Many, Lori is a busy human being. She goes to the CD pipeline on behalf of the CDF with
Tech Strong TV. She is committed to helping open source and other tech communities grow
an adapt in our ever-changing environment and is currently ahead of community for Perkota.
Please join me in welcoming Lori.
Thank you.
Oh, note to self, like, if somebody, I'd never heard that right out loud before and I'm
most likely going to change it. That is an embarrassing, embarrassing thing to hear.
Okay, so we're going to talk about the six degrees of Kevin Bacon open source edition,
but we're going to start with a little bit of an intro.
Not the long one that Leslie just gave, and again, I'm going to delete that profile.
So, my name is Lori. This is a picture of me and my family. That's my daughter Lola and
my dog Luna. Yes, there's lots of elves in our life. It is what it is.
So, as she already said, I'm head of community at Perkota.
And if you were in Robert's talk earlier today, you got to learn a little bit more about our
company, but I will not be talking about Perkota. I'm going to be talking about Kevin Bacon and
the community. So, I'm all those ambassadors.
Blah, but you can also find me on LinkedIn.
And one of the things that Leslie didn't say that I think a lot of people don't realize this about me is that I am shy.
I am easily embarrassed and I'm almost always uncomfortable in most of the situations I put myself in.
But what I have done is I have learned to kind of just smile my way through it unless you
see me on a zoom chat because I can't change, you know, it's a zoom.
But I smiled through my awkwardness and I just tried to move forward.
And one of the things I'm 44 and what I've realized is I'm unapologetically me and I lean into my
weird and I just kind of go with it. I know I'm not everybody's cup of tea, but that's okay.
And so, we're going to learn how to do that together.
But the big thing about me and the thing that I value most is making connections and building relationships.
I actually met Leslie through an interview.
I work for Prakona. She works for Renhat. You saw how that went.
But it doesn't matter. We vibe. It was awesome.
And I think of her as like a mentor and a guide.
Same thing with Shirley.
So, you never know who's going to come into your life.
And I just want to really work with you on how to build those relationships so they can last.
All right.
So, who the heck is Kevin Bacon?
Now, I really feel like I aged myself by picking Kevin Bacon.
So, you might know him from Beverly Hills, caught four.
If any of you have even seen one, two or three.
Or maybe a few good men.
One of my favorite like bad horror movies, if you will, is tremors.
What about X-Men?
But for me, and again, aging myself,
I will always know Kevin Bacon from his quest to dance in the movie Footloose.
He was a city slicker moving to a small town
and all he wanted to do was dance.
And if you haven't seen that movie and you like nostalgia in the 80s,
I highly recommend it.
It is as amazing as their clothes.
Okay. So, what is the six degrees of Kevin Bacon?
And just so you know, if you don't know this little cheat,
you can look at your Google slides on your phone and get your notes.
So, you don't have to worry about dual screens.
So, anyways.
So, he is an American actor in singer.
He's been in over 110 movies.
And he just really, you know, let's just be honest.
He kicks ass and he takes names.
So, what is the six degrees of Kevin Bacon?
So, basically, what they say is that anybody in the film industry
can be related back to Kevin Bacon through their film roles.
And so, today, we're going to enter our inner, our inner,
our, we're going to channel our inner, Kevin Bacon.
So, you can see how you can do this in open source.
So, what I want you to do is kind of take what I'm telling you,
and use the next two days at Fauston, which is a crazy two days, right?
Like, look at all the people in the room, look at all the people in the hallway,
and take the tips that I'm going to give you today,
and see how you can expand your network,
and really become the Kevin Bacon of open source.
So, I'm going to debug this for you guys.
Okay? It's like my one tech thing.
By the way, I'm terrible at slides, so they will only get worse from here.
Just FYI.
Honestly, honestly, okay.
So, number one, the thing you hear all the time is that you have to network.
But the part that they don't tell you is that you should network on your own terms, right?
Like, I'm awkward, I'm weird, I'm uncomfortable.
I'm going to like lean into the things that make me feel less awkward, less weird,
and less uncomfortable.
So, you could strike up a conversation.
Now, this can be really hard, right?
There's a thing called the hallway track,
which if you don't go to conferences very often,
and people talk about the hallway track,
what is that literally it's in the hallway.
You just talk to people, and it's really easy here,
because the hallway always has a cue.
But it's a great opportunity for you to meet people.
Sometimes, like, Robert, he had no time for questions,
so he went outside and hosted his own little hallway track,
where you could ask people questions.
So, it's a great way to kind of network with people.
If you're in the queue, you know that you're kind of have a common interest.
You know, what are you doing?
The other thing is, Faustum is great,
because you don't have name badges.
So, you have to ask somebody what their name is, right?
So, it avoids that awkwardness of someone's badge being flipped
the wrong way, and you don't know their name.
Faustum, you don't have to deal with that awkwardness,
because nobody knows anybody's name anyway.
Also, lunch is a great opportunity.
Like, can you just sit down at a table with somebody you don't know?
And, you know, like, oh, that looks like a good sandwich.
I mean, I know this sounds really juvenile,
but it's true.
This is how you can really start to make connections,
and find out who people are.
If you're like, listen, girl, I'm not trying to like talk to people
in the real, I get you.
I still you.
So, you know what?
The internet is amazing.
So, how many times have you put a comment and get up, right?
And maybe somebody replied back.
That's a good way to kind of strike up a conversation outside of the repo.
The cloud native computing foundation is a screenshot of their Slack channel.
I don't think you can see it, because it's super tiny,
but they have 134,000 people in this Slack channel,
that's insane.
But what did this guy do?
He just posted that he's got a new project,
and he wants to know if anybody wants to work on it.
Is that simple, right?
Like, he's not individually messaging 134,000 people.
He's just putting it in the general Slack.
Hopefully, people will comment, and that's how you go from there.
There's also LinkedIn and Blue Sky,
and that one that will show not be named anymore.
But, you know, use the internet to your advantage.
If you do not feel comfortable talking to people,
that is okay.
This is what the internet is for.
Okay.
Step two.
It's all about the vibe.
From what do I mean?
My Angela said, I've learned that people will forget what you said.
People will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
And that's super important.
So when you're in the hallway track, talking to a speaker,
don't just say, oh, I love your talk.
Give them a reason why you love their talk.
Like, I love your talk because you called out the value of using X over Y,
or I've been really stuck on this problem in the way that you explained it.
Made me think I can maybe take it to the next step.
This also works if you're doing this online in LinkedIn.
And so you want to link it with me.
You can say, Lori, your talk was amazing because you're just your purple hair.
Really made me think of my grandma.
I don't know.
Whatever.
But it's something that like brings a little bit of you to the conversation.
So that you can stand out.
So somebody can remember you down the line, right?
Because you made them feel good.
You made them feel good about themselves.
So you never, like, don't discount the way that you feel when you're watching something
or talking to someone and bring that back to them.
All the other vibes.
So, set three.
Practice, practice, practice.
I used to be a public teaching speaker for when I was in grad school.
And we had the three teas.
Tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them and tell them what you told them.
So, like, you're constantly kind of repeating yourself.
So you've got to practice this, right?
It doesn't come easy.
Again, I've already, like, told you, I am very awkward and cringy.
There has been several.
I can't even tell you how many times I've tried the in person thing.
And I've walked up to a group of people.
And I sit there and I stand and I wait.
And I'm like, looking for my moment.
Right?
Like, that moment where I'm going to, like, say something super brilliant or smart.
And like, either I say nothing or I say something.
And it's, like, deadpan.
And you just kind of, like, slowly back away and, like, run for the hills.
So, what does that mean?
Like, they say that you never get a first chance.
You only get one chance to make a first impression or however that saying goes.
And I think that's bullshit.
Excuse me.
I think it's bullshit.
You can try and try and try again because, again, it's about the vibes.
It's about the feels.
It's about how you make somebody feel.
So, if I met Leslie and it didn't go well.
And then I, like, then I get accepted to this room and I'm meeting her again.
I'm not going to be like, hey, remember that one time.
I was super awkward and it was really uncomfortable.
She's not.
She's not going to remember that, right?
Because if it meant more to me that I felt awkward and uncomfortable,
then it did to her.
I'm just going to say, hey, I'm super happy to be in this room.
I can't wait to, like, give my presentation.
Right?
So, try and try and try again.
And the same thing is true online, right?
Maybe you think you, like, got this point that you wanted to make and it didn't go through.
It's okay.
Try again.
Just you have to practice.
This isn't, like, something that comes naturally to everybody.
Just don't be afraid.
Okay.
Here's another one that's really cool.
And I love that conferences have started adding this component.
And it's joining in the fun.
Like, networking doesn't always have to be about tech.
Now, here's a bunch of different things that keep caught North America had going on for them.
They had the project pavilion where there were, like, daily tours of, like, ambassadors running you around all the new projects.
So, you could kind of get to learn about them.
They had chair massages.
They had an oxygen bar.
They had a morning run.
So, how many of you are runners?
Right?
Okay.
Cool.
So, like, morning runs, right?
That means it's in the morning.
So, that's early.
I will run there.
But, like, when I run, I run to finish.
So, I cannot talk to you when I'm running.
I don't understand that.
Uh, we had Perkona.
We had an offsite and Peter, that said, who was in the room earlier.
He was like, let's do a morning run.
I'm like, okay.
Uh, Ricardo, who's there.
We had gotten so hammered the night before.
Okay.
I had such bad anxiety that morning.
Like, that anxiety, you know?
And so, when they're like, let's go, I ran.
Okay.
I didn't know.
I was supposed to be talking to Peter and like, getting to know him.
All I knew was that we started and I wanted to finish.
And it was, it was the worst.
They're like, Lori, slow down.
And I'm like, I can't.
You know, it was like, I just had to go because I wanted to be done.
But, oh, renew our session.
Let's do that later.
Okay.
But where do I win with morning runs?
I'm that person that likes to take the picture before we start.
And then I like to take it when we get back.
And what does that do?
That gives me an opportunity then to link in with people later.
So, I can send them the picture.
I suggest that on mine they can tag themselves.
Because again, I know me and I know I'm awkward.
And I know that I can't talk to you when I'm running because like, I'm just trying to go.
But this is my opportunity to bring value back to somebody that's like, hey, I've got the picture.
Here you go.
So, work within your own zone.
You know?
There's like, how many of you have a dog?
Okay.
They had a pet-up.
Okay.
Comforts is anxiety-inducing too many people.
people you want to like zone out you want to like you but you can't go back to your room
because your room's too far away because you didn't book a hotel in time so what do you do?
You go to the pet a pup and you're like I'm just going to like hang out with the dogs not
worry about a thing and then guess what other people are also hanging out with the dogs not trying
to talk to you and then you're like hey do you have a dog and you're like yeah I got a dog
and like cool and then before you know it there you go right you're in your own zone you're in
your comfort space and you're not talking about tech who cares you're talking about dogs
there's also some or cats or turtles I don't know apparently you can put a turtle in a freezer
when you go on vacation and come back and they come back alive oh it's young I'm saying you learned
from weird stuff about people and you're talking about pets like google it don't don't ask
me ask young um okay so one of the things too that I think is really important about networking
that a lot of people kind of miss and to me this is like this is like the best part this to me is like
the part that I live for and it's bringing your peeps with you right you don't have to go
it alone so you just got to give a little to get a lot like yesterday case and point Megan
in the back of the room I know Megan works for the octoproject and I was talking to my friend David
who was saying he was trying to get involved in the octoproject and I'm like oh okay cool hey
David let me go introduce you to my friend Megan and we can go from there right so David and I
are friends Megan and I are friends David doesn't know Megan Megan is no David but guess what that
was the connection and I was the connection for the two of them so bring your friends with you that's
me that was no skin off my back but you're networking you're helping other people network so it's
not just about what you can get out of it it's what can you also bring to the table how can you bring
your people with you to make things easier and to make this easier for all of us in the room
does that make sense yeah okay I think I'm speeding but sorry the talk fast
alright so let's review right the five steps for you to channel your inner Kevin Bacon
number one you got to put yourself out there but network on your own terms awesome powers
in my aging myself come on guys no thank you awesome powers yeah yeah yeah perfect yeah I mean no
one's more awkward than awesome powers right but look he freaking makes it happen you got the
answer um so two so about the vibes right bring a little bit of yourself into a conversation
lean into your weird lean into your awkward lean into your brain power right like but lean in
and leave a lasting impression don't be that person this just like hi be like hey how are you doing
number three practice finding Nemo right you guys you know finding Nemo door you know just keeps
swimming like you can't stop like you just gotta keep trying and it's okay if again if you're
awkward and if you don't do well and if you're like oh my god but again it's only you that's
gonna remember that moment so just you know what check it up shake it off dust off your shoulders
and try again because you're the one that's living with that without feeling but it's just you
so just let it go it serves you nothing all right step four do you move do you right so find that
place in the conference or inner setting that is just nothing to do with tech maybe it's video games
maybe you go to the um there's a there's a group that does um they don't drink but they go get
boba it's like boba something on CNCF right they just go play games and do boba because they're like
I don't want to like go to the bars cool that's awesome maybe you like to go to the bars go to the
bars maybe you like to go dance go dance but just do you and there's so many opportunities to meet
people when you're in your own comfort zone and last you know bring up okay you guys increment please
okay all right bring others with you you don't have to go it alone as much work as you're putting
in sometimes it's just as easy as introducing somebody else and making that connection for them
so you gotta give a little to get a lot and then um so you know information like
this is how you get to your six degrees of open source right so that's my LinkedIn I know I went
pretty fast but I'm here to answer any questions so what you got nothing oh maybe
how do you maintain your network how do you maintain your network okay so that is
she had to ask that question uh so you check in with people every now and then there's nothing wrong
with sending somebody like okay this is like this is awful right when you get those weird LinkedIn
happy birthday messages like I mean what is that that's so weird but if there's something that
reminds you of somebody right maybe you used a tool maybe you you maybe you had a tip that you thought
go back to that network that person and just send them something right so say you learned something
from the previous speaker's talk and she was talking about um loneliness and you could just send
your message like maybe a week from now and be like hey I totally joined this community because I
realized I felt kind of lonely and disconnected and I want to thank you for that so you just circle back
like I know that's really awful like tech jargon circle back but circle back circle back and you
go to conferences tell people you're gonna be there you know you never know you're gonna bump into
it's more people right like use the internet use your email use your slack use your voice and just
share like where you're gonna be never know who's gonna be there yes
LinkedIn for an event like false death feels painfully corporate I feel like if you like bust out
LinkedIn stand outside bust outwards and I'm probably never going to speak together if you're
because it it feels like it's an event for it just it just feels like it's been taken over by
people who are starting book you on time so do you have any better ways of keeping touch with
people other than like professionally out of the main test well you've got email you know but
also here's a deal like yeah LinkedIn has been taken over by our weird corporate overlords and
others videos popping in all the tape ignore that shit like and that's why you that's why you do
you that's why you bring the vibe so you're like yeah like I don't care how many of you scan this
but just go ahead and send me a message while you scan it like nothing is worse than when you
get a bunch of LinkedIn notifications you have no idea who they are and you don't want to say no
and then you're like okay now it puts the the pressure on the person they're like okay do I
know anybody that knows this person right like how do I know you how do we like and then then
there's no there's no actual connection so yeah this seems weird because we're phosim and it's
all cool and hippie or whatever you still know name badges right and let's be honest typing
somebody's email address could be pretty freaking painful and so just you know just do it but then
send them a message say hey I'd love to just chat with you like here's my email address boom so
don't worry about it being corporate it is what it is we got to connect somehow yes
do you ever go to people or they're in a context those away the connection cannot be allowed
going now it goes back to the maintain it if you're going to use the context
where you connect that it's up so you try to bring something new to the table right so again when
circle back to that person say hey I know we were talking about this or we were working on this but
this is this new thing that I'm doing like what do you think about that like you you know when you say
that you lose the network like but do you did you put enough in to remember why you connected
with that person in the first place because you can always go back to that one like meeting and say hey
remember when I met you at phosim and we were talking about whatever or in that session or that
guy that smelled was like sitting next to us and that was like hilarious we were laughing hey I'm doing
this thing now do you want to jump in like so it's it's just about like remembering why you connected
to them in the first place and then bringing the conversation to something new does that make sense
okay hey we good you have even more time and if you were done I was going to come up and have
my own little personal blah blah but do you want to do your personal blah blah does any more
questions what heard you heard personal blah blah well thank you guys oh yes let's do important yeah
be sure if you're thinking for a while we straight maybe you can get by your connection with
right now how you keep your link game for example uh for file help me like I'm me personally I'm
most of the big connections that you know and then after events especially do you accept everyone
in your network yes why yeah if you know why what's your way of keeping your connection
like in that profession what will be done by her do you have me like talking about some
brother you folks you know right so I think like where I went wrong was uh with the with the
the tool that's not being named anymore um back in the day right like you just were like following
following following and friending friending friending and then you're like who the heck are any
of these people but it was all about the numbers right I think for me LinkedIn is literally about
the connection so if like everybody in this room hits me up but like nobody says hey I saw your
talk at Fossom like then I I'm not gonna I'm not gonna accept your your request you know like again
it's about bringing that vibe and bringing that little piece of personality and if you don't want
people to link in with you then don't share right again that work on your own terms if you're like
and I'm not like calling you out but I'm just saying like um if you want to keep your network nice and
tight then give out an email address right but make it like an email address that's your like
this is my networking email address that I like I check every now and then like and like that's
totally fine right because that's your comfort zone like if your LinkedIn is like this is literally like
my home base for the people that I am doing work with then keep it that way keep it secure right
like there's no right or wrong way on how to do this but again do you like be as out as you want to
be be as closed off as you want to be but don't forget like you do need to network and you do
need to kind of bring people into your fold yeah yeah it's hard when you're like so coming from
like from someone that's never on stage to being on stage like I used to be the person that pushed
my my peeps on stage it is kind of like overwhelming like when everything comes in but for me
I'm like that's cool like I like I'm cool with it like thinking with me it's fun but it's weird when
somebody lives you know some country I've never been into like and there's no connection there's no
whatever I won't accept those some like who are you yeah awesome and how many do you think I'm
so sorry so I don't normally do this as the community devil organizer but I feel like these
times make it okay for me to take a moment to express some thoughts to all of you especially since
I think they're instructive and light of the talk that we're about to listen to and that is
folks the community devil is a safe space we welcome people who are going to treat each other with
kindness and respect and whatever is going on in the world right now fundamental human rights
are not up for debate thank you if you have any questions about why fundamental human rights
are not up to verbate I would suggest that I wish you the best of success in your quest not in
the community devil room thank you very much I have a big old rant here and I'm not going to
do it very long okay so we are now very excited and I'm going to start talking a little bit earlier
than we anticipated just as we are queuing etc to welcome our next speakers and since I have
two speakers whose bios I am going to need to read I am going to start the introduction a little bit