Since starting the Docker Paris Meetup group in October 2013, Patrick Aljord and Adrien Blind have organized 42 events (coincidence ? We think not !) for a group of +3,300 members. Patrick and Adrien’s contributions have been essential for fostering an enthusiastic and active Docker community in Paris.

Last week, Patrick and Adrien organized their latest meetup (in just under two weeks !) for over 300 attendees and welcomed 19 speakers for this mega meetup, cumulating 8.5 speech hours across 11 cumulated talks. Jean-Laurent de Morlhon , Docker developer working on Docker for Mac & Docker for Windows, gave the keynote presentation.

Speakers included :

Keynote : Retrospective ads by DockerCon Seattle, by Jean-Laurent Merlon, Docker Inc.

Docker Windows + Continuous Delivery by Laurent Grangeau and Guillaume Bizet (Finaxys) Docker datacenter, by Stéphan Dechoux Thomas Boussardon Emmanuel Lagree (Société Générale) and Karin Ait Si Amer (ANEO) 12 Factors Apps and Docker, Thomas Albiez keyboard and Olivier (Deliverous) Docker volumes plugins and how to use Infinit to create a shared filesystem entre containers by Quentin Hocquet (Infinit) Hands-on Rancher, Theo Chamley (Oxalide) Improve the reception of your contributors with Docker, by Olivier Berthonneau and Erfane Arwani (Nanocloud) Your DSI* 1.12, step by step (Docker Swarm Init, of course !) by Mick Philippon (Cellenza) Fully Orchestrating Applications, and Enterprise Services Microservices with Docker at Societe Generale by Cédric Coroir, (Societe Generale) Comparison of technical architecture pattern for Microservices : Virtual Machine versus Container by Sébastien Grenier-Fontaine (Rhapsody) Reduce risk : let’s encrypt & zero downtime deployment by Gauthier Monserand (Touch & Sell)

Planning meetups takes an incredible amount of time and effort, so we asked Adrien to give us some tips and tricks that helped them pull off this mega meetup. Here is what he said :

First you need to build and maintain a strong network of people and companies that can be activated quickly and can help you organize an event when you have an opportunity.

Try to leverage your own employer, since your company already knows and trusts you. At my company, I explained that welcoming meetups is a great opportunity to attract talent and to show off our interest and commitment to cutting edge topics. We’re now regularly welcoming major IT communities around Paris, and it all started with a Docker meetup two years ago.

The date was challenging because it is the middle of summer. But, since DockerCon was only a few weeks before, we were able to leverage the energy and hype of the event to attract attendees, my company capabilities (room and amphitheaters) and volunteers were available for the venue.

One thing we always try to do is to think about the audience and present topics they want to hear about. Devs and Ops may not be interested in the same stuff. I believe the reason why we had so many people attend was because we held several focused sessions in parallel offering content for all profiles (Devs and Ops, beginners and more experienced). Additionally, we marketed this meetup as more of a conference with a special keynote which added to people’s interest.

People like to attend events that Docker team members are speaking at, and they like to interact with them. Make sure to take the opportunity to welcome someone from Docker if they are in your area. Even if they are in town for only a day or so, try to plan a meetup. Your community will thank you !

Want some more tips and tricks to help you organize Docker events in your area ? Click here to access the Docker Community GitHub repo ! There are 255 Docker Meetup groups all over the world but if there isn’t one in your city, let us know . We’re happy to help get you started !

Only @docker can gather such a ridiculous amount of people mid-July in Paris on a sunny day

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