It’s largely automated. I have a collection of Python scripts in a Jupyter Notebook that scrapes Meetup and Eventbrite for events in categories that I consider to be “tech,” “entrepreneur,” and “nerd.” The result is a checklist that I review. I make judgment calls and uncheck any items that I don’t think fit on this list.
In addition to events that my scripts find, I also manually add events when their organizers contact me with their details.
What goes into this list?
I prefer to cast a wide net, so the list includes events that would be of interest to techies, nerds, and entrepreneurs. It includes (but isn’t limited to) events that fall under any of these categories:
Programming, DevOps, systems administration, and testing
Tech project management / agile processes
Video, board, and role-playing games
Book, philosophy, and discussion clubs
Tech, business, and entrepreneur networking events
Toastmasters and other events related to improving your presentation and public speaking skills, because nerds really need to up their presentation game
Sci-fi, fantasy, and other genre fandoms
Self-improvement, especially of the sort that appeals to techies
In my all-too-brief time working with HP, I got a lot done, including…
I landed the ZGX Nano appearance on Intelligent Machines
On the very day I announced that I was doing developer relations for the ZGX Nano, I got an email that began with this paragraph:
I’m Anthony, a producer with the TWiT.tv network. Jeff Jarvis mentioned you’re “a cool dude” from the early blogging days (and apparently serenaded some Bloggercons?), but more importantly, we saw you just started doing developer relations for HP’s ZGX Nano. We’d love to have you on our podcast Intelligent Machines to discuss this shift toward local AI computing.
First of all: Thanks, Jeff! I owe you one.
Second: I didn’t pitch TWiT. TWiT pitched me, as soon as they found out! This wasn’t the outcome of HP’s product marketing department contacting media outlets. Instead, it’s because Jeff knows me, and he knew I was the right person to explain this new AI hardware to their audience:
I generated earned media for HP without a single pitch, press release, or PR agency. My personal brand amplified HP’s brand, and maybe it can amplify your company’s brand too!
And finally: I’m just great at explaining complex technical topics in a way that people can understand. Don’t take my word for it; take Leo Laporte’s:
Cost of equivalent advertising slot: $double digit thousands
Time from my hire to major media appearance: 8 weeks
Number of PR pitches sent: 0
Value of authentic relationships: Priceless
I built page-one visibility for a brand-new product —organically
Do a Google search on the term zgx nano (without the quotes) and while you might see slightly different results from mine, you should find that this blog, Global Nerdy, is on the first page of results:
Tap to try out a Google search for zgx nano for yourself.
The screenshot above was taken on the evening of Monday, October 27, and two of the articles on this blog are the first two search results after HP.
My content gets found. Within 8 weeks of starting work with HP, my coverage of the ZGX Nano achieved first-page Google ranking, competing directly with HP’s official pages and major tech publications. This organic reach is what modern developer relations looks like: authentic content that both developers and search algorithms trust.
With me, you’re not just getting a developer advocate, but someone with a tech blog going back nearly two decades and with the domain authority to take on with Fortune 500 companies on Google. My Global Nerdy posts about ZGX Nano rank on page one because Google trusts content I’ve been building since 2006.
I enabled the Sales team to go from zero to hero
On day one, I was given two priorities:
First, provide enablement for the Sales team and give them the knowledge and selling points they need to be effective when talking to customers about the ZGX Nano.
Support developers who were interested in the ZGX Nano, or even just AI application development. Unfortunately, I’m not going to get to execute this phase.
But I got pretty far with that first phase! In less than eight weeks, I built a sales enablement foundation for a brand-new AI workstation with scant documentation. I created 50+ pages of technical documentation that gave HP’s global sales force what they needed to sell a new product in a new category.
Some of my big quantifiable achievements in sales enablement:
25+ technical objections anticipated and addressed
Created comprehensive FAQ covering everything from architecture to ROI calculations
Translated GB10 superchip complexity into sales-friendly language
Provided competitive differentiation against NVIDIA DGX Spark, Dell, and Lenovo
12 industry verticals mapped with 60+ business impact scenarios”
Developed go-to-market strategy for each vertical (healthcare to gaming)
Created specific ROI talking points for each industry
Identified 5 business impacts per vertical = 60 total selling points
Turned “It’s just another GB10 machine” into “Here’s why HP wins”
Differentiated commodity hardware through software story (ZGX Toolkit)
Created objection handling that transforms skepticism into sales
Armed sales with “Why HP and not NVIDIA direct””messaging
I’m available starting next week!
All told, it was 2 months, 1 podcast…and ZERO regrets. I enjoyed the work, and I’m grateful to have been selected to be the developer spokesmodel for an amazing AI computer.
I don’t think of this as a termination. It was a high-intensity proof-of-concept for my ability to help launch a new device with little guidance (in fact, the manager who hired me moved to another company on my first week). They asked; I delivered. Now, I’m looking for the next impossible mission.
As I wrote at the start of this article, my last day is on Friday — yes, I wrap up on Halloween — and as of Monday next week, I’m available!
I’m now looking for my next Developer Advocate role. Who needs someone who can…
Land major podcast appearances on Day One?
Has enough SEO know-how and influence to get you to Page One?
Can enable your sales and marketing teams with technical material, explained in a non-techie-friendly way?
The video features the How Computers Work “Under the Hood” presentation that I gave at a Tampa Devs meetup on November 15, 2023.
In the presentation, I start by talking about the CPU chips in our computers, phones, and electronic devices:
…and then proceed to talk about the building blocks for these chips, transistors:
Then, after a quick introduction to the 6502 processor, which powered a lot of 1980s home computers…
…I introduced 6502 assembly language programming:
Watch the video, and learn how your computer works “under the hood!”
If you’d like to follow along with the video try out the exercises I demonstrated, you can do so from the comfort of your own browser — just follow this guide!
On Tuesday, two popular tech events take place in Tampa, and you may be wondering which one you should attend. I’ll answer your question by quoting the little girl from that classic Old El Paso commerical:
Happy Saturday, everyone! Here on Global Nerdy, Saturday means that it’s time for another “picdump” — the weekly assortment of amusing or interesting pictures, comics,
and memes I found over the past week. Share and enjoy!
On Wednesday, HP’s Andrew Hawthorn (Product Manager and Planner for HP’s Z AI hardward) and I appeared on the Intelligent Machines podcast to talk about the computer that I’m doing developer relations consulting for: HP’s ZGX Nano.
You can watch the episode here. We appear at the start, and we’re on for the first 35 minutes:
Also built into the GB10 chip is a lot of RAM: 128 GB of LPDDR5X coherent memory shared between CPU and GPU, which helps avoid the kind of memory bottlenecks that arise when the CPU and GPU each have their own memory (and usually, the GPU has considerably less memory than the CPU).
NVIDIA GB10 SoC (system on a chip).
It can perform up to about 1000 TOPS (trillions of operations per second) or 1015 operations per second and can handle model sizes of up to 200 billion parameters.
Want to work on bigger models? By connecting two ZGX Nanos together using the 200 gigabit per second ConnectX-7 interface, you can scale up to work on models with 400 billion parameters.
ZGX Nano’s operating system in NVIDIA’s DGX OS, which is a version of Ubuntu Linux with additional tweaking to take advantage of the underlying GB10 hardware.
Some topics we discussed:
Model sizes and AI workloads are getting bigger, and developers are getting more and more constrained by factors such as:
Increasing or unpredictable cloud costs
Latency
Data movement
There’s an opportunity to “bring serious AI compute to the desk” so that teams can prototype their AI applications and iterate locally
The ZGX Nano isn’t meant to replace large datacenter clusters for full training of massive models, It’s aimed at “the earlier parts of the pipeline,” where developers do prototyping, fine-tuning, smaller deployments, inference, and model evaluation
The Nano’s 128 gigabytes of unified memory gets around the issues of bottlenecks with distinct CPU memory and GPU memory allowing bigger models to be loaded in a local box without “paging to cloud” or being forced into distributed setups early
While the cloud remains dominant, there are real benefits to local compute:
Shorter iteration loops
Immediate control, data-privacy
Less dependence on remote queueing
We expect that many AI development workflows will hybridize: a mix of local box and cloud/back-end
The target users include:
AI/ML researchers
Developers building generative AI tools
Internal data-science teams fine-tuning models for enterprise use-cases (e.g., inside a retail, insurance or e-commerce firm).
Maker/developer-communities
The ZGX Nano is part of the “local-to-cloud” continuum
The Nano won’t cover all AI development…
For training truly massive models, beyond the low hundreds of billions of parameters, the datacenter/cloud will still dominate
ZGX Nano’s use case is “serious but not massive” local workloads
Is it for you? Look at model size, number of iterations per week, data sensitivity, latency needs, and cloud cost profile
One thing I brought up that seemed to capture the imagination of hosts Leo Laporte, Paris Martineau, and Mike Elgan was the MCP server that I demonstrated a couple of months ago at the Tampa Bay Artificial Intelligence Meetup: Too Many Cats.
Too Many Cats is an MCP server that an LLM can call upon to determine if a household has too many cats, given the number of humans and cats.
Here’s the code for a Too Many Cats MCP server that runs on your computer and works with a local CLaude client:
from typing import TypedDict
from mcp.server.fastmcp import FastMCP
mcp = FastMCP(name="Too Many Cats?")
class CatAnalysis(TypedDict):
too_many_cats: bool
human_cat_ratio: float
@mcp.tool(
annotations={
"title": "Find Out If You Have Too Many Cats",
"readOnlyHint": True,
"openWorldHint": False
}
)
def determine_if_too_many_cats(cat_count: int, human_count: int) -> CatAnalysis:
"""Determines if you have too many cats based on the number of cats and a human-cat ratio."""
human_cat_ratio = cat_count / human_count if human_count > 0 else 0
too_many_cats = human_cat_ratio >= 3.0
return CatAnalysis(
too_many_cats=too_many_cats,
human_cat_ratio=human_cat_ratio
)
if __name__ == "__main__":
# Initialize and run the server
mcp.run(transport='stdio')
Tuesday at 5:00 p.m. at Chester H. Ferguson Law Center (Tampa): It’s that time again — CyberX Tampa Bay is back!
CyberX Tampa Bay is Tampa Bay’s premier cybersecurity celebration. Whether you’re an established professional, an emerging leader, or exploring a career in cybersecurity, this event offers valuable insights, professional connections, and an inspiring close to October, which is Cybersecurity Awareness Month.
The evening kicks off with networking over light refreshments, followed by engaging breakout sessions tailored to different career stages in cybersecurity. After another round of networking, they’;; recognize an outstanding contributor to the industry before gathering for a thought-provoking panel discussion featuring leading voices in the field. Finally, they’ll wrap up with closing remarks and an opportunity to connect with peers.
Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. at Hidden Springs Ale Works (Tampa): It’s the last Tuesday of the month, so it’s time for TampaTech Taps & Taco Tuesday, where Tampa’s tech community come to gather for great company, great beer, and free tacos!
Thursday afternoon at 4:00 pm at American Legion Post 138 (Tampa): It’s the Tampa/MacDill AFB Orange Call! In a military context, an “orange call” refers to an alert signaling a heightened cybersecurity state of readiness.
This orange call’s purpose is to gather and network amongst fellow communicators, guardians, and enablers of all ranks, titles, and experience levels, share resources, and seek professional development. They’ll will conduct a round table meet-and-greet and discuss MacDill communicators and missions, including the increasing role of cyber and the importance of defending our nation’s networks.
It’s largely automated. I have a collection of Python scripts in a Jupyter Notebook that scrapes Meetup and Eventbrite for events in categories that I consider to be “tech,” “entrepreneur,” and “nerd.” The result is a checklist that I review. I make judgment calls and uncheck any items that I don’t think fit on this list.
In addition to events that my scripts find, I also manually add events when their organizers contact me with their details.
What goes into this list?
I prefer to cast a wide net, so the list includes events that would be of interest to techies, nerds, and entrepreneurs. It includes (but isn’t limited to) events that fall under any of these categories:
Programming, DevOps, systems administration, and testing
Tech project management / agile processes
Video, board, and role-playing games
Book, philosophy, and discussion clubs
Tech, business, and entrepreneur networking events
Toastmasters and other events related to improving your presentation and public speaking skills, because nerds really need to up their presentation game
Sci-fi, fantasy, and other genre fandoms
Self-improvement, especially of the sort that appeals to techies
