Recently I did a series of talks focused around building Kubernetes Clusters. In these I demoed how Terraform can be used to build out a Kubernetes cluster and then ideas for working with that Kubernetes cluster or building out other infrastructure with Terraform around the Kubernetes cluster. I’ve posted the first of several posts that I’m putting together related to the configuration, code, and work I did for those talks.

On this topic there are several additional things I try to do for and after every presentation I give. This adds value for me, the people who attend the presentation, but also for others that did not attend after the talk. At least, that’s my intent and hope in this and related follow up material. Here’s the breakdown of what I try to do with every presentation. Below I’ll also have links to presentations I have succeeded in accomplishing this mission.

Mission Goals

The mission goals involves getting the presentation posted along with other key goals upon notification of date, time, and related details to several key places:

1. Calendar — Post to my speaking and meetup calendar here.
2. RSVP Site — Next I ensure it is listed on meetup or whatever site the organizers are using.
3. Composite Code Blog Listing — Next I create a page where I will put all of the collateral for the presentation and list it on this page. Often this starts out merely as a listing and then a link to the page where I’ll simply write “Content are TBD but actively being developed! Stay tuned!”
4. Presentation Page — Then for each presentation I give I create a singular page to post and collect all the collateral elements. This is the page that the listing in #3 points to. Some examples include; “Elasticsearch with Terraform, Packer, and Immutability Magic” or “Terraform, Packer, Atlas @ The Orange Retailer”.
5. Code, Slide Deck, Collateral — Other elements I make ever effort to include code repositories (usually on Github), image or slide deck files, and anything else I used to demonstrate during the presentation.

Presentations That Accomplish This Mission

There are a few of these presentations I’ve given that have had every mission criteria met. Here I’ve linked a few just to point out what a finished presentation and follow up looks like. At least, these are examples of what I aim for, there are always ways to improve on this.

1. Managing (or not) The Data in Immutable Infrastructure — includes slides, a short write up, video, and related collateral.

1. Organizing Infrastructure Config & Workflow — includes slides, and very thorough write up, video, etc.

1. Visual Studio AWS Tooling & SDK — Even though this is a presentation from a different era of technology, it still represents all the pieces collected for a successful mission. Video, write up, and collateral repo and such. I’d be curious, since it has been such a long time, if the code still runs.

That’s that, and onward and forward to the next code challenge. I’ll be publishing that shortly on my blog, at https://compositecode.blog/.