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- Hi everyone.
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I'm Nicole van der Hoeven,
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and I'm a senior developer
advocate at Grafana Labs.
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Now that title is funny
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because actually I've
never been a developer.
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And I also have 12 years
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of experience in performance testing.
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But when I got my first testing job,
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or actually my first tech job,
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I had no experience in tech
and also no formal education
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in computer science as an economics major.
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So I'm telling you this to explain
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to you that I seem to have a history
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of getting jobs that I wasn't
qualified for at the time.
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And in this talk,
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I'm going to try to
show you how I did that.
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See, the problem with any new industry,
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but especially in tech,
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is that when you're getting into it
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there's just so much to learn.
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Tech in particular just moves so quickly
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that it's impossible to
really fully catch up
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in every aspect of it.
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So as a new person,
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you might look
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at these two different
microservices-based architectures
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from Amazon and Netflix and
not even know where to begin.
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Honestly, even for those
of us who have been around
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in the industry for a while,
this is still pretty daunting
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because there's just a lot
of potential starting points
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and it can be really difficult
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when something is disjointed like this
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to understand the system
as a wider picture.
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So this is a problem
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that's going to be in tech
for our entire careers,
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but it turns out
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that there's already a solution to it.
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And it's a solution that
we somehow knew about
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when we were in school
but somehow forgot about.
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And that's just taking notes.
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The problem with our notes from school
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or the way that we take notes in school
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is that they never really evolved
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beyond just writing things
down in the first place.
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That's probably what most of you think
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of when you think of taking notes.
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However, that's just
one step of the process.
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In order to build a
robust note-taking system
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you really have to go beyond
just writing notes down
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or writing down what the teacher said.
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This is the old way of taking notes.
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These are my personal notes
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from my university calculus subject,
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and they might look a bit funny now,
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but at the time I actually
thought that we were pretty good.
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Like all my classmates
wanted to photocopy my notes
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because they were pretty
good for that time.
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However, here are the problems
that I noticed with it.
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First, my notes were separated by topic.
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This was only for my calculus notes.
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I had a different notebook or
at least a different section
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in a notebook for every
subject that I had that year.
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And there was never any mixing or matching
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or linking between those subjects
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even if they could have been
a little bit more similar.
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So for example, I had literature
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and I also had composition,
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two things that were English related,
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but I still kept them
in separate notebooks.
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Same thing with calculus and algebra.
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They were also static.
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These notes,
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and probably that's
because they were analog,
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never changed.
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I never went back and added
things or adjusted things.
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As I learned more
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they were kind of just
like a one and done thing.
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I wrote them and then I just
go forward onto the notebook.
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They were also contextual.
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Now that's not necessarily a bad thing
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but the fact that they
were only contextual
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and that particular context
was honestly not to learn.
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The context was I wanted to pass the exam
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at the end of the semester.
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And all of my notes
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and what I chose to even
write down in the first place
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were based around that goal
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that I wanted to be able
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to get a passing grade.
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That meant that they're also temporary.
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I wrote them and never went back.
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So after the end of the semester
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after I did eventually pass the exam,
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I never added to those notes
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and kind of really forgot about them.
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Even when I took
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like future more advanced
levels of calculus,
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I never went back to the basics.
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It was kind of like
something that I wrote once
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and then never looked at again.
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So how could we improve from the old way?
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Because clearly that didn't work,
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because I never went back
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to my calculus notes and they
were never useful for me,
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despite the fact that I
spent so much time on them.
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Ideally, I would find a way
to make those relevant now.
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So here is the new way of taking notes.
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Now, the new way is much more akin
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to how our brains actually
process information.
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For starters, everything
is interconnected.
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Just like in our brains
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we don't have kind of single ideas
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that are just floating around
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that aren't linked to anything else.
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Notes should also be
connected to each other.
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They should have linkages to
say what ideas are similar
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and even what ideas are dissimilar
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or are opposing in some way.
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The new way of taking notes
should be constantly evolving.
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In fact, we should never think
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of notes as a snapshot in time.
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They should be an entire evolution,
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a life cycle that moves with you.
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As our knowledge changes
and we learn new things
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in our respective careers,
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we should also be updating our notes
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to reflect that evolution.
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New notes are also both
abstracted and contextual.
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So contextual meaning they are relevant
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to you in a particular point in time.
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But also as you take more notes,
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ideally you would start to
see the patterns and models.
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And once you have those abstracted ideas,
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then you're kind of creating
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different levels of abstraction,
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and having that means
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that you can apply
greater, grander concepts
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to other situations.
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And lastly, new notes are future proof.
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Now, part of this does
have something to do
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with the shift from analog to digital.
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Digital notes are more searchable,
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they're more long lasting
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that you can back them up,
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and they're easier to share.
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But they should also not be so advanced
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not so cutting edge that we're going to,
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as an industry,
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move on from whatever
medium and format you chose
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in a few years.
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So you have to strike
the right balance there.
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Now, if this is sounding
a little bit familiar,
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well, actually taking notes
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is a lot like building
or testing software.
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when you think about it.
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Luckily that's something
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that we happen to know
a thing or two about.
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So this is something that
you may or may not have seen.
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This is the CICD kind of infinity loop.
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CICD stands for continuous
integration, continuous delivery.
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Sometimes it's called
continuous improvement.
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Now the idea is that when you start
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with a new project cycle,
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you plan what you're going to release,
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then you build it,
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and then you test it.
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You deploy it into production,
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you listen for feedback,
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and then incorporate that feedback
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into your planning for future features.
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Now, this model holds up pretty well.
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It kind of strikes the right balance
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between speed and responsiveness
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to what people actually want.
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Now, what if we could actually apply this
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to note taking as well?
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Well then we'd have something
like continuous note taking.
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Now what would that look like?
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It would look like notes
where we read something
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or talk to a colleague
or learn about something,
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process what we've learned,
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and have different levels
of abstraction, perhaps,
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so that it's rooted in
context and also abstracted.
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Then we write about it,
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we share it with other colleagues,
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and put it out into the world.
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We listen for that feedback
of what we misunderstood
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or what we got right,
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and then we incorporate
that back into the cycle
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and let it inform what
we're going to learn
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or write about next.
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This idea of continuous
note taking is the new way.
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It is a very different way
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from the note taking
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that you knew of,
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that we knew of when we
were all taking notes
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in high school or grade school.
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So that's where we get into Obsidian.
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I'm not at all affiliated with Obsidian.
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I'm just a rabid fan of it.
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Obsidian is a second brain,
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but it is, I like to think of it
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as a note taking app,
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but less like Google Docs
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and more like your own personal Wikipedia.
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The problem with Google
Docs is you write a doc
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and then you send it to people,
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but then they have to
keep track of those links.
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So like then you just have to go
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into Google Docs if you're
looking for something
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and then search for it
and it's all disjointed
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and there's no like central repository
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where other people
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can see everything you've
ever shared with them.
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And it's just a little bit difficult.
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Wikipedia on the other
hand, is nice and organized
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and yet you can still follow the threads
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of different links
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to get to what you want and
the search is also way better.
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So Obsidian is an extensible
knowledge base app.
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It is a free one so you can download it.
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It is not open source,
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although it is really easy to inspect
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because it is based on Electron.
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It is not SaaS.
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It is not a SaaS platform.
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In fact, it's local only.
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You can do whatever you
want with your notes
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and you have complete
ownership of your notes.
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And all of those notes are
saved in marked on files.
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So just plain text files
and you could do them
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as you wish.
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So you could still back them up
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to some other cloud syncing service.
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Now, one of the cool things about Obsidian
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is that it is also highly customizable
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and highly extensible.
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In addition to some core plugins
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that come with Obsidian that
you can enable and disable,
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there's also a very rich third
party development ecosystem
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for these plugins.
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And some of those plugins are ones
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that I would never use Obsidian without.
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So let's get into a demo
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of what Obsidian looks like
and how to get started.
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Obsidian is available
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on a variety of platforms,
mobile and desktop.
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So I'm using it on Mac Os now.
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And I'm gonna show you
how to create a new vault.
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So I'm gonna create a vault here,
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and I'm gonna call it Eurostar.
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And then I'm going to look for a location.
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I'm just going to click
that one and click Create.
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And this is going to open
up a window of Obsidian.
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This is what it looks like.
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There's a side panel here.
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There's what's called an editor here
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and there's also another
side panel on the right here.
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Now, when you create a vault in Obsidian,
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a vault is just a folder
on your file system.
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So if you go into Finder where I put that,
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now there is a folder called Eurostar
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and there is something
that's untitled there
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because I haven't done anything with it.
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So I do have a folder here,
but let us create a new note
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in that folder and let's call it Testing.
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So let's type something here.
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"Software testing is awesome."
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Now, when you go back into
Finder on your file system,
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you'll see that there's a
markdown file called Testing.
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So I'm showing you this to explain
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that while there's stuff
that's happening in Obsidian,
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it's actually just using
your local file system
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under the hood.
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So there's nothing magical about it,
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which means that you can just open
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this vault in any text editor.
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So again, it is future proof.
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You don't need Obsidian
to continue to have access
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to your notes.
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You can then rename this
and say Awesome notes.
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And then you can also do things
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like open today's daily
note here on the icon here.
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If I click that, that's
going to create a new note
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that is timestamped to today.
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And what I like to do
in how I would suggest
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that you use Obsidian is
start with a daily note.
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Just create a new daily note every day
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and then just freehand
it so you can write down
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what happened during that day
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or meetings that you have during that day.
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I'm going to add something like,
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"Today I presented at Eurostar 2023."
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And as you might notice,
I'm using brackets.
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I'm putting two brackets
around Eurostar 2023
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and that's making it a link.
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So I'm going to click on that link
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and now it's created a new
note called Eurostar 2023.
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So, "At Eurostar I talked
about software testing."
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Or let's say "testing"
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'cause we already have a note on that.
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Now if we go here on the right,
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I've opened up the side
panel here to show you
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that there is a linked
mention section where it says
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"Today, I presented at Eurostar 2023."
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Wait, that's not what this note is.
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So it's actually showing us other notes
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that are linking to this note.
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So it's saying that,
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"Hey, on this daily note
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you actually link to Eurostar 2023."
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Now the problem is
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that now you might think
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that you have to create a link every time
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that you create a note or if you think
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that you're going to create
a note in the future,
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maybe you should link it the
first time that you type it,
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but that's actually not true.
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So we are looking at a link
here from the daily note.
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So let's go back into that.
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Now I'm gonna show you what it looks like,
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if I remove the link.
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So I just typed it as normal.
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Now, if we go to Eurostar 2023,
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I can go and see that there
are no more linked mentions
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because I've removed the link.
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However, there's still
an unlinked mention.
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That's because Obsidian
does this awesome thing
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where it doesn't expect you
to create explicit links.
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It recognizes the implicit links.
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So, it's enough that you have
a note called Eurostar 2023,
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and it'll show you all of the instances
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in your entire vault where
you've said "Eurostar 2023."
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Alright, so I'll, I'm
gonna go back and link it
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because there is still a
cool thing that happens
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when you do make explicit links
and it's called graph view.
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All of these things come in
Obsidian by default, by the way.
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So when I open the graph view,
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now it has this cool little
graphical representation
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of the notes that you've created.
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So you can hover over them
and look at them individually.
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So if I hover over the daily note,
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the Testing note is kind of
faded into the background
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and that's because I'm looking
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at one particular link right now.
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And then I can also click on any
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of them to go to that note in particular.
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So that's a little overview
of how Obsidian works.
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Hopefully, you see
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that it is very different
from Google Docs,
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and links are an essential
part of using Obsidian.
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So let's get back to the presentation
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and let's talk about different ways
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that you can use Obsidian.
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One of the ways is logging.
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So now I've shown you how to
start with Obsidian, right?
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But rather than build it up for you,
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which would take a really long time,
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I'm actually going to show
you what I already have.
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So we're going into my own personal vault.
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So this is an example
of a note that I have
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that I created while I
was testing something.
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I was actually trying to learn something.
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So you can think of this
as a dev or a test log.
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So, I'm talking about the
different tests that I created.
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Everything in Obsidian is Markdown.
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So this is a Markdown table,
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and then it is rendering
everything by default
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so that when I move my cursor out of it,
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it's rendering the table already.
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So you can see that I've written down
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the different runs that I had,
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and for each one I was running load tests,
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and I was kind of tracking
the number of views
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a description and a bunch of metrics.
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And there's even a link
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to k6 and the Grafana
dashboards for those tests.
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And this is how I like
to use Obsidian a lot
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when I'm trying to figure something out.
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You know, it doesn't have
to be anything polished.
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These are my notes.
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So this is just a record
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of how I use Obsidian,
of how I'm learning.
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And this is a code block,
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which is delineated by these back ticks.
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And I can copy and paste that elsewhere.
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I put links in there.
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And then in this one I
was trying to figure out
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how to install Grafana on Kubernetes.
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So this is a record of
everything that I tried.
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And I timestamped some things
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to using the markdown syntax for headings.
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So this is how I use Obsidian for logging.
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Another use case for it is learning.
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So after all of this,
I did eventually learn
00:17:50
how I should install
Grafana on Kubernetes.
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And then I started to create
kind of like a parent note
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and this is what that looks like
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and this is where I distilled
my learnings from this log.
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And this one is much more polished.
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I'm saying, "No, these
are the exact steps."
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You know, I left out all the times
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where I kind of meandered,
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and then I went through.
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And now if I ever have to do this again,
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I can refer to my own notes about it.
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I don't have to go to stack
overflow, which is excellent.
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This is just going a
bit more quickly here.
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This is one where I am
looking at the k6 tool.
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I work on the k6 team at Grafana.
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So I have a lot of notes about k6,
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and each one of these has like maybe
00:18:43
in some cases some content
that I've created on it.
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And they aren't supposed
to be a replacement
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for the k6x documentation.
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This is more like a shorthand,
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a curated selection of topics
00:18:56
that I refer to again and again.
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And this is all related to me,
all related to my knowledge.
00:19:04
So it is different from
just a documentation
00:19:07
that somebody else
created that you might not
00:19:09
have gotten a chance to look into.
00:19:12
Every part, every note in this
is something that I created.
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And I've done the same
for things like, you know
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how to learn git, which is
something that every developer
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or tester is going to come across.
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And I do it with programming
languages as well.
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So here's how to do stuff in Python.
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Again, this is still based
00:19:32
on what I need to know about Python.
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I'm probably not going to be
creating a Python based app
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and deploying it from scratch
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but I do need to know how to
do some things to do my job.
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So that's how I use it for learning.
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I also use Obsidian
for learning in public.
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Now, it's kind of similar
to the previous one
00:19:54
but I've already shown
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that I create content based on the notes,
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that I have in Obsidian.
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And being able to start from something
00:20:04
from the notes that I already have
00:20:06
rather than like starting from nothing
00:20:08
is a very, very big
part about why Obsidian
00:20:12
is so useful for me.
00:20:13
I also use it to create
presentations like this one.
00:20:17
I'm gonna go through all
of these in in a second,
00:20:21
but I also use it to collaborate
on GitHub with my team.
00:20:26
I publish almost all of my notes,
00:20:29
so that I can share
them with other people,
00:20:32
and that includes a change
log of what I'm working on.
00:20:35
So let's get into these.
00:20:36
So I, on top of doing videos
for Grafana Labs and k6,
00:20:41
and doing presentations
and writing blog posts,
00:20:45
I also have a separate
YouTube channel personally
00:20:49
where I have 30,000 subscribers
00:20:51
and I talk about taking notes actually.
00:20:53
And so I use Obsidian directly
00:20:56
to both create a content calendar
00:20:58
and generate content
00:21:00
based on the notes that I already have.
00:21:03
In terms of presentations like this one,
00:21:06
oh, this is not wrapping quite well
00:21:08
but, actually, I can show
you that this presentation
00:21:12
that I'm giving you is
written in Obsidian as well.
00:21:17
So there is a plugin for
Obsidian that lets me
00:21:20
just create presentations in
markdown, just like notes.
00:21:25
So presentation is just a
note formatted differently.
00:21:28
So these are all of the slides,
00:21:30
which is independently publishable.
00:21:32
And when I change one thing here,
00:21:34
I change the presentation as well.
00:21:37
And then in GitHub,
00:21:38
because Obsidian is just a
folder with markdown files,
00:21:42
and on my team on k6,
00:21:45
we hold our documentation
in a GitHub repository,
00:21:49
that means that I can just use Obsidian
00:21:52
to actually open the
GitHub repo as a folder,
00:21:56
which means that I can write
00:21:59
and contribute to
documentation within Obsidian
00:22:02
with all of the supercharged
linking capabilities
00:22:05
without other people
even knowing necessarily
00:22:07
that I use Obsidian.
00:22:09
So it's really useful for that.
00:22:11
I'm kind of using it like an IDE.
00:22:14
I also publish all of my notes online.
00:22:17
Well, not all of my notes,
most of my notes online.
00:22:20
And this is using a service,
00:22:23
a paid service, called Obsidian Publish.
00:22:25
But I think there are lots
of different ways to do this.
00:22:28
You could use a site generator like Hugo
00:22:31
to do the same thing with markdown files,
00:22:33
but this is another way
00:22:34
that I'm putting things out there
00:22:36
and seeing what other
people are going to say.
00:22:39
So all of the things
that I was showing you
00:22:41
with Git and Python and k6,
00:22:43
they're all available on my public notes.
00:22:47
That includes a change log.
00:22:49
So I also keep track of new
things that I've written about.
00:22:55
And so you can look at my change log
00:22:58
as kind of a sneak peek into
what I'm thinking about,
00:23:02
what I've changed.
00:23:03
This is the idea that our notes
00:23:05
should be constantly evolving,
00:23:07
and you can see the change logs,
00:23:09
the last 500 notes that I've worked on.
00:23:13
So here are some of the advantages
00:23:15
of continuous note taking.
00:23:17
First, you learn faster.
00:23:19
I think that I sometimes
get into this frame of mind
00:23:25
where I love to take notes.
00:23:26
So I just take notes
00:23:28
for the sake of taking notes.
00:23:29
But actually taking notes
also helps you learn.
00:23:33
It's a lot.
00:23:34
It's kind of like that thing
00:23:35
where you always learn,
00:23:38
a test of learning is when you can explain
00:23:41
and express something to somebody else.
00:23:43
Taking notes is kind of like that,
00:23:45
except the person that
you're explaining to
00:23:48
is the future you,
00:23:49
the future you that probably
doesn't remember anything
00:23:52
that that you're working on now.
00:23:54
Another thing is that iterative
00:23:55
and incremental work accrue over time.
00:23:58
So you might think that
00:24:00
if you zoom in on the
individual note basis,
00:24:04
you might think that you're
not getting anywhere,
00:24:06
but several thousand notes later,
00:24:10
and I think I'm up to
10,000 now in my main vault,
00:24:13
then you start to see patterns,
00:24:15
and you start to see a body of knowledge
00:24:17
rather than just an
individual instance or idea.
00:24:22
You also never start from nothing.
00:24:25
The fact that I have so
many notes at my disposal
00:24:28
means that at any point I
can go into my Obsidian notes
00:24:32
and look for let's say
performance testing,
00:24:36
and I can open that up
00:24:37
and I can see things that
I've written on the subject.
00:24:40
And all of these links are links
00:24:42
to notes that exist in my vault.
00:24:45
So if I wanted to write something
about performance testing,
00:24:48
there's a lot to pick from.
00:24:50
So I'm never just looking
at a blank screen.
00:24:53
I'm looking at what do I
have already in my notes
00:24:57
that I can kind of massage
and tweak or rearrange.
00:25:01
And the other thing is
00:25:02
that by learning in public,
you create learning exhaust.
00:25:05
Learning exhaust are the byproducts
00:25:07
of learning and especially
learning in public.
00:25:11
So they are things like being
able to publish your notes.
00:25:15
Learning exhaust is super useful
00:25:17
because it quantifies what
you've been working on,
00:25:20
and not in a way where you feel like
00:25:22
you have to write a blog post
00:25:24
and it has to be super
polished and edited.
00:25:26
Learning exhaust is just
putting things out there
00:25:28
and not worrying if you've
gotten a few things wrong.
00:25:33
Just to wrap up, I said in the
beginning that I have a habit
00:25:37
of getting hired for things
that I'm not qualified in.
00:25:41
Now you may be thinking by now
00:25:44
that that isn't exactly
true, and you're right.
00:25:47
I was qualified for those jobs,
00:25:50
just not in a way that was
immediately demonstrable
00:25:53
until I started taking notes.
00:25:55
See, I learned most of the
things that I know online,
00:25:59
either on my own or through
interactions with other people.
00:26:03
Grafana Labs is a
completely remote company.
00:26:06
So all of my interactions
are on the internet.
00:26:09
That's really great for personal
learning and development
00:26:13
but it is also really difficult
when you work like that
00:26:16
to communicate what you're capable of
00:26:18
to a future or potential employer.
00:26:21
Taking notes is my way around that.
00:26:24
This is actually the graph view
00:26:26
for my personal Obsidian vault.
00:26:30
So every dot, every node in this graph
00:26:33
is a note that exists in my vault.
00:26:35
It's an idea and one that I've fleshed out
00:26:39
in my own words based on my own learnings
00:26:42
and my own experience,
00:26:43
written for the future me
00:26:45
that might no longer remember
what I was working on.
00:26:49
Every line here between
the nodes is a link
00:26:53
where every idea
00:26:55
in my vault has been tested
against different ideas
00:26:59
to see like, is it related to this?
00:27:01
Is this an example of another idea?
00:27:04
Is this an application of it?
00:27:06
Is this a concept that
another idea is at odds with?
00:27:11
And having this kind of second brain,
00:27:15
because it really looks
like a brain right now,
00:27:18
is what has enabled me to nail down
00:27:21
and give to my employers an
idea of what I'm capable of.
00:27:27
So taking notes is really something
00:27:30
that's going to help you
in your entire career.
00:27:33
First, it helps you
learn in the first place.
00:27:36
It helps you create a
record of where you've been
00:27:40
and what you've done and what
you've been thinking about.
00:27:43
And it helps other employers,
future potential employers,
00:27:48
understand what you're
actually capable of.
00:27:51
If I could start my career over,
00:27:54
I would take notes like this,
00:27:56
in the continuous note taking sense,
00:27:59
a lot earlier.
00:28:00
And maybe I would've gotten
to where I am faster.
00:28:04
So thank you all for listening.
00:28:07
I have a few links down here.
00:28:09
If you go to my site,
nicolevanderhoeven.com,
00:28:12
and look at the first,
at the latest blog post,
00:28:15
I also have a link to these slides there,
00:28:17
so you don't have to take notes,
00:28:20
or at least you can take notes
00:28:22
in your own time as you go through it.
00:28:25
I'm also happy to take any questions
00:28:27
about Obsidian or note taking
00:28:30
or any sort of knowledge
management topic for tech.
00:28:36
Thanks for watching and for listening.
