The Future of Software conference pregame (Part 1)

In this episode of the DevOps Sauna, Darren and Pinja are joined by Heikki Hämäläinen and Hannah Waller to reminisce on the history of DevOps, The DEVOPS Conference, and what to look forward to in The Future of Software.

[Heikki] (0:05 - 0:13)

Now we are living in the AI area, but in The DEVOPS Conferences in Eficode, we started to live in the AI area already back in 2018.

[Darren] (0:17 - 0:25)

Welcome to the DevOps Sauna, the podcast where we deep dive into the world of DevOps, platform engineering, security and more as we explore the future of development.

[Pinja] (0:25 - 0:35)

Join us as we dive into the heart of DevOps, one story at a time, whether you're a seasoned practitioner or only starting your DevOps journey, we're happy to welcome you into the DevOps Sauna.

[Darren] (0:47 - 0:57)

Welcome back to the DevOps Sauna. We're going to be talking about something quite interesting today. We have an event coming up in London.

[Pinja] (0:58 - 1:15)

We sure do. This is something that we, as Eficode, have been part of for many years now. And in March this year in London, on March 26, we get to go and arrange our next conference, The Future of Software in London, in person.

[Darren] (1:16 - 1:41)

It's been quite a journey, I think for everyone organizing events, it's been quite a journey over the past few years, but this event actually stretches back for about a decade. And we thought it would be a good thing if we went and talked to some of the people who have been involved in this event from the start to see how things began, to see how they progressed and to get to the point we are now.

[Pinja] (1:41 - 2:01)

There have been many different phases of this conference series. We have acquired companies who have their own versions of this conference, but I'm very excited to do a deep dive because we're also going to be talking about, and this is what I'm hoping for, that we will be talking about the community around DevOps and building software.

[Darren] (2:01 - 2:12)

And I think this is actually kind of important to the two of us because we're involved in this conference. You're on stage as the host, as you've been for a couple of years now, I think?

[Pinja] (2:12 - 2:36)

Yeah, the first DEVOPS Conference I hosted was the 2023. We did a global online event, that was almost two years ago. And since then, I've had the privilege to be on stage, both online and in person.

I guess like, I want to say six times, somebody please correct me if I'm wrong. It has been quite a journey and Darren, you've been on stage as a speaker, haven't you?

[Darren] (2:36 - 2:47)

Yeah, I've been on stage as a speaker. I'm also part of like, working the conference in the background, so talking about programs and stuff. So it's always interesting for me to see how everything comes together.

[Pinja] (2:47 - 3:10)

We always try to find the best speakers for our audience. We want to reach as many people as possible. We want to always inspire and create conversation.

The people who come to the conferences, they always come back. And that, to me, always says that this is something bigger than just Eficode as the powering organization for these conferences.

[Darren] (3:10 - 3:22)

Yeah, I agree. And I think, without further ado, we should just go back to the very start of things and talk to Heikki Hämäläinen, who had, as I understand, the original idea for the event.

[Pinja] (3:28 - 3:34)

We're here now with Heikki Hämäläinen, who is the Head of GitHub and Microsoft Business here at Eficode. Welcome, Heikki.

[Heikki] (3:34 - 3:44)

Thank you, Pinja. Nice to be here. So we're going back to 2014, when, as I understand, you had the original idea for this conference.

Can you tell us more about that?

[Heikki] (3:44 - 4:43)

Yeah, yeah, definitely. 2014, so DevOps was in the early days. So we started to work in this scene maybe one or two years earlier, although in Eficode, so this is like building the best software-driven organization.

The future of software development has been always the mission of the company. But in 2014, so we participated in one of the first DevOpsDays in Helsinki, and it's a great event series that Patrick and the others have been developing over the years. But the audience is very, or only, actually, for the developers.

And what we saw at those times is that we wanted to develop an event that will be a great developer event. But also, we wanted to serve the larger audience, so the people who are responsible of the DevOps processes. This may be a little bit maybe your business people who are also involved on the business side to how to create the digital production services.

So we wanted to have this a little bit more broader audience and to serve it in the same event. And that was one of the things why we started to develop our own event in those days.

[Pinja] (4:44 - 4:58)

And we have now organized The DEVOPS Conference for many years, and 2016 was the first year of The DEVOPS Conference powered by Eficode. And it's been nice to see this community coming together. Has it been like that since the beginning?

[Heikki] (4:59 - 5:38)

Yeah. And this, like, powered by Eficode was, I would say, the, like, North Star in a certain extent in this event, so that we wanted to serve the, like, bigger community with this event. But not seeing that it's like one vendor event, like Eficode event, but it would be like a platform where all the companies, all the people who are interested about the DevOps or, like, how to build the software-driven organizations would be able to participate.

So this is powered by Eficode, but actually, like, built by the community is like North Star, how we will be building the event over the years. So really, really important, like, the phrase.

[Darren] (5:38 - 5:56)

It's kind of cool that, I mean, I've been seeing this powered by Eficode attached to our events for many years now. It's kind of cool that it's been baked into the DNA of the event right from the start. It's about, I guess, building up the DevOps community in, basically, in the countries we operate.

[Heikki] (5:56 - 6:34)

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So we, well, we started from the Finland first, so DEVOPS 2016 was a Helsinki event. And I can say that they're not very professionally organized after all of these years, but we had a lot of fun.

So to do it, and as I really liked the event or events in general as a platform, so to get the people into one place and to have the people have something to say and obviously to, you know, to serve the community and the ecosystem. We really had a lot of fun. 150 people we were able to get into the first event and we were amazed how many people actually participated.

So it was a lot of fun to organize that.

[Pinja] (6:34 - 6:46)

I was about to ask, like, what was the reception from the community of the first event and the first events? But since you already had a crowd in the first one, what was the feedback from it? How was it received in the DevOps community back in the day?

[Heikki] (6:47 - 8:12)

Well, I think this was seen as one of the first big pushes, so that, okay, so now DevOps was also a phenomenon or terminology, if you would use that wording, quite new. So that we obviously needed to even to tell what DevOps is back in those days. It was not like that everybody understood what DevOps is as a concept.

So that was sort of a theme for the maybe one of the first couple of events. So to go to the basics and start to get some user stories, so that how it works, what's the benefit of DevOps, how it is or is not different than the Agile and things like that. And to get the great people also from the technical side and also from the, I would say, more also from the business case side to tell their stories to the audience.

So that I think it was quite well reserved. And of course, what we wanted to do every single year is to get a little bit more broader audience or to get it the size of the conference. We have a quite ambitious vision to get it international like the others after a few years.

And I think we made it eventually. But the number of people grow, it practically doubled every year for the last or the first few years. So 2016 we had 150 people, 2017 we had roughly 300 people and 2018 we had almost 600 people in the event.

And in 2017 we introduced the famous DevOps buckets as well. So that I think we saw still alive some form of fashion all over the world. All kinds of good stuff.

[Pinja] (8:12 - 8:14)

That's a very Finnish way of doing it.

[Heikki] (8:14 - 8:20)

And it sounds... We have queued also. People were queuing for the buckets.

So that works always. We need to do it again.

[Pinja] (8:20 - 8:30)

Of course. Yes. Somebody asked me an anecdote here.

Somebody asked me a month ago, is there something in those buckets that people are queuing for? And we said, no, it's just a bucket.

[Darren] (8:30 - 8:31)

It's just a bucket.

[Pinja] (8:31 - 8:32)

It's just an event. It's just a bucket.

[Darren] (8:33 - 8:54)

It's so confusing that the whole concept, like as a foreigner coming to Finland and the enthusiasm Finns have for these buckets is, it's something I don't think we'll ever understand. Yeah. But it does sound like the appetite for the event was there, but at the time I understand it was still very Finland-centric.

[Heikki] (8:54 - 9:32)

These were being run locally in Helsinki. Yeah, correct. So we started in Finland.

So I think the 2018 was the first one, I think, which had more, I would say, more like a Nordic flavor so that we wanted to get more people coming from the Nordics, but obviously, and that was the last one before the COVID as well. So a little bit more, I would say, Nordic approach, but still quite Finnish audience in these first three physical or bigger physical events that we organized in Helsinki. But the international ideas are getting global.

We have good seeds on that in our thinking already, so but very quite Finnish in the first two or three versions or chapters.

[Pinja] (9:32 - 9:55)

But as Eficode, as a company, we have grown more international over time. So of course, it's nice to see that we have also been able to capture the attention of the international DevOps community as well. And in many places where we've had The DEVOPS Conference in many locations, it feels like we have this DevOps community, DevOps family come together for the events as well.

[Heikki] (9:55 - 10:38)

So that has always felt nice. Yeah, that's good. So and of course, even today, we have a lot of local audiences in the events and it's changed, obviously, quite dramatically over the years.

So what's the weight towards a more global audience? So we had a good example of that in the COVID years when we started to push more, push more global, but also, I think, from the themes point of view. So now we are living in the AI area.

But in The DEVOPS Conferences in Eficode, we started to live in the AI area already back in 2018, where the headline theme for the whole event was AI-augmented DevOps. So I think that was the first one properly in the whole world, which started to actually think how the AI will be augmenting our capabilities in this like, you know.

[Darren] (10:38 - 10:58)

Yeah, I saw that in the taglines of the previous events, like 2018 AI-augmented DevOps. And I was like, how did this happen? This sounds like a 2024 tagline.

And Eficode was talking about it in 2018. So that's, it's kind of an interesting idea that the conference was a little bit ahead of the curve. Yeah, it's super cool.

[Heikki] (10:59 - 12:32)

Yeah, it's so, so I've been like, very interested about the AI for a long, long, long time. And I sort of had a vision so that this will be something which will change how we will be writing code at some point of time. And in 2017, after 2017, like a chapter, so I started to think that the what's the next big theme.

And I thought that let's see that maybe this AI could be something that we start to talk about. Of course, there's a lot about the cloud, like a transition in those days, but we decided that okay, so let's see that. Can we get like, first of all, speakers?

Is there actually something cooking? If there is something cooking, what is actually cooking? And is this something that which would be interesting for the audience in that period of time?

So we took quite like famous speakers all over the world to Helsinki and started to talk about it. So there was quite a lot of also like, I think that okay, so that is actually DevOps and AI. Do they have anything to do with each other?

So I think that's one of the reception what you can get it. And the other one, is that okay, are you guys too early? So let's see.

But I'm still super happy that we did it so that we started to talk about that. So after that, we did some other like I would say POCs in the area and sort of to really start to slice and dice the whole like software delivery lifecycle into the slices and try to find use cases where the AI in that generation actually could help. So that's the follow up from the event.

So now we know where we are today.

[Darren] (12:32 - 12:51)

So yeah, that's fascinating because 2018, it was like natural language processing was in its infancy, I believe. Yeah, true. And I think it was mostly like mathematical models that AI was like machine learning was being applied to.

So things like random forests and such. So it's interesting to see that we were already talking about it then.

[Heikki] (12:51 - 13:34)

Yeah, yeah. And from the use case point of view, Darren, so the ones with private capital falling in in those days, it was mostly in testing area. So like the next gen from the automated testing.

So that was the big, big theme. So the GenAI version was like far away in the future, so that we cannot do it today. So let's try to find something that actually works.

And I think that's in the also in the ethical DNA. So we need to find something that actually works and we can implement and help the customers. And this is something that we also try to, I think, like advocating these events so that we try to, of course, to bring to the table, which might happen in the future.

But at the same time, we try to bring to the table what we can, what the community and the ecosystem has already been implementing or will be implementing in the future to help everybody.

[Pinja] (13:35 - 13:58)

Because sometimes it feels like because gen AI has become a household tool in the last couple of years, it only feels like that AI has actually only happened now. But it has been cooking for a really long time and not just happened two years ago, which activity and advances in that area. What are the other changes in the world of DevOps that you've seen over the years?

[Heikki] (13:58 - 15:22)

Well, I think that, of course, the platform play has been changing quite dramatically over the years, I mean, so that which are the big tech vendors. So that's something which has been changing quite a lot during these years. If you think about back in the days of 2013, which said, you know, platforms were like the dominant at that point of time.

And you go like a fast forward in 2025 for some of these platforms, of course, are still alive. But the I think these dynamics has changed quite, quite a lot. The other dynamics, which I think has changed over the years is that DevOps is like a phenomena or way of working is it's like a mainstream.

It's really a mainstream way of working. But at the same time, even though we think that it's mainstream, there is still a huge amount of organizations, which I think are still in early of their adoption in a way so that it's sometimes that when you think that, okay, so everything is already sort of done. But when you talk about the customers, so you quite easily notice that, okay, so there's still like a big segment of customers who are like not even started yet, one way or the other.

But I think the platform piece so that the players has been a lot of changes, DevOps has been like a mainstream at the moment. So those are like a couple of big, big changes and like again, so the AI we couldn't talk about enough about AI like in a way, but at least these three are the big, big ones which have been changing over the years.

[Darren] (15:23 - 15:30)

It's been great to hear about the inception of this event and the first few years, and how it went. Thank you for joining us, Heikki. Thank you.

[Pinja] (15:30 - 15:31)

Thank you, Heikki.

[Darren] (15:31 - 15:57)

Great to be here. Hearing about the start of the event has been fascinating, but time moves quickly and it's been more than 10 years and we're now looking at a whole new ecosystem. So it's kind of clear that we actually hit the ground running when it came to this event planning.

If we had 300 as a like starting point, that's kind of impressive.

[Pinja] (15:57 - 16:14)

Is very impressive and trying to build on to the community. That is a very strong power to build upon. And it's clear that these events with like even 300 people, that's quite a many people.

It is not a very easy and small task to organize and get running.

[Darren] (16:15 - 16:27)

Yeah. In fact, I think it's quite easy to get lost in the idea of these events just happening and kind of turn a blind eye to the huge volume of work that goes into producing them.

[Pinja] (16:27 - 16:46)

Yes. And this is why we talked to Hannah Waller, who is the event manager at Eficode. And she has a task of balancing all of this that goes on behind the scenes and putting together our massive events that she is part of finding the right speakers, ensuring all the logistics of the event.

[Darren] (16:51 - 16:56)

We're now talking to Hannah Waller, Events Marketing Manager here at Eficode.

[Pinja] (16:56 - 16:58)

Hello. Hi. Hi, Hannah.

[Darren] (16:58 - 17:20)

So we've been part of the program committee for The Future of Software for some time now. And it all seems to revolve around one thing that everything that is pushed forward with the conferences is in some way touched by you and you're kind of driving these things forward. So maybe tell us a little bit about your history and how you got into organizing events in the IT industry.

[Hannah] (17:20 - 17:56)

Yes, sure. So my event background was sort of wedding planning, party planning, and Christmas parties. And then I got a job at Clearvision organizing their events and was with Clearvision for about five/six years.

And then we got acquired by Eficode. And as I moved over to Eficode, I got given my new role of organizing the future of software events, what was The DEVOPS Conference. And the first foray was into a two-day online global event.

Yeah, so almost, as they say, thrown right in at the deep end and learn everything on the spot.

[Darren] (17:57 - 18:01)

And the global event that was back in 2021 or 2022?

[Pinja] (18:02 - 18:19)

23. 23. I think it was almost two years ago to date that Hannah, you and I had our first conversation about The DEVOPS Conference.

And as I say, you went straight into the deep and that was a two-day global conference and fully online as well.

[Hannah] (18:19 - 18:31)

Yeah, with three tracks as well. Oh, yes. And yeah, quite challenging and a strange studio in the middle of Helsinki.

So yeah, it was it was a real learning experience.

[Darren] (18:31 - 18:36)

Wait, was that around this time of year too? So they dragged you to Helsinki in the middle of winter?

[Hannah] (18:36 - 18:38)

It was in March.

[Darren] (18:38 - 18:38)

Okay.

[Hannah] (18:38 - 18:44)

It did feel very wintry though, for a UK person, and there was a sauna in the studio, which blew my mind.

[Darren] (18:44 - 18:46)

That sounds so very Finnish.

[Pinja] (18:46 - 19:45)

It was a very Finnish event. It was at a very Finnish location. It was actually a very nice studio, to be honest.

And we've been very lucky, I think, with the sound and tech engineers that we work with. And I'm not sure how far from organizing weddings and Christmas parties you felt at that moment. But throughout the past couple of years, having had the pleasure of working with you and trying to find the best speakers for our events, and we've had some pretty good lineups in our events we've organized.

Last year, we went to London, Copenhagen and Stockholm, for example. So we had three events last year. So we have received a lot of feedback from the conferences before, previously known as The DEVOPS Conferences, and now Future Software going forward.

And one of the positive feedbacks we have received is about the diversity of our events. So we've aimed to make them feel inclusive to everybody. So how are we ensuring this also going forward, and what have we done before?

[Hannah] (19:45 - 20:58)

Yeah, thank you. And as you mentioned, London last year, we got some phenomenal feedback about the female agenda as well. It was split 50-50, I would say.

But, you know, moving forward, we've had minorities on stage, and they've been there because they're great and not because they're the minorities as well. So that's just something to shout out. And then it can be hard to balance though, because there's not, you know, with the difficulties of the few minority speakers across all of our Nordic countries, and maybe London is a bit more diverse, but, you know, people are happy to come to our events no matter what country.

It's just the availability of the speakers as well can be really tricky. And they're in demand because, you know, we want good speakers. We want challenging topics for our events.

And yeah, the good ones are in high demand and are constantly busy. But it is something as we in the program committee are focused on and do, you know, people want to hear from different natures, from different cultures, from, you know, different experiences, whether it's male, female, age groups, and different cultures as well. So it is something that we're really, really focused on as we put the agenda together.

[Pinja] (20:59 - 21:17)

After each conference, when we have our retrospective, we always say that we want to make this a little bit harder for ourselves the next time. We want to just raise the bar on the quality again a little bit more. So it's almost six months before each conference that we start looking into the speakers, the lineup.

Isn't that true?

[Hannah] (21:18 - 22:09)

Yeah. We also put out our call for papers well in advance as well so people can, you know, think can submit different ideas, as many as they like. And it's good for us because again, as I said, speaker availability where there are, you know, events are definitely back.

And where there are so many events as well, the speakers, the majority of them actually have a full-time job to do. And also, you know, some of them have families. So we've had one previous speaker who one of our events in Copenhagen/Stockholm was like, that's actually over my anniversary.

I need to talk to my wife about this or, you know, a guest that we wanted for London. She couldn't because she's got twin toddlers and there's a big event, you know, coming up a couple of weeks later. And so there are other commitments that people, you know, we have to think of as well.

[Darren] (22:10 - 22:21)

And now, knowing about your experience, I do have a question I want to ask you. Who's worse, bridal couples or IT professionals? And don't answer that.

I don't think the answer could go well for anyone.

[Hannah] (22:21 - 22:30)

I would say bridal couples are lovely and IT professionals are lovely. I would say mothers of the grooms are a force to be reckoned with.

[Darren] (22:30 - 22:42)

OK, that's some information I didn't think we were going to get today. But yeah, that sounds that sounds accurate. So you've been at this a couple of years now.

What would you say are the key things that you've learned working on these events?

[Hannah] (22:42 - 25:16)

I think that these events, you know, working in Eficode, the collaboration tools that we have in the meetings is to reach out to the experts that we have within the business. There are a lot of people who work for us and are very passionate about this event. And even if they aren't a part of committees or things like that, they want to help.

And it's always surprised me when I do reach out to the experts within the business to help or delegate into work the amazing response I do get and people get, you know, are very passionate about it as well. So I would definitely say, you know, delegating jobs to the right people. And it's just, yeah, for me, I'm just always blown away by the response of that and feel I feel I try and get that across after the event when I'm thanking people for their help because they do really appreciate it.

And it definitely shows within the event as well, like when people really resonate with things as well. And then another sort of key learning as well is, you know, we like for the attendees to be, you know, challenged and, you know, seeing these speakers that they wouldn't normally have access to like sometimes some of these speakers speak at these big events, which are free, so they can't even get in the room, let alone a good seat. And I think last year with Melissa Perri having there and then having a book signing afterwards, there was a big queue going around waiting for the book sign. You know, it's nice to reward our attendees.

It's nice to give them an experience of this intimate conference in such a great setting as well. And also adding on sort of those extras where they can actually talk to the speaker afterwards within the networking breaks that we do have. So really, really wants to sort of reward those attendees as well, that they actually feel pleasure of joining the event.

And then also with the speakers that we've had, they've just been amazing as well. They just have such passion, such enthusiasm when they're delivering the talk. Anything we've asked of them to do, whether that's making a video, sharing something on social media, book signings, maybe even having to swap out at the last minute because, you know, something's happened that's out of our control.

They've been just so cool, calm and just such a joy to work with. A lot of them sometimes, especially for Scandinavia trips, are excited because they've not been to Copenhagen or Stockholm for a long time, and they're just so enthusiastic about the whole trip. And I just think that, again, it just blows my mind how brilliant the speakers are on stage, but everything they do around it as well for me has been fantastic.

[Pinja] (25:16 - 25:55)

We have had some good people join us, and like having a chance to talk to speakers beforehand. We have the speaker's dinner, we get together before the events, and everybody is just so blown away by the smoothness of all the organization that goes behind the scenes that perhaps our conference guests do not get to see. And on the day off, when we have, as you say, we have the chance to go and talk to the speakers.

And we often call it the hallway track, right? Because that is the additional place you can talk to the speakers, but also get the people around you, the other people participating in the audience.

[Hannah] (25:55 - 26:20)

Yeah. And I'm always so, you know, touched by the speakers. I'm just so happy to just sit and chat and, you know, grab a cup of coffee and just talk to people.

You know, I just think that they've just been so great. And the attendees themselves, within the feedback and the response rates that we get, it's just great to see how it's just so important for them as well and how it really, really, really resonates with them as well.

[Pinja] (26:20 - 26:40)

So you've been doing this now for a couple of years, previously now called The DEVOPS Conference, now The Future of Software. What has been the most challenging part of your role? Because we've done this both fully in line, fully on site.

We've done a hybrid version as well last year in London. So what is the most challenging part here?

[Hannah] (26:40 - 28:13)

I think for me, like my role within the business is to do the global events and get these big events together. It's something I love and it's fantastic. It's a huge team collaboration, this event.

It doesn't just happen with me. As I said before, I have to reach out to the experts in the business. We have the program committee, which you guys are on, as well as some others.

I have different committees for different areas, for business areas, and just sometimes just reaching out to random people for help. But unfortunately, I have to remember that everyone else who works on this actually has a full time job doing something else within Eficode. They don't work for me.

And a lot of times I have to be patient and wait for responses. And for me, as someone who's a bit of a control freak, it can be quite frustrating. I wanted to get it done now.

And yeah, I think that's the thing, you know, at Eficode, we are so busy. And as I said, everyone that does help on the event actually has a different role within the business. And yeah, so a lot of times it is sort of frustrating having to wait for a response.

But obviously, you know, nobody takes that long. It's just me. I'm just impatient, I suppose.

But yeah, it's definitely something. And then again, with our speakers, a lot of our speakers have full-time jobs. So when, you know, I'm waiting for them to come back and confirm things, I have to be quite patient because I understand that they're jetting off here, there, and everywhere and also have their full-time jobs.

So I think for me, being the perfectionist that I am, having to sort of wait for answers and things like that can be quite tricky.

[Pinja] (28:14 - 28:32)

And that's the funny thing is like to us who do not do this as a full time job, we're very privileged to be part of this, organizing these events. So everything just looks so smooth when we actually get to doing all these things. So that is all of the doing of having one person who is in charge of all of that.

[Darren] (28:32 - 28:50)

Yeah, it's always kind of cool when, you know, we see like this narrow slice of any of these things, just trying to put small things together and then attending one of these events and just seeing all these things line up in a row and like all the other work that's invisible to us that must have gone into it.

[Pinja] (28:50 - 29:13)

Yeah, I'm glad it looks smooth for you guys. It does, but maybe turning this question around a little bit. So, for us, it looks very smooth.

You said there are a couple of challenges along the way, and we know that this is not an easy business. We do understand all the effort that goes into this and creating these events. So what do you think has been the most rewarding in doing this kind of a role for you?

[Hannah] (29:13 - 30:15)

I think in the end, you know, the main thing when you're organizing events is any event organizer will go, whether it will say whether it's a Christmas party, an exhibition or a conference for 400 people in, you know, middle of Helsinki. The bit on the day, the buzz of the event, everyone coming together, the community it creates from the attendees, the staff, the speakers, the sponsors, everyone in the room is there for the same reason. And as you know, as you said, we work so hard to make sure that the agenda is good.

So, you know, the people who are attending are enjoying it, the speakers are enjoying it. And so it just creates this beautiful vibe within the room. As I said before, the speakers, as we were saying that when they come out and chat in the catering breaks as well, it's just such a lovely feeling.

And seeing everyone together there for the same purposes and all coming together and everyone enjoying themselves, that's definitely the most rewarding part for me. Definitely. That is where I sort of feel, yeah, I really love my job.

[Pinja] (30:16 - 30:36)

So, yeah, to us, it shows that you do love your job and you love what you're doing. So everything shows in the results. And it is, as you say, that just getting people together and there is a strong community feeling after all, like organizing these things.

But also we see it in the participants and the speakers alike.

[Darren] (30:36 - 30:45)

Well, good to know. It's been great to talk to you about the more down to earth nature of running these events. Hannah, thank you for joining us.

[Pinja] (30:45 - 30:56)

Thank you for having me. Thanks, Hannah. 

So that was a peek behind the curtain of wedding planning, a little bit, some similarities to organizing IT events.

And now, we know a little bit more how these events come together from the organizing part.

[Darren] (30:59 - 31:09)

It's clear that not anyone can put together these events to create a set of cohesive events over four countries. So we're grateful to hear about all the work that goes into it.

[Pinja] (31:12 - 31:18)

We'll now give our guests a chance to introduce themselves and tell you a little bit about who we are.

[Heikki] (31:18 - 31:30)

Hi, my name is Heikki Hämäläinen. I'm running GitHub and Microsoft Business in Eficode. And I'm also trying to help our customers to build their AI-powered future in the area of software development.

[Hannah] (31:30 - 31:36)

Hi, I'm Hannah Waller. I'm the Events Marketing Manager here at Eficode. And I run all our Global Events.

[Darren] (31:37 - 31:39)

I'm Darren Richardson, Security Consultant at Eficode.

[Pinja] (31:40 - 31:44)

I'm Pinja Kujala. I specialize in Agile and portfolio management topics at Eficode.

[Darren] (31:44 - 31:47)

Thanks for tuning in. We'll catch you next time.

[Pinja] (31:47 - 31:55)

And remember, if you like what you hear, please like, rate, and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. It means the world to us.