Chef CEO Barry Crist stirs the pot to open ChefConf 2014

The theme from ChefConf 2014 is stirring delight and if you listened to Barry Crist during todays opening keynote, then you would know its more appropriately “F****ing Delight”.  Amidst high energy, loud music and a smattering of exciting expletives, Barry Crist called for attendees to stir delight in their enterprises using DevOps methodologies and, of course, Chef.

Crist defined delight when the customer’s experience exceeds expectations.  Using Uber as an example when traveling in New York, he joked that the influx of Uber cars was so high that it took only 30 seconds for him to wait for a ride.  And what more he didn’t have to deal with payment when exiting the car at the airport.  In short, the service not only provided the expected functionality of something as simple as a car ride, but provided a delightful experience.  The new economy, we are part of he said, is the “delight economy”.  And the call to action for ChefConf attendees is to bring others along with them into this new and leading economy.

Using Volvo as a case study, Crist also touched on the concept that many companies, not just web development organizations, can utilize DevOps practices.  When his wife’s Volvo navigation system needed a map update, he received a set of DVDs. The DVDs needed to be manually loaded into the on-board computer while leaving the car running for 5 hours.  Crist countered that Volvo is more like a software company than a car manufacturer, but they just didn’t know it yet.  For example, this would have been an excellent case for continuous delivery in that the Volvo probably didn’t need to ship him a handful of DVDs, but just the small changes and probably could have been delivered in a much more economical means.

Crist concluded that using DevOps methods and delivering delight isn’t limited to any industry and certainly isn’t just for web dev shops. And so ChefConf 2014 begins.