Software Defined Interviews

Episode 121: Art Degrees, Sun Microsystems, and How Kubernetes Scales Contributions, with Josh Berkus

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 10:00:00 +0100

Whitney and Coté discuss with Josh Berkus (Red Hat, Kubernetes contributor) how liberal and fine arts degrees (philosophy, photography, sculpture, pottery) apply to tech careers. Berkus details how early hardware experience influenced his database performance work, noting hardware's renewed relevance with AI and multi-arch computing. The conversation covers Sun Microsystems’ 1990s internet role, internal politics, and its MySQL/Postgres strategy. They examine open source's shift from end-user to vendor-driven models, foundations' roles, and contributor incentives. Berkus describes Kubernetes release processes, contributor-experience programs, and its resilience to low-quality AI contributions.

You can also watch the video recording of this episode if you prefer that kind of thing.

Josh's home page on the World Wide Web.
And, check out Josh's pottery store, Fuzzy Chef.

Special Guest: Josh Berkus.

Episode 120: Progressive Delivery, with Heidi Waterhouse

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 11:00:00 +0100

Whitney and Coté talk with Heidi Waterhouse, co-author of the book Progressive Delivery.

You can watch the video of the recording as well, if you're into that kind of thing.

Heidi on the World Wide Web:
LinkedIn.
Her Website.
The book, Progressive Delivery.

Special Guest: Hedi Waterhouse.

Episode 119: AI, open source, talent, and more, live at cfgmgmtcamp 2026, with Andrew Clay Shafer

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 10:00:00 +0100

Spotting talent, getting innovation adoption and driving use, open source, AI, and developing taste - those are the major topics Coté and Andrew discussed this week at the live reading. Also, a framework for creating the perfect burger. This was recorded at cfgmgmtcamp 2026, in Ghent, Belgium. Thanks to the staff for making it happen!

You can watch the video recording of this episode as well, if you're into that kind of thing.

If you missed cfgmgmtcamp this year, keep an eye on cfgmgmtcamp for next year - it's a great conference to start the year with.

Check out Andrew in LinkedIn.

Special Guest: Andrew Clay Shafer.

Episode 118: AI Doesn’t Fix Bad DevOps: Lessons from 15 Years of DORA Data, with Nathen Harvey

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Wed, 21 Jan 2026 15:00:00 +0100

Coté and Whitney talk with Nathen Harvey, who leads the DORA research program at Google Cloud. They talk about what 15 years of DevOps and delivery data actually says about AI. The answer feels something like "it makes you even better at what you're already good at." High-performing teams get better, while struggling teams just move faster into bottlenecks. They talk about AI-assisted software development, why throughput is rising while stability drops, how culture still beats tools, and why “user-centric” work remains stubbornly hard despite being obvious.

You can watch the video version of this episoode in YouTube, if you prefer that kind of thing.

Check out Nathen in LinkedIn.

Special Guest: Nathen Harvey.

Episode 117: From Platform Engineering to Stand-Up Comedian, with Lian Li

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Wed, 07 Jan 2026 07:30:00 +0100

In this episode, Whitney and Coté talk with Lian, a "cloud-native human" with a 15-year career in tech. Lian discusses her transition from tech to performance art, her experiences in amateur musical theater, stand-up comedy, and improv theater. She talks about platform engineering, the importance of community building in tech, and balancing professional life with personal projects. They also cover her unique improv workshops for engineers at conferences and the popular KubeCon karaoke parties she organizes.

If you prefer video, you can watch that.

Mentions:

Lian's home page on the World Wide Web.
Lian's LinkedIn.
One of Lian's talks discussed: "Many Cooks, One Platform: Balancing Ownership and Contribution for the Perfect Broth," Lian Li, KubeCon EU 2025.
Kuberoke.
Lian's workshops.
Also, Coté on a magazine cover.

Special Guest: Lian Li.

Episode 116: The Octopus Organization, with Jana Werner

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Wed, 24 Dec 2025 16:00:00 +0100

The Octopus Organization is a great collection of organization anti-patterns. This week, one of the co-authors, Jana Werner talks with Whitney and Coté about those patterns and her own experiences. They go over topics like reading habits, the role of business books, decision making, ownership, curiosity in organizations. practical steps to avoid common corporate anti-patterns, the importance of clear communication and leadership principles, and rubber pigs.

You can also watch the video version of this episode if you prefer that kind of thing.

Check out the book, The Octopus Organization.

Also, an HBR overview article on the book.

And find Jana Werner in LinkedIn.

She's also talked with Coté a couple of other times, back in 2020 and then in 2024.

Special Guest: Jana Werner.

Episode 115: The AI Tools Lab, conferences, devrel, with Jason Hand

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 11:00:00 +0100

Whitney and Coté chat with Jason Hand. They discuss the challenges and rewards of organizing conferences, the impact of the pandemic on in-person events, and the nuances of developer relations.

Jason shares his experiences with AI Tools Lab, vibe coding, and personal projects such as developing his own tools to replace commercial SaaS products. They also talk about devrel differences at large vs. mid-sized companies, and how to maintaining personal energy and sanity in high-demand roles.

Check out just about everything Jason Hand related at his home page on the World Wide Web.

If you prefer video, check out the video of this episode.

Special Guest: Jason Hand.

Episode 114: Whitney goes to KubeCon

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Wed, 26 Nov 2025 07:00:00 +0100

This week, Whitney Lee joins us to discuss KubeCon news, Coding Assistants, and conference tips. Plus, vegan food and note-taking recommendations.

Watch the YouTube Live Recording of Episode 54 7

This is a cross-over episode with Software Defined Talk.

Episode 113: Transformation, DevOps, Open Source, and Fast Food Operations, with Andrew Clay Shafer

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Sat, 15 Nov 2025 07:30:00 +0100

Whitney and Coté talk with Andrew Clay Shafer, co-founder of Puppet and principal at an advisory firm, about the nuances of DevOps transformation, open source dynamics, and running his burger restaurant, All American Burger. They talk about the challenges of integrating social and technical systems, managing metrics and KPIs, and the evolving ecosystem of open source software. Also, they go over Andrew's experience in running a fast food restaurant and the parallels between managing a tech company and a food business.

You can also watch the video version of this episode if you're into that kind of thing.

Links

Andrew in LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewclayshafer/
Ergonautic: https://www.ergonautic.ly
All American Burger: https://maps.app.goo.gl/hgNturR3jf76u5EHA

Special Guest: Andrew Clay Shafer.

Episode 112: The World Wide Web, Content, Work, Blogging Adventures, Short Videos, etc., with Russell Davies

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Thu, 30 Oct 2025 10:00:00 +0100

We talk with Russell Davies this episode. He has done many things, above all else made lots of interesting content and messed around with producing content. Advertising, blogging and the World Wide Web of the 2000's, interesting conferences (call exactly that: interesting), books, and of late, he's been mastering the short video format. I am a big fan of Flora and his ("he's"?) recent podcast, WIP. Here is a fantastic episode.

All of Russell's stuff is to be found on his home page on the World Wide Web, those his photos take some time tracking down.

Also, Coté wears plaid on plaid. This was not done unknowingly.

Here is the video version of this episode, if you prefer that kind of thing.

Special Guest: Russell Davies.

Episode 111: The uncontrollable urge to click "publish," with Manton Reece

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Wed, 15 Oct 2025 07:30:00 +0200

Blogs! Whitney and Coté talk with Manton Reece, founder and owner of micro.blog. They talk about journaling, the urge to write and publish, and a whole lot about blogging, social media, and how AI fits into all of that. Check out micro blog at, well, micro.blog and also Manton's blog.

Special Guest: Manton Reece.

Episode 110: Cows, Tech Careers, Working at Microsoft, and Even More About Cows, with Saad Ansari

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Mon, 29 Sep 2025 11:00:00 +0200

In this episode, Whitney and Coté speak with Saad Ansari, a product manager at Databricks, about his journey from working at Microsoft to co-founding a startup focused on creating sensors for monitoring cow behavior. They go over the challenges and rewards of transitioning from large corporations to startups and back, the differences in company scales, and the various lessons learned along the way. Saad shares some stories about developing technology for dairy farming, tackling supply chain issues, and the importance of passion in one's work. The conversation also touches on the unique cultural aspects of dairy farming around the world, managing imposter syndrome, and the value of hands-on experience.

Special Guest: Saad Ansari.

Episode 109: Everyday AI and AI Everyday, with Hannah Foxwell

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Wed, 17 Sep 2025 07:30:00 +0200

In this episode, Whitney and Coté talk about the integration of AI into daily life with Hannah Foxwell, organizer of AI for the Rest of Us, among many other doings. They talk about stuff like practical applications of AI in daily tasks like finding recipes and tech support to the complexities of adopting AI in professional settings. Hannah also talks about building AI communities and conferences in general. Also, you hear about the upcoming conference AI for the Rest of Us.

You can also watch the video recording of this interview, if you prefer that kind of thing.

AI for the Rest of Us - https://aifortherestofus.live/london-2025
Discount code: SDI20 for 20% off the conference.
The application form for financial support: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfrOR2OBJUZEJV72lmL_zXFjUyjJPul-NCoqZV4EzQnkhIe6A/viewform
Her LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hannah-foxwell/
Her Keynote at QCon: https://qconlondon.com/speakers/hannahfoxwell
Paper she mentioned: https://gradual-disempowerment.ai/

Special Guest: Hannah Foxwell.

Episode 108: Venture Capital, AI, and Horses, with Rachel Chalmers

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Sat, 06 Sep 2025 07:30:00 +0200

In this episode, Whitney and Coté talk with Rachel Chalmers. Rachel shares her experiences as an analyst, her approach to VC investing, and a little on life as a industry analyst. The conversation also touches on the evolving landscape of venture capital, the importance of psychological safety in teams, and innovative methods for engaging with early-stage startups. Also, lots of horse-talk.

You can also watch the video recording, if you're into that kind of thing.

Rachel's podcast: https://www.heavybit.com/library/podcasts/generationship
The Generationship fund: https://www.generationship.ai
Rachel LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachalmers/

Special Guest: Rachel Chalmers.

Episode 107: The business value of developer relations, devrel history, plus more stuff, with Mary Thengvall

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Wed, 20 Aug 2025 07:30:00 +0200

In this episode, Whitney and Coté chat with Mary Thengvall, exploring the development and significance of Developer Relations (devrel) over the years. They discuss the transition from tech "evangelism" to the modern devrel roles, the challenges and successes in community building, the importance of internal support for devrel teams, and the impact of AI on content creation. Mary also shares insights from her book, The Business Value of Developer Relations, and her experience with the devrel Collective community.

You can also watch the video version of this episode if you're into that kind of thing.

Links:

Special Guest: Mary Thengvall.

Episode 106: Communications Skills, Ultrarunning, and Whacky YouTube Thumbnails, with James Eastham

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Wed, 06 Aug 2025 14:00:00 +0200

In this episode, Whitney and Coté talk with James Eastham about developing social skills through reading, the importance of deep work in productivity, and the mental challenges of ultrarunning. They also discuss strategies for reducing screen time in an age of Internet addiction, how thumbnails in YouTube videos influence viewer engagement, and the evolving landscape of short-form video content.

Watch the video, if you prefer that kind of thing.

Mentioned in the show:

Manager versus Maker.
Deborha Tannan books: Talking 9 to 5 and You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation.

Episode 105: Cords, Cyborgs & Cold Cases: Grandpa Dancy’s Operating System for Life

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Thu, 24 Jul 2025 11:00:00 +0200

Chris, of course, had his System generate a title and summary for this episode, so we're using that AI-driven fun this week.

In this lively and open conversation, Chris Dancy — the self-proclaimed "Most Connected person in the World" — joins hosts Cote and Whitney to discuss digital minimalism, hyper-organization, life augmentation, and cyborg spirituality. The episode is a blend of humor, tech wisdom, and raw human truth. From cord-hoarding and emotional databases to AI for cold case solving and life automation, Chris opens up his digital soul with passion and presence.

The trio wanders delightfully through stories of Google Glass, Apple Vision Pro, Palmolive soap metaphors, and Grandpa Cyborg’s widget garage for municipalities. With sincerity and sparkle, Chris makes the case that life should be intentional, measurable, and ultimately — more loving.

Find all your Chris Dancy delights at his website.

Special Guest: Chris Dancy.

Episode 104: Exam Creation, Open Source, and Hospice Care, with AmyJune Hineline

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Wed, 09 Jul 2025 07:30:00 +0200

In this episode, Whitney and Coté talk with AmyJune Hineline. They delve into Amy's diverse career, transitioning from a hospice nurse to a mechanical engineer and eventually working in tech and open source. They discuss the meticulous process of creating certification exams at the Linux Foundation, balancing altruistic and professional motivations in open source, and peering into the human aspects of her hospice work. They together AmyJune's experiences working in open source projects and working in hospice care. Also, strategies for keeping cool in the summer.

You can also watch this episode in YouTube, if you prefer that kind of thing.

AmyJune in Drupal-land.
Her LinkedIn homepage.

Special Guest: AmyJune Hineline.

Episode 103: AI & Critical Thinking, Enterprise Marketing, and the Workplace, with Betty Junod

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Wed, 25 Jun 2025 10:00:00 +0200

In this episode, Whitney and Coté discuss with Betty Junod, CMO of Heroku, the evolution of growing up without the internet to the present day's AI advancements and its implications for future generations. They explore how AI is changing critical thinking and curiosity, and how it affects children and business use cases. They also delve into workplace dynamics, such as transitioning between large tech companies and startups, leveraging frameworks to drive business goals, and the evolving role of marketers. Additionally, they talk about the nuances of using industry analysts in marketing strategies and the increasing prevalence of AI-generated content.

Check out Betty's homepage on the world wide web.
And her in LinkedIn.

You can also watch the video version of this episode if you're into that kind of thing.

Header art from Ruben de Rijcke, CC BY 3.0.

Special Guest: Betty Junod.

Episode 102: The brilliant dummy in my pocket, with WhitneyGPT

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Wed, 11 Jun 2025 20:00:00 +0200

In this episode, Whitney and Coté discuss Whitney's newfound enthusiasm for AI after a recent stint with the tool Cursor. The conversation covers how AI tools can aid in coding, building engineering journals, and even drafting compelling conference talk abstracts. They highlight the difference between tasks and prompts in AI, personalizing AI interactions, and maximizing efficiency with various MCP servers. Along the way, they delve into practical use cases for AI in professional and personal contexts, exploring its potential and limitations. (This description was generated by AI...of course!)

Check out the video recording of this episode, if you prefer that kind of thing.

Here is how ChatGPT draws Whitney, and here is how it draws Coté.

Mentions:

Whitney's MCP Commit story repo.
Whitney's Conference talk proposal AI check.

Episode 101: A Passion for Politics, with Taegan Goddard

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Thu, 29 May 2025 12:00:00 +0200

In this episode, Whitney and Coté talk with Taegan Goddard, founder of Political Wire. They talk about what drives people to go above and beyond in their work, especially journalism like Taegan does. There's some fun conversation about how Taegan runs the business, keeping up his never ending coverage. Having run the site for well over two decades, they also talk about how the back-end stack has evolved over the years. And, some notes on how to make a great cup of coffee.

Check out and subscribe to politicalwire.com, highly recommended. The blog coverage is great and the weekly, members only podcast is one of Coté's favorites.

You can watch the video version of this episode if you're into that kind of thing.

Special Guest: Taegan Goddard.

Episode 100: "I used to eat 7-Eleven pizza," startups, open source, and more, with Sarah Christoff

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Wed, 14 May 2025 07:00:00 +0200

After an extensive discussion of 7-Eleven pizza cuisine, in this episode, Whitney and Coté talk with Sarah Christoff. They discuss working at startups, the point of startups, working in open source and balancing commercial and community interests, moving to Europe, and more!

Find Sarah in LinkedIn. Also, Coté referenced a talk by Aneel Lakhani at Monktoberfest 2023.

Special Guest: Sarah Christoff.

Episode 99: Catering to Startups, with Robert Reeves

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Thu, 01 May 2025 10:00:00 +0200

Whitney and Coté talk with Robert Reeves about startups, catering, the Austin's tech scene, and the business of open source over the past 20 years. A sampling: Robert share some stories of early startup adventures and strategic moves, behind the scenes catering rock festivals, and the importance of geography for starting your career in tech. Check out the video version of this episode if you prefer that kind of thing.

Find Robert in LinkedIn.

Podcast banner art from r/CanadianGraffiti, November, 2015.

Special Guest: Robert Reeves.

Episode 98: From OpenStack to Kubernetes, extreme transparency at GitLab, tech startup marketing, with Melissa Smolensky

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Wed, 16 Apr 2025 22:00:00 +0200

Whitney and Coté tour through a couple decades of tech infrastructure history with Melissa Smolensky, whose marketing career spans Rackspace, GitLab, CoreOS, and the CNCF, among other places. They explore the OpenStack/Kubernetes evolution, how "radical transparency" actually functions in corporate settings, and the shifting landscape of tech marketing—from thought leadership to the changing role of industry analysts. Plus, they compare notes on the distinctive flavors of Austin and Portland tech scenes.

Find Melissa in LinkedIn.

You can also watch the video version of this episode if you prefer that kind of thing.

Special Guest: Melissa Smolensky.

Episode 97: The Business and Ethics of Open Source, with Emily Omier

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Wed, 02 Apr 2025 20:00:00 +0200

In this episode, Whitney and Coté talk with Emily Omier, a consultant specializing in open source strategy and product management for businesses. They discuss the initial reactions and learning curve of new tech entrants to open source, the advantages and potential disadvantages of building a business around open-source software, and the ethical considerations in this space. Emily also goes over her experiences running a conference for open source founders and her insights into the challenges of commercializing open-source projects. They also discuss the importance of security, maintaining a balance between open source ideals and business interests, and practical advice for making open-source business models successful.

You can watch the video of this recording as well, if you prefer that kind of thing.

Find out more about and from Emily: her consultancy; her podcast, The Business of Open Source; LinkedIn; The New Stack writing; and she has a well traveled, IRL-background.

Special Guest: Emily Omier.

Episode 96: Learning, teaching, tech certifications, and napkin culture in Singapore, with Mumshad Mannambeth

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Sat, 22 Mar 2025 17:00:00 +0100

In this video, Coté and Whitney talk about tech education and learning with Mumshad Mannambeth. There's talk about certifications, but also how teaching online works and what it's like when it scales up to millions of people. Plus, Coté tries to figure out how to get access to more napkins.

You can also watch the video of this interview form if you prefer that kind of thing.

Check out KodeKloud and Mumshad in LinkedIn.

Special Guest: Mumshad Mannambeth.

Episode 95: Success in Tech, Content Creation, & Corporate Influence, with Hazel Weakly

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Thu, 06 Mar 2025 13:00:00 +0100

In this episode, Whitney and Coté talk with Hazel Weakly about the unexpected success of content, the influence of corporate interests in open source, and the importance of emotional vulnerability in the tech industry. Hazel shares her experiences transitioning as a trans woman in tech, how her interactions changed post-transition, and the need for emotional connections and support. They also get into the Kubernetes ecosystem, corporate capture, and the role of legibility in software development.

Find all of Hazel's stuff on her home page on the World Wide Web.

Special Guest: Hazel Weakly.

Episode 94: Adding more condiments to the 7 layer networking burrito, with Marino Wijay

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:00:00 +0100

In this episode, Whitney and Coté interview Marino Wijay, Coté finally gets to the bottom of why networking has so many layers. Why do we keep adding new layers and frameworks instead of just fixing the ones we have? They also talk about the challenges of platform engineering, the importance of empathy in tech, the difficulties of integrating multiple layers in tech stacks, the essential role of effective communication and prioritization, and Marino's side project, EmpathyOps.

Find Marino in LinkedIn, Bluesky, Twitter, and YouTube.

Special Guest: Marino Wijay.

Episode 93: 10x People, AI Trends, and Career Management, with Richard Seroter

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Thu, 06 Feb 2025 16:00:00 +0100

Join Whitney and Coté as they talk with Richard Seroter from Google about the myth of the 10X developer and his perspective on hiring and managing tech talent. They also talk about the significance of learning and AI in the tech industry, the importance of communication skills, valuable resources for staying updated in tech, and Richard's personal strategies for maintaining a robust reading habit and public profile. Additionally, they explore AI tools, the nuances of career progression, and navigating the complex landscape of tech strategy.

Special Guest: Richard Seroter.

Episode 92: What went wrong with PaaS, and many other topics with Brian Gracely

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Thu, 23 Jan 2025 09:00:00 +0100

In this episode of Software Defined Interviews, Coté and Whitney host Brian Gracely, co-host of the Cloudcast podcast and head of portfolio strategy at Red Hat. They discuss the process of gathering and reporting cloud news, the evolution of PaaS, and the pros and cons of working at small startups versus large companies. Also: career advice, the importance of communicating value within organizations, and how to stay relevant in the ever-changing tech landscape. And still more: Brian shares insights on how to generate engaging content for podcasts and the impact of internal communication on company culture.

Here is the video of this recording if you prefer that kind of thing.

Here is the leaked Mr. Beast memo Coté mentions.

Special Guest: Brian Gracely.

Episode 91: Learning to learn, with Sasha Czarkowski

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Thu, 09 Jan 2025 12:00:00 +0100

What’s it really like to do all that DevOps-y transformation at companies? That’s what we talk about this week with Sasha Czarkowski…mostly. We also discuss learning how to learning, metrics, staying sane in chaotic systems and change, breaking presentation rules, Louisville, Kentucky, and Coté’s (odd?) dislike of the open spaces format.

You can also watch the video of this episode if you prefer that kind of thing.

Sasha in LinkedIn.
Where she works, Ergonautic.
Her learning talk.

Special Guest: Sasha Czarkowski.

Episode 90: Community management, event nightmares, and domestic Tupperware diplomacy, with Katie Greenley

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Thu, 26 Dec 2024 11:15:00 +0100

Katie Greenley shares her experiences managing events and community programs like the CNCF Ambassadors. Coté, Whitney, and Katie also discuss career development, managing a community team, and the delicate art of introducing cereal decanting into the home.

Checdk out Katie in LinkedIn, and the CNCF Ambassadors program.

Special Guest: Katie Greenley.

Episode 89: How platform engineering is different than DevOps, plus, narwhal teeth and spider digestion, with Viktor Farcic

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Wed, 11 Dec 2024 10:00:00 +0100

In this episode, Whitney and Coté talk with Viktor Farcic, Developer Advocate at Upbound, about platform engineering, the evolution of DevOps, project managing a content creation engine of one, and the virtues of imperfection. Also, the strategic avoidance of asking for directions, or, really, talking with people in general.

Find Viktor in YouTube, LinkedIn, Bluesky, and his website.

Special Guest: Viktor Farcic.

Episode 88: Platform Engineering and UK Digital People, with Abby Bangser

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Thu, 28 Nov 2024 11:00:00 +0100

As if platform engineering and expat'ing in the UK weren't enough, Whintney and Coté discuss the forgotten technology of business cards wih Abby Bangser.

Check out Abby in LinkedIn, and Kratix the platform engineering project from Syntasso. Also, check out the CNCF Platforms White paper and Cloud Native Maturity Model.

We had video recording problems during this episode, so this is from the backup recording. Pardon any weirdness, especially Coté making nose noises.

Special Guest: Abby Bangser.

Episode 87: Platform Engineering, AI, and Community - Whitney's KubeCon NA 2024 Adventures

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Mon, 25 Nov 2024 13:00:00 +0100

Whitney is back from KubeCon and shares what she saw. We talk about platform engineering, Salt Lake City's vibe, AI, and observability, among other things. We wrap the episode with tips for maximizing attending conferences. Also, memories of Arby's ads.

Whitney's KubeCon talks:
Choose Your Own Adventure: The Observability Odyssey
Panel: Exploring eBPF Use Cases in Cloud-Native Security

Episode 86: Open Source Money Ethics, How Analysts use AI, What Even is an Industry Analyst, and Advanced Chicken Nugget Diplomacy, with Rachel Stephens

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 07:30:00 +0100

In this episode, Whitney Lee and Coté dive into the insights of Rachel Stephens from RedMonk about the world of being an industry analyst. They discuss experiences from working as an analyst, the balance between qualitative and quantitative analysis, the challenges and misconceptions surrounding open-source business models, and the impact of AI on the analyst profession and beyond. They also discuss the 2024 DORA report, and a few other topics.

Check out Rachel's blog at RedMonk.

Special Guest: Rachel Stephens.

Episode 85: Kubernetes Cost Controls and Washing Horse Blankets, with Phil Andrews

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Thu, 31 Oct 2024 10:00:00 +0100

Whitney and Coté talk with Phil Andrews, field CTO at Cast AI, about cost management and optimization, the nuances of Kubernetes, coin-operated laundromats, and farm life. The conversation touches on the differences between automation and FinOps, how sales and engineering intersect in cloud software, and Phil's unique experiences - from managing a laundromat and a hobby farm to evolving in the tech industry.

Check out Phil in LinkedIn, and his work Cast.ai.

Special Guest: Phil Andrews.

Episode 84: Tech recruiting from both sides of the table, with Sidney Miller

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Sat, 19 Oct 2024 10:00:00 +0200

Whitney and Coté talk with Sidney Miller about tech recruitment. They talk a lot about the process from both sides: people hiring and people looking for jobs. Plus, some thoughts on working at Neiman Marcus. Find Sidney in LinkedIn.

You can the video of this interview as well if you're into that kind of thing.

More details:

They explore effective strategies for both the hirer and the job seeker. Key topics include the comprehensive role of tech recruiters, tactics for handling diverse skill sets, inclusion efforts, unbiased interview practices, and the significance of empathy and transparency. They also cover personal strategies for successful job applications, the emotional aspects of career transitions, and networking tips for long-term career growth. Additional insights highlight challenges faced by artists and musicians transitioning into tech roles and the importance of leadership in fostering a positive workplace culture.

Special Guest: Sidney Miller.

Episode 83: Whitney Lee

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Wed, 02 Oct 2024 07:30:00 +0200

Whitney Lee's career path has been all over the place, from artist, wedding photographer, waiter, and now world-renowned devrel in the cloud native world.

This episode kicks off the reboot of this podcast, Software Defined Interviews. Whitney and I (Coté) have been planning to start a podcast for a year or so now, and it's great to start. We'll be putting out interviews every two weeks with people from our community. I hope you enjoy it, and tell us what you think! Guest suggestions are, of course, welcome.

Relevant Material:

Whitney mentions the book Rest.
Whitney's in YouTube channel, including links to all of her other YouTube projects, conference talks, etc.
Whitney's LinkedIn.
Whitney's wedding photography portfolio.
The photo framed with a handrail.

You can check out the unedited, video version of this interview as well.

At the end, you hear an AI generated version of two hosts discussing Whitney Lee. It's from Google NotebookML.

Here's the AI generated summary:

In this inaugural episode of our new podcast, Coté sits down with Whitney Lee to discuss her diverse career path, including her experiences as a waiter, musician, wedding photographer, and now a tech professional in developer advocacy and Kubernetes. They delve into Whitney’s thoughts on the corporate world’s culture of busyness and the bizarre aspects she’s encountered transitioning from hospitality to tech. Whitney shares her approach to efficiently managing interruptions, setting boundaries, and the concept of context-switching in work environments.

They also talk about the importance of continually learning and adapting, Whitney’s strategy for tackling new technical concepts, and how she integrates her curiosity into creating educational content. The conversation includes anecdotes from Whitney’s time as a wedding photographer, her initial steps into the tech world, and the significant differences in social dynamics between these fields.

Finally, Whitney offers insights about DevRel (Developer Relations), explaining common misconceptions and the real motivations behind effective advocacy. She also touches on her learning habits, the balance of work and creativity, and the importance of rest and mental space for idea generation.

Key Topics:

Whitney Lee's diverse career path and transitions
The culture of busyness in the corporate world
Setting boundaries and managing interruptions
Effective context-switching and productivity
Learning strategies and continual adaptation
Whitney's wedding photography business and lessons learned
Insights into Developer Relations (DevRel)
Local jargon, curiosity-driven learning, and the importance of abstractions in tech
Security in tech and why it remains a persistent challenge

Misaligned Incentives Episode 4: You get what you pay for - compensating tech staff is often done poorly

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Fri, 17 Jul 2020 12:00:00 +0200

    We discuss compensation, particularly how people in the IT department ("developers," etc.) are so disconnected from the actual business that compensating them based on business performance is near impossible. Not good if you're an IT person and like money.

There's other types of comp. then money, obviously, and those are fine too. In particular, we discuss participation in open source and more recognition. But, still: money is the best.

Episode 3: Improvement requires fear, or, digital transformation by crisis and fear

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Mon, 06 Jul 2020 16:00:00 +0200

    People in large organizations avoid improving for improving's sake. They're very rarely proactive in transforming. Instead, it seems that management in most large organizations only act, and change, when they fear competition and failure. "Everyone" knows this is a bad strategy, and yet "everyone" does it. Perhaps we should embrace that behavior, or at least be empathetic, and figure out how to work with it.

We discuss this problem and things to do in this episode.

Also, we find out why Coté always has bad breath.

Mood board:

(6:30) - The daily, normal fears are going to drive what a business does more than large, one-off crises.
If your inventory is on an AS/400, then you're in trouble.
A chaos monkey for business, or, training for the unexpected.
"When there's not a crisis, every penny is squeezed out of technology."
Outsourcing, but the harmful type.
Hold your customers close, know your evolving storefront.
Now, software is the primary storefront.
To improve, you must have an enemy.
(20:51) "If you're trying to modernize, do this 'digital transformation,' it has to come from a place of an existential problem."
(21:26) To prepare for a major disruption, you have to prepare for a bunch of minor, incremental disruptions. You have to sell [the return] on paying for change.
(25:51) If you want to justify paying for continuous delivery, you have to find a problem to solve.
(27:41) They're bean counters, so just count the beans for them - just give them some beans and they're happy.
(28:58) As technologist, our views on revenue are not considered important or valid.
(29:21) Fear and loss are often easier to quantify, e.g., "if the database goes down, the business halts, and we loose millions a minute." Growth potential is harder to quantify and pitch, so we often ask for money based on fear and loss.
(29:36) "Even though I think about revenue streams, I've never been taken as seriously when I talk about them, as when I talk about fear."
Finding people outside of IT that care about software, like, in "the business."
(32:55) The only reason for technical agility, is business agility.
(33:44) If you do live through a crisis, try to internalize your failure to prepare so you only learn once from crisis, not again and again.
(35:33) The Business needs the fear, and then needs to ask IT to help with some optimistic technology action...cause no one's gonna believe IT.

Episode 2: Outsourcing, SIs, and other "others"

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 09:15:00 +0100

    We discuss outsourcing IT.

Misaligned Incentives Episode 1: Who forget to invite "The Business," to this kubernetes PoC?

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Wed, 11 Sep 2019 13:00:00 +0200

    Journey Through the Business Bottleneck, part 1.

Join Rick and I as we try to find this elusive thing called "The Business." We lay out a theory we've been talking about: while IT has been improving or, at least, can improve, the business side of the house isn't showing up to do anything with CLOUD and AGILE and THE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION.

Why's this the case? Do toothpaste people have this problem? Outsourcing - that's a treat! And so forth.

Hopefully next episode we'll discuss tactics to get people outside of IT interested.

Subscribe at https://misaligned.business

And, check out Coté's work in progress book on this topic: https://cote.io/bottleneck/

Monolithic Transformation

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Mon, 09 Sep 2019 11:00:00 +0200

    Large organization are desperate to become “tech companies.” They drool at these tech companies ability to grow and change quickly. Despite mastering agile over the past 20 years, IT as a whole is too slow and unreliable. “It’s the culture,” everyone says. Changing culture for a team of 10 people is easy - changing a department of 20,000 developers is another challenge entirely.

Based on case studies and interviews over the past five years, this talk describes how large organizations are getting over that challenge. First, the talk covers moving from a project to a product mindset and the associated practices. Second, it covers how DevOps and cloud platforms enable that product mindset. Third, it goes over how leadership and management change to support this new approach. Finally, the talk catalogs tactics, patterns, and organizational structures that large organizations are using to improve how they do software which leads to improving their business.

This talk is based on my book Monolithic Transformation (O’Reilly, Feb 2019).

You can download the slides if you like, and they pop-up as chapter art if your podcast app supports that.

Episode 82: Chris Aniszczyk on starting Open Source Foundations

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Tue, 09 Jul 2019 12:00:00 +0200

Chris Aniszczyk is the CTO of the CNCF. We discuss how he got into open source, what it's like to work at Twitter and how he helped start the CNCF. Plus, Chris gives us an overview of the different kinds of CNCF projects and offers advice on how to get started with Kubernetes.

Show links:

Contact Chris:

More Software Defined Talk

Subscribe to Software Defined Interviews Podcast
Subscribe to Software Defined Talk Podcast
Follow @SoftwareDefTalk on Twitter
Send your postal address to stickers@softwaredefinedtalk.com and we will send you free laptop stickers!
Join us in Slack.

Special Guest: Chris Aniszczyk.

Episode 81: Adam Jacob on saying Goodbye to OpenCore

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Mon, 08 Apr 2019 12:00:00 +0200

Matt and Brandon interview Adam Jacob the co-founder of Chef. We discuss Adam's career, what led him to start Chef and Chef's recent decision to open source 100% of its Software. Plus, Adam give us some tips on Dungeons & Dragons and transitioning from being a founder to an executive.

Links

Follow Adam at @adamhjk

Check out the Software Defined Talk Podcast for the latest news in Enterprise Tech.

Special Guest: Adam Jacob.

Episode 80: Jeff Meyerson on starting the Software Engineering Daily Podcast

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Mon, 11 Feb 2019 14:45:00 +0100

Jeff Meyerson is the host of Software Engineering Daily. We talk about his career and what led him to start a daily tech podcast for software engineers. We also talk about current trends in cloud computing and Jeff recounts his career as professional poker player.

Topics:

Where to find Jeff

Special Guest: Jeff Meyerson.

Episode 79: Version control, DevOps, Code Reviews, Semantic Merging, Spanish Startups, & Plastic SCM

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Tue, 15 Jan 2019 13:00:00 +0100

Version control has changed a lot over the past 15 years: we’ve moved from a centralized to a distributed model at the basic level. But the practices people follow have changed and grown as new methodologies like DevOps and continuous delivery have relied on version control for operational stability and reliability. In this interview, Coté talks with Plastic SCM’s Pablo Santos to get the low-down and some tips on doing version control better. We also discuss Plastic SCM and how their approach to semantic merging and mergebot-driven automation addresses version control toil.

This episode is sponsored by Plastic SCM, that is, it’s a paid interview.

Special Guest: Pablo Santos.

Sponsored By:

Plastic SCM: Plastic SCM is a version control to help teams focus on delivering work, one task at a time. Signup today for a 30-day free trial and get a sassy T-Shirt.

Episode 78: Umair Khan on AI Ops and Cloud Security

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Mon, 24 Dec 2018 12:00:00 +0100

Brandon interviews Umair Khan about his experience working in AI Ops and Cloud Security. Umair recently joned Scytale and he explains how the SPIFFE open soruce project can help secure communication between cloud services.

Contact Umiar:

Special Guest: Umair Khan.

Episode 77: Jake Moilanen on going from Employee to Entrepreneur to Venture Capitalist

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Mon, 17 Dec 2018 12:00:00 +0100

Jake Moilanen started and sold two companies and is now joining the ranks of Venture Capital. We discuss his career, his approach to investing and he explains what it is like to bringup the Linux Kernel on a supercomputer for the first time.

Connect with Jake:

Special Guest: Jake Moilanen.

Episode 76: Zane Rockenbaugh on being the Startup CTO

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Mon, 05 Nov 2018 12:00:00 +0100

Zane Rockenbaugh specializes in working with early stage startups. Most of the time his clients are boostrapping their new compnay and need someone technical who can help build version 1.0. In this episode, we talk about Zane's career and what it's like to be a "Startup CTO." Most importantly, we talk about his experience of taking raw ideas and turning them into real products.

To work with Zane contact him at Liquid Labs

Special Guest: Zane Rockenbaugh.

Episode 75: Don't call me an "evangelist"

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 11:00:00 +0200

Coté talks about his job being an "evangelist," a word people no longer seem to use but everyone understands. Brandon interviews Coté about what the job is, what the work's like, and some examples (other than himself) of people who do it well. Call it "developer advocacy," "developer relations," being a "thought leader," or just a straight up hustler - it's a job that most companies in the computer industry have at least one of. Most of the successful software and projects out there get a big boost from key evangalists.

Brandon interviews Coté about what the job is, what the work's like, and some examples (other than himself) of people who do it well. As the two discuss, it's a weird job.

Links:

The Man Who Would Be Khan — March 2004: "A new breed of American soldier—call him the soldier-diplomat—has come into being since the end of the Cold War. Meet the colonel who was our man in Mongolia, an officer who probably wielded more local influence than many Mongol rulers of yore."

Episode 74: Numbers. How do they work? Rachel Stephens

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Mon, 27 Aug 2018 13:00:00 +0200

When Coté says he doesn’t know how numbers work, he actually means it. To help out, he talks with Rachel Stephens, from RedMonk, who not only explains ratios, but also finance numbers.

Fine more from Rachel on her RedMonk blog, and in Twitter.

Special Guest: Rachel Stephens.

Links:

Five Minute Finance — Have you ever felt utterly out of your element when meeting with your counterparts in the finance or accounting department? If you find yourself lost when discussing financials, here’s a quick primer on some of the key concepts you should be familiar with at a high level.
Developers and Social Responsibility — “We do, however, want a world where developers are cognizant of their impacts. We need developers to analyze their products and think about second order effects from a variety of perspectives as part of the software development process. We want to encourage technological progress, and we want to do right by people. This is one minor example that illustrates the difficulties of anticipating unintended consequences and considering who is empowered/disempowered with technology products. With one in four workers expecting their job to be eliminated via automation in the next decade, this small example is indicative of a much broader economic shift underway.”

Episode 73: Dustin Kirkland on Linux, Cloud Computing and Product Management

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Mon, 20 Aug 2018 12:00:00 +0200

Dustin Kirkland joins us to discuss Linux, Cloud Computing and making wine. We talk about Dustin’s career journey from entry-level developer to Google Product Manager. He shares his experience working at IBM, Canonical and now Google. Plus, he tells the story of how working on his own open source project helped him land a job at startup.

Links:

Special Guest: Dustin Kirkland.

Episode 72: Chris Donaldson on Automation

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Mon, 13 Aug 2018 12:00:00 +0200

How do you implement IT Automation best practices at a large company? What's the best approach to convince stakeholders that IT Automation is worth the effort? In this interview with Acxiom's Chris Donaldson we talk all about the good, the bad and ugly of IT Automation.. We discuss his career and how his previous experiences shaped his view of IT Automation. He offers practical advice on automation, weight lifting and how best to secure shade at the beach.

Links:

Special Guest: Chris Donaldson.

Episode 71: Matthew Brutsché on Amazon Go and Tech Marketing

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Mon, 30 Jul 2018 18:00:00 +0200

Brandon speaks with Matthew Brutsché from 500 Rockets Marketing. Matt gives us his bold predications based on his recent shopping experience at the Amazon Go store in Seattle. Plus, we talk about the evolution of digital marketing and what it means to launch a product into the market.

Links:
Amazon Go Store
500 Rockets Marketing
Quick Concall iPhone App

Special Guest: Matt Brutsche.

Episode 70: Satish Kodukula on Product Management

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Mon, 09 Apr 2018 12:00:00 +0200

Brandon interviews Satish Kodukula about product management. We compare product management at large companies and startups, discuss how to validate your next startup idea and when to build your minimum viable product (MVP).

Notes:

Marc Andreessen on Product/Market Fit

More about Satish:

Wrap up with Software Defined Talk plugs

Check out our other podcast: Software Defined Talk. A weekly round up of all the news in Enterprise Tech.
Keep up with the weekly newsletter.
Join us in Slack.
Buy some t-shirts! DISCOUNT CODE: SDTFSG (20% off)
Send your name and address to stickers@softwaredefinedtalk.com and we will send you a sticker.

Special Guest: Satish Kodukula.

Episode 69: Analyst Relations, with Rita Manachi

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Mon, 02 Apr 2018 16:00:00 +0200

Getting familiar with analyst relations is a key component of an enterprise software business. “Analyst relations” is sort of like PR, but actually pretty different. You want to, of course, drive influence with the analysts, but also consume the content and advise they’re putting out. And while there’s two major firms in the tech world - Gartner and Forrester - there’s plenty of other firms and individuals to work with. In this episode, Coté talks with Rita Manachi who’s been doing AR for over a decade about all of this, plus some advice on selecting drinks and using iPads in meetings.

Special Guest: Rita Manachi.

Sponsored By:

Software Defined Talk: You know you want a Software Defined Talk t-shirt! With this code, you can get 20% off. WHAT A GREAT DEAL! Promo Code: SDTFSG

Episode 68: Lineworkers and developers working side-by-side to improve Duke Energy’s software, with John Mitchell

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Mon, 26 Mar 2018 17:00:00 +0200

This is a great conversation with John Mitchell about Duke Energy improving it’s software capabilities, doing “digital transformation,” as the kids like to call it. We start from the beginning of what kicked the company off, a shift from COTS software to mobile apps and analytics. We then discuss a couple initial projects that Duke transformed, including one that didn’t work out so well, and one that did. Throughout, John shares what he team learned and how they made it happen. Also, we discuss the use it or loose nature of the electricity grid.

Apologies for the audio quality on John’s end, I neglected to ask him to make sure his mic was set-up properly.

Special Guest: John Mitchell.

Sponsored By:

Software Defined Talk: You know you want a Software Defined Talk t-shirt! With this code, you can get 20% off. WHAT A GREAT DEAL! Promo Code: SDTFSG

Episode 67: Javvad Malik on security & being an industry analyst

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Mon, 19 Mar 2018 05:45:00 +0100

Security, security, security! Everyone wants security, at least they say so. How it’s actually managed and even conceptualized in organizations is a lot more than just patching software and using CAPTCHA’s. In this discussion, Coté talks with Javvad Malik who’s been in the security business for countless years. In addition to talking about how security is done well and poorly, they discuss controversies in the space and establishing a good baseline for securing organizations. Also, there’s talk of being an industry analyst, British patriotism (or lack thereof?) and webinars, among many other topics.

Relevant to your interests

Russel Crowe is actually a Kiwi, apologies.
AlienVault - unified security for threat detection, incident response, and compliance.

Javvad in Twitter: @j4vv4d.
Javvad over at AlienVault.
Javvad’s fantastically funny and informative YouTube videos.
J4vv4ad.com - all Javvad, all the time.
Javvad’s 451 work.

Special Guest: Javvad Malik.

Sponsored By:

Software Defined Talk: You know you want a Software Defined Talk t-shirt! With this code, you can get 20% off. WHAT A GREAT DEAL! Promo Code: SDTFSG

Episode 66: Dominic Wellington on machine learning, or, shadows in the datacenter

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Mon, 12 Mar 2018 05:45:00 +0100

If you only followed the daily headlines, AI and machine learning seem like a magical technologies that will either solve all our problems or put everyone out of work. In reality, there’s little to know AI and machine learning, though complex, has many practical uses. While they’re often delightful, there’re not mystical. Coté discusses how to think about machine learning, how it works, and some examples of what it can do with Dominic Wellington.

Relevant links & select articles from Dominic

Think Outside The Black Box: “The problem is that each time, the definition of AI has been updated to exclude the recent achievement.”
New Paths to Helicon.
Replace of Augment?
Not Biting My Tonge: “Where things go wrong is when stodgy enterprise vendors put on their dad-jeans and go down to the skate park.”
Algorithmic Reality: “We can see the beginnings of this process already: we drive where the algorithms tell us to drive, we exercise the way the algorithms tell us to exercise, and we even date whom the algorithms tell us to date. We buy films, music, and books that the algorithms recommend, go on holiday where they suggest, and take jobs that they set us up with. In the future, what other decisions will we hand over to algorithms - unquestioning and unconcerned?”
The paperclip maximizer.

In Twitter: @dwellington.
His blog.
Articles at DevOps.com, IT Chronicles.

Special Guest: Dominic Wellington.

Sponsored By:

Software Defined Talk: You know you want a Software Defined Talk t-shirt! With this code, you can get 20% off. WHAT A GREAT DEAL! Promo Code: SDTFSG

Episode 65: Walter Bodwell on Agile

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Wed, 07 Mar 2018 12:00:00 +0100

How do you implement Agile? Why does Agile matter? How has Agile changed in the last decade? Where do you get a beer in Austin? Walter Bodwell answers all of these questions and more in this episode. Plus, we hear the story of how Evity was sold for $100 Million.

Image Credit

Special Guest: Walter Bodwell.

Sponsored By:

Software Defined Talk: You know you want a Software Defined Talk t-shirt! With this code, you can get 20% off. WHAT A GREAT DEAL! Promo Code: SDTFSG

Episode 64: Christopher Luciano on Kubernetes & Istio

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Thu, 01 Mar 2018 21:00:00 +0100

Why does kubernetes even exist, why don’t existing things work just as well for it? And then what kind of applications can you run on it, at least following the original intentions. Once we sort that out, we talk about the same for Istio. We also discuss hospital IT and how large companies like IBM decide which open source projects to work on.

Recorded Talk on Istio.
Twitter: cmluciano_
His website.
His LinkedIn.

Special Guest: Christopher Luciano.

Sponsored By:

Software Defined Talk: You know you want a Software Defined Talk t-shirt! With this code, you can get 20% off. WHAT A GREAT DEAL! Promo Code: SDTFSG

Episode 63: JJ Asghar on DevOps, Compliance and Grilling

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Mon, 19 Feb 2018 12:00:00 +0100

JJ Asghar from Chef explains how he found his way into DevOps and why DevOps makes Christmas better. We also discuss the latest news about Uber's security breach and how it could have been prevented. Finally, we find time to talk about gas grills, building Linux from scratch and what it takes to be an Eagle Scout.

One more thing, we also explain how JJ got his nickname "NO_SSH_JJ."

JJ wants you to go to ChefConf in Chicago May 22-25. Tell him his friends at Software Defined Interviews sent you.

More stuff from us:

Listen to our other podcast Software Defined Talk
Subscribe to the Newsletter
Join us in Slack
Buy a Software Defined Talk T-Shirt use code SDTFSG for 20% off.
Send your name and address to stickers@softwaredefinedtalk.com and get a free laptop sticker!

Special Guest: JJ Asghar.

Episode 62: Nancy Gohring on monitoring, observability, DevOps, & M&A

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Mon, 12 Feb 2018 15:15:00 +0100

This is a really fun and great episode with Nancy Gohring on monitoring, log management, DevOps, M&A in the space, and tech journalism. Also, we finally get the most concise analysts of the $3.7bn Cisco/AppDynamics deal that I’ve ever heard. If you’re the type of person who knows the words “observiblity,” “The Big 4,” SNMP, or even just DevOps, you’ll like this episode.

Nancy Gohring covers application and infrastructure performance for 451 Research, including IT monitoring, application performance management and log management. Check her out in Twitter: @ngohring.

You can now buy Software Defined Talk t-shirts and fill out the contact form with your mailing address if you’d like some free stickers!

There’s some more detailed show notes as well.

Special Guest: Nancy Gohring.

Sponsored By:

Software Defined Talk: You know you want a Software Defined Talk t-shirt! With this code, you can get 20% off. WHAT A GREAT DEAL! Promo Code: SDTFSG

Links:

Episode 61: Jon Collins on the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Mon, 05 Feb 2018 16:15:00 +0100

“It’s quite good to see GDPR as an evolution, not a revolution.”

The EU is rolling out a huge privacy data regulation policy this Spring, the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR. If you do anything with “customer data,” you should probably at least take a look at it. Companies like Facebook and others who use customer data to work with third parties are gonna have GDPR all up in their grills. In this interviews episode, we talk with Jon Collins who’s been writing about GDPR of late from his perch in the UK. Jon’s an excellent analyst and always has incisive takes on enterprise IT related matters, as well as music (sadly, not featured in this episode).

You can now buy Software Defined Talk t-shirts and fill out the contact form with your mailing address if you’d like some free stickers!

Brandon Whichard, Coté, guest Jon Collins.

Show

Putting people on the line for data handling problems.
Defining legit use for data: like updating on products bought, recommending other things to buy based on past buying. But, when it comes to holding you’re kid’s interest and other creepy thing, stuff comes into effect. Can’t hoard data now, have to justify why you’re doing it at least.
So, sort of: if a third party gets ahold of the data, you need to spell out to the end-user what the data is and how it’ll be used.
They started thinking about GDRP in 2005; it’s taken then 12 years for them to come up with this.

Jon on GDPR, and more

“GDPR, a topic about which I feel strangely sad [about]”
Summarize it - ensure data can be encrypted, provide data on-demand, notify of data breaches (but just in unencrypted?), appoint CDO, somehow describe policy to end user (is this a set policy or can organizations differ it?), data must stay in EU (unless protection stuff is done off-shore)
How’d this come about?
“IT professionals expect that compliance with GDPR will require additional investment: over 80 percent of those surveyed expect GDPR-related spending to be at least $100,000.” (Book of all knowledge)
In use: “Facebook needs to ask people if it can use status posts as input to its advertising engines, whereas Google does not need to know someone is — its AdWords algorithms generate information based on search requests, location and so on, without being personally identifiable.”
Meanwhile, “we will consent to have our privacy even more eroded than it already is.” What exactly should we care about with data privacy: how does an individual think through what Facebook does, Axcion, Target, the government, foreign governments, etc. - aka, Jon vs. The McNealy Privacy Principal (it’s dead, get over it).
Generalizing to Jon’s five rules of cyber security.

Background

Covering tech: “It’s a conundrum: when to say something out loud, even if it’s been said before?”
@jonno
Jon’s author page on Amazon
Newsletter
Podcast
Gigaom Column

Credits: header image from warrenrandalcarr.

Special Guest: Jon Collins.

Episode 60: Sell-side financial analysts, & enterprise software pricing

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Tue, 30 Jan 2018 17:00:00 +0100

What do these financial, equity analyst types do? Well, if the stock market was rational, we could probably tell you. This week, we look at one PDF reporting on cloud and try to make sense of it. Also, we discuss enterprise software pricing, THE DANCE!

More detailed show notes, including the charts, are available.

Episode 59: Fear of FANG

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Fri, 19 Jan 2018 23:00:00 +0100

Everyone’s freaking out about tech companies. What they mean by “tech companies,” of course is the combination of Facebook, Google, Twitter, Amazon, and maybe Netflix. They (mostly) mean companies who are using tech to disrupt their industries (media, retail, entertainment) and using the business models of tech companies. The line is, to be sure, fuzzy, but these are not companies that make their money from selling hardware, software, or even IT services (like Microsoft, Oracle, Red Hat, SAP, Pivotal, etc.).

This week, we look at one write-up of this freaking out from The Economist. They also have a smaller version in their “Leaders” section. As always, there are much more extensive, detailed show notes available as well.

You can now buy Software Defined Talk t-shirts and fill out the contact form with your mailing address if you’d like some free stickers!

Episode 58: Who is the CISO?

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Thu, 21 Dec 2017 13:00:00 +0100

With Cotê and Matt Ray away on vacation, Brandon takes over the feed to talk all about security. Andy Land from the CISO Exec Network joins us to breakdown what CISOs are worried about and what developers should know about security.

Episode 57: VC Tech Predictions & Newsletters, Ben Evans edition

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Fri, 15 Dec 2017 18:00:00 +0100

In this episode we look at two tech world artifacts: weekly, curated links in email newsletters and the trends and predictions presentation. Ben Evans does both of these and provides great pieces to do some deep reading.

If you're not a man, make sure you take the listener survey. (We got plenty of male-responses.)

See the detailed show notes.

Episode 56: The tech column/opinion piece

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Wed, 29 Nov 2017 20:00:00 +0100

This week, we look at the tech editorial page, columns that people like Matt Asay and Coté write. First we discuss if this is even a category, and then go over three columns Coté has written recently.

(Slightly) more detailed show notes over in paper.

Episode 55: The OpenStack Community Survey & Oceania Sales Motions

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Mon, 13 Nov 2017 22:00:00 +0100

Community surveys are a handy tool for tracking momentum, proving legitimacy, and, of course, understanding the state of the community. “Community” doesn’t have to be all rainbows and sandals - open source - but it often does. This week we look at the most recent OpenStack Community Survey.

See more detailed show notes.

Episode 54: The Corporate Podcast, & EBC’ing

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Thu, 02 Nov 2017 18:00:00 +0100

Murder and comedy podcasts are all fun and dandy, but they’re strategically used by tech companies as well as marketing. This week, we look at some common formats, how they’re done, and how to consume them.

Detailed show notes: https://paper.dropbox.com/doc/The-Corporate-Podcast-EBCing-azErWSniyTIDSTn8cQn1U

Episode 53: The Lone Wolf Analyst

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Fri, 27 Oct 2017 14:00:00 +0200

This week, we look at one of the new analyst models, and what they do, by way of Ben Thompson. Horace Dediu and RedMonk are other examples of this model, but Ben Thompson is the highest flying, most interesting practicer now. Ben’s business model is pretty straight-forward: a partial paywall around his some of his weekly content, podcast sponsorships, and (maybe?) consulting.

Also, the DC steak scene, BLT Steakhouse’s odd way of cooking a steak. Brandon says to go to Charlie Palmer’s.

Check out the more detailed show notes and links.

Episode 52: The Four

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Fri, 20 Oct 2017 22:00:00 +0200

This week we look at The Four. Coté had high hopes. More importantly, we look at the medium and mechanics of a business book.

More detailed show notes and such.

Episode 51: The fluffy, leather chair interview, or, “Do you think the edge forces you to go hybrid?” or, there’s a lot of high-dollar farts in those chairs

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Fri, 13 Oct 2017 23:00:00 +0200

The big fluffy, leather chair interview is a staple of the tech world now. A big named executive (usually) comes up on the stage with a big name journalist and is interviewed in a “wide ranging” discussion. In addition to videos of these being broadcast, tech outlets often write summaries - news stories even - based on the interviews, and others sometimes post “lighted edited transcripts.” One of our favorite news sites, CRN, does this often. And while they do the sleazy thing of making 20-35 pages out of what should be a, at most, two page story, they’re usually good interviews if you’re into the the topic. Continuing a discussion we started in SDT #108, we look at three of these interviews, giving us the chance to a close reading of the interviews

themselves and talk about the format in general.

The three interviews: (1.) Meg Whitman, HPE; (2.) Steve Singh, Docker; (3.) Pat Gelsinger, VMware. All of them, of course, are CEOs.

See the more detailed show notes for more.

Episode 50: Just another kubernetes article

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Wed, 04 Oct 2017 04:00:00 +0200

This week, we look at an article from Susan Hall at The New Stack. Susan is a solid reporter, so looking at her piece allows us to discuss the world and machination of the tech press, what it’s like to brief them, and our imagination of what it’s like to be a tech reporter.

See the detailed notes for more.

This episode was made free since we haven't been recording the regular show.

Episode 49: Heptio’s funding press releases, or, “marriages, divorces, and births”

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Fri, 22 Sep 2017 19:00:00 +0200

Press releases are a high art in our trade. There’s certain formats to follow, the audiences are always precise, and making a good one is a sign of a cunning PR pro. This week, we look at a funding announcement from Heptio. It follows the classic form fairly well, so you’ll see how general press releases are done and some attributes of the funding press release.

See more detailed show notes.

Episode 41: Southbound cloud-native enterprise architecture

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Mon, 18 Sep 2017 13:15:00 +0200

In part two of our cloud-native enterprise architect talk, we discuss the more technical functions of the EA. We think of these as the "southbound" functions.

Special Guest: Matt Walburn.

Episode 48: Forrester’s CD-ish Wave

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Thu, 14 Sep 2017 05:00:00 +0200

We discuss a recent Forrester Wave: “The Forrester Wave: Continuous Delivery And Release Automation, Q3 2017.”

See more detailed notes here.

Episode 40: Do people actually do DevOps? Or, the margarita/bloody mary continuum

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Thu, 14 Sep 2017 04:00:00 +0200

On the DevOps question: sure they do, but there are many variations depending on the company.

Links:

Tommy's Margarita
Anthony Lee and David Brock talk platform operations — The Pivotal Conversations episode mentioned.

Episode 47: Kubernetes & container landscapes from Forrester & Gartner

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Fri, 01 Sep 2017 19:00:00 +0200

This week, we talk about two PDFs setting out to briefly describe the kubernetes and great container orchestration landscapes. See [the usual more detailed write-up and analysis elsewhere](https://paper.dropbox.com/doc/WP006-Kubernetes-container-landscapes-from-Forrester-Gartner-pnTuTycrvQribNjWNB7tE).

This episode was also made free in the regular Software Defined Talk podcast feed - marketing!

Episode 46: The full Chef burger, with a side of THE DIGITAL

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Sat, 19 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0200

This week’s paper is sent in by Matt Ray: “Continuous Automation for the Continuous Enterprise.”

See detailed, typed analysis in the show-notes, find the paper attached, and enjoy the podcast in your members only RSS feed.

Episode 45: The PaaS Hype Cycle, 2017 edition

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Tue, 15 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0200

We look at the 2017 Gartner PaaS Hype Cycle, just released. See more show notes, though not very detailed here.

As always, thanks for being a supporter!

Episode 39: “Microservices is interesting because most enterprises aren't doing it.”

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Thu, 10 Aug 2017 20:00:00 +0200

It’s another in the Matt Curry discussions sub-series! We discuss how enterprise are shifting over to a microservices approach, or not. As Matt explains:
“A lot of enterprise are trying to figure out how to do microservices…but what they’re actually trying to figure out how to do is small, empowered teams that can independently release.”

Episode 38: Coté’s whiskey theory & why The Economist is great

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Thu, 03 Aug 2017 22:00:00 +0200

We discuss what the deal is with Canadian whiskey and then talk about why we like The Economist.

Your pals, @cowboyd & @cote.

Episode 44: A trillion IoT devices by 2035

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Thu, 03 Aug 2017 18:00:00 +0200

IoT will be big by 2035, a trillion devices driving a $1tn of spend/year, according to this paper. How does one come to that figure, and what exactly is IoT. Even better, how would you put together the business case to justify doing an IoT project? Well, you’ll get an average of 5x returns, the paper says, so that’s a compelling start. Also, you should buy some ARM chips. Put together by one of ARM’s investor relations people, this paper is squarely targeted a money people interested in IoT and ARM.

See also the raw notes on the paper, references, and more details on the paper. Also, of course, available as a PDF attached here.

This paper in question (attached here, as well) was suggested by Alek.

As always, thanks for being a patron of Software Defined Talk, it's super-encouraging and meaningful. If you liked this episode, perhaps send the attached PDF (as all great white papers are transmitted) and encourage your friends to check out both Software Defined Talk and to become a patron get our exegesis episodes.

Please tell us what you think and suggest any white papers, talks, press releases, or other tech world ephemera that'd be fun to over-analyze!

Episode 43: Not a [Very Good] DevOps Talk - Software Defined Talk Members Only White Paper Exegesis #2

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Sat, 29 Jul 2017 14:00:00 +0200

This week, Brandon and Coté talk analyze Coté's 2016 stump-speech, Not a DevOps Talk. We talk about the process of putting together a talk like this, how it flows, and the desired effect and rhetoric behind it all.

See the extensive show notes and much more detail in the attached PDF or online. There's also a bonus write-up about two of Coté's Register columns.

Please tell us what you think and suggest any white papers, talks, press releases, or other tech world ephemera that'd be fun to over-analyze!

Episode 37: Cloud-native enterprise architecture, with Matt Curry & Andrew Clay Shafer

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Fri, 21 Jul 2017 23:00:00 +0200

Let’s finally get to the punchline on this “cloud-native enterprise architect” quest. Here, Matt Curry, Andrew Clay Shafer, and I discuss the things that would motivate such a role and try to chart out what functions the cloud-native EA would serve. This still doesn’t answer the question perfectly, but it does point towards good why’s and even some how’s. We do alright at trying to pull it all together.

Rough Outline

Business “outcomes.”
“So what is it you’d say you do here?”
Marketing and sales for tech decision making - getting budget, etc.
The EA Strawperson - biz/IT alignment, governance, proscribing stacks
Risk-modeling and procurement costs get better
EA as the ROI whisperer.
SRE book discussions, Pivotal Conversations #58 (Andrew and Coté).
The technology, and what’s new? AWS RDS as an (almost) end-to-end example.
So, EA’s jobs to this point: business stuff… versus defining the platform and tech choices (e.g., “use this pagination library or die!”).
But: product people do the business stuff… you prescribe one platform/PaaS… and then most teams now choose their own stuff above the platform.
And doesn’t microservices do the rest…?
Cloud-native EA’s probably spend a lot more attention to process, like SRE-thinking… reducing duplication of services… someone has to have a global, big picture view of everything.
Being a change agent: boot-strapping to this DevOps/cloud-native/blah blah
The ultimate goal: the business wants to evolve quickly, try new things to try to grow and defend itself quicker; the IT must work, or, at least, be resilient; I don’t want to pay a lot for this muffler; making it easy to do the right thing. # Background
Past discussions on cloud-native EA: Pivotal Conversations #72 and Coté Show #36.
Some rough notes on research.
Books: Enterprise Architecture as Strategy and Continuous Architecture.

Episode 42: PwC says you suck at THE DIGITAL - Software Defined Talk Members Only White Paper Exegesis #1

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Fri, 21 Jul 2017 19:00:00 +0200

Our first white paper review, starting with "what is digital, and what are/should enterprises do about it. See the detailed notes on it, either in the attached PDF, or in Dropbox Paper.

You should be able to find your members only RSS feed and add it to your podcast listener.

First, thanks to our initial, super-fan handful of members who'll be getting this.

Second, tell us if you like this show, format, and, if so, some studies/papers you'd like us to go over.

Third, if you can help us promote this, and grow membership (or at least envy that you get access to!), that'd be awesome. Feel free to email the PDF around, a link the notes, or even the MP3 if you want to be a bit of a privateer.

Episode 36: North-bound Enterprise Architecture with Matt Walburn - that business/IT alignment dance

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Thu, 20 Jul 2017 21:00:00 +0200

What’s the “business” side of enterprise architecture? And how does EA’ing start mapping to DevOps, cloud-native, and all the new stuff? In part one of this discussion, I talk with Matt Walburn about how EA’s fit into The Business.

Rough Outline

Rorschaching “Enterprise Architect” (EA)
The bad parts of EA - governance
“Neo-classical DevOps”
Matt Walburn - AWS, Pivotal, Target.
DIY Whitepaper
Understanding how the business works, the customers (internal and external), what IT is in place.
What’s the “operating model” for figuring out what IT does: deciding on the plan, finance, HR, translating things to developers.
Taking out COTS and desktop management - however, commoditizing by going SaaS and IaaS is likely important.
Figuring out how the business works. Experiences their customers work with that are supported by IT, e.g., eCommerce, mobile device, call-center.
Figuring out the stick figures and the lines to boxes - user-centric design and thinking.
- Agile, value-streams.
Outcomes/What is “strategy”?
Outcomes - result (monetary, usually) you want. How you’ll achieve it (e.g., sell through mobile apps)… working backwards to the things required (in eCommerce, I need to show a catalog of products, get them to pay for it, ship it, handle returns, etc.)
- The value of TOGAF and ITIL side-note.
- How to ferret them out - sit in people with a room and walk back the business, a bunch of questions. “Boardio.”
- How to “model”/document them - taxonomy.
- How do these workflows/outcomes align to what the business is doing.
- Finding duplication that’s wasteful - if we want faster cycle-times, we want to democratize data access (more transparent, well-known data sources, etc.)… not burdened with re-creating. Not so much (or only) an “IT service” that’s duplicated, but sort of logical pools of data. Cost-removal is fine, but also removing conflicts and dealing with conflicts, and removing time-to-understand how all these different things work.
Define future vision, aka, “what do we [in IT] do now?”
- First step, how decoupled is the business from IT

Special Guest: Matt Walburn.

Episode 35: You know me, never afraid to be a naive old white guy, or, learning from centuries of fighting over dumb shit

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Fri, 30 Jun 2017 17:00:00 +0200

In this Drunk and Retired cameo episode: What's up with Irish and Italian names, and why is the Irish brand so much bigger than the Scottish brand? Also, it seems like there's a lot to learn from 2,000 years of Europeans fighting. Charles and Coté quickly meander through all of this.

Links:

Ongoing topics list — Rolling list of ideas for things to talk about here.
Gulf Shores, Alabama — A fine place for a beach vacation.
The Horse of Pride — It’s like _Hillbilly Elegy_, but for 20th century France.
frontmacs.el — "A package-based, web-centric, customizable, awesome-by-default, acceptance-tested Emacs distribution curated by your friends at Frontside."
swiper.el — "Ivy - a generic completion frontend for Emacs, Swiper - isearch with an overview, and more. Oh, man!"

Episode 34: Pipelines, you're gonna need 'em

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Thu, 08 Jun 2017 23:00:00 +0200

Without a build pipeline, you might as well pack it up and go home. Matt Curry and I talk about his team’s experience with putting a pipeline in place and dip a bit into how Concourse and other options, like Jenkins. Matt also goes over some of the common meatware barriers to getting CI/CD in place.

Find us here: @mattjcurry and @cote.

Episode 33: Spring Cloud, Zuul, & API gateways, with Spencer Gibb

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Fri, 02 Jun 2017 19:00:00 +0200

All these cloud-native apps don’t magically figure out how to talk with each other themselves. They need to usual help with finding each other (registries) and then mediating and managing their ongoing “chatter” with one-another (API gateways). While killing time at the Pivotal booth at OSCON, I talked with Spencer Gibb who works on these things and more in Spring.

Episode 32: Jono Bacon on internal community development and keys to community management

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Thu, 01 Jun 2017 19:00:00 +0200

As organizations get deeper into improving how they do IT, they’re interested in replicating the collaborative benefits of open source communities. Jono Bacon has worked in this space for many, many years and shares some of his experiences here with Barton George and I, while we were all at OSCON. Jono also goes over some of the important parts of community management.

Episode 31: Update on the Cloud Foundry Foundation, and the need for enterprises to share more

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Fri, 26 May 2017 20:00:00 +0200

Abby Kearns talks with Barton and I about what's up at the Cloud Foundry Foundation. We also discuss the encouraging people at enterprises (users of software, not vendors) to share more of best/worst practices and knowledge with each other.

Episode 30: Patrick Debois on using serverless for a year and half, defining DevOps vs. SRE vs. design, and meatware over tools

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Fri, 26 May 2017 17:00:00 +0200

At DevOpsDays Austin, 2017, Barton George and I talk with Patrick Debois.

Episode 29: DevOps at cloud.gov, security, compliance, & cities that start with "A"

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Thu, 25 May 2017 18:00:00 +0200

At DevOpsDays Austin 2017, Barton George and I talk with Diego Lapiduz about his experience introducing and managing a cloud platform for the US government and, now, his work at Pivotal.

Special Guests: Barton George and Diego Lapiduz.

Episode 28: GSD'ing your way to cloud-native, with Brian Gregory

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Wed, 24 May 2017 22:00:00 +0200

Just under a year later, Brian Gregory is back to tell us how changing over Express Script's approach to software is doing. As ever, it's mostly about meat-ware and Brian gives good, casual overview of management tactics to get everyone to the seemingly simple state of doing the right thing.

Last episode Brian was on, #12.
In Twitter: @mrbriangregory

Special Guest: Brian Gregory.

Episode 27: The arrogance of making sure you get what you want

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Fri, 19 May 2017 17:00:00 +0200

Coté doesn't like asking people to do things for him...or people in general.

Links:

070: Kubernetes with Joe Beda, The Frontside Podcast — Always be DevOps'in'.
Paleo French Cuisine - Kindle edition by Chef Alain Braux. Cookbooks, Food & Wine Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com. — Less beans, more fruit.
Southern Culture On The Skids: Dirt Track Date — Good hold music.
Frijoles charros - Wikipedia — These are the best means that humanity has come up with to date.
Pivotal Conversations: Cloud-Native Monitoring & PCF Metrics, With Todd Persen (Ep. 65) — In an open source business, you have to figure out how to ask people for money.
Show Topics and notes — Our ongoing list of show topics and scratch-pad for shows.
What Makes People Do What They Do? Freakonomics — The Israeli pay for being late to pick up your kid story.
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable — Actually pretty good.
Maestro's Classic Beard Butter Wisemen's Blend 8 Ounce — This is what Coté uses, but you can feel free to skip caring about beard-care for the first two years or so.
GitHub - felipeochoa/rjsx-mode: A JSX major mode for Emacs
Menlo Font

Episode 26: Getting over resistance to change

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Tue, 16 May 2017 18:00:00 +0200

Matt Curry is back! In this episode recorded at OSCON 2017, we discuss the problems with getting people to change, from staff to management, private sector and government.

Episode 25: John Willis on DevOps, inclusion, burn-out, and biz dev

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Thu, 11 May 2017 14:00:00 +0200

Special Guest: Barton George.

Episode 24: Oil and waffles

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Thu, 27 Apr 2017 21:00:00 +0200

We hear about the days when Charles was drilling for oil. Also, waffles: "I suffered years of floppy-waffles." We also discuss the deal with kombucha, to no effect, really.

And, as always, Charles' emacs configuration tip of the week.

Links:

The Wheel of Time series
Show Topics
Planet Money buys oil
There Will be Blood
Big Oil profit margins — Something like 6-7%
Avocado Oil
Whale oil — "nearly 236,000 whales were killed in the 19th century"
The 4-Hour Body
Coté's Belgian waffle iron — Oster CKSTWFBF21 1-1/2-Inch Thick Belgian Flip Waffle Maker, Brushed Stainless Steel
The Wirecutter
Arlo cameras
The Sweethome
Kombucha
Charles' emacs configuration tip of the week — crux.el
Austin Emacs Meetup
Charles on the Emacs.el Podcast
Coté on The Frontside podcast

Episode 23: “I don’t have a horse or gun.” Or: We were born in Austin. Or: “you may all go to hell. I am going to Texas.”

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Tue, 11 Apr 2017 21:00:00 +0200

When you travel, people have a lot of thoughts about Texas.

Links:

Skype Call Recorder
Topic list
That podcast we used to do
“You may all go to hell and I will go to Texas.” — It was Davy Crockett.
"Don't mess with Texas" — “The campaign is credited with reducing litter on Texas highways roughly 72% between 1986 and 1990.”
O'Tacos — Panini "tacos" in Paris.
Cooper's now in Austin
The Splendid Table with Lynne Rossetto Kasper
Original My Little Pony theme song
South American pan pipe sounds
Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio are top 10 US cities, by population — Austin is #11.
Who invented the breakfast taco?
Header image of blue bonnets from rubengarciajrphotography

Episode 22: The Regular Show, Apple’s problem’s, Enterprise tech news blows

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Fri, 24 Mar 2017 17:00:00 +0100

Charles & Coté reboot their old podcast about regular things. Also, a rant on photo management in Apple-land and how terrible enterprise IT news it. Plus, upcoming topics.

Links:

Screenhero
Oracle's financials, past three years — They're pretty much "flat."
The Software Paradox — Among other things, Stephen O'Grady analyzes Oracle's finances and what it says about their software portfolio and what companies are now buying, i.e., SaaS.
Kubernetes tool saves eBay from its OpenStack woes
Kara Swisher on the Ezra Klein show
451 Research

Episode 21: Biz Dev, Defining an application, the atheist eagle scout, with JJ Asghar

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Sat, 11 Feb 2017 14:00:00 +0100

Having worked in cloud since before cloud, JJ and I talk about what companies are using various cloud things for. We also discuss the conceptual history of cloud, and what exactly he does as a "business development" person at Chef.

You might also know him from his "being an introvert at conferences" talk.

Check him out in Twitter @jjasghar

Special Guest: JJ Asghar.

Episode 20: Reading tech company financials, with Rachel Stephens

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Tue, 07 Feb 2017 17:00:00 +0100

What's up with all those cash numbers in quarterly reports, and what's the deal with "analyst expectations"? In this brief episode I talk with RedMonk's Rachel Stephens to get some quick tips on what to do with all that stuff.

Find her in Twitter (@rstephensme) and on her RedMonk blog. See also this fine mound of cheese.

Special Guest: Rachel Stephens.

Episode 19: Computers are easy. Humans are Hard. With Bridget Kromhout

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Fri, 27 Jan 2017 22:00:00 +0100

We discuss all the human and process changes needed to do good things with computers.

Special Guest: Bridget Kromhout.

Links:

Video recording of this episode — The livestreamed recording we did.

Episode 18: Reactive applications, with Josh Long

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Fri, 27 Jan 2017 21:00:00 +0100

Josh Long and I discuss “reactive programming."

Special Guest: Josh Long.

Links:

Video recording of this episode — The livestreamed video of Josh and I's talk.

Episode 17: Ignoring bad code on purpose

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Tue, 13 Dec 2016 23:00:00 +0100

Sometimes you have to live with bad code. No one will let you change it. There’s many good and bad reasons, so make sure you’re consciously making the decision instead of accidentally doing it. I discuss some reasons people would keep bad code, how management should think through it, and then some options for coping as needed.

It was Joel, back in 2000, who said not to re-write code.

I recorded this with a Mevo, hence the kind of echo'y noise. See the video over in Facebook where I LIVESTREAMED IT!

Episode 16: Pair programing doesn't stink

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Thu, 03 Nov 2016 15:15:00 +0100

Somewhere around just 20% of people do pair programming. It seems to be an incredibly effective technique, according to people who follow it. I go over some of those reasons and micro case studies of organizations having success with pair programming. It seems like the right thing to do.

Links:

My Pairing column from October at The Register — The comments section is especially good for common sentiment about pair programming.
Charles Lowell — We used to do a podcast.
Gartner survey on pair programming adoption — I got the number wrong: it's actually around 20%, not just 10%.
Mark Ardito goes over HCSC’s astonishing success with pair programming — They thought it'd take 12-15 weeks to get their MVP done, but it actually took 5.5 to 6 weeks we finish.
Selecting people for pair programming and their enthusiastic response — More from Mark Ardito on HCSC's adoption of pair programming.
Phil Horowitz talks about how exhausting pairing is at first — At Perforce: "This makes pair programming intense, especially at the beginning. At the end of the first day, I couldn't go home. Before I could face humans again, I put my phone on airplane mode, ignored my usual online accounts, and went to the gym for two hours of self-imposed isolation."

Episode 15: Getting executives to fail fast

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Wed, 02 Nov 2016 22:00:00 +0100

The idea of “failing fast” is popular in DevOps and agile think. That sounds like the exact opposite of what managers at large organizations would like to do. How do you get them to feel all warm and fuzzy about it? Here’s the top three tactics I’ve seen work.

Links:

Failing fast for the uptight — One of my explanations of "failing fast": it actually means learning; here, a recording of a March 2015 talk.
Getting Started — picking your first cloud native projects, or, Every Digital Transformation Starts with One Project — My tips on picking a series of small projects to build up internal momentum to do larger ones.
Digital transformation: the what, the why and the how — The sad donut: "Less than 25% of organizations that participated in a recent 451 Research survey (451 Research VoCUL, April 2016) said they had a well-defined formal digital transformation strategy."

Episode 14: Building a cloud in 30 minutes, metrics are a distraction

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Wed, 03 Aug 2016 02:00:00 +0200

"I get to see your face during this podcast," Matt says as we start talking about SpringOne Platform. Both of us were there and we recap Matt's talk on managing 10 Pivotal Cloud Foundry instances, namely, how they figured out using a Concourse pipeline to automate much of that management. We discuss "how to do the transformation" talks we liked, like the Citi talk.

In addition to some other random digital transformation topics, we also discuss how HR policies are struggling to change with things like pair programming and DevOps.

Subscribe: iTunes, RSS Feed

Show-notes and Links

Matt Curry: @mattjcurry
Coté: @cote, cote.io

Libsyn downloads as of 20160912: 643

Episode 13: The changing nature of open source & Loco Moco, with Barton George

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Mon, 01 Aug 2016 02:00:00 +0200

Summary

I've had a theory that the hard-line philosophy of open source has softened in recent times. Rather than thinking closed source is to be avoided at all costs, I think most developer types are a lot more willing to accept closed source bits mixed in with open source bits. That is, open core has "won." I discuss this topic with my long time pal, Barton George, while at SpringOne Platform, plus the work he's doing in the developer and OSS worlds at Dell.

We also talk about Hawaiian food.

Subscribe: iTunes, RSS Feed

Show Notes and Links

Find Barton George at bartongeorge.net and in Twitter at @barton808.
Cuisine of Hawaii
Coté: @cote, cote.io

Libsyn downloads as of 20160912: 219.

Special Guest: Barton George.

Episode 12: Introducing cloud at Express Scripts, with Brian Gregory

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Tue, 26 Apr 2016 02:00:00 +0200

Introducing cloud in a large enterprise can be challenging, and the technology is usually the least of your worries. Matt and I talk with Brian Gregory of Express Scripts who's been working on transforming Express Scripts to a more cloud native approach to IT and tell us some the history and some of the tactics that he and team have been working through.

Subscribe: iTunes, RSS Feed

Show Notes and Links

Matt's CF Summit talk, "Building a Brand Around a Technology and Cultural Transformation". If you want to go, use the code CF16COTE to get 20% off CF Summit registration.
Brian Gregory with Express Scripts - check out Brian in Twitter (@MrBrianGregory) or LinkedIn.
Express Scripts - 30,000+ employees, $100bn in revenue, 20th largest company in the US,
Starting with a large, mature IT portfolio including lots of assets from M&A.
Winning over the various stakeholders and groups, including developers and enterprise architecture council.
Working with legacy services.
Matt Curry: @mattjcurry
Coté: @cote, cote.io
See my promos and discount page for conference discount codes and other stuff

Libsyn downloads as of 20160912: 529.

Special Guest: Brian Gregory.

Episode 11: How do we do things we would never, ordinarily do?

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Mon, 01 Feb 2016 01:00:00 +0100

Summary

Matt and I talk about lessons learned from almost a year of helping transform IT at Allstate. When it comes to scaling up agile and cloud-think the real challenges are in functions other than development, like budgeting, planning, training, hiring, and how the overall IT department is organized. We discuss those topics - esp. budgeting! - and also how to set one's personal expectations about going on the transformation journey. Then we discuss an upcoming column on mine in The Register on the benefits of small batches thinking.

Subscribe: iTunes, RSS Feed

Show Notes and Links

After a year, the question becomes "can it scale?"
How do we do: Budgeting, training, hiring, how do we organize teams
We only plan with good information, not bad information.
You need to establish an overall vision, but avoid being too specific on tactics. For example, with a claim application, we know the general product, the vertical, the line of business we have roughly an idea of what claims are, who the customer is, and what that experience is like. Delivering a better experience for claims, what that feels like, and how do we measure it - these things we don't know perfectly up-front, so we have lots of discipline around iterating and experimenting to deliver good product.
How budgeting changes in this small batches approach.
With a lot of this, you can't talk someone into doing these things up-front. They have to experience it first hand: you have to walk them through it.
"Sometimes 'nothing' is a big win."
Coté's DevOps columns at The Register.
Not mentioned, but good thinking to be had in Larman's Law
Matt Curry: @mattjcurry
Coté: @cote, cote.ios of small batches thinking.

Libsyn downloads as of 20160912: 477.

Episode 10: Doing the DevOps at National Instruments and BazaarVoice, talking with Ernest Mueller

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Wed, 02 Dec 2015 01:00:00 +0100

Ernest Mueller has worked helped introduce DevOps in several organizations and has been talking about those stories at two companies he's worked for, National Instruments and BazaarVoice. Matt and Coté hear these stories (mostly at National Instruments) and we discuss how Ernest and others helped transform these companies to the new way.

Download directly, listen above, or subscribe to the feed: iTunes, RSS Feed.

Show-notes and Links

If we automate, we'll loose our close touch of the systems.
Being on call, globally, back when there were actual pagers.
Persuading people to change with tyranny, demo's, trust, and any other tactics you can get your introverted mind around.
Recording Ernest's talk on all this, from DOES 2015: DevOps Transformations At National Instruments and Bazaarvoice (And Infosec!)
From DevOpsDays Austin 2012, here's a panel discussion of DevOps at NI.
Slides for DevOps Transformations at National Instruments and BazaarVoice, his presentation on DevOps at NI and BazaarVoice.
One of the most comprehensive presentation on DevOps from Ernest and the other DevOps Austin crew.
Ernest Mueller: @ernestmueller, The Agile Admin blog.
Matt Curry: @mattjcurry
Coté: @cote, cote.io

Libsyn downloads as of 20160912: 655.

Special Guest: Ernest Mueller.

Episode 9: The life of microservices in the F500

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Tue, 01 Dec 2015 07:00:00 +0100

Summary

You don't hear too many stories about microservices in "normal" companies. In this episode, I talk with Nate Foreman about microservices-driven work he's been doing with a large enterprise recently. We discuss the goods and the bads of this approach and, overall, how it's working out. It's a good discussion of how all the usual "cloud native" concept actually play out in the real world.

(As you can guess, it's not actually an "action figure" company, we just used that example to mask the actual company.)

Subscribe: iTunes, RSS Feed

Show Notes and Links

Libsyn downloads as of 20160912: 529.

Episode 8: Transforming how the US government does software, Diego Lapiduz

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Thu, 01 Oct 2015 02:00:00 +0200

Summary

What organization could be larger than the US Federal government? Not only that, the chance to transform how software is done in the government has perhaps one of the largest possible impacts of transforming any "IT department." In this episode, Matt and Coté talk with Diego Lapiduz who works in the GSA's 18F organization helping government agencies develop their software in new, more agile and cloud-driven ways. We discuss the background of 18F and the broader government initiatives to transform how software is done and also walk through some of the learnings 18F has had in trying to make such a huge transformation.

Subscribe: iTunes, RSS Feed

Show-notes and Links

Hiring is the biggest problem around government processes.
To build empathy and different teams working together, try to tackle a common goal.
Building credibly by demonstrating that your method works.
The Ugly Baby Problem - winning over people who think they're already doing it right.
Measuring success.
18F in github. github.com/18F and 18f.gsa.gov.
Examples of project: NotAlone.gov, The College Score Card.
Explaining "failing fast" in government. People start to understand it as they have more experience.
How open source is helpful here, how non-government folks get involved and contribute to the open source projects.
Diego's recent talk at the Cloud Foundry Summit 2014.
As more background on IT change in the government, check out this overview from Mikey Dickerson at OSCON 2015.
Diego Lapiduz: @dlapiduz
Matt Curry: @mattjcurry
Coté: @cote, cote.io

Libsyn downloads as of 20160912: 458.

Episode 7: Getting beyond "the comfort of the number."

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Thu, 17 Sep 2015 02:00:00 +0200

Summary

In this first part of a new series, Matt Curry and I discuss many of the problems with transforming how a large company uses IT. From dealing with businesses cases, the finance department, and changing how the business thinks about using IT, there are numerous organizational change problems to chew on. This launches a new series of episodes in Lords of Computing where Matt and I will talk interview various folks out there who are going through transformation at their company. We're interested in hearing what's work and not worked for them.

Subscribe: iTunes, RSS Feed

Show Notes and Links

Matt in Twitter, Coté in Twitter
Avatar pictures
Excel is a white-collar battering ram.
Management as programming the orginization
The Wolf in CIO's Clothing
Despite a mandate, you have to convince people to do their job
Leading the Transformation and A Practical Approach to Large-Scale Agile Development
Negotiating a business case - finding out what's "really" needed.
"The Business doesn't know what they actually want."
Getting the business to understand programming, and vice-versa.
Having a roadmap vs. documented features - flow vs. fully specified goal

Libsyn downloads as of 20160912: 558.

Episode 6: Try to avoid killing your acquisition

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Mon, 15 Jun 2015 02:00:00 +0200

Summary

After catching up about movies and OpenStack, John and I discuss how difficult it is to properly integrate acquired companies into the larger company. We also discuss what VCs are looking for to say yes now: a good team, it seems.

Subscribe: iTunes, RSS Feed

Show notes and Links

Aloha.
State of OpenStack talk.
Andrew Shafer's To Whom it May Concern
If A rounds are easy, what are investors looking for?
The three P's: people, process, philosophy/priorities
Toyota Kata - Learning to See.
That Matt Curry/Andrew Shafer conversation, the original Hangouts video.
DevOpsDays DC talk on government DevOps use?
DevOpsDays AMS up next

Libsyn downloads as of 20160912: 500.

Episode 5: When the practice of using the tool is novel, thought-lording new technologies

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Tue, 28 Apr 2015 02:00:00 +0200

We discuss how you (slowly) introduce new technologies into the market by looking at past tech cycles John has gone through. We also catch-up on the Craft conference and John’s travels in Europe.

Show-notes and Links

The Bruce Sterling Web 2.0 European Conference Circuit
Craft conference Prezi
Consul, Teraform, etc.
Johnaform
How do you install the thing, how do you fix the thing?
DevOps Weekly email list.
The 5 why's of cloud
Damon and those guys.
Simon Wardly's evolution of practice
"The practice of using the tool is novel."
When the wave finally broke
Defined vs. constrained by the tools you use.
Learning to See
How does this compare to the rise of VMware?
Don't be constrained by billing.
How are you measured?
Bruge, beer museum, churches, chocolate and beer

Libsyn downloads as of 20160912: 337.

Episode 4: "I have become the hustler," Robert Brook

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Mon, 20 Apr 2015 02:00:00 +0200

Summary

It can take a long time to get "the mainstream" to use new technologies. One would assume that this would be true in supporting the government, as Robert Brook does in his day job. In this brief episode, over the din and bottle collection activities at Monkigras, I catch up with him on just that topic and how he tries to manage being a change agent for the benefit of the UK Parliament.

Subscribe: iTunes, RSS Feed

Show notes and Links

Roland R09 vs. the Zoom H4n.
Monkigras 2015, London
Robert Brook, working at the UK Parliament. What does this guy do exactly?
Reducing friction in the existing systems. How does one do this?
Digital enterprises as seen in my "Why I'm working at Pivotal blog post."
Fun things like "Is my MP sitting?"
Jon Udell on getting iCal files from the library

Libsyn downloads as of 20160912: 289.

Episode 3: Something Celsius and Busy Bullshit work

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Wed, 15 Apr 2015 02:00:00 +0200

Summary

While he's in Paris for the local DevOpsDays, John and I discuss the next big step for DevOps: getting "The Business" involved to tie-break the process deadlock. Plus: the Dutch are delightful!

Sponsor: The Cloud Foundry Summit is coming up on May 11th and 12th, in Santa Clara. It's a great chance to dive into Cloud Foundry ecosystem both on the technology side and to hear how organizations are using Cloud Foundry to become Software Defined Businesses. Register now with the discount code COTE and get 25%, which will bring the price down from $250 to about $187.

Subscribe: iTunes, RSS Feed

Show-notes and Links

The Dutch are DevOpsing, brother.
John at DevOpsDays Paris. What's it like there?
Fighting "them" when it comes to DevOps. Docker is the Millennium Falcon
The Why guy
The Wall of confusion, 2010.
Where's "The Business" when it comes to DevOps and cloud? Are they showing up?
"What kind of company do you think we are?"
Chad Dickerson Duke interview on Etsy.
The Goal - make sure you read it.
JPMC says the nerds are coming.
Flash Boys: DevOps Cafe Episode 58 - Zoran Perkov
A Sense of Urgency
The Halo Effect - you can't just learn from success.
Good to Great
This week's pic: my old Apple and work-Dell side-by-side.

Libsyn downloads as of 20160912: 298.

Episode 2: Becoming a tech reporter, talking with Alex Williams

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Mon, 13 Apr 2015 02:00:00 +0200

Summary

How do you go from playing baseball in France, to getting shot at, to covering the tech industry? I talk with Alex Williams about how he did just that and eventually launched thenewstack.io, one of the more interesting, new technology news sites.

Subscribe: iTunes, RSS Feed

Libsyn downloads as of 20160912: 281.

Episode 1: How to demo your cloud poop, don't smoke corn silk

softwaredefinedinterviews@cote.wtf (Software Defined Talk) — Mon, 06 Apr 2015 02:00:00 +0200

What does it take to demo a cloud software? It's not easy! Also, lamb considered and memories of barcampESM. Our first re-boot of the IT Management and Cloud Podcast, renamed the Lords of Computing Podcast.

Your friends, @cote and @botchagalupe.

Subscribe: http://feeds.feedburner.com/LordsOfComputing

Show-notes and Links

Lamb and DevOpsDays Mama Mia.
Memories, barcampESM - the first IT Management and Cloud podcast episode.
The need for Disaster Kitchen Apps - getting to better demos for cloud infrastructure
The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs - always have an enemy!
The Anti-corruption layer pattern for integrating with old IT.
Netflix documentary of VCs, Something Ventured - Ben Thompson essay on venture capital and tech companies.
Our plans for the Lords of Computing Podcast.

Libsyn downloads as of 20160912: 633.