devopsdays Chicago - Virtual Event Details

DevOpsDays Chicago is a fully virtual event this year. All talks will be pre-recorded and streamed via YouTube Live for anyone to view.

We are keeping the original date of September 1st. We are also dedicated to keeping the core spirit of DevOpsDays events: interactive, inclusive, collaborative, and driven by participants rather than organizations.

Participant Experience

Registered attendees will be able to join the interactive participant experience, which will take place on the Discord platform. All discussion for the event will be held on Discord, with the speakers, sponsors, and other participants.

Discord is a highly customizable, highly interactive chat and video platform. While not as familiar as the corporate chats such as Slack or Teams, Discord will allow participants to interact with each other, speakers, and sponsors in a more personal way. We’ve set up a new Discord server for all participants in 2020 to create a uniform experience. All participants will see the same channels and will be able to interact with speakers and sponsors as peers. For sponsors we wanted a platform that is interactive and flexible. Silver sponsors will get a branded text channel - similar to Slack, Teams, and other chat based platforms. Gold sponsors receive both chat and a video channel.

Talks & Fireside Chats

DevOpsDays Chicago 2020 will have two different types of talks: long-form and Ignite-style. All talks will be pre-recorded, and speakers will be available to discuss and elaborate on the concepts live via Discord. Each speaker will have a dedicated Discord channel for questions during the talk and for “fireside chat.”

After each long-form talk, the speaker and the DevOpsDays Chicago MCs will host a fireside chat during the subsequent breakout session. During the fireside chat, participants can submit moderated questions, some of which may be used during the discussion.

Ignite-style talks will occur in blocks and have a shared channel for discussion on Discord.

All talks and speaker fireside chats will be streamed via YouTube at https://live.devopsdayschi.org. No registration is required to view the stream!

Breakout Sessions

Multiple breakout sessions will be held throughout the day, and all participants are encouraged to attend. Breakout sessions will be held on Discord, available in both text based chat or high-quality live video chat. All breakouts are participant-driven content, and will follow the familiar “rule of mobility” allowing participants to join and interact with whichever topics they choose. All breakout sessions will have a moderator - volunteers from across the DevOpsDays community.

Sponsors

To simplify sponsorships this year we offer 3 options: gold, silver and bronze. Bronze sponsors receive logo placements and social media shout-outs. Silver sponsors receive all the bronze benefits in addition to their logo as a Discord emoji and a dedicated chat-only channel. Gold sponsors receive the same, plus a video channel and a three minute video to play in the main chat. Similar to our in-person events, we want sponsors to actively participate in all parts of the event.

Day of Event

The event will flow from 20 minute talks to 20 minute breakout sessions and fireside chats. Participants will propose breakout topics in a specific Discord channel, and organizers will group people and topics together with a moderator. After each talk, participants have the choice to attend a breakout session or interact with the speaker in a fireside chat. See the full day program here: https://devopsdays.org/events/2020-chicago/program

We also want DevOpsDays Chicago to be fun! Organizers are planning several entertaining options that have only become possible as a virtual event. Get ready for goofy video call jokes, voting by chat emoji, and a surprise visit from the Chicago DevOps yak!

More than anything, we want to keep DevOpsDays going. Join us for an event that we hope will be both local, universal, and keeps the spirit of in-person DevOpsDays.