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Aurélie Vache
Aurélie Vache

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2020 in review... What a year!

On the last day of 2020, it's time to made a review of the whole year... and what a year!

Yes, in 2020, we learn one new word: lockdown. It's a year of the covid19, but I will not talk about it, only about my own 2020 review :-).

Talks

I gave 8 talks in 2020 and "only" 4 physical talks.
I was taken to more physical conferences but unfortunately they were canceled, I hope it will only be postponed because I would really like to go to MixIT, BreizhCamp, Devoxx France ... I keep my fingers crossed for the next ones years :-).

Touraine Tech 2020

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The beginning of the year was awesome, in January, I gave a talk at TouraineTech (TNT), a quick version of my "Fight imposter syndrome" talk. It was a challenge for me to reduce one of my favorite talk in 15 minutes and it was exhausting in my point of view :-D. This experience helps me to say that I prefer to take my time when I present this talk.
I love the conference, the organization, the talks I've seen but was not happy about me ^^.

In this conference, at the speaker lunch, I met TNT organizers, speakers and awesome, and I really like this moment :-).

DevFest du Bout du Monde (BdM)

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My second conference of the year, in February and I really like it :-).
Organization was awesome, very good mood, I talked a lot with friends speakers & organizers, before, during, and after the conference. I've got the pleasure to gave with Kevin Davin our talk "Docker, Kubernetes & Istio: Tips, tricks & tools".

La rentrée des speakers

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In September, I gave for the first time, a new talk "Common tips & mistakes in Go and how to solve them", in remote, at "La rentrée des speakers".

Thanks Pierre Tibulle for the awesome sketchnote you done about my talk:

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Halloween des speakers

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Earlier this year we submitted a brand new talk "Create & distribute a plugin for Kubernetes. Easy!", with Gaelle Acas, to DevFest Nantes, but unfortunately the conference was canceled :-(.

When Gaelle told me that she had been contacted to talk about "l'Halloween des speakers", neither one nor two, I tell us that it could be awesome to talk about Kubernetes plugin, Krew, and to create a duo!

The problem was that the event was going to happen in ... less than two weeks ...

A problem, what problem? :-D

Yes... we create a whole dynamic, visual talk with a demo in several days :-D.

I think this is the presentation that I co-created the fastest and I really enjoyed co-creating and giving it.
I love create talks, slides and this time i drew a lot of illustrations, it's an awesome feeling.

JUG Summer Camp

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A physical event, yessss ! :-)

In September, the really awesome team of organizer, organized JUG Summer Camp at la Rochelle (France).
We (speakers, organizers, attendees) had a great moment at this event.

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Organizers accepted two of my talks. Two talks, in one day ... OMG!
It was not easy, very challenging, I was very tired after this two talks in ... 3 hours but I really like it.

It's always a pleasure to share about Docker, Kubernetes, istio and imposter syndrome :-).

Moreover, my teammate, Kevin was in remote, so we gave a talk, in duo, with one person at the conference and one other in remote, it was a challenge ^^

TADx

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For my birthday, I had the real pleasure to gave my "Fight the imposter syndrome" talk. It was a very good feeling.
I was good, laid back, and got to say whatever I wanted, it was awesome.
I was able to add real anecdotes and at the end we discussed with the attendees.

If you are interested, I previously translated a version of the talk in english on dev.to.

AsynConf

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For the first time we gave with, Gaelle Acas, our talk "Create & distribute a plugin for Kubernetes. easy!", in a 100% remote and live conference. During two days, on Youtube, Twitch & Discord, several people (speakers & youtubers gave talks) and it was awesome.
This kind of event push us to explain differently and it's super to watch in live a lot of comments, wow :-)
A lot of beginners watched the talks, great job Graven ^^.

Google Developer Expert

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At the end of 2019, after several people pushed me to do it, I applied to become a Google Developer Expert (GDE). And after two interviews, since April I have the honor to be a GDE in Cloud technologies :-).

Podcast

When I got a private message on Twitter asking if I was interested in speaking on a podcast, my first reaction was: whatttt, Me? It's impossible! I'm sttutering, i can't do that. People will judge me only with the voice. OMG! :'(

And then, I took a deep breath, I showed the message to my husband who said to me: go for it!

Finally, I accept it and I'm happy about this decision.

I talk about Docker, Kubernetes and sketchnotes, my way to explain things. I was stressed but it was a very good moment.

Thanks Electro Monkey for this very good moment!

Interview

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This year I've been interviewed by Sebastien Blanc for the "DevNation: The Show".

here the abstract of this itw: "Join us for a weekly hour-long live chat show with a special guest, Aurélie Vache at Continental. She has over 14 years in software development and enjoys sharing knowledge about Kubernetes, Istio, and Docker".

It was my first ever interview in english (Oh My God!!!!). It was not easy for me but it was a real pleasure to talk with Sebastien about Kubernetes and sketchnotes :-)

New job

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Since the end of November I've got the pleasure to say that I moved to another Job! I'm now working at Stack Labs, as a Cloud Developer & DevRel. I'm a "Stacker"!

Stack labs is a company, based at Toulouse (France) and Montreal (Canada) with a a team of enthusiasts & passionate people experts, mostly in Cloud technologies, that aims to drives you in your cloud journey.

We provide services, mainly from the Cloud, with a lot of kindness, mutual help and good humor/mood.
Keeping up with technical intelligence, going to conferences, training, sharing, it's a reality thanks to the times provided for that, it's very cool. And the company is remote friendly ♥️

I'll do my best in this new adventure.

My Dev.To journey

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Before dev.to I wrote a lof of articles in DZone, personal blogs, blogs, company websites, paper magazine...
Since April I decided to share my sketchnotes about Kubernetes, then Istio and now about Docker in dev.to.

And I think it was a good decision :-).

If you want some numbers/statistics about my articles and sketchnotes:

  • I was one in the Top 7 most popular dev posts in a week (!)
  • 117K+ views in 8 months (!!)

It's awesome to see that my sketchnotes and articles are seen, thank you very much!!! ♥️

Books

After severals weeks and months of work, the 31th of May, after a full week-end of work, I was pleased to announce that I have compiled all the sketchnotes on Kubernetes to make a "book": "Understanding Kubernetes in a visual way" on Gumroad: https://gumroad.com/aurelievache

It's a strange and awesome feeling to create something new. I auto-published, this year, two "book", two compilation of sketchnotes, one about Kubernetes and one about Istio.

It was months of work. I worked almost every evening, every week-end, several noon, so thank you of you bought/contribute to my books.

For your information, for several months, the Kubernetes book was at 0euro+ (0 euro or free price) then I decided to put it at one euro minimum, with the first update. A lot of people download it for free so it's a good KPI but without give me some feedbacks.

So don't hesitate to give feedbacks :-).

Spoiler alert:
I plan to auto-publish "Understanding Docker in a visual way", in several weeks and I hope that will help people to understand, better, more easily, what is docker, his benefits and good practices.

And...

What I like when I speak at conferences is to share and meet people and I've got the chance this year to meet awesome, lovely and kindful people. So thank you!! ♥️

2021?

What is the plan for 2021?

Sleep! :-D
Yes I feel a little tired in this end of the year.

More seriously, I want to finish "Understanding Docker in a visual way" and then auto publish it.
My dream will be to find an editor for one of my sketchnotes book, I don't know if it can be possible 🤞🤞🤞

I'll do my best in my new job at Stack Labs 💪😊

And as usual, continue to gave presentations/talks, create new ones, write articles, help people...
I missed conferences IRL 😢, I've got the chance to met awesome people at conferences so I wish at the end of 2021 real conferences can happens again 🤞🤞

And continues to share, share and share all the things I can share ^^

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