Watch this episode on YouTube.
Reasonably Accurate 馃馃 Transcript
Today. Now, I didn't think I was going to get an episode of mornings with Mark in today because I was attending the online Aws innovate conference. This was the AIA edition. So it started very early for Me Hill over here in North America, but the bright side is it ended up a little earlier than I expected.
Now, this was a great action packed day. There was a ton of great content. They had it divided across a number of tracks like serverless containers, game tech A IL and databases, right? So great information directly from Aws experts like the evangelism team, solutions, architects and technical account managers.
And there's nothing better than learning directly from the source. So I have nothing but positive things to say about the content. What is interesting and why I wanted to talk about it a bit today is, you know, a to highlight that you can get all this content on demand.
I tweeted out the link already, but I'll put it in the description below um that you can get this stuff on demand now, which is great. So you won't have that interactive Q and A which was a huge part of the event. But you will be able to access the contents of the videos and the slides from the instructors, which is wonderful.
And why I wanted to talk about it on the show was uh following up on yesterday's thing about um messaging or theme about talking to your audience and talking to the audience in a way that makes sense for them was that while this content was jam packed, like this conference was jam packed with great content directly from the experts way it was framed, made it really tough to feel like you were part of something.
It made it really tough to kind of consume that content because they used a custom platform provided from a third party and I won't call them out by name necessarily, but it added a lot of overhead, a lot of chrome, a lot of UI that didn't need to be there, right?
Like every talk popped up in a new pop up window and it just really wasn't nearly as slick. Whereas you contrast that to an experience like Twitch, which you could be watching this live on Twitch right now where on demand on Twitch? Um It's one of the platforms I vlog out on and it's also owned by Amazon, which I thought it was interesting that they chose not to use it um for this conference.
And I think that's just based on the vision they had perhaps. But what's great about Twitch is that the video content is front and center. But the interactivity, the ability to chat right next to it to interact. It's just a really slick interface and it's slick in the way that it just gets out of your way and that's absolutely critical.
So building on yesterday's message about direct communication, especially in light of the breach when we talked about Facebook, I think it's important if you're building digital experiences to focus on that user experience. What is it like for a viewer? Do I have to sign up for a specific account?
Do I have to have special software? Am I getting the maximum amount of value out of this content? So, back to the innovate conference, amazing content, top notch content. Like absolutely, you're not going to ask for better from hearing it directly from, from these core experts. But the way it was presented didn't maximize that content.
And that's really unfortunate because it was such great content. So that's a really critical thing. And I see this time and time again, I've attended a number of virtual conferences. I'm debating trying to host one in the new year, which I'd love to hear what you guys think hit me up online or in the comments down below.
But the real thing is, you know, I haven't seen a user experience that's been really smooth or slick or gotten out of the way to make sure that your content is being delivered and framed appropriately. And that's really the challenge here is that you want to frame your content.
But for a virtual event where you're trying to bring people together, you also want to make sure that you can have that togetherness, that feeling of I'm attending this event with other people. Otherwise you're just watching videos on demand and there's nothing wrong with that. But you want to build a bit of a community around these virtual events.
And it's interesting that I've seen, you know, we've seen all sorts of different platforms, but I don't think anybody's hit it on the head yet, but I would love to hear about your experiences. What do you think? How have you attended a virtual conference? Has it been a good experience?
Has it been a positive experience? What about just live streaming? Right. That's sort of step one in these virtual conferences. How do you find livestream? How are you finding this show? Are you finding that, you know, you're getting value from it? Do you feel like you're part of a community?
I know I don't necessarily look at the comments as I'm going during the stream because I think the experience of, you know, me constantly checking something off camera is just acting, but, you know, I can do what I'm doing right now is because of all the construction in the airport is prerecording and then watching the comments as I go, which would not provide a real time response like this, but I could be responding in the comments.
Really, I'm just throwing us out here because it was a, it was a great conference this morning, tons of great content. But again overshadowed a little bit by that lack of a smooth UI UI and UX so interface and an experience. So let me know uh market NC A online on all major social networks in the comments down below is obviously for the blog and for podcasters and everybody else, you can send me an email me at Mark M dot ca.
I do read them all. I will get back to them all eventually. Um Great thing is I'm getting a ton of questions, a ton of messages and emails from everybody. Um which makes it a little tricky for me to get back to you quickly, but I do read them and either respond back this way or directly.
So keep them coming. Um Hope you have a fantastic day and I will see you on the show tomorrow.
