I had a busy weekend last week. From Monday to Wednesday, I attended CYBER_CON, a conference organized by the National Cyber and Information Security Agency. Although I felt a bit socially drained by the end of Wednesday, I still decided to go to RuneTalk, a local Kubernetes-focused meetup. To my surprise, I left the event feeling even more energized than when I arrived. In this article, I’d like to share my experience from the whole event with you.
RuneTalk is a regular local meetup that was originally organized by the team at Runecast. Over time, it built a strong community and set a high standard for similar events. I first heard about RuneTalk during its seventh edition, which focused on security. Around the same time, news broke that Runecast was being acquired by Dynatrace, which raised concerns within the local developer community about whether the RuneTalk tradition would continue. I’m happy to report that it is still going strong, and I was there to witness it.
This time, the event was held at the stunning Impact Hub. The organizers brought in a tap, along with a variety of drinks and foods, to make the event even more spectacular. It gave us plenty of time to meet and greet new faces, as well as catch up with familiar ones. It was also nice to be able to talk to the speakers during the breaks. One thing that set this event apart from others was the “pizza pause.” During the pause, attendees could grab a slice of pizza and chat with each other. What’s more, there was even a beer tap and a keg! I mean… when was the last time you went to a meetup where you could pour yourself a glass of beer?
I attend a lot of meetups and conferences, and over time, I’ve compiled a list of essentials that an event needs to hit in order to achieve peak awesomeness. Let me share the must-haves for Hung (in no particular order of importance):
- Great food
- Quality drinks
- A nice venue
- Engaging talks
- Opportunities for networking
We’ve already checked off three out of the five elements from the list. Now, let’s look at the remaining two. In total, we had two talks. Originally, there were supposed to be three, but the last one was canceled. However, we can look forward to it in the next RuneTalk. On one hand, I’m a bit disappointed that we only had two talks, but on the other hand, I’m excited knowing that more RuneTalks are coming in the future. So, it’s a win!
The first talk was given by Andreas Grabner, CNCF Ambassador and DevRel Lead at Dynatrace. Andreas discussed how observability enhances platform engineering on Kubernetes and gave us a fascinating demo of an application deployed using ArgoCD, showcasing how observability is managed within k8s. What I personally appreciated was the inclusion of phrases commonly used in Austria, along with their Czech translations. It was a thoughtful gesture from the speaker, showing his willingness to adapt to the audience and tailor the talk to the local context. Kudos to him!
The second talk was delivered by a young prodigy who is quickly rising in the Czech cybersecurity community—Kateřina Henclová. In addition to working as a cybersecurity intern at Honeywell, she serves as a Women4Cyber Czechia Youth Ambassador. Her talk highlighted some of the most interesting boo-boos made by cybercriminals that landed them behind bars. Despite the sophisticated nature of their shady operations, many were ultimately caught due to beginner mistakes, such as using a pet’s name as a password or having a girlfriend post a photo with metadata that gave them away. At least now I know what to avoid if I ever decide to run an underground business. Thanks, Katka!
The final item on the list was a good networking activity, and the organizers had that covered with a bingo game. To play, you had to talk to other participants and find people who matched specific criteria, such as currently learning a programming language, having attended a hackathon, or being a past RuneTalk attendee (and many more). It was a great way for us all to interact and get to know each other.
RuneTalk has been one of the most interesting events I’ve discovered in 2024, and I sincerely hope there will be more in the future. There’s clearly a community that is eager for events like this.
If you are interested on what will come next, feel free to connect with me over at LinkedIn.
