Drawing DevOps with Ashton Rodenhiser

Ashton: [00:00:00] We don’t really know what you’re talking about, but it sounds kind of cool.

Matty: It’s time for Arrested DevOps, the podcast that helps you achieve understanding, develop good practices, and operate your team and organization for maximum DevOps awesomeness. I’m Matt Stratton. I have a really great show for you today. Really excited. This is something a little different. But before we get into all of that, let’s have a word from our sponsors. This episode is sponsored by CircleCI. Designed for modern software teams, CircleCI’s continuous integration and delivery platform helps developers push code with confidence. Trusted by thousands of companies, from 4-person startups to Fortune 500 businesses, CircleCI helps teams take their software from idea to delivery quickly, safely, and at scale. Visit arresteddevops.com/circleci to learn why high-performing DevOps teams use CircleCI to automate and accelerate their CI/CD pipelines.

Ashton: [00:01:11] This episode is brought to you by cloud-native consultancy Container Solutions. We bring culture, strategy, and technology together to help you get your cloud-native transformation right. To find out more, visit arrestedevops.com/containersolutions.

Matty: This episode is brought to you by MacStadium, leading provider of cloud solutions built on Apple Mac hardware. As more teams are working from home, having your Mac build infrastructure in the cloud can make it easy for your app devs to work more efficiently. No need to have someone in the office keeping an eye on the Macs. Let MacStadium do it for you. And if you need a fast, scalable, modern way to run Mac virtual machines, MacStadium’s virtualization platform, Orca, is purpose-built for running iOS and macOS CI. Orca takes a standard macOS VM, puts it inside a Docker container, and then uses Kubernetes to orchestrate everything, all on Mac hardware. Orca is easy to integrate into your current workflow with plugins for all the popular CI tools, Like Jenkins, GitHub, GitLab, and Buildkite. If you’re building apps for the Apple ecosystem, learn more about MacStadium at macstadium.com/arresteddevops. From that link, you can also get access to a free 2-hour sandbox to give Orca a try. So if you’ve attended a technical conference in the past few years, especially a DevOps Days, my guest is someone you’ve probably seen drawing some awesome sketches of the talks that you’ve been enjoying. So joining me today to talk about the ideas of drawing DevOps is Ashton Rodenhiser. Ashton, welcome to Arrested DevOps.

Ashton: [00:02:55] Thanks so much for having me, Matt. It’s awesome to be here.

Matty: So I alluded to it a little bit, but for listeners who maybe haven’t experienced the conference that you’ve been a part of, can you kind of give a little summary kind of what do you do in this? I don’t even know how to quite describe it. I know I always It’s always a fun thing when I do DevOps Days Chicago and we’re putting together like kind of our plan and the budget. It has now just become a line item that’s just called Ashton because we’re not quite sure exactly how to, you know, quantify that. So what would you, what would you say you do here, Ashton?

Ashton: That’s great. Um, yeah, this is a great opportunity for me to ramble about all of my, get on my soapbox about all my definitions. But so when I talk about what I do at conferences, I call that graphic recording. It’s kind of the most common term in my industry for that type of work. So that’s what I’m really listening in as an outsider, hearing what people are saying, thinking and processing that in my brain, and then outputting that in drawings and text and words. On a side note, just in case we don’t get to it later, another term that I often use is called graphic facilitation, and it uses the very same sort of skills skill set, but doing it in a facilitated session or some sort of facilitated situation. So that might be, you know, strategic planning or brainstorming and those kinds of things. And it’s more about like the collective voice or the voices in the room creating the graphic. You know, I’m hearing multiple voices and piecing that all together rather than, you know, a speaker. So for me, I kind of differentiate the 2 skill sets in those like primary ways that I work. But all of my conference work, I I just say I’m a fly on the wall as a graphic recorder.

Matty: [00:04:48] I definitely want to make sure we touch on the graphic facilitation because that’s something that I haven’t experienced. Like, I’ve, I’ve been to a lot of events that, that you’ve done graphic recording for. You’ve, you’ve done several of my talks, and it’s always been a super highlight to have that happen. But I’m really interested to know more about the graphic facilitation, but we’ll get to that in a minute. Um, how did you get the idea to like start doing this? Because you’ve been doing this for, uh, since 2017. Is that about right?

Ashton: Yeah, maybe I’ll give like a quick history, the, my, the life of Ashton. How about that? So, um, when I was— we’re gonna go back to high school. When I was in high school, when everyone was deciding what they wanted to be for the rest of their life, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. And I knew I always wanted to be a mother. So I was like, well, maybe I’ll go and take early childhood education. Yeah, because that’s a transferable skill at any point. So I, I did that and I got a really awesome job at a nonprofit family center. And I was there for a number of years. And then my last half, the last few years I was there, I transitioned into doing family support work and Yeah, it was very rewarding work at that organization, but I started doing facilitation. And I, the only other job that I thought I might want to do is be a teacher. And I completely fell in love with facilitation because it has like the similar thread as teaching, but you don’t actually have to know anything. You don’t actually have to know the information because it’s really about setting up a safe space for people to explore their own ideas and share together and reflect that all in sort of this like shared learning opportunity. And I, I really, really fell in love with the facilitation process and group process. And anyways, I moved and started to have kids. And I wasn’t really working in any field at that point. But I was doing a lot of community work. And I was seeking out volunteer community work to use my facilitation skills. Because as a facilitator, it’s hard to actually find work as a facilitator. So, and then back in 2013, a friend of mine had sent me like a day course for graphic facilitation. And I had never heard the term before, but I’m like, well, I love facilitation and I’ve always been creative. Like I’ve always, like throughout my whole childhood and young adult life, I’ve tried different art mediums. Like you name it, I’ve probably tried it. Yeah, so I, I took this one-day sort of graphic fundamentals for graphic facilitation course, and I was like, this is it. This is like the perfect marriage between my creative side and my sort of like facilitation group process, like working with people side.

Matty: [00:07:51] And, um, so isn’t it great when you, when you’re like, I didn’t even know that was a job, and like, that’s— I didn’t know this is what I wanted to do because I didn’t know it was a job you could have.

Ashton: Yeah, exactly. It’s, and that’s exactly what happened with me too. And, and I, I was facilitating a young adult group exploring the concept of pluralism and at the time, and so I was able to put the, my, the skills right away. Like I just threw up some paper and just started making it up. And that really, that was a good marriage between that because I was able to practice right away and I didn’t get in my own way about it. So yeah, so that was like 2013 and then 2014 and ’15, I was just sort of playing around with it, but I was like, is this something that I’m really gonna do full-time? Like it was just sort of like for fun on the side. If someone asked me to show up, you know, I’d show up for pizza or whatever. And then I did some research with the International Forum for Visual Practitioners. So it’s the IFVP, it’s the organization for people like me. I applied for a scholarship for their 2015 event and I got that. And so I went to Austin, Texas, 7 months pregnant with my second child and in the heat of the summer, which was insane. And I left that 3-day conference just feeling like totally intimidated by all the amazing people there, but completely inspired that I’m like, well, you know, if kind of like if they can figure out how to build a business and do this full-time, like I can do that too. And I guess I I didn’t realize like how many things that had happened in my life were very entrepreneurial, but I would have never thought myself, or I never thought necessarily that I would start a business, but I had entrepreneur, like when I look back, I had entrepreneurial tendencies, right? So, ’cause it’s kind of a funny thing doing this type of work, you basically have to create your own business. Like there’s been a few things that I’ve seen through the years. Like I saw Boeing was hiring a handful of graphic facilitators like a year or two ago. Ago, which was kind of cool. But for the most part, like, unless you join some sort of agency, you kind of have to do your own thing. So, so it was really like 2016 when I was like, okay, after I had my second kid, I was like, okay, I’m gonna like try to figure this out. I’m going to try to create a business, I’m going to go all in. And in my personality, when I decide to do something, I give it everything that I have. So Yeah, so I would say like, I really sort of started my business, like, I remember it was August, I had joined a coworking space. I was like, I’m gonna start a business. I’m gonna figure this out. So that’s sort of like when Mind’s Eye Creative was like, kind of, I would say officially born. I would say I had like a secret business for a year or two before that, but I wasn’t really talking about it or—

Matty: [00:10:53] Like a soft launch, right? Yeah.

Ashton: It was a dark launch. And yeah, so it was August of 2016 when I was really like, I’m gonna build a business. Yeah.

Matty: And how about, so I think it was DevOps Days Toronto was the first kind of like DevOps and first like even tech conference you kind of did the graphic recording for the talks. Like, how did that happen?

Ashton: A lot of the ways that I get work, which is now which you experienced, is people see it. I had a facilitator at a conference I went to describe this type of work as an experienced good. You have to experience it to understand the value. Like I can talk about the value of all day long, like the benefits, But it’s that experience that really sells itself, right? So, so I was doing some community work, but I work, but I live in a very, very small area of the world. And I wasn’t getting enough community work to be in front of different types of people to really make it as busy, as busy as I was hoping. So I was like, I wonder what would happen if I just researched a bunch of conferences and just sent them random emails and said, hey, I do this thing, maybe it’s something you’d be interested in. I’ve sent many, many, many emails in the last number of years, but I think it was the 5th email I’d ever sent, cold email to the DevOps Days Toronto crew. They were so gracious because they’re like, we don’t really know what you’re talking about, but it sounds kind of cool. So yeah, you should come. And I like, you know, charged them very little because I was like, I wanted the job so bad. It was the first tech conference I ever did. And it was the first job. Yeah. First conference or job that I ever had to get on an airplane for. And I just remember downloading a few of the DevOpsDays talks that I had found online and I’m watching them on the airplane and I’m like, oh my God. What have I gotten myself into? I’m not gonna know what they’re talking about. I was totally freaked out. But yeah, so, and, and because they didn’t really know what I was gonna do and how it was all gonna unfold, I wasn’t even in the main room. I was in the green room. So I was watching a feed.

Matty: [00:13:11] Oh, wow.

Ashton: Yeah. So people, yeah, so people didn’t actually get to see it unfold, which was fine. Because then once they realized what would it, what it was, then the, the next few years that I did that event, I, I was out, um, in front of people. But I just like have so much gratitude to them for really taking a chance on me considering, um, they didn’t even know what I was gonna do. They’re just like, it sounds kind of cool.

Matty: So that sounds, that sounds very on brand for that organizing team when I think about the people that run that. Then with what you described, I’m like, I can absolutely see that being like, yeah, This seems— let’s try it, right? You know? And I, I think you’re right. Like, it is so much, like you said, it’s an experience.

Ashton: Good.

Matty: Cause I, I remember I, oh, I could be wrong. I could be misremembering history, but I, you know, I received one of those emails, you know, it was after you had done a couple of them, I think with, oh, I don’t know. I’m trying to remember the first DevOps Days Chicago you did. I think it was 2018, I think.

Ashton: [00:14:15] Yes, 2018. Yeah, because I did, because then the second one I did was just a few months after Toronto was Dallas State DFW. Um, yeah, for that year. And then I, then Columbus. I think I did those 3 in 2017, but yeah, so it was 2018.

Matty: Yeah, so because I think I remember like again having that kind of like, I don’t really quite know what this is, but maybe had heard a little about it, but I had definitely not experienced it. And I, I I think it’s interesting when you talk about how the, you know, that first time people weren’t even watching, ’cause that’s a big part of that experience. It’s really, I always, if I’m in an event and I know Ashton is there, like I will stage up like close to where you’re drawing, ’cause like I wanna watch that as well, you know? And it’s interesting to see that process too. And we’ll talk about that in a minute. Because to me it’s like fascinating to sort of see like how do you plan that out, because you aren’t really planning out because you don’t necessarily know where it’s going. And, you know, like I look at it as I’m the one who like writes on a birthday card and run out of space at the end because I didn’t plan for words I already knew I was going to write, like how long happy birthday even is. And I’m like, oof, how do you fill all that space in a, you know, logical way? But what— again, it’s like once it’s been experienced and it’s become really kind of a staple of a lot of these community conferences, that’s just part of it. Um, and it’s been interesting to see that it’s a little different, like obviously with the virtual, you know, because I, I saw you doing that at a couple of them. I don’t think we streamed you at Chicago this year. I think I think we just had them after. Uh, so like watching at DevOps Days Texas, where they had your graphic recording as like a picture-in-picture when it was going, it almost makes it, in some ways it’s a little more accessible to experience it because you don’t have to be sitting up close to see that. Uh, to the point that it’s also now making me think about like when we do an event in person again, we do this like, just like we put the monitors towards the back with the captions. I’m like, we should put a camera on the graphic recorder and, and kind of put that to the— you know, we’re all thinking about this stuff differently. What we’ve— that’s a whole other topic, but I’ve tried to think about what we’ve learned from doing virtual events that will then correspond to when we go back to doing some in person. Um, what do you think, like, um, so you sort of talked about this a little bit. You said you’re on the plane to Toronto and you were watching some previous talks and you’re like, I don’t even know what this is going to be like. So I know, uh, Ashton gave a really great Ignite talk at DevOps Days Texas, uh, this year, and though you’ll find a link to that in the show notes, uh, kind of talking about the things— and this is what we’re going to talk about some more, this is what this episode’s really about, uh, is, you know, kind of the things that, that you’ve learned about DevOps or what’s resonated to you. Uh, and the talk was great for that, but when you didn’t have that background Like, how is that to like go in and have to kind of draw when you don’t have context?

Ashton: [00:17:35] Yeah, sometimes I feel like it’s a strength because I, when I enter a space, I also don’t like, I love, like I referred to earlier about being a fly on the wall. And just in the last year or so, I actually realized like how much I love not knowing the bureaucracy and the baggage that comes with that specific industry, because they all have it, right? So I’m entering the space in a different way. And I’m hearing, and I’m trying to listen for things as a whole, not things that resonate with me personally. So in a way, it’s, I feel like it’s great when I don’t know all the things about the industry, because then I can really hear from that sort of like larger picture perspective, rather than like, oh, well, I don’t like that platform because so-and-so uses it. You know what I mean?

Matty: And so it’s, yeah, I don’t know if that answered your question, but it actually made me think of something a little different, which is I wonder if now, because you’ve, you’ve had so many hours and hours and drawn so many talks, especially in this, this area that you have a frame of reference and a context that you didn’t have before. I wonder like how that influences where you’ve like, okay, I’ve, I, you know, I now have context for like, a Nash-Credo inequivalency or whatever. I know everybody’s always talking about this and, oh, somebody said something that’s a little different, or if that even sort of influences like how you draw it because you know some of the like shibboleths and some of the like in— I don’t want to say inside references, but the context is different, right? Is it harder to be that, take on the whole without that without context? Because now you have some, right? You have a lot.

Ashton: [00:19:27] Yeah, it’s a great question. I think for me, at the end of the day, I still don’t need to work in that industry, and I almost can kind of like leave it at the door, do you know what I mean? And I try to be like— it’s, you know, it’s very difficult not to be biased. Like, everyone has bias, right? So I just have to be like a little extra aware when I’m in workspace to be like, this is what they said and this is what I’m going to draw. I’m not trying to like interpret too much of what I think they’re trying to mean. I’m like, they said this, this is what I’m going to output. So it’s sort of like this weird back and forth in my brain sometimes of what are they actually saying or what are they alluding to or how are, are, are they ever going to get to the point And maybe not, you know what I mean? So it’s sort of, yeah, it’s, it’s hard to kind of describe what kind of goes on in my head when I’m hearing those things, but having context to know how to like draw certain things now is really helpful or how to not misspell words.

Matty: [00:20:33] I was just going to say, it’s like now you would know, like you could draw Kubernetes better because you know that there’s the logo, right? And you’ve probably gotten very good at drawing pictures of containers.

Ashton: Yes, exactly. And then, but for me, I’m like trying to challenge myself because I don’t want to just draw the same stuff over and over again. So I’m like, okay, I need to figure out how to draw time better. Like, like, so instead of just having a, you know, one or two ways that I have drawings in my mind that I can use to represent time, I want like 5 or 6 so that I can choose and switch things up or how to make those connections.

Matty: So what, what What have been some of your favorite, like, kind of— we can, we can say just types of talks, or if there’s even specific ones that you like really remember stuck to you. But even just in general, because you draw a lot of different stuff, you experience a lot of different stuff, and different things resonate with people differently and they enjoy them differently. So like, what have been some of your favorite, uh, favorite ones to draw?

Ashton: I think for me, and maybe I’m like, you know, going against what I just said, but I like things that resonate with me at the same time. I think that’s one of the reasons why I like the DevOps community so much, because it’s talking about community and collaboration, and it has the things I love about facilitation and creating safe spaces, and all of that is intertwined. I like the talks more so the ones that have that human element to them. And I really like— I also have to recognize that I’m like holding— I’m also sort of holding space for people if they’re sharing like vulnerabilities. So I want to make sure that I’m also representing those vulnerabilities in a way that they’re going to feel okay about. Yeah, I like the challenge of reflecting those types of conversations or like hearing about how making the world better, a better place. Like there was a talk last June at the DevSecCon and it was a guy there, Mike something, we’ll put it in the show notes. And he, I wish I could remember his business name, but he like works with people with autism and helping them get jobs in technology. And, you know, so like those types of stories sort of stay with me because they’re inspiring. Um, yeah, like I, I recently did a, a conference for nonprofit leaders, you know, so a lot of that work really resonated with me because I started a nonprofit. And, and yeah, so I could like take on some of that stuff.

Matty: [00:23:22] But yeah, I was just thinking if you’ve— now, now knowing where your, where your background comes from too, I’m like

[00:26:46] Well, I think in both cases, whether it’s a graphic recording of a presentation or it’s graphic facilitation, what it— what that artifact is, is capturing a moment in time, which for something like a presentation, preserving that moment in time has value. Like, again, when I think about it, for me, the reason that I would want to do that is it actually evokes a memory of that entire experience, right? It’s the reason that I have all my conference badges hanging on the wall over here, right? But the moment in time from a meeting, from a strategy, from a facilitation, by definition, you don’t keep that moment because it’s constantly fluid, right? You know what I mean? So I think I, I could see that being, uh, very counter to each other because of their different kinds of moments, right? They’re You know, again, and you could make the argument, be like, oh, well, my talks are always evolving and they always change. Yeah. Okay. But that’s, but there’s still value. That’s why we keep recordings of talks because they were moments. Right. And they, those you want to preserve, but yeah, I can see. And that, that actually is a good little segue because I want to learn more about graphic facilitation and like, what are some exact, like, what is that like, you know, like how are people using that? And then especially you could think about like how people could be, how this could be of value, uh, that maybe listeners could be like, oh, that I could see how I could use that in, in, in the work that I do. So what, what, when you talk about facilitation from a graphic, like how does that work?

Ashton: [00:28:16] Like what’s that all about? I always say this skillset can be used anytime any group, small or large, are having a conversation. Right? So that could lend itself to many, many situations.

Matty: Um, well, I mean, like, how is it different than the, you know, stereotypical do not erase whiteboard in the conference room that’s been there? Like, when people are drawing on a whiteboard for a meeting, I imagine there’s a lot more intentionality around this work versus just sort of when I draw pictures, you know, on my tablet or whatever to like record thoughts that I had, that I had. Like, it’s, it’s, I imagine it’s different.

Ashton: Yeah. Like having a skilled facilitator in a room to facilitate something, period, is always a great idea. Like, I think for me, when I go into situations, oftentimes I have a facilitator with me. So they might reach out to me first and then I say, well, I’m going to do the graphics and I’ll bring my facilitator to facilitate the actual session. So usually I do it with at least one other person. It’s very difficult to represent things and be the visual, wear the visual hat, and also make sure people are feeling safe and feeling heard. I feel like, of course I’m biased, but I feel it’s really important for organizations to bring in like third-party facilitators because you’re— it just, it’s setting up a completely different environment rather than having somebody internally And maybe people don’t like each other. Like there’s just so much culture stuff when you’re trying to do like big work. So yeah, when I’m in a graphic facilitation setting, I typically have a facilitator. I will work with internal facilitators, but I do like having someone that I work with for sure.

Matty: [00:30:10] Well, I think bringing in the third party or just, or someone who’s not part of it, is this for the same reason that you just said it’s really hard to do the the visual recording and facilitate the conversation. It’s, you know, as the great Ron Swanson would say, don’t half-ass 2 jobs, whole-ass one. So it’s— and we do the same thing when we talk about like facilitating a retrospective or facilitating a postmortem. You don’t, you know, if you’re doing that work, you can’t be contributing because you— it’s just too— you can’t— it’s too much, too much context switching. So I absolutely see the value. You know, I think that— I think it’s just an extension of what you were just saying about why you can’t do both. You also can’t be thinking of great ideas or having these conversations when you’re also having to sort of have your head on a swivel for everybody in the room where that goes. It’s very, very hard to multitask that way or multi-role for sure.

Ashton: Exactly. And like, there’s like things that I’ll do depending on the situation to make sure people from a visual perspective are feeling heard. And then there’s things that facilitator will do, like, you know, First one, just like setting it up in the beginning. Um, but like, I was in a situation a couple years ago that people were very clearly unhappy to be there, but I won them over very quickly when I heard sort of a side joke. And I can’t remember what the joke was, but I remember I drew an anchor. And so I just sort of hid a little anchor up there, and then, uh, those those folks came up and were joking about it. And like, I won them over because they were like, oh, this isn’t just another talking heads meeting. You know, it— by me, even though the drawing had really nothing to do, I felt at that moment in time it was important to like hide it in there so that they could see like that they’re being heard in that situation, especially when you have people that may not necessarily be happy to be there. Um, so that’s just like one, one example, but it’s, you know, when you have very large drawing unfolding, there’s other things that can happen that can benefit the facilitation process. Like, it’s very, um, unlikely that people are going to be talking themselves in circles when it’s— you just like— it’s a, it’s a gentle way also to be like, we got it, It’s here. We got what you said. Thank you very much. Let’s move on, right? Whereas when you’re taking your own notes or, or whatever, you can’t see the connections of how conversations are, you know, layering on top of one another. Like I did one a couple years ago as well, was like for my local town. And they are doing like an energy project. And I remember looking at the end, and it was all like most of the conversation was around one situation. And it was very clear at the end of the situation, or at the end of the session, you know, what people are most passionate about, because it was very clear, that’s where most of the conversation— because even though they might have been talking about other things, everything like led back to that one conversation. So then it gave direction for the town to be like, okay, people are really passionate about this aspect, right? Whereas you might not have, you might have missed that if you didn’t have this sort of method to be able to try to capture that and build on those connections as people are talking. Because people talk all over the place, right? And because you just have to talk to get to your point, which you don’t know what your point is until you talk about it, right? So sometimes I’m just there standing there listening, listening, maybe making a couple notes, but I’m, I’m waiting for them to then get to their point And then be like, okay, that’s the golden nugget. Let’s put that down. Right. But you have to kind of have that patience and that listening to be able to get, to be able to reflect that back. So there’s my ramble for you.

Matty: [00:34:18] Well, that makes sense too, because notes are very linear. It very much like order of how they happen, but those, those connections. And also I think it’s interesting to me to think about, like you said, the scale. Right, being able to look at it because you don’t really see that with notes because it’s page upon page, you know, like there could be a connection between something that someone said on page 1 and then something came up again on page 5 and you won’t unless you call it out, but you, you won’t see that as much and it’s, it’s less emergent probably, right?

Ashton: Yeah, and sometimes when I’m doing the facilitation piece, it’s like it’s not as cohesive as a speaker drawing. Right? It’s not like as cool or pretty.

Matty: One hopes that most of our talks actually are fairly structured and not too much rambling. That being said, Ashton has drawn my talks before, so maybe I’m the exception that proves the rule. I don’t know.

Ashton: Yeah, no, most of the time they’re fine, but, um, not just yours, everybody’s. I mean, um, but yeah, so because conversations are, are messier, so it just sort of lends itself to the output, whatever I’m creating as that potentially living document, most of the time it’s a little bit more messy. Not always, but it can be because then, you know, like you were just saying about those connections, depending on how the flow of the day or whatever it goes, you know, you might end up needing a whole bunch more space for this other connection. So you might have to add another piece of paper, try to connect it all, right? But that’s just part of the process and you can’t get there until you get through the messiness. Like, I’ve been doing some, you know, just drawings for blog posts and stuff like that, and I’m like, it’s always messy. Like, the draft, like, just don’t think about it. But we have to get through the draft to get to the point, like, to get to what the final thing is going to be. And it’s not going to look great in the beginning, and that’s, that’s part of the process.

Matty: [00:36:13] So that also, that, that messiness, uh, makes me think too, and it’s, it’s kind of Kind of funny. So listeners may be aware of, you know, the, my other side project, DevOps Party Games, where we play, you know, fun, fun games. And one of them is a game called Drawful that involves drawing. And we had Ashton on and everybody was very concerned who had to play in the game with Ashton because they’re like, Ashton’s going to crush us at the drawing game. But one of the things that’s funny with that, that I hadn’t really occurred to me that the real advantage that Ashton would have in that is so in the game Drawful, there’s no erase. And I was like, Ashton has a lot of experience of not being able to, you know, having to kind of go with that. And how do you kind of— because I feel like you have to keep a lot in your head because, because like you said, when you’re, you know, if you’re doing illustrations for a blog post, you’re doing a thing like that, you are going through revisions. It can be messy. But again, going back to that, when you’re sort of— you’re beginning a piece really without knowing where it’s going to go. So you sort of have to plan a little bit. But you can’t really go back. So are there any like pro tips? Like what, what are some of, what are some of Ashton’s little sneaky tricks for like when you start, maybe start going somewhere and then you realize it’s not gonna work and you maybe have to, have to fix it?

Ashton: [00:37:26] Yeah. Well, I feel like doing everything digital in the last year has, like I can erase for digital and I can move things around. So having that luxury has been very, very nice. But now I’ve been leaning on it more, which is kind of funny. Um, but yeah, for paper, I sort of been doing this long enough that I know how large to do lettering, how big to do the drawings, and to balance it with how much time that I have. So if it’s a 20-minute talk, I can kind of balance now. There hasn’t been many times that I’ve sort of run out of space. It’s more so I have too much space. So if the person was supposed to talk for half an hour, but they only talk for 20 minutes, I’m like, no, because in my— I don’t usually pencil it off, but in my mind I have, okay, for this much space for per 5 minutes-ish or something, right? Which is you can go in thinking generally like that, but everything is so emergent in that, in the space of like, they might say they are going to talk about 5 things, but they spent 20 minutes talking about the first thing, right? So you’re almost like always like sending out these invisible questions in your mind. You’re like, I wonder if they’re gonna go to number 2 now. Okay, how am I going to do this, like, okay, well, maybe I’ll just use more space for number 1 and then see what happens. And I’ve sort of joked over the years that I really like channeling Bob Ross with his, like, happy little accidents, because honestly, there’s a happy little accident in every single piece that I do. Because I’ll do a loop and then they change direction. I’m like, no. And then I can just turn it into something else and no one would have known that that was a mistake. I do carry white mailing labels with me, and I always have those handy when I’m doing in-person work so that if I have a misspell or completely something crazy wrong or something, I can just stick up a few labels. Because then when, when you look at it from afar, you can’t really notice, and they’re just paper, or like the, the top of them is paper, so you can just write right over top of them. And then when you photograph them, you don’t notice them either. So That’s sort of my, like, probably biggest, like, in-person paper hack is always make— if I don’t have my white mailing labels, like, it would be bad.

Matty: [00:40:08] So the trick is there is an erase button.

Ashton: There is. It’s not— I— yeah, it, it’s not super great, but time is precious. So if I don’t know how to spell something, I’ll just leave a blank and go back and fill it in because it takes more time to make the mistake than put the wailing label in Jira. Because I, I’ve done that where I’m like, I can’t spell this word. I was doing like, um, a mental health thing one time and I could not spell health. I spelled health wrong like 3 times in a row. And I’m like, what is my problem?

Matty: You’re like, I have no problem with Kubernetes, but health. I know.

Ashton: Health. Yeah. I was like, I didn’t know what was going on that day, but I used a lot of white mailing labels that day. But yeah, I always make sure I have lots of those on hand, and I have them in all different sizes. So if it’s a little mistake, I can just put it a little one over. But yeah, it’s, it’s for the graphic recording for conference work, it’s time is of the essence. So I have to be really mindful Like I said, if I don’t know how to spell something, I just leave it and come back. I try to remember to come back. Because yeah, or if I’m like, okay, I’m going to draw something here, but I want to draw it, it’s gonna take a little bit more time, I’ll just come back and do it later. So, you know, I’ll try to be mindful of how I spend my— it’s, yeah, because every second is so precious. And if you’re— some people talk at a more even pace and some people talk so fast that you’re always balancing people’s personalities and how fast they’re talking and how much content— like if it’s really content heavy, if they’re doing a demo. I don’t like doing demos. I hate them, but I’ll do them, but I don’t like doing them. But yeah, so there’s my how to fix mistakes 101.

Matty: [00:42:10] Is there anything that, and some of this is, is I know you touched on in your talk and I’m hoping that all the listeners go in and watch that, but just maybe, maybe a couple of things that, what have you learned about the DevOps over these past, you know, now 4 years of being the industry standard graphic recorder for DevOps conferences?

Ashton: Oh my gosh. I think for me, you know, I sort of talked about this earlier about this sort of like community. And one thing I think I learned, which isn’t a content thing, is just how tight-knit of a community. And I feel so grateful that I’m like embedded into this community. And, you know, I was talking about social media stuff with someone and I’m like, oh, well, I only really hang it on Twitter because everybody would think I hang should hang it on Instagram because I have visual work. And I’m like, but my people are on Twitter. My people, they’re, they’re all hanging out there. I want to hang out with them too.

Matty: [00:43:14] That’s where my friends live.

Ashton: That’s where my friends live. I want to go see what’s going on. Who’s making fun of who today? Who’s changing the profile picture to change someone else’s hair color? You know, like, I don’t know what’s going on there.

Matty: Here’s what we need to do. You need to do a collab with Corey Quinn and like do a graphic recording of one of his like shitpost threads. Oh my gosh. Oh, that could be. Yeah.

Ashton: I think there’s, there’s an opportunity there. Yeah. For me as like a, as an outsider who’s not in technology, I definitely have realized how fast technology changes. Like I think the first Kubernetes talk I did was in 2018. Um, and I remember it was a new idea and now it’s like, if you don’t use it, you’re a loser.

Matty: You’re like, I’ve drawn that stupid ship’s wheel so many times now.

Ashton: I’m like, it’s so funny how, yeah, when I think about it, for some reason Kubernetes just sticks out in my mind just because it’s like a joke in my house, but it’s like, yeah, it was a brand new idea. Or at least it was to me, is the first time I had heard about it. And in the way that it was described, it was new in 2018. And now it’s like, oh well, everybody does it now. Like, it’s, it’s just, it’s just sort of the standard or whatever. So it’s just like little things like that I’ll notice. I certainly have noticed over time of doing talks at different conferences, the different— what’s the word? Not controversy, maybe a little bit of controversy, but contradictions. Because some people be like, you should do this, and someone would be like, no, you should do this. But yeah, I definitely have— I feel like I’m sort of can be on the wave of the trends because it just ends up being what’s like the last year, everything’s about been about observability. So I’ve done a lot on that. And SLO, SLI, SRE, all the S ones. Right? So, yeah, I’ve been just sort of learning as I’m doing these different talks about those different logs, metrics, and traces, you know? So, yeah, I know, I guess maybe I could just play buzzword bingo and I’d win. But maybe that’s okay.

Matty: [00:45:34] So, one last thing here. Because obviously being able to illustrate ideas can really shortcut understanding. You know, and I think, you know, besides just things like in blogs and stuff like that, but even just internally, uh, there’s a reason that there’s whiteboards in conference rooms back when we had conference rooms, right? Like, and I’ve drawn many pictures that are terrible pictures, but even a couple shapes and an arrow might, um, help illustrate that. But like, what are some things like— I, I know, and I’m sure you’re probably tired of hearing people say like, oh, I’m bad at drawing. You’re like, no, you’re not. You’re like, I actually met you are. Um, but like, if— what have you seen? And this is also me like sliding in a pitch because I know you’ve done some great YouTube videos and stuff on helping people learn to do that. What are, what are some of the like, maybe I don’t want to say common mistakes, but I feel like, uh, things people miss or maybe they overthink or just what are, what are some tips to like get better about communicating, um, visually this way?

Ashton: [00:46:35] You know, maybe this sounds like a cop-out answer, but I think just actually trying is the first step because we look at— see, the way that I think about drawing, it’s not like— it’s not a thing to admire, right? It’s not when you go to a gallery, you know, an art gallery, there’s work there and it’s amazing and you’re viewing it. As in that lens. But for me, drawing is a thinking and an understanding and an idea tool. So if you can kind of start to reframe your mind of what drawing is, you’re not going to— it’s not— you’re not creating it to create a piece of artwork that’s going to be hanging in a gallery, right? That’s, that’s not what drawing is for me, you know, in this— doing it in this way. It’s a, it’s a tool to use to help you think, to help you create understanding with yourself or for other people, to help break down some complexity. So if you can start to like reframe it and then just start trying it out, I think is sort of the first step is just sort of, yeah, seeing and redefining what drawing is. Because if you can see it as that tool that helps you, then there’s nothing to really fear about it because it’s totally great if it looks horrible because it’s helping you think through a process. It doesn’t have to be, you know, it’s never going to look like mine, and that’s okay. Like, it’s fine. It doesn’t have to— just because it doesn’t look like Ashton’s drawings is fine. It’s not meant to. Right. So, and I think, you know, getting out of the— I guess tip number 2 would be getting out of the idea of like our brains think spatially, right? So that’s why I work in a horizontal frame. Whereas we’ve done ourselves a huge disservice by teaching children and then also now as adults doing everything in a linear top-down line, fill in the line, fill in the line, fill in the line, when our brains don’t think that way, right? So that’s one of the first things I always like recommend to people. I’m like, have just plain white paper and flip it on its side because there’s nowhere to start. You got to start— you have to choose where to put down your first mark, right? And then from there, you’ll be able to help make yourself make better connections rather than just this sort of like like you mentioned earlier in our conversation about just having those like reams of paper and like top-down, top-down notes, right? So there’s, there’s 2 ideas for you.

Matty: [00:49:24] Well, I think that, that brings us to a really good way to wrap up this episode. If you go to arrestedevops.com/drawingdevops, you’ll find this episode’s show notes where we’ll, you know, have a link to Ashton’s Ignite. Ashton, if people are interested in having you take part in an event or maybe book you for facilitation or anything, how might they, how might they do that? Where can they find you?

Ashton: Yeah, great. So a few different ways. So my website is mindseyecreative.ca. You can find me at Ashton at Mind’s Eye Creative and on Twitter, I’m Mind’s Eye CCF. The CCF stands for Creative Consulting and Facilitation. Um, and, uh, I will—

Matty: I’ve always wondered but didn’t ask.

Ashton: Yeah, Creative Consulting, because technically that’s my whole business name. I went really out when I went all out when I created it, Mind’s Eye Creative Consulting and Facilitation. Um, yeah, and, uh, I will let listeners know that I did create, uh, a free 30-page ebook on the visual communication method. So if you’re interested in trying some of this stuff out for yourself You want to get better at note-taking or just being able to kind of see, draw out your ideas, you can find that right on my website or mindseyecreative/ebook.

Matty: [00:50:48] We’ll put a link in the show notes to that one too. Yeah. Check that out. If you head over to arresteddevops.com/itunes and leave us a review in the iTunes Store, or as it is properly now called, Apple Podcasts, but I refuse and I’m not changing our URL. Uh, actually, I mean, we’d love to see your reviews, but theoretically this actually helps other people find the podcast. Um, you can listen to the show on Spotify or iHeartRadio if that’s where you listen to podcasts. And I discovered this morning that we’re on Audible. So that’s a thing I didn’t know. Yeah. Like if you go to, apparently some podcasts are on Audible. So I’ve never listened to podcasts on Audible. I use them for eBooks or audiobooks rather. But I guess that’s a thing. So, uh, check us out on Audible. That might be fun. Uh, Ashton, this was really, really great. I’m so glad you were on the show. Thank you for joining me today.

Ashton: Yeah, I think when you asked me, I was like, I thought you’d never ask. I’ve just been waiting, hoping that someday I would be invited. So thank you.

Matty: [00:51:52] That happens more frequently, and I always feel like This is, this is again, I’ve been doing a bunch more, not bunch more episodes. Uh, I’ve, I’ve been doing a lot of episodes lately where I feel like the introduction is always like, how has it taken so long to get you on the show? And very frequently too, I’ll be talking to someone and to be on the show and they’ll be like, oh, well, you should also have someone. I’m like, oh my God, how did I not think about that? So that being said, if you have a suggestion for someone you’d love to hear on Arrested DevOps, that person might be you. Um, you can reach us at shows@arresteddevops, or you can find us on Twitter. We’re— we’ve been around. You can find us. This has been Arrested DevOps, and remember, there is always DevOps in the banana stand.