Community Leaders Summit

The grand opening of DockerCon 2017

It’s early morning on the day before the official opening of DockerCon ‘17. Pre-conference activities are buzzing, but one room is different; Outside this room a breakfast buffet is set up - and it’s good. Whoever is invited here is in for a treat.

It’s the Docker Meetup Organizers Summit.

No scratch that - it turns out that Docker is rebranding this initiative. We’re now officially referred to as Community Leaders. Smart move - I feel proud. I’ll even work for that title. And we get our own T-shirt! When I say we I’m referring to the 65 people who showed up in a room that takes - well 65 people, apparently. Not a single seat is free.

Karen Bajza - the legendary community whip, who we all know from countless of helpful emails and reach outs, is here in person.

A gathering of community leaders

Karen Bajza

Karen asks every single one of us to stand up one after the other to present who we are, what Docker chapter we represent and maybe share a personal non-Docker related fun-fact. It turns out the room is packed with mountainbikers, snowboarders, IoT freaks, musicians, collectors, soon-to-become-fathers, and TED Talk organizer.

The first row of the audience seats seven people, they represent meet-up groups in Aarhus, Saint Louis, Riyad, Grenoble, Prague and Melbourne.

Wow! This is an impressively diverse group - seen from the perspective of national representation at least - I start counting as we continue;

Sevilla, Heidenberg, Tokyo, Liege, Stockholm, Rio de Janeiro, Milan, Moscow, Copenhagen, Durban, Nice, Warsaw, Bamberg, Zürich, Santiago, Nantes, Budapest, Malmö, Stuttgart, Luxembourg, Mannheim, Toulouse, a city in Siberia I can’t pronounce, Buenos Aires, Virginia Beach, Blackburn VA, Manchester, Rome, Tour, Lyon, Cambridge, Amsterdam, Saint Louis…

All in all 65 participants representing 40 different cities out of 304 registered groups in total worldwide.

A new flipper

Bevy - the flipper

After the introductions Karen announces the new rebrand from “Organizers” to “Community Leaders”. The name change shall signal, that the volunteers running the meet-ups are so much more than just event organizers; they are trainers, facilitators, Docker enthusiasts. It’s supposed to feel like a promotion. It does. “Community Leader” - hmmm it tastes good!

Karen also reveals the new community mascot “Bevy” which has been long under way, but is now ready to swim. It’s a Dolphin - spinning plates, and stuff. Dolphins are whales too - we will welcome “Bevy”.

Professional Docker Certification

Niamh Fiona O’Byrne

Niamh Fiona O’Byrne comes on stage - the name might indicate that she’s Irish. She is. “It doesn’t get more Irish than that” is her opening statement. To top up, her dialect is as Irish as her name and with her flaming red hair - she’s a bunch of energy - a morning wake-up call. She takes off her jacket to reveal a T-shirt as red as her hair - the print says Get 🐳 Certified - She’s here to tell us about the newly launched Professional Docker Certification program.

The vision is to build a wide base of certified people - like a pyramid of graduation - that starts with Docker Certified Associates and on top of that Professional and Master certifications will become available.

The first program Docker Certified Associate will require about 6-12 months of experience. It’s a test that consist of 55 questions, it can be taken online - even at your own home. Niamh explains, that a person will monitor your workspace as you work, to begin with you will pan the room with your camera and show that you are alone - then you are good to go.

Results will be delivered immediately after the questions are answered, the price is $195/€175 and you will be offered to enter into a program as beta tester on upcoming new certifications. And of course, you will get a T-shirt, a pin, and your portrait on the website.

The certification is valid for two years - Docker hasn’t defined the re-certification process yet - but it might be that you will be rewarded for attending Docker conferences.

Be among the first people in the world to become certified in Docker; At the DockerCon here in Copenhagen, you can register for the exam in room 178 and the actual examination will take place in room 179. Browse the Study guide if you want to get a sneak peak at what’s expected.

A question came up:

- Does Community Leaders get a discount?
- Yes!

Tips and Tricks

The rest of the program is sharing tips and tricks. Marcos and Jonathan showed us the Docker playground, a fast interactive and fun way to learn Docker. It now supports OpenID, it used to be hosted on AWS but has moved to Azure and now includes Windows containers - pick up more at training.play-with-docker.com and github.com/play-with-docker

Kevin from the CPH meetup group shares some of his experiences.

Sgt. Phil Esterhaus:
“Let’s be careful out there”

Finally, to wrap up the Summit before we go for lunch and have our group photo taken, we get some DockerCon tips from DockerCon alumnis - it plays almost like an episode of Hill Street Blues:

• Do labs on Thursdays - that way you won’t miss any of the speaks.
• Post your DockerCon selfie on Twitter
• Explore the Hallway Track - hallwaytrack.dockercon.com
• A lot of speakers have group chats
• Gem features: “My Agenda” on the web - That’s where you can create a group chat - remember that when you try to find group chats - the search box is filtered to the tab you’re currently on in your browser.
• Track the #dockercon hashtag on Twitter
• Popular talks tend to get full (almost all the ones by Docker employees) - come early
• Let’s be careful out there

Thanks for organizing this, Karen!

What’s happening during the official first day of DockerCon?

Follow all our live updates here. Stay tuned!

Author: Lars Kruse

See all blogs by Lars

Read more about Lars