Networking Pitching and Looping Through Europa Park

Zach Stepek:
Welcome to another episode of Dev Pulse, Expanding the Stack here on do the Woo. I’m Zach Stepek. I’m here with Carl as always and Carl board behind him as you can see this episode and be a new fixture.

Carl Alexander:
Of our video recordings. Now he’s going to be there every episode, creeping out everyone. It’s going to be great.

Zach Stepek:
I mean, that’s the way it should be. That’s what Carl boards use is. Correct.

Carl Alexander:
So at this point, yes, at children’s parties.

Zach Stepek:
Well, that, that makes sense. So as you can see, we have, joining us this, this episode, Robert Jacoby from Blackwall. And we are going to talk about the event that I was sad to miss. CloudFest.

Carl Alexander:
Knock it out, Robert. Let’s go. You are like the ringleader, you’re the ring master. Literally.

Zach Stepek:
Literally.

Carl Alexander:
We should just start with that. Like, you know, like the whole, the whole boxing ring thing at CloudFestCloudFest.

Zach Stepek:
I have always wondered how to get Robert Jacoby in a boxing ring and it turns out all you have to do is ask him to emcee.

Robert Jacobi:
That’s. That’s exactly how it works. Oh yeah. So CloudFest, a marathon at Sprint speed, as usual. Bigger and better than I’ve ever experienced with, with a lot of tweaks since last year. And one of them was actually the ring stage, which you guys are teasing me about and rightfully so. And that was an opportunity for a lot of smaller companies to do pitches. So there were five and 10 minute topics, pitches regarding, you know, something they think is valuable or, you know, half the time. Also kind of a little salesy pitch. So work on some of that. But it was held in a boxing ring with a mic dropping from the sky and a ring, a ringer to kick people off if they’re talking too long. So that was a brand new addition. There are videos circulating. I’m sure Bob has one somewhere that he might attach to this.

Carl Alexander:
I’m sure, I’m sure, I’m sure. I mean, but there’s videos of you like, like grabbing the thing and it’s just like, that’s great.

Robert Jacobi:
And actually on the last day, we had a. A real boxing match, you know, kind of an exhibition boxing match for.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah, I saw that. I saw that. Yeah.

Robert Jacobi:
So it was used to its full extent and really entertaining, but, you know, some of the more traditional things. The exhibition hall was in full swing. Didn’t count the number of sponsors, but, you know, fill to the hilt with, you know, WordPress companies, infrastructure companies. You know, you have your, you know, hosting company, landing page, dashboard companies, security, all this kind of stuff.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah, it’s a whole mix. It’s a whole mix. I mean, the one that, like, stood out is, like, there was a company that made, like, basically power bars for server rooms, and they had a whole booth basically just for power bars and server rooms. I was like, okay, we’re really at a, like, cloud. Like an infrastructure conference here.

Robert Jacobi:
The one I heard that was most interesting was some giant, like, Raid five, RAID six vendor.

Carl Alexander:
Oh, I think I saw them. They had like, a demo thing with the disks, right? Like.

Robert Jacobi:
Correct. So they had a whole wall of the disks and they actually had a contest that if you could pull one out and sort of collapse the array, you would actually get to keep that hard drive.

Zach Stepek:
Nice.

Carl Alexander:
Oh, my goodness.

Robert Jacobi:
So I guess there are one or two of them set up to collapse the array, obviously.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah, it depends on the raid. On the RAID setup.

Robert Jacobi:
Yeah.

Zach Stepek:
Yeah, Right.

Carl Alexander:
It could also be a contest to fail. You know, like the ones at the carnivals where you, like, you can’t win, basically.

Zach Stepek:
Yeah. Rigged games, those are always fun.

Carl Alexander:
You know, you could, like, you could do RAID configurations that aren’t meant to collapse, at least with one hard drive. Basically, you know, like, I’m thinking pull.

Robert Jacobi:
The one that someone pulled next to you in case they’re trying to sync up and you can try to catch them off guard.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah, exactly.

Robert Jacobi:
My hardware knowledge. But then there were. There was speed networking. There was the hackathon, which I’m sure Carl will get deeply into. WordPressy. Of the things we can talk about. Yeah. There were additional two. Two new sort of venues within the giant Europa Park. For those people who don’t know what CloudFest is, it’s in a weird German. Weird’s not the right word. It’s small in the middle of nowhere version of, like, Disneyland.

Carl Alexander:
And did you ever hear the story about this? Like, I had people tell me the story of the park where. Like, why it’s where.

Robert Jacobi:
Well, it started out as a roller coaster manufacturer of the family did.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah, exactly. It was their demo. It was their demo area. They would bring executives from Like Disney and whatnot, to try out roller coasters. And they built them basically there. Like, there’s their staging environment. That’s why it’s in the middle of nowhere. It makes no sense. Like, I had to take three trains to get in a bus, you know, to get to this venue.

Robert Jacobi:
And a plane.

Carl Alexander:
And a plane.

Robert Jacobi:
Well, I mean, trains and automobiles.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah. I mean, you know, I’m sure of some. If they set up like a private airstrip, like, I’m sure they’d get some executives to like fly in or something like that.

Robert Jacobi:
They may have one for all we know.

Zach Stepek:
Right, right. This is in the middle of the Black Forest. Right. So it’s just middle of nowhere Germany.

Robert Jacobi:
Correct? Yeah, yeah. The closest is what? It’s 30 minutes from Strasbourg is probably the closest major city.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah. It’s close to Strasburg, close to Freiburg. I don’t know if it’s half an hour away, but it was kind of like on the. The second train, which it was still a. Pretty like a. Icy, like an intercity train. It was going to Freiburg. So next. So I think it wasn’t too far, but yeah, so it’s really in the middle of nowhere. Like. Like it’s not. You know, some people got stuck trying to get there. It’s not easy.

Zach Stepek:
Yeah, yeah, sorry, Jason Nickerson, we know you got stuck on your way there.

Robert Jacobi:
Well, it’s. Interestingly, this may be the first time in a number of years where it wasn’t caused by like airport or train strikes. So I know folks flying from the US got stuck because of weather and then return flights got messed up because of the Heathrow power generator fire.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah, yeah, that’s it. I was gonna say this year.

Zach Stepek:
Heard about that one Metro on the.

Carl Alexander:
On the way back, I was talking away. Andrew Palmer. Yeah, about it and he was like, Yeah, I live 20 minutes from Etro. He was like. He thought it was like I was joking with him. I’m like, I wish I was like. But all of Etro is closed.

Robert Jacobi:
Yeah, we had a. We had a little black wall breakfast Thursday morning and, you know, four or five folks were flying either directly into Heathrow or through or through, into, through. And there was a massive, like, no, we’re not kidding. Quick. And then the actual official CloudFest alert came on the app. Wow, this is for real.

Zach Stepek:
Well, so Europa park, from my understanding, is the second largest amusement park in all of Europe. Right. Only. Only smaller than Euro Disney. From. From what I understand. Sure. There was an Adam Weeks fact that was shared in one of the episodes that he did during. During CloudFest. So if you want to go back, there are a ton of do the Woo episodes that were recorded live during CloudFest with people and there’s a lot of good content there as well. If you want to understand a little, a little bit more about the conference overall or if you just want to walk the expo floor with Adam and critique booths, that was definitely something that happened.

Robert Jacobi:
Yeah. I mean I think it’s a great idea to take a virtual tour just to get an idea of the scope and honestly the money spent at CloudFest. If you’ve only been to WordCamps, even the flagship WordCamps, CloudFest is just a different world of conference.

Carl Alexander:
It’s definitely in different worlds, definitely my understanding, but also just in even the size, like.

Zach Stepek:
Right.

Carl Alexander:
The size of it was huge.

Robert Jacobi:
You know, they’ve had 13,000 plus or minus registrations. I don’t know the final on site numbers, but last year on site was like 8, 500 and it, I feel it definitely exceeded it. So maybe by not, you know, 5,000.

Carl Alexander:
I mean, yeah, I think it was a lot like just even on the second day, like attendance for those. Since the whole point of the show is also to talk about non WordPress things. So like I assume a lot of people listening probably have never gone, but the attendance drops like even faster that then work camps. Like between the three days, like it goes down pretty fast. Like most people are there, but even on the second day there was so many people, like it was way more people then even WordCamp Europe on peak day, you know, on their second day and they probably lost a good chunk of people. And like there was concerts outside my fricking window and it was like packed to the rim with people like for the concerts and all that stuff. So it’s just like it’s on a different scale, you know, because like I said, like it’s never been to something this big.

Robert Jacobi:
It’s not. The park is not just a novelty. It actually facilitates the largest hallway track you’ll ever be in because you can’t go anywhere else. There’s nothing else to do. So you’re going to meet people whether you like it or not. And most folk definitely are really wanting to engage with you, unlike a word camp, you know, I would be hard pressed to say there’s anything like community outside of the hackathon, which we still need to get to. Carl. Everyone’s doing business selling, buying, selling, buying, creating partnerships. It’s the closest comparison to me is WordCamp Europe, which has seemed to Always lean in that direction a bit more of the flagships, but it still doesn’t compare because it is pure business.

Carl Alexander:
So, yeah, it’s pure business. I think for me, personally, I think US is more pure business than Europe. But, like, in my. My experience. But yeah, I think it was. It’s much more pure business. And yeah, the hallway, the fact you’re all stuck together there for three days means that, like, you can find ways to meet up. Like, you. Like, it’s like you can pick a hotel to go to and just, like, meet in the lobby and go to, like, one of the bars there. They have an app, which I only learned on the last day. There was an app. There was a CloudFest app. They have an app so you can communicate with attendees and schedule meetings and. And all that stuff. So it’s definitely. It’s definitely very business, but it’s also very friendly, like, curious. Like, it’s like people are there to make deals, but people are also curious and want to hear about what you’re doing and things like that. And they. Yeah, they’re just there to connect, like. Yeah, that’s how it felt to me.

Zach Stepek:
Well, and it’s only CloudFest attendees that are there because this is a week before the park opens to the public. Right. So there’s nobody else there. It’s just CloudFest and the entire amusement park. The entire park is.

Robert Jacobi:
But. But not all of the rides are open. So, I mean.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah, no, not the. Right.

Zach Stepek:
There’s probably the important ones, like Voltron, right?

Carl Alexander:
Oh, yeah. It took me two hours to get over Voltron. So Voltron, for those who don’t know, is like your newest. So the. The company that set up the park, their specialty, like we said, is roller coasters. So, like, this is like their new flagship roller coaster. They literally opened it in the last year. Like, CloudFest attendees couldn’t even go last year to. To that one. And yeah, like, it. I’m not super motion sick, but I’m a bit motion sick. And it took me two hours to get over it. And I definitely know people that, like, were totally out of commission. Like. Like for the rest of the day after going. I got a lot of details. You know, I met, speaking of a kind of WordPress person that I met there for first time, like, Christian Taylor. Yeah, yeah, so he’s a roller coaster nerd. So like, I went with him to Voltron. He was like, oh, I want to do it again. And he’s like giving me all the details and everything. But basically, I think they made it, like, as intense as they could, like, make it without, like, you. Your body, like, falling to mush or you needing to be, like, an Air Force pilot to basically survive the G4, the G forces on it. So it’s. It’s quite intense, but it’s aesthetically super cool. Like, it’s, like, very. It’s thematic to Nikola Tesla. So it feels like you’re shoot. They make it look like you’re shooting out of the rail gun and, like, the whole thing, it’s like, really. It’s cool. It’s really cool. It takes you two hours to get over.

Zach Stepek:
It sounds like a lot of fun. I would definitely enjoy that. So I have a goal next year. If I get to go, just do.

Carl Alexander:
It on the last day. Just do it on the last day. You know, don’t. Don’t be a hero. Just wait till the last day.

Robert Jacobi:
Unless you’re a roller coaster pro, of which I’m not, so I may skip that.

Carl Alexander:
I am not. This is. This was literally my first what they consider, like, modern roller coasters. Like, with all the, like, he was telling me, all the tech, like, they have algorithms now that, like, adjust the speed that the whole thing launches based on how hot the wheels are getting. Right? Because, like, it. Yeah, it’s, like, insane. Like, it’s just like. Like the. You know, it’s like anything. Like, if you have the data, you’re going to, like, push it to the limit. So that’s what they do with that stuff.

Robert Jacobi:
Speaking of roller coasters, I know there’s some of this on LinkedIn, the roller coaster pitch.

Carl Alexander:
I saw some of those. Yeah, they did pitches on roller coasters.

Robert Jacobi:
So, yeah. Why. Why are you getting cranked up to the top of the roller? You get to do your pitch, but that really only gives you, like, 30 seconds. So you have to have a tight pitch and then.

Zach Stepek:
Yeah, that’s a true elevator pitch right there.

Carl Alexander:
I saw some people continuing once the, like, ride started. You know, like, they’re like, okay, I’m. I’m trying. I’m getting some extra seconds in.

Zach Stepek:
And we put all these things on the quiet.

Robert Jacobi:
Well, that’s exactly what it is. And, you know, that’s part of the CloudFest experience is that they also want you to be entertained. So, like the server throwing contest, right?

Zach Stepek:
Oh, yeah.

Carl Alexander:
Server throwing contests. And. Yeah, like, rock concerts. Like, I missed the shamrock one, which was, I guess Irish teamed on the first day because I was at the VIP dinner thing. But. But the second day was like, you know, it was a cover band and they were playing like Rage against the Machine and all this, like all these bands. It was like crazy. And yeah, the whole thing’s full and.

Robert Jacobi:
And we’re talking about first day and second day. But the hackathon started on Saturday, went to Sunday, then there was like WP day, agency day, and then, I mean.

Carl Alexander:
It’S still going on in the month on the morning. I think that was one of the complaints is that the hackathon overlaps with the, the WP Agency day.

Robert Jacobi:
And then Tuesday is actually day one of CloudFest. There are a lot of negative three.

Zach Stepek:
Negative two, negative one.

Robert Jacobi:
Yeah, there are a lot of folks like Carl who were already three days in before day one of CloudFest.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah, I mean, it was, it’s, it was a big experience. Like, I, like, I’m, I’m still exhausted because, like Robert says, like, it’s a lot of networking, it’s a lot of talking. You’re meeting a lot of people. Especially for me, I was like, really looking at the end. That’s like the, A bit. The point of this podcast now is to just. I wanted to meet people outside the, the WordPress space directly, you know, like, and, and see like, how they are, what the, what their issues they’re having. And it was really instructive for that. But yeah, on top of the hackathon, it’s like, it’s a lot. You gotta, you gotta be ready. Like, some people just came for the hackathon and left, you know, but those.

Robert Jacobi:
Folks are staying now more often throughout the conference. So I remember the first hackathon, people just came to the hackathon and left because it was so much more on the hardware side of the universe. And as they’re. It’s expanded to the platforms, cloud services and so forth, people are staying throughout the conference now.

Zach Stepek:
So the hackathon, there were a ton of teams right there. There’s a lot that happened. Tons of projects that people were working on.

Carl Alexander:
I think it was 12 total. Um, there was a lot. There was a lot of.

Robert Jacobi:
And the, and the Hackathon page is still up. If you go to cloudfest.com yeah, there are 10 or 12 projects.

Zach Stepek:
Zero looks like 10. Yeah.

Robert Jacobi:
100% attendance. So everyone who signed up for the hackathon actually attended. That was a first in CloudFest Hackathon history. We had a repeat winner for the Accessibility project. To translate. What do we call those graphs?

Carl Alexander:
Infographics.

Robert Jacobi:
Infographics. Thank you.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah, it was the infographics one to.

Robert Jacobi:
Make infographics screen reader accessible. It was brilliant. The Projects that came out of there are getting more traction further along after the entire hackathon experience has ended well.

Zach Stepek:
And Carl, you worked on one of those teams. What was that like?

Carl Alexander:
Yeah, so I worked on the one that was like securing the open source supply chain, which was not an easy one to demonstrate, but we won best presentation somehow. But, but I, I take no credit in that. But yeah, it was. I think one of the things that was really interesting about the hackathon is that yes, there was some WordPress aspects to it because, like, some projects were CMS related, but a lot of it was just like, just cool projects and you could just pick, you could sit at the table and decide which one you wanted to work on. The one that I ended up working on, the. This one was not my first. It wasn’t the pick I thought I’d pick, but you. They start the hackathon and every team has leaders and they come and they pitch you their project. So the pitches and then you decide who you’re gonna sit with. So I just kind of decided. I like security a lot and all that seems really interesting to me. So I’ve, I figured, oh, I’ll work on that and that’s how I pick my team. But everybody has their own reasons for picking whatever they want. But you’re not forced. Basically, you just sit, you just. Literally all that they want is that you show up and you work on something and you, you get to pick what you want to work on and that’s it. And you have two days, two and a half days to do it basically. And yeah, they’ll. The. You finish on Monday morning and the presentations are in the afternoon.

Zach Stepek:
Nice.

Robert Jacobi:
I spoke at length actually with Carol Olinger, sort of the main.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah, she did a podcast prior to the hackathon. Like, I forget who, who did it, but there’s a Do the Woo podcast about it.

Robert Jacobi:
Didn’t have a chance to look at anything in the last four weeks, but.

Zach Stepek:
You’Ve been a bit busy.

Robert Jacobi:
The process, for those who may have not heard Carol is, is pretty intense for how they actually choose the projects, how they accept people into the hackathon. So the success is well merited for all the effort.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah, there’s a lot of vetting. You have to apply. I had to apply to like, you have to explain why you, you think you should be in the hackathon. Even they have some product, they already had some project listed. So I said, oh, I think I’d be a good fit for this one. For these reasons. Obviously Carol and Alain And a lot of the organizers already knew me, but I think it’s just important to know going in. I think that was like one of the things for me for the Hackathon. It was just. I took it really seriously. Right. And it. So I applied in a very serious manner. Like, I was just like, hey, this is what I think I would be good at based on the projects. So because they, they pay for a lot of stuff for you to come, right? Like you’re gonna. So it’s, you know.

Robert Jacobi:
Hotels and food for. Yeah, yeah.

Carl Alexander:
I mean, for me, like, you know, I, I was really honest with them too. Like, you know, for me, CloudFest on a personal basis is super expensive. Like just to give an idea for people. The tickets. I mean, I got the VIP on your recommendation actually Robert, and I think it was worth getting the VIP ticket. But the VIP ticket is even with you get the regular pass paid for you for the Hackathon, but The upgrade is €600. So in American dollar is about the same thing. So it’s about 600American dollars to get that VIP pass. And then you have to pay for accommodations. The hotels are, are expensive. They’re over. They’re between two and three hundred dollars a night. So I actually wanted to Hackathon just as a way to save money. And now I think the Hackathon was such a good experience that I’m more interested in going to. That obviously I want to go back to CloudFest, but like it was such a good experience on its own that I’ve been pitching a lot of developers to just come, like Tom. Like I had Remkes record a video for Tom McFarland. Basically it’s saying he should be there, so I’m going to work on him. But like there’s a couple of people I think should be at that event and, and things like that, but that’s. They pay for a lot, so it’s important for them to vet, you know, that you’re coming here, you’re going to be serious about it. It’s not just like a party and like just something to. To mess around. Like you have to be serious about it as well.

Robert Jacobi:
Right, right.

Zach Stepek:
Well, I mean, it sounds like it was a great experience for you and I, I see here that your team won the Pitch Perfect award, which is great.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah, Pitch Perfect, exactly.

Zach Stepek:
You know, there. So if you go to hackathon.cloudfest.com There’s a whole bunch of information about the Hackathon and about all of the projects that were part of it. This Year you can go in and look at all the previous projects from 2024 and 2023 as well and learn a little bit more about how the agenda is set up, the awards that happen, and even partner with the hackathon to make it a. Well, an easier process for these. You know, fixed, free. It’s a fixed fee batch model for the partnerships but make it easier for them to sponsor people in, to get them there.

Carl Alexander:
So I heard that they got enough this year like they had to turn sponsors down actually, which is awesome. Yeah, it’s a great place to be in as an organizer. I think you can align better because some of the sponsors can bring people, get a spot on to bring people into the, the hackathon. Obviously they can work on whatever they want once they’re there. But uh. So they obviously you don’t want to just have company people there. Right. So you gotta balance all of that. So it’s important for them to pick the right partners, the right people that are like interested in participating in the event, not just putting their. You know, for me the, the weird one that was there was Typo three. You know, like I never hear about Typo three anymore. And then Typo three was sponsoring. They had people there. It was awesome.

Robert Jacobi:
But still huge in Europe. I mean that’s one of those things again.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah, exactly.

Robert Jacobi:
I mean but it’s.

Carl Alexander:
But that’s great for exposure, right? Like to. To different tech communities and things like that. Like I loved it. Like it wasn’t just. You had WordPress people there, but you didn’t have just WordPress like kind of a mishmash of people. Which was really exciting too.

Robert Jacobi:
The project you worked on, that’s applicable to any open source project, right? You know, having that, you know, that sort of bill of sale or whatever the term she was.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah, it’s a. I didn’t even know what it was. Literally I, I was like the dumb person that was like hey, what’s a S bomb? And they’re like software bill of materials, basically.

Robert Jacobi:
That’s right.

Carl Alexander:
So it’s this idea just to. If you’re like me and you’d never heard of it before the, the event. It’s this idea that a bit like when you buy cookies or anything at the grocery store, you have a list of ingredients so that you can read through the list of ingredients and see like, oh, I’m allergic to this or that. The idea is to have something like this for software where you can have basically a list and there’s different competing formats for it. That was one of the challenges for the. Is like, how do we reconcile these different formats but basically have a list of all of everything that makes up your software so that you can feed it into different like security software and stuff like that. And they can analyze and be like a. Like these are vulnerabilities or like you can offer that if you’re like an enterprise vendor or you work in government, you have to be able to basically submit that to just say like this is what this is made of, the versions, the packages, all of it, like from top to bottom, so that you prevent security issues.

Zach Stepek:
Yeah.

Robert Jacobi:
You can’t just say WordPress because WordPress is dependent on other projects and Right. If it’s correct, if it’s, if it is its own site, then you have, you know, are you using MySQL or you know, or Maria, which version of PHP? So on JavaScript libraries.

Carl Alexander:
So all of it. Yeah, all of it. Like, you know, like WordPress. Yeah, exactly. WordPress behind the scenes uses, like especially now with Gutenberg uses a ton of stuff.

Zach Stepek:
Yeah.

Carl Alexander:
So it’s like, it’s really important for these, for companies and governments to know what they’re getting and have a good way of auditing that for security purposes and things like that. So again, super educational for me and I would never have heard of this or touched about it maybe for a couple of years or ever if I didn’t come to forever or ever. But seriously, I mean, I’m not in Europe. In Europe they’re going to need this in like a year or something. Like there’s regulation coming online regarding this, which was part of the reason for the project in the first place, was to help start build tooling so that you can generate these files, these sboms and basically be able to submit those to European governments or whatever you need to do basically for security audits.

Robert Jacobi:
Maybe that could be worked on further at CloudFest USA in November.

Zach Stepek:
It could.

Robert Jacobi:
They’ve Already announced the preliminary schedule, which does include a hackathon, does include a WP day. Literally just came out today.

Zach Stepek:
Well, and just remember, you know, this is what, two and a half days worth of work, right? With a pitch on the third day. So your team, of the 10 teams, your team alone built nine code repositories in a GitHub organization. 150 files, 16,000 lines of code. An integration for WordPress and the Site Health Module, and with WP CLI, a typo 3 admin extension, and a Laravel Artisan command, all in 2 and a half years.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah, I generate a lot of that code. Like, so without. Without getting too into the nerdy stuff. Like, I used it. I use the opportunity to use AI a lot to just, like, build on my workflow. But, yeah, like, my code base, the sba, the Transformatron. Transformatron is what I called the. Mine has, like, 200 tests, all the CI, all of that. Like, but that was, like, part of the thing. So, like, I was talking with Robert over there, too, like, on a more personal basis. Yoast also wrote about it, is that, like, me and Yoast have kind of these Personas at work. WordPress events, you know, Joost is kind of a business guy. I’m like a party guy, basically. Like, I’m a party. No, but it’s true. I’m the party guy. I’m literally the party guy running around, introducing people and things like that. And on Saturday, Robert came in and Joost and a bunch of people went out, and I said, no. Like, I had to run, basically, because I literally can’t code when I’m hungover. Like, I don’t code very well. And people were like, who is this person? Right? Like, but it. Like, nobody’s seen either of us kind of in a different context. So it was really. It was really fun for me to just be able to show, like, that. Like, people were like, holy crap. Like, Carl pumps out, like, a ton of code because, like, people know that I write code because I’ve written a million articles on it, but they’ve actually, like, never seen me work. Like, I’m thinking of, like, Miriam from Elementor. She walked into the room when she got into the event, and she’s like, hi, Carlin. And I have my big headphones on, being, like, a complete coder, antisocial person. And I’m like, I’m focused right now. Like, I’ll talk. And she’s like, like, who is this person? And it’s like, who is this? But it’s but it’s, it’s different Personas, right? Like, I have that Persona in events where I have to network, be social and all that stuff. But it’s not the same things that I need to be like a programmer or my consulting side.

Zach Stepek:
Oh, absolutely.

Carl Alexander:
Like, people, you let people see that for, like, people that have known me for sometimes close to a decade, they’ve just literally never seen me code. They’ve never seen me write code.

Zach Stepek:
Right.

Carl Alexander:
So it was really interesting for that. I thought that was like, a really interesting aspect of the hackathon for me. Like, it wasn’t something I, I thought about when I went in, but it was really fun to see people see the programmer side of me for a change.

Robert Jacobi:
Not an accent that we, you know. You know, you and Zach are known as coders, even though we may not be in your homes watching you code.

Zach Stepek:
Right, right.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah, exactly. And when we interact at events, we’re like in networking mode. So we’re not, we’re not in programmer mode, we’re in networking mode. So it was kind of interesting to have that, that opportunity. Although I, I, I, I still regret not going out, but I think it was for the best, you know? It was, but still, you got it. That was. The point is to show that there’s, like, you’re a risk, you’re, you’re serious, you know, Like, I think for me, it, at least on a personal basis, I think it’s sometimes hard for people to see that I’m also serious sometimes. So it was like, so it’s important for that, in that context that people understand that, you know, there’s a time for one thing and there’s a time for another one. And when it’s time to be serious and I have to, you know, write a lot of code, short order, tight deadlines, you can’t do the same thing as if I’m just at a conference and nothing is really asked of me besides just being able to talk, you know, I’m really good at that, so.

Robert Jacobi:
Could you say that again? No, I’m kidding.

Zach Stepek:
I’m, I’m really good at that too. It’s, it’s okay. I’m really good at that too. So. Yeah, I mean, it seems like it was a great event. You know, the hackathon adheres to a set of core values, which is a very important thing. You know, there’s a whole bunch of, of guidelines around how things work to make sure that things are welcoming and everybody can participate fully and learn and create together. And it’s something that I’ve always wanted to do and I plan on doing when I do get to CloudFest in.

Robert Jacobi:
Well, again, CloudFest US is my 26th November, so, you know.

Zach Stepek:
I might come to us. CloudFest USA sounds like a good time to me.

Robert Jacobi:
Less jet lag?

Zach Stepek:
Yeah, a little bit less, you know, just, just a bit less. But yeah, I think that it’s a great concept and that the, you know, the, the output from the hackathon year over year has been amazing and it just keeps getting bigger. You know, there, there have been about the same number of projects every time, but it seems like the teams are getting bigger and they’re doing more.

Robert Jacobi:
I. I think, well, with all the interests, you can get people who are more focused on specific projects. So, you know, you know, Carl being the exception to the rule, always, you know, jumping in with one project in mind and then shooting over another. Many of the, you know, folks who have signed up for really already have something in mind of what they’re going to do and how they’re going to get it done. And to Carl’s point, seriousness has gone up dramatically over the years of the hackathon, and I don’t think it’ll actually grow much bigger just because I don’t think so do already what they’re doing and you don’t want to lose the quality just to have a larger audience.

Carl Alexander:
But also there’s, there’s diminishing returns here too. Right. Like, there’s no advantage to having more projects, more teams. Like, I think it’s better to keep it more narrow, focused. Like it’s, it’s.

Zach Stepek:
You.

Carl Alexander:
Instead you find the right partners, the right, you know, the, the right sponsors, partners and everything, and you just make it better. Like they’re, I think they seem to be okay with the size of it at this point. I don’t think it’s gonna, I don’t think it’s gonna change. I think it’s probably fine too, for like the amount of time that we have. You know, like, it’s already overlapping with the agency day and WP day, which for me was a problem because I end up being on a panel. So.

Robert Jacobi:
You weren’t the only one. There are plenty rushing between projects.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah, I mean, literally, like, me and Courtney, like, from GoDaddy, we’re on the same team. We were working on the same project, we were on the same panel. So, like, we had to, like, basically I worked out with them. Like, the last thing I did was the, the Laravel code for the, the project. And I told them, like, in the morning I was there at 9, I was like, okay, like this is what I’m gonna, I have time to do, but I have to be gone and just go to the, the WP day. Cause I, that was an important day for me to be there too. So it’s just. Yeah, the, I think that’s like, the issue is like now it’s like too crammed with the rest of CloudFest. If anything, like, they probably need an extra day for the hackathon, like started on Friday or something.

Robert Jacobi:
I mean, because you need all the pitches at the beginning, then all the pitches at the end. Yeah, I, I don’t think it’ll get any bigger.

Carl Alexander:
Well, I don’t think so.

Zach Stepek:
There’s one important thing that we kind of haven’t mentioned here. Right. The goal of the hackathon isn’t to build something in its completion. Right. It’s to start something and it’s to start something that has legs by the time it leaves so that it continues to grow.

Robert Jacobi:
Correct.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah.

Zach Stepek:
And correct. So the fact that, you know, 36 some odd projects that have legs have left the, the hackathons at this point in the last three years, that’s a huge thing. Right? It’s, it’s a very big thing. And these are again, not platform, you know, specific. A lot of these are agnostic project projects that benefit the entire open source CMS community and, or the entire open source infrastructure community. Right. So these are really important projects that are changing the way that companies are able to do business. Improving the way that companies do business or that developers can write code. Yeah, so this is all very important work that honestly there are numerous projects that are kicking off here and then continuing to get developed throughout the time after CloudFest.

Robert Jacobi:
Oh yeah. And some are looking for funding too, to really take them to the next level. So I mean, that’s fascinating.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah, I mean it’s, I think whether it, they continue after, obviously everybody wants their project to, to continue after, but I think there’s just something about immersing, immersing yourself in a new problem set, at least for me specifically, and just learning about it and thinking about what the challenges are around that like SBOMs is a good example because like this is coming whether you want it or not. So it’s just like, even if what we end up using just gets looked at for like, you know, I did some code sourcing for, for another project for, by, based on another project and basically I was just like, oh, okay, let me see how I can do that in php. But I don’t know about you, Robert. What would you like to see? What, what would you like to see out of CloudFest? Like what’s something new that you’d like to, to see them try or, or that they haven’t done? I mean this event’s been going on just for context. We haven’t even talked about that. This is a dangerous question. Yes, but I mean they’re, it’s, but you know, you know me, I like dangerous questions. So, but it’s, it’s a long running event so if I get it right, it’s over 20 years old, right?

Robert Jacobi:
Over 20 years, yeah.

Carl Alexander:
So been dwindling for a long time.

Robert Jacobi:
Under different, used to be just world hosting days and has morphed into CloudFest back. I think the first official CloudFest was 201718 at the latest, but I think it was actually 2017 and kind of refocused on, you know, not just hosting obviously, just everything that touches the cloud. For example, this year’s top and they try to lean into a topic. So this year was AI at the Edge. So it was great that you mentioned how you were like using AI at the hackathon because I’m sure, you know, the CloudFestival be thrilled about the fact that it’s tying into the entire theme of the conference. What would I like to see more or differently? I would like them to somehow make days 30 hours long instead of 24 so I could right. Get, get a nap.

Carl Alexander:
Oh my God. Oh my God. Tell me about it. I, I think I slept average four hours a night.

Robert Jacobi:
Yeah, it’s your whole time, four to five hours. I mean that’s really what you’re looking at. I certainly don’t want them to make it longer, let’s put it that way.

Carl Alexander:
No, no, I, I met not longer.

Robert Jacobi:
People dropping like flies after, you know, day three. Then you know, I, I, I look forward to their creativity. I know they’re trying to expand into more, more of the park with different little topics. So you’re not so congested all the time because early on it was just in that main sort of conference center where you had the Expo hall and then where the ring is, it’s called the Dome. But that’s where all the, the big keynotes were and everyone was kind of jammed into that space. So they’re expanding it out so you can actually get to more like topic specific or types of different bits of the conference. So I’m curious to see how they, you know, continue that going forward. And I think it’s a great idea because then you’re just not as overwhelmed for as much of the time as it’s easy to happen.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah, absolutely.

Zach Stepek:
Well, let’s, let’s shift gear just a little bit. Let’s talk a bit about CloudFest USA. I know we’ve mentioned it a couple of times, but the venue this year is really interesting sounding. It’s at the Ice Palace Film Studios in Miami.

Robert Jacobi:
I have no idea what that’s about yet. You know, they’ve really kind of just started announcing it. It used to be in Austin for the last few years. It’s always kind of together with their other conference, NamesCon, which focuses on domain names and that industry. So with a now dedicated US team, it’ll be very interesting to see what the sort of, I’m going to call it, you know, CloudFest US 2.0 looks like. I think it’ll be very brand new compared to what’s gone on in the past.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah, I met the organizers over there. Like they were really excited. I think it’s Carol that, that introed me to them because.

Zach Stepek:
Yeah.

Carl Alexander:
You said they were thinking of doing a hackathon too, like, so I, there’s a good chance she’s going to be in charge of that, I think.

Robert Jacobi:
But yeah, they, they have. The preliminary agenda was released today. And so what do we have here? Technically day. So pre conference is the WP hackathon, so sounds like it’s WP focused.

Carl Alexander:
Okay, got it.

Robert Jacobi:
Day one is officially called WP day.

Zach Stepek:
Nice.

Robert Jacobi:
And then day two is hardware day. Though it doesn’t sound like it’s really only hardware, but there’s securing networks, building hardware for workloads, AI infrastructure, whatever that may mean. But yeah, so probably a lot of GPUs.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah, it’s the Nvidia procurement talk. It’s the NV. Nvidia procurement talk, basically.

Zach Stepek:
Right. Yeah. Please buy all our GPUs.

Robert Jacobi:
And so let’s see. And there will be the USA Server Throwing Championship, so.

Zach Stepek:
Oh boy. You know, there’s somebody I think would actually really get a kick out of that, and that’s Pat Ramsey from Crowd Favorite.

Robert Jacobi:
Oh yeah.

Zach Stepek:
Because you know, he, he participates in those lumberjack games. Right. So he’d probably be really good at throwing servers.

Carl Alexander:
Oh my goodness. I, I, I always love watching those because it’s like, it feels like the most Canadian thing ever. But I, it’s like not that big here, but I love, like it’s like on ESPN2 or something like that, they show those.

Zach Stepek:
And I was like, ESPN, ESPN8, the Ocho.

Robert Jacobi:
Yeah.

Carl Alexander:
I mean it’s the N8, the Ocho. Yeah, it’s definitely not an ESPN1 thing, but yeah, it’s. There’s so many interesting competitions around lumberjacking. It’s, you know, crazy.

Zach Stepek:
I think, I think Pat would get a, a kick out of server throwing. We’re going to have to try and convince him to go to CloudFest USA.

Carl Alexander:
I mean I feel like Remkus should give it a shot, but he just comes for the hackathon and, and leaves, you know. But Remkus likes with his Atlas ball pickups and everything, like.

Robert Jacobi:
Well, I mean that’s the thing. This is a much more condensed because it’s hackathon on pre conference day and day one. So all he has to do is stay one more day, right?

Zach Stepek:
Yeah.

Robert Jacobi:
If he’s coming all the way from the Netherlands, it’s a, you know, you might as well spend an extra day or two in Miami. So I, I think as a community we should twist some arms for that.

Zach Stepek:
I think so. So this venue has two buildings, an east building and a west building and there’s other spaces outdoors. So it has kind of that, that same feel of having a flow between places and some outdoor space and really, really interesting looking event space. And they’re an active film studio, so movies have been filmed there. There’s TV shows that are filmed there, commercials, music videos. It’s a hundred thousand square feet divided into four, four stages in a front garden. They have indoor and outdoor filming locations, two large black box stages. So they’ll probably do some of the talks in these black box rooms, which could be really interesting. Those are 15,000 square feet a piece. And then two smaller black box stages, 3, 500 square feet each. They also have a fully equipped green room for comfort and convenience for talent, which will probably be used for speakers. They do have dedicated makeup and wardrobe rooms. We’re probably not going to end up using those.

Carl Alexander:
You never know. You never know.

Robert Jacobi:
For all the keynotes and a lot of the other sessions, they’re Cloudfest and Roost actually does do makeup so.

Zach Stepek:
Nice.

Robert Jacobi:
We, we did our Blackwall keynote, Nikolai Netdev and I, we got, we got.

Zach Stepek:
I saw pictures from that done up.

Robert Jacobi:
Or at least remove some of the shine. I don’t know what that stuff needs.

Zach Stepek:
Well, and apparently this place has ample on site parking to accommodate crew and trucks. And the hotel is not far. So the official hotel for this year is the Miami Marriott Biscayne Bay and beautiful hotel. I’ve been there before. It’s right on the bay. It’s gorgeous views, so definitely would try to stay there if we get a chance to book in time to do so.

Robert Jacobi:
And yeah, there’ll be a shuttle bus between the hotel and the actual conference.

Zach Stepek:
Yeah. So it’s. This looks like it’s going to be a great time. The venue looks very unique. I’m looking forward to potentially being able to go this year and I hope to see a number of our listeners there. So if you want to expand your stack, let’s see what I did there. Beyond.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah, I love it. I love it.

Robert Jacobi:
We.

Carl Alexander:
We got a name. We gotta find a way to plug in the name. It’s like when they, they do the name of the movie and, or the, in the, they say the name of the movie in the, the, the movie. The same thing. We got to say expand a stack every episode.

Zach Stepek:
So if you’re looking for a way to expand your stack and have a great time doing some great work on projects that are affecting the entire open source community and improving things for everyone. Join the Hackathon at CloudFest USA or at the next CloudFest in Europa park and you can find more information about all of that@cloudfest.com if you’re looking for specifically for USA, there’s no link from cloudfest.com yet that I was able to find. So go to cloudfest.com/usa and you’ll find the information there for that. So yeah, it’s really interesting. Any last words to leave us with here, Robert or Carl?

Robert Jacobi:
Plan. Plan. Plan. People joke about, you know, oh, I just show up at CloudFest in, in Germany and it’s like, no, no, no, no, no. There is even for just as a standalone attendee, I’m usually six to eight weeks out planning for it, so trying to set up meetings or whatever it may be because it is so intense and people are insanely swamped. So I assume us will be a little easier to manage. But it’s one of those kinds of events where you, you’re not just showing up at it like, you know, Word Camp as an attendee and like, oh, I’ll see what’s going on. No, you’re, you’re booking yourself and I.

Carl Alexander:
Literally barely saw you.

Robert Jacobi:
Yeah, I mean that’s because I’m booked from 8:00am till 6:00pm every day.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah.

Robert Jacobi:
If not 8:00am to, you know, 10:00pm Yeah.

Carl Alexander:
I don’t know if that’s the advice I would give to myself, I think because I met people like you were like basically three days straight of, of eight till six meetings and they looked like they were, it’s important but it was like it’s a lot like they, they, some of them were like I didn’t eat today. You know like ex neck birth at this node.

Robert Jacobi:
Hydrated? Um, yeah, yeah, no, it’s, it’s very challenging.

Carl Alexander:
I think, I think it’s good to go with a plan. Like I had a couple meetings set up but for me a lot of it I, it’s a lot of serendipity, you know. Like I, like I met like some people actually, you know I’ve been doing fall even though I didn’t have meetings back to back to back. Like I’ve been doing follow ups like non stop since I’ve been back like this week. Like it’s almost all been follow ups to CloudFest’s like my days.

Zach Stepek:
That’s awesome though. I mean that tells you that it’s a great networking event and yeah, so.

Carl Alexander:
That’S a huge good place for expanding the stack. I will, I’ll tell you that much. You, you get exposure to a lot of stuff.

Robert Jacobi:
Expanding your dev stack, expanding, expanding your networking stack, expanding your personal stack. I mean it really just.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah, 100%.

Zach Stepek:
Awesome. Well Robert, I want to thank you for joining us and, and talking about CloudFest with us today. Carl, as always, it’s, it’s a pleasure to see you for these monthly thank you podcast episodes and if you have any ideas for things you’d like to learn about to expand the stack beyond WordPress and WooCommerce, let us know. We are here to delve into things that are adjacent or close to WordPress that help us to, and help you to expand your stack. So just send Bob a an email, hashtag Bug Bob hashtag Bug Bob on all the social media. I don’t have my index card that has Bug Bob with me this, this month but you know, definitely go out there and let Bob know what you want to hear about and we will be happy to bring that to you. So for all of us here at do the Woo, thanks for listening.