After BSides Lancs and Leeds, Newcastle was my third BSides, both of the year and ever. I got up early in the morning for a road trip from Preston to Newcastle, and setting off at 5:30 on Saturday turned out to be atmospheric and straightforward. So I was a bit early and got a glimpse of the chaos that is putting together a BSides. Later I found out that BSides Newcastle was traditionally more chaotic than some of the other BSides.

As I stare at my laptop after an intense few days at 44CON, I reflect on the experience. I went through a lot of different emotions. Excitement, trepidation, relief, bewilderment, pride, disappointment and hope had accompanied my visit to London to 44CON. We had an OSINT Capture The Flag competition happen right next to a round-table discussion on how the government should secure the country. Looking from outside in, a rallying cry of “Hack the Planet” (if you want to feel old, it turned 28 during the con) side-by-side with the establishment might not be the first thing to expect at a security conference.

I am back at home, a few days after my first experience of Agile on the Beach. There were a few problems with it (yes, yes, I’m baiting you, I loved it). There was too much quality, it was really hard to pick which talks to go to. There was too much fun, it was difficult to leave the after-party after the beach party. And it was hard to keep track of all the new faces and names.

It is a couple of weeks after my trip to Leeds to go speak at BSides. Now, if you’ve never been to a BSides - and I had only been to one prior - then hopefully this gives you a bit of a feel as to what to expect. In short, there’s lots of interesting people with great talks and insights and something that feels just right. A bit of community and some weird people.

As I am sitting at Schipol Airport, contemplating that the airport is so big it has a branch of the Rijksmuseum, I can’t help but thinking about the fabulous conference I’ve just been to. The DevOps Enterprise Summit 2023 has exceeded my expectations. But before I get to there, I’d just like to develop the airport metaphor a little bit. So here I am, looking at culture. Why was it that at Schipol, one of the busiest airports in the world, it was a breeze to get through security, airport security agents were smiling, cracking jokes, I could leave my laptop, toothpaste and deodorant in the bag and they have art in the middle of the airport, goddammit.

As I am sitting on the 16th floor of the Okura Hotel in Amsterdam in my Batman pyjamas and facing a large mirror, just glimpsing the paper crane that was so lovingly put on my pillow, I’m starting to reflect what has happened during the day. I was lucky enough to be a guest at the DevOps Enterprise Summit. There was certainly plenty of things to get excited about. I’d meet Gene Kim, who’s been running this conference for 10 years and who wrote the Phoenix Project.

I am sitting on the train as I type this coming back from my first IRL conference. Lean Agile Scotland 2022 was brilliant. I met so many people with ideas that just chime with my thinking on agile, I feel energised and full of ideas No Bugs No Decisions No Deadlines No Fear What follows are some thoughts that I took away from some of sessions the conference. There were lots of exciting talks and workshops and it was a pity that I couldn’t clone myself to go to more of them (I was gutted to miss sessions that coincided with my own talk).