Maximizing your time at re:Invent 2018
Are you headed to re:Invent this year? For the first time? Feeling overwhelmed by the 500+ sessions available or the 6+ hotels? Then this guide is for you. There are several other guides out there to bring you up to speed on the logistics or relevant course tracks. This post will focus on an opinionated approach that I use to maximize the value I get out of the event. I found that last year, re:invent was really hard to navigate because it had grown so big. This year will only be bigger. You have to have a plan, or you’re unlikely to going to get to do anything. Some of my clients actually left early last year because they were just waiting in lines and traveling between hotels. Below you’ll find my guide and tips to avoid this fate and plan a successful re:Invent.
I built this article by running the audio from an earlier presentation through Amazon Transcribe, and then cleaning up the messaging. You can find the audio file here and the raw results of the transcription here if you’re interested to see how well the service did.
If you’d prefer to watch this content as a video, here you go:
The first thing you should do is determine what you want to learn while you’re there. There will be 500+ sessions, so there will likely be something to cover all of what you’re interested in. If you’re going, you’re likely to have already done this. Next go on to the portal, open up the course catalog, and use the filters on the left to find and favoriting everything related to your areas of interest. Favorite doesn’t actually do anything other than show a session on your calendar, so save it to every single thing that is interesting to you, including all of the repeat sessions.
Then, when you’re looking at your schedule view, hit the print button, and you can start to see what is around the same area. From there, break down your day into 3 chunks: morning, afternoon, and evening, and fill up each chunk with sessions that are close to each other. For example, go to a group of sessions because they’re all at Venetian and Mirage, and it won’t be forty five minutes between each hotel. You’re not trying to spend your entire time sitting in a shuttle. Each day, you have three chunks that you can fill: morning, afternoon, and evening. That lets you switch during lunch and dinner to somewhere else. When you find a chunk of sessions, and at least one is open for registration in one of those sections, book them or join the waitlist.
If some of the blocks only have courses with the waitlist open, hold off on booking them for now. Once you’re done registering, make sure to get the mobile app (🍎 Apple: http://gag.gl/5qqpef 🤖 Android: http://gag.gl/yAXQAj). You use it to re-plan the rest of the blocks (where no courses you want were available to register) using the remainder of the tips below.
Now above I referred to sessions a bunch of times, so I want to clarify that. One of my biggest takeaways has been to really take advantage of actually being there in person, and do the things that only exist at the conference. I think most people actually spend most their time doing was trying to go to the lecture based sessions, but all of those are going to be on YouTube in a week. This is also another reason to favorite everything you like. If you can’t go to some of the sessions, you can catch them on YouTube later. However, there is another set of interactive session types: Chalk Talks, Builder Sessions, and Workshops, etc. My recommendation is to focus your time on these types of sessions, for a couple of reasons. First, they are not going to be recorded. You’ll never be able to get this content that except for in person. Second, these sessions are interactive. More details on these below:
- In a Chalk Talk, it is just a group of people in front of the room. Usually they do have some slides, but you get a question and answer session. If the session is relevant to something you’re already working on, you will likely have an AWS expert that you can ask specific questions to. If they don’t have the solution, they can put you in contact with the team to get the solution.
- Builder sessions were a new thing last year where you build something quickly with the support of an AWS Expert. So if you get some lecture and then maybe you do it really quick lab or something like that,
- Workshops are usually three hours long, and it’s like go bill the whole thing. So if you have a new service or something, considering immigrating, it will kind of give you more of that full experience of like what it’s really like to work with us.
For the lecture sessions, I would target them based on your interest in talking to the speaker after the session. Ask them questions, get to know them, get their contact, information, that kind of thing. That is to me the advantage of going to sessions when you’re actually there.
Next, I would plan on leveraging the certification lounges and going to the Expo when you get a block where your waitlisted on everything. If you’re waitlisted on every session, you might end up just really frustrated, not get into anything during that time.
Another thing you can do with blank blocks on your calendar is fill them with sessions on the new services that were just launched. During the keynotes on Wednesday and Thursdays is when they launch everything. While they’re doing those, the courses related to the launched products go live (they can’t put them up ahead of the event without giving away the launches). Then, at the end of the Keynote, there is a big rush to go sign up for the new courses. My recommendation don’t go to the keynote live unless you really love that stadium atmosphere. Instead, go Live Stream them at a nice place for getting breakfast (I personally like Mon Ami Gabi at Paris Hotel), and then while you’re there, use the mobile app to sign up for those courses as they go live. If you are somewhere where the internet is not overloaded, you’ll be able to sign up for those first.
If you can’t register for a course you really want to get into, look for repeats to get added. It looks like the conference organizers are paying attention to session interest and adding repeats this year. In order to do that, you’ll have to repeat your search for the title of the course that you want to go. In addition, there have been multiple new events and courses added every day for the past few days. If you’re in the mobile app (I haven’t seen the option on the web) you can filter to “Just added only” to look for what’s new.
The last option to cover all the in-person sessions you don’t want to miss is to have somebody else go to that session for you, take notes, and tell you what happened.
re:Invent is a key differentiator for Amazon. The amount of knowledge that is out there for the taking to help you build game-changing solutions on AWS is staggering. However, without proper planning it can become overwhelming.
If you’re going to be in town and want to meet up, let me know. Pariveda is hosting several events during the week
