to speak with me. So Chicago DevOps, how did you get involved in that? And what is the DevOps group?
Jerry Cattell
Chicago DevOps community organizing
Sure, I mean DevOps in general, at least I mean you can ask anyone, they'll have different definitions. For me it's generally about sort of breaking down silos and getting everyone in the company to sort of alignment and trying to achieve the same goals instead of development and operations sort of fighting each other historically. So yeah, I've been involved with the organization for I guess about three years now. Okay, so it 's been around a little while. Yeah, it's actually been around probably for five years or so.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Okay.
Jerry Cattell
Chicago DevOps community organizing
It was registered with the actual meetup. com/DevOps. It was the first one. Yeah, that's a coveted title.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Yeah.
Jerry Cattell
Chicago DevOps community organizing
Yeah, so Martin Logan registered that long ago and yeah, he was the original creator of it. And yeah, it's, I basically got involved because I've always sort of straddled the line between development and operations and database administration. So for me it was just finally finding a place that I kind of belonged. But in general, I think it's a lot more about just improving the whole process of developing software at a company and stream lining that. And you mentioned that, you know, the group's been around longer than you've been a part of.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
So, and now you're an organizer, you know, so what brought you to the group? And then what kind of encouraged you to want to invest time into helping run the group? Sure.
Jerry Cattell
Chicago DevOps community organizing
I mean, well, I went to a couple of them before, but like it just as an attendee to the meetups and always thought it was very interesting. Then Martin left to go to Seattle.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Yeah.
Jerry Cattell
Chicago DevOps community organizing
Leaving sort of a void. And so I had missed the talks on those subjects. And then so I thought, well, I might as well see if I can help on that. And yeah, I mean, I basically decided to put in the time just because I think it's a great group of people that attend the meetups and I tend to learn a ton just from hearing how they're solving their problems. Like any meetup group, I mean, you just want to understand, you know, how do you solve this problem that I'm having at work right now.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
What are you doing?
Jerry Cattell
Chicago DevOps community organizing
And also, I mean, because as the organizer, part of your job is to find good speakers and stuff. And so a lot of that has been just sort of me being able to reach out beyond our community and actually start to talk to people that I would have never introduced myself to just, you know, at a crowd or a conference. I might not have talked to them in the past, but now as the organizer, I'm like, okay, now I actually have a reason. That's an excellent point. And that's actually one of the things that I've discovered as with UGtastic is you have a reason to go up to people that you're like, oh, I went to a conference and somebody gave a presentation. Okay, great. And then you just go off and do your business. But if you're a user group organizer, now you have, you know, a reason.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Like, hey, would you come to our group?
Jerry Cattell
Chicago DevOps community organizing
Yeah, it's like, I really enjoyed your talk and I'd love for you to give that talk to like the local community now. Right, right. From wherever I might be seeing them talk. And yeah, it's a, so that's been one of the huge benefits of being an organizer is just meeting all these amazing people. Yeah, it's open doors. Yeah, absolutely.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Yeah.
Jerry Cattell
Chicago DevOps community organizing
And speaking of other community events, you mentioned there's this DevOps Day, which you got the shirt on for.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
What is DevOps Days?
Jerry Cattell
Chicago DevOps community organizing
So DevOps Days, it's been around for about five, almost six years now.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Yeah.
Jerry Cattell
Chicago DevOps community organizing
The first one took place in Ghent in 2009 and that was just sort of the start of it all. It's now been, I think, over 50 events worldwide. Chicago first held DevOps Days, they had their first DevOps Days last year.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Okay.
Jerry Cattell
Chicago DevOps community organizing
And so we're doing it all again this year in August 25th and 26th. So yeah, so it's...
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Is it a multi-day conference?
Jerry Cattell
Chicago DevOps community organizing
Yeah, it's a two-day conference. It's got presentations, it's got Ignite talks, it's got open spaces. So it's like a good mix of lots of things. It's a much more participatory conference than the standard one where you just sort of go and listen to someone talk. It's much more about actually voicing the things you care about and actually talking to each other.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Yeah.
Jerry Cattell
Chicago DevOps community organizing
It's not the lecture style. No, not at all. So it's definitely a great conference that I love going to. And so when we finally got one here in Chicago, we were thrilled and then we had a great response last year, so we decided to do it again this year.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
So if I just Google DevOps Days?
Jerry Cattell
Chicago DevOps community organizing
DevOpsDays. org will get you to the main website and from all our stuff. And right now, actually, our call for proposals is open, so anyone who wants to do that. Okay, so DevOps Days and then it's, you said it runs in several cities and different states at different times? Yeah, I mean, Austin was just last week. I think Toronto was actually this week. Oh, so it's all over the place. Yeah, and like I know Minneapolis is in July. We're in August. Yeah, and they're just great events to go to. Okay, great.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Well, thank you very much for taking the time to speak with me. Thank you. Appreciate it. Subtitles by the Amara. org community
Critical Insights
durable
"DevOps is about breaking down silos and aligning everyone in a company towards the same goals."
durable
"Being an organizer provides opportunities to meet and learn from amazing people and contribute to the community."
durable
"DevOps Days is a participatory conference that encourages open discussions and collaboration."