Jay Tihema, ii.nz | KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe 2023

This is texturing TV. Hello and welcome back to kubecon plus Cloud nativecon Europe. I'm Mike bizard and we're with Jane tahima, and we're talking about how to get started in the community in general James with iinz, and they're doing some work with a lot of the people who live in New Zealand about how to actually become part of the open source community and he's gonna share some tips Jay.

Welcome to show. Thank you very much good to be here. I think a lot of people kind of want to participate in open source, but they just don't know how to get started.

They don't know where to begin. So what have you seen as you kind of bring people into the community? What works and how do they get started?

Yeah, no, you're right. It's it's definitely a learning curve for those unfamiliar from from my experience in New Zealand. Most people never even heard of Open Source.

So it was backtracking a bit to even help people understand what it was and trying to provide some examples and metaphors and things that people can actually, you know, develop a frame of reference from so, you know that came with a lot of good learning as well, but I think Part of things that I've found is to to be effective is one provides some examples in terms of where it's used and how ubiquitous it actually is more than what people might realize and you know, a lot of development opportunities and career Pathways and things as well. But a lot of open sources about community and I think that's probably been one of the most powerful sort of ways to help people understand and what that looks like being able to show up and serve and and see where they can provide value where whatever that might look like. So with it just be you know, tending meetings or you know, good first issues and pull requests and all those sorts of things which like I said is New Territory for a lot of people I think that's gonna a long way just to help, you know, create a little footholds.

you know to help people step into it, so Do I need an invitation to attend the meaning or as they like going down at my local open? Source Pub? And I just see who's there and hanging out a little bit Yeah, there's yeah just just show up.

I mean meetings are often advertised in the slack channels obviously cncf Flex Channel. We frequent quite a lot. We're also part of the mentoring working group under the tech contributor strategies.

So it's always, you know, we always appreciate new people with different perspectives. We want to come in and learn a little bit more about what we do and and ask questions and see how to get involved. So it's really easy.

There's a lot more organizations that are consuming open source, and they are contributing to it. Is there a process for which companies or people who work for companies can contribute to open source projects in a way that they're not today or do we need more of them to participate and make it more of a maybe an official function versus something just an individual does as a hobby? That's a good question.

So be honest, it's that's something I'm still learning about myself. I don't have a huge take background and be honest more of my focus has been at the community education level. I think there's a lot that could be happen to that can happen to developing the message and how we sort of communicate that value for potential contributors.

And from there. We sort of look at you know, how more businesses and things might be able to use utilize that I've talked to some people in the tech sector back home with some of their experience about how they've done that and they've had it with mixed results. A lot of people a lot of businesses tend to learn more towards the clothes or stuff that's familiar Works to you know, meet whatever sort of you know primary objectives.

I think they have at the moments the real value of a lot of Open Source software hasn't really been fully realized yet. So me, I think there's yes a lot can be done more at the People level first and I think that's where more industry level stuff will come in time. I think a lot of people think that contributing means writing code but there's other ways to contribute you today send money or B.

You can help with documentation. There's other stuff to be done that I think organizations aren't thinking through. Yeah.

Absolutely. It's I think that's a huge, Mississippi. And and like there's really strong for me like so I don't have to take background.

I can't code to save myself. So I was definitely came into the game a little bit. I'm sure in terms of how you know, I can help out at all.

But as you said being able to even make minor tweaks to documentation is as huge. I think my first PR was you know said was about you know, how to set up a get-up account or that you need to set up a get a hub account to register on the kubernetes website, you know, so it's little things like that that perhaps might often get overlooked and I might be like little changes to like grammar checks and things and documentation. So I think people might sort of underestimate and undervalue how those those little tweets actually make a big difference because ultimately it helps more people to understand what it looks like and how they can get involved in future as well.

Yeah, attending meetings. We host meetups help with marketing developing learning resources and collateral and things as well. So yeah, any of that can be just as valuable as anything that you might do with more technical experience.

What role does the cncf play in helping support folks like you what do they provide? What's that kind of experience because other folks may want to do what you do. We'll see and see if it's been been huge and first and foremost.

Just helping helped me to feel welcome in the space. And and as I said feel like I can do something. We've seen as part of the mentoring working group.

We help create Pathways for people to get it to get involved things like the LFX mentorship, which we've just got one of our first students in New Zealand involved in which has been huge a lot of things around sort of, you know, technical guidance and you know, strategic experience and things like how do we help protect gap for people to get from a to be curious about it in like really really Unsure how to do so so we said they they help fund a lot of the events and even provide some free certification and training for people to get up skilled in its place that all that's been really beneficial as well. Know now that you've been doing this for a little while that you wish you knew when you first started. Great question that's gonna take some time to learn and not to be ablewhelmed.

I was privileged to work around some really supportive but super experience and knowledgeable teammates. Who you know we start listening to what what it is they do and how they do that. They can be pretty overwhelming from there from the outset.

But I think if I'd say anything to myself back then is to not let that overwhelm you and said just show up and listen and see where you might be able to help out and a lot of things will tend to fall in place, you know, if you continue to show up, it's I think it's a saying an open source Community about, you know, top wood and carry water, you know be prepared to perhaps do that grunt work and be present and you know, bring the best of yourself and you know, a lot of things will open up from from that. So I think understanding that early on is really good and not to you know, a little technical stuff sort of way down and distract you. You're doing that's unique is you're working with a lot of the integers indigenous people.

Is open source an opportunity to kind of bring Tech to more people and make Tech more accessible in general and that can be applied elsewhere. Absolutely. So as part of my work with Toyota was a mighty Economic Development agency.

We've got a program working with about 30 m Ori schools across the region looking at ways to improve educational development and things like that and I see open sources a huge way and to do that, you know, typically the, you know, the work of like Google and Microsoft and Apple ecosystems, which is great. But I think Linux for instance offers a huge alternative and other options that you know, otherwise you're not aware of they're already doing and utilizing some open source teaching platforms LMS and things like that, but I think that the potential there is a lot bigger and you know, we're starting to get to connect with some multi companies now who work in open source, there's some huge things there around data sovereignty and things as well which offers another sort of, you know, look into it and how people Get involved in contribute to that. So yeah, I'm really excited by those prospects, too.

All right, folks, you're hurting here take a look at Jay if he can do it, so can you because anybody can right under percent? All right. Thanks for coming back.

Thank you very much. Appreciate time. All right guys, we'll be back in a minute.