AWS Community Day: A Little Inspiration Goes a Long Way

It was a brisk October morning when I departed the Ashburn Metro Station heading for Crystal City to attend the AWS DMV Community Day being held at Amazon’s HQ2. I had a mixture of excitement, curiosity, and hope. Just a few months ago, I had attended the AWS Summit, Washington, DC at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. At the Summit, I found many of the attendees, vendors, and topics were focused more on government and public-sector markets. The Community Day turned out to be a smaller setting and a more welcoming environment for networking, with presentations that aligned more closely with my interests.

Amazon’s HQ2 is situated inside the new area known as National Landing. The area has developed into an inviting place for workers and residents alike. Walking around National Landing, I could hardly recognize the Crystal City I'd known for years, particularly the stretch along Route 1. Amazon welcomes dogs into its offices, and there’s even a dog park outside the office building. The experience of checking out this area and new office space was a treat in itself.

Opening the event was Corey Quinn, whom I know largely through his snarky podcast Last Week in AWS. Snark is one of my other languages, besides sarcasm. I believe it is part of the DNA of any good engineer. It is what keeps many of us from senior management roles, which may be a self-preservation tactic.

Corey’s keynote was worth the trip alone. It started off as an attempt to address that never-ending saga of what to do about empty coffee pots in the workplace. With a typical engineering mindset, Corey, of course, approached this like any good engineer would - he over-engineered it. This is why project managers were created - to avoid such design overreach. While the story was amusing, he highlighted how he was using automation mixed in with some AI to help manage his output for the pod and his website. Corey left us with a souvenir - the coffee management system he built - https://shitposting.coffee. Coming away from that, I was enthused to see someone at a similar stage in life embracing AI, while still applying the healthy skepticism that experience teaches us.

A lot is in the news today about what AI takes away, but as I was reminded during Corey’s presentation, technology also provides. In my own work, I’m learning how to use it to take on development tasks that I once hired out to dedicated developers. These projects are unfunded projects, as I call them, or hobbies as my wife affectionately calls them. These projects started out small, each intended to solve a specific problem. Thanks to discussions and planning with AI, I was able to draw them out into something even more useful to me and perhaps others. Corey was a good example of using technology to amplify your efforts.

Another standout session I attended was delivered by David Shepherd, who created Conference Parties, LLC. This was an inspiring talk about how David took a hobby and community commitment and started something that helped others find the parties hosted at large conferences such as AWS’s re:Invent held in Las Vegas annually. His story resonated with me, and inspired me to keep making progress on my own hobby projects. Hobbies are what led me to a career in technology in the first place. But it doesn’t just happen, it takes putting in the early work first. David reminded me of that.

In addition to the sessions, I was able to meet several other attendees. In between sessions, there was ample time to mingle with attendees and event sponsors. I was able to meet and connect with several others, many of whom shared similar interests and journeys with AI integration into their daily tasks. One particularly enthusiastic attendee, considerably younger than I'd initially assumed from his business experience, even asked whether I'd considered venture capital. As flattering as that sounded, I quickly dismissed that as a direction … at this time.

This was the first time I'd discussed DashCam Archive with other developers. With some, I found myself discussing aspects of the project I'd never explained to anyone before, learning how to describe the application along the way. At first, I was a bit nervous to even bring up my project, still considering it largely a hobby/learning project. Then I met up with another engineer who was working on their own dashcam-focused application and spoke quite proudly of it. Encouraged, I found myself enthusiastically talking about my own. Alas, I was disappointed that I did not have a working demonstration to share as my fellow dashcam app developer did. We have arranged to meet up again.

Returning to the attendee side of conferences has been rewarding, particularly after spending so many years helping produce them. The presentations and conversations gave me a renewed appreciation for what others are building, along with a little more confidence in my own efforts.

More importantly, I came home motivated to get back to work on DashCam Archive. Other demands had been pulling me away from the project, and progress had slowed considerably. Meeting other developers, especially someone working on a similar application, reminded me why I'd started building it in the first place.

I've since made a more deliberate effort to move the project forward. With a follow-up lunch already planned, I now have a little extra motivation to make sure there's something worth demonstrating.

Whether DashCam Archive eventually becomes a marketable product, leads to consulting opportunities, or simply remains a rewarding learning experience is still an open question. Perhaps someday I'll even find myself on the other side of the conference stage, sharing what I've learned.

For now, I'm enjoying the process of finding out.