Thanks + Meet me at re:Invent, NeurIPS & Kubecon

On Friday we published episode number 200 of the TWIML Talk podcast. That achievement, along with the fact that tomorrow is Thanksgiving here in the U.S., seems like a worthy prompt for a bit of, well, giving thanks.

When I think of giving thanks today, there is a growing list of groups that I really couldn’t thank often enough:

1. Listeners.

While the podcast started as a scratch-my-own-itch kind of effort, it’s the listener community that really keeps us motivated to produce show after show. We love to hear from listeners via comments, questions, ratings, and reviews on our website, via social media, and podcast apps. If you’ve never reached out, please take the opportunity to reply to this email (or via your favorite channel) just to say hi, tell us what you like, and let us know how we can improve.

2. Meetup community leaders.

This is a category that barely existed a year ago. Today folks like Kai Lichtenberg who leads the EMEA Online Meetup; and Sebastian Nguyen, Michal Wojczulis, Christian Werner, Sanyam Bhutani and many more who lead our study groups, have really stepped up and are making great contributions to our ability to broadly impact the ML/AI community through educational programs. Please join me in recognizing their contributions over on the meetup Slack.

3. Guests.

Of course, the podcast wouldn’t be the podcast without our guests. We’ve been very fortunate to be the recipient of their tremendous generosity with their time.

4. Sponsors.

Likewise, the podcast would be a shadow of what it is today without the support of sponsors like Capital One, Figure Eight, Georgian Partners, LinkedIn, and more. They allow us to support our growing team which in turn allows of to do so much more for you, our community. (BTW, we’re always looking for sponsors; if your company would benefit from engaging with our community, please reach out.)

5. Our team.

Speaking of team, I’m fortunate to be supported by a large and growing team of folks that help make the magic happen. Imari is the behind-the-scenes force who’s helped bring you over 110 shows so far this year. Alayna is a new addition who’s been helping coordinate our content and community programs, including this newsletter. Nick continues to drive our production quality to greater and greater heights. Nia built a lot of the infrastructure that allows us to do what we do. Amit supports my research and makes sure we don’t miss anything important here in this newsletter. And quite a few more!

To all of you, I thank you for your continued support and contributions!

P.S. A busy end to a busy travel season is upon me. If you’ll be at AWS re:Invent, NeurIPS (NIPS), or Kubecon over the next few weeks, please reach out and let’s meet up!