The Survivors' Guide to AWS re:Invent

(Adapted from an answer to a question on Quora.)

Let me say ahead of time: AWS re:Invent is the best conference I've ever attended, bar none. The density and quality of technical content, the fun and the networking come together into one amazing package. But...it's not easy. It's definitely work. Here's how to come out of the other end informed - and still largely intact!

The first re:Invent in 2012 was a cozy affair. There were a few thousand of us, all the sessions happened at the Sands Expo Center and the Conference Center, both at the Venetian, and it was intensive, but only 2½ days long. (I think there was an Executive Summit the day before.)

Now, it’s crazy.

Although still anchored at the Venetian, the sessions happen across at least seven hotel/casinos, from the MGM Grand at the southern end of the main Strip, to the Encore at the northern. That’s not including the re:Play party. (Which is strictly security controlled, by the way—so if you’re in Vegas at the time, and don’t have re:Invent ID, please don’t try to talk your way in!)

Last year, 2017, there were around 43,000 attendees. This year, there will be more.

The conference starts with Registration and Midnight Madness, and a few other bits, on Sunday. It finishes at midday on the following Friday. It will be brutally full-on between those times.

You. Will. Suffer.

There’s no getting around it. Your feet will suffer. Your health will suffer. You will be exhausted. You will miss lunch because you’re rushing between hotels to get to your next session. You will probably drink too much in the evenings (if you’re so inclined), and suffer for that, too.

By the end of the conference you will be aching, burned-out, your brain will feel like it’s about to explode from all the things you’ve been cramming into it, and all you’ll want to do is collapse onto a sofa and pass out. You probably will.

So how do you survive re:Invent (and get the best out of it)?

A. Before you go

• Get a new pair of trainers (running shoes) several weeks beforehand, and wear them in thoroughly before you travel. Fit orthopaedic insoles that support your arches, and cushion your feet. Don’t take old, worn shoes. Don’t take brand new shoes. Don’t take hard leather shoes.
• If you’re new to Vegas, learn the Strip, and how to navigate it, with particular reference to the session venues. Don’t expect to achieve your full walking speed—it’s crowded, particularly from the Venetian to the Linq, and from about Caesar’s Palace south on either side of the road. You will need this knowledge for session booking (see next). Remember that the Monorail is an option, but trains might not be as regular as you’d like. Allow a minimum 30 minutes from the Venetian to the Bellagio, or any venue south of that point.
• It’s too late for this year, but in future be ready the moment session bookings open. You should already have bookmarked all the sessions you want to attend, with fallbacks in case you can’t get your first choice. Pay close attention to venues. There’s no point in finishing one session at the Venetian, to find that your next one is at the MGM Grand, and in ten minutes’ time! That research you did after reading my last point will pay dividends for session planning! Consider the options for concentrating on one venue per day, so that you minimise travel.
• Get a decent, lightweight backpack. Get it adjusted to fit you before you leave, and get used to wearing it with a bit of weight in it. An ultra-lightweight rain jacket that packs into a tiny bundle is worth bringing. Vegas doesn’t rain often…but when it does, it’s spectacular!
• Clothes: T-shirts or short-sleeve shirts. Shorts, or lightweight trousers. You might overheat in jeans. Vegas at the end of November is still pretty warm. Don’t bring a fleece. Bear in mind, you’ll probably get one when you register anyway. Even if you don’t, the drugstores sell them, in the unlikely event you need one.
• Make sure you’ve enough business cards. Get more printed ahead of time. Take them.
• Bring a charge block and cable for your phone and/or tablet. You’ll probably need to recharge before the end of the day.
• Warn your employer you may not be in on the Monday after, even if you work in the same time zone as Vegas—and particularly if you don’t.

B. Once you’re there

• Register as early as possible. There’s always a conference freebie—normally a hoodie—plus maybe a nice surprise to go with it, and other bits and pieces…but only whilst stocks last. And you do want one in your size, right?
• Wear your backpack at all times at the conference—except at re:Play—but don’t carry your laptop unless it’s seriously lightweight. Mine’s 800 grammes; I’ll bring it. Anything over about 1.3kg…forget it. Anything that’s going to need a top-up charge before you get back to your room…forget it even more! That backpack’s for carrying the stuff I’m about to talk about, plus all the freebies you’ll pick up at the Expo.
• Walgreens, a drugstore, is just south of the Venetian; between the Venetian and Harrah’s. Visit it early, so you can find it later. Might be a good idea to get a pack of blister plasters. You’ll have no problem achieving—and probably doubling—your 10,000 steps per day.
• Whilst you’re at Walgreen’s, stock up on energy drinks, munchies and snack bars. They’re your life-saver if you can’t stop for lunch, or you’re flagging. I’d also suggest bringing (or buying) broad-spectrum vitamin and mineral supplements. Something like Berocca, or the own-brand equivalent.
• Bring or buy antacids and simethicone (“Wind-eze”). Imodium might be an idea, too, just in case. You’ll be eating a load of stuff you don’t normally eat, and maybe drinking more alcohol than normal too. These things take their toll. Indigestion (and hopefully only that) is inevitable—but you need to be on top of your game. Gut troubles are a real drag.
• Bottled water. Lip salve. Moisturiser—ideally something really effective like E45 cream. Carry them all. The desert air’s even more arid than the air conditioning. Don’t keep your lips moisturised regularly, and they’ll be cracked like Death Valley come end of the week. Keep hydrated at every chance, for the same reason. Locals carry a bottle of water with them everywhere. They know what they’re up to. You should too.
• Try to get to the Expo at the Venetian. Massive networking, career and sales potentials meet with FREEBIES! So many freebies.
• There will be fast wi-fi in most sessions, apart from the keynotes where it’s patchy. There will be phone charging areas, but use your charge block instead; that way, you keep control of your phone!
• Make copious notes during the sessions. Memory is fickle. If you’re making paper notes, use your phone camera to take photos of them (and any business cards you take) every chance you. That way it’s not a disaster if you lose your stuff. If you’re taking electronic notes, use something like Evernote or Microsoft Office Notes, or some other note-taking app that backs up in real time to the cloud.
• Pace yourself. It’s tempting to burn the midnight oil every night. But I promise you you’ll struggle to have anything left for the re:Play party, much less the Friday morning sessions that follow it. It’s not a crime to retire to your hotel room and chill in front of the TV! Or soak in the tub. Or use that time to prepare for the next day. Let’s face it, your employer (or you) paid for you to learn, not to party—and you should try to get back home in a functional state when it’s all over!
• Remember: the sessions you missed will be on YouTube soon after. You can catch up. It’s not being in the session, but it’s better than nothing.
• HAVE FUN! Despite all I’ve said, re:Invent is huge fun, and immensely mentally stimulating. It’s a fantastic place to network. You’ll learn loads.

C. The aftermath

• RELAX! You’ll need recovery time. That Monday-off I mentioned earlier? Don’t be afraid to use it.
• Revisit those notes. Remember all you went there to learn. Be prepared to regurgitate it to anyone who asks, at a moment’s notice. You just became a guru, if you weren’t before, in their eyes.

A Cautious Return to British Airways

Here's the thing: I used to love British Airways. In 2001/2, I was working for a Canadian company based in St John, New Brunswick. I flew out there from London every couple of months. Rather than take Air Canada's more direct routing, I flew the intercontinental leg with BA, via Toronto Pearson airport, because I liked BA. I flew regularly enough, I'd often get upgraded. From Toronto, I'd take a regional Air Canada flight to St John (YSJ).

And then...That Day. I was travelling for a rather critical first-thing-in-the-morning meeting. The BA flight was delayed more than 2½ hours. Arriving at Pearson, I'd missed my connecting flight, the last to YSJ, though I'd allowed plenty of transfer time. So I went to BA's desk to ask what they could do to help. I'd hoped for at least a hotel room, so that I could catch the early red-eye to YSJ the following morning. Were they helpful?

Not a bit of it. Their attitude was: "You didn't book your connecting flight with us, so it's not our problem." Mine was, "You caused my delay. It is your problem." We went round this loop many times, until I gave up and went away. They truly couldn't care less. I couldn't believe how badly they'd let me down.

I told them, then and there, that I would lobby to have BA removed from the company's Preferred Supplier List, and from the PSL of any future company, and would not fly BA again for many, many years to come - perhaps never. They probably heard that every day, and shrugged. But I meant it.

So, world-weary and despondent, I staggered over to the Air Canada desk. Before I'd even spoken, the lady there said, "You look like you've been in the wars!" I told her my tale of woes. She looked shocked. "Well, let's see what we can do."

Much rattling of keyboards. A few minutes later: "OK, Jon," (she'd remembered I prefer that to Jonathan), "I've got you routed through Halifax. You've a four-hour stop, then you catch the early flight to St John. That'll get you there for 8am. And you need a bit of pampering, so you're business class all the way. You'll like that. We've got massage seats. You look like you need it!"

I was beyond grateful. This is just how Customer Service is done. It wasn't even their problem, but they cared, and went far beyond anything I could have expected. I fell in love with Air Canada at that moment.

And I kept my word. I haven't flown BA, since. In the intervening 13 years, I've been Director of several companies (CEO of most). I've been consultant to many others. BA was removed from the PSLs, as promised. Given my flying pattern, BA's lost approaching £100,000 of my own flights, and probably over £1M more from being off the PSLs. This is the cost of one bad customer experience.

However...I'm at a conference in Vegas soon. The only airlines with direct flights are BA and Virgin Atlantic. I've always loved Virgin - I think I've probably around 100k unspent Flying Club miles - but...BA had a flight sale, undercutting Virgin by 50%, and I couldn't ignore that any longer. At last, I booked. (Sorry, Sir Richard!)

I actually want to give BA a chance for redemption. It has an excellent flight network - and oneworld even more so. It's time. Despite the BA2276 fire - a one-off incident, I hope! - I'm looking forward to it. With some trepidation, I'll admit, but I want to be pleased. I want to be impressed. Above all, I want to see good customer service from British Airways, to give me confidence to fly with them again.

I'll report back.

Promotional Gifts - How Not To Waste Your Money!

This came out of a discussion on the "Collaborative Cambridge" Facebook group, which seems to have become dormant in recent months.

The question arose: "Has anyone explored the world of corporate gifts (e.g. pens, coasters, etc.)? If so, what, why and did they achieve what you wanted?"

My conclusions: you need to pick the items that'll keep your details in front of the target the longest.

Pens are a waste of time. They get lost, chewed, run out of ink. Cheap pens aren't a good look in an exec's hand; neither are pens branded for someone else's company. And if they dump a load of ink in your customer's bespoke suit pocket, you won't make friends, to say the least.

Mouse-mats? Maybe, but how many do you use? One at most. So why would your prospects use yours instead of someone else's? Novelty items, like juggling balls? How are they going to keep your message in your targets' eyes for more than a moment? Same goes for coasters.

And don't get me on giveaway sweet packets...they've a half-life of ten exhibition stands away from yours!

No, the things that work, in my humble opinion, are useful items that don't shame an executive's desk. So let's talk about a few of those.

Memory sticks with a keyring attachment - important! - are good, particularly if etched/inscribed rather than printed (most screen printing gets worn off quickly). Only use ones with a decently useful capacity. "One gig? Seriously? Pointless!" Make sure they're pre-loaded with your sales literature.

Mugs are great. But remember that the top execs may not like having mugs rather than fancy china on their desks, so pick your target. Give them to everyone you work with at your clients, and donate to suitable organisations who will have visitors/workers/members in your target market areas, so they and their visitors see a cupboard-full of your mugs. Mugs have long working lives, promoting your biz. Don't forget contact information as well as branding! Consider QR codes.

Water bottles for runners will have your customers grateful to you every time they stop for a long, cool drink. Not so useful for a fifty-something besuited, overweight Board member, though - so, again, pick your target.

Desk clocks - but only the stylish ones. Added points for small displays of month's calendar, and temperature and pressure. Even if your customer gives them to her geek kid, it'll be seen by the customer regularly. My daughter has one on her laptop table. Amazingly, the vendor didn't bother to brand it. I can't remember who gave it now, just that it came from a cloud tech expo.

Visible to their customer daily? Achieved. Brand recognition? FAIL!

Tear-off notepads, like those spiral ones with a through-hole that acts as a pen-holder, with your details discreetly on each page. (Top tip: include a near-end page saying: "Running out? Give us a call, and we'll gladly send you a new pad!") The same goes for sticky-note pads...but with hundreds of leaves, not skinny ones with just 50 or 100. Remember, the idea's to keep that message in front of your customer as long as possible.

Leather folders with A4 notepads (again, details on each page, and a "refill" reminder). I still use one I got years ago. Looks stylish, and it's useful. But imprint with your details inside, not outside. Looks are everything in luxury goods, so keep the branding where it's seen every time the recipient opens it, even if they've replaced your pad with a generic. Oh, and think carefully about the leather. Calf-skin probably won't play well with Indian businesspeople; likewise pig-skin amongst Muslim or Jewish prospective customers. Did I mention, "Pick your target"?

Shoulder/laptop bags - but don't bother unless you're going to spend for a top-quality desirable item: you want your target to abandon your competitors' cheaper-looking ones for yours! So be discreet about logo and contact details. Embroider rather than print; it's a classier look.

Linen or hessian tote bags are surprisingly effective, and durable. Durable is good.

Even draw-string kit bags, the sort that kids take to school holding their gym or swimming kit, are useful. It'll be seen often around your customer's house, and the kids will remind them if they forget who provided the bag!

Basically, the take-away message (pun somewhat intended) is to think about what's going to promote you in the longer term - and don't cheap out. And that means being selective about who you give gifts to, too, otherwise you may as well hand out unbranded pound coins instead.

Make your give-aways memorable, useful and retained by their recipients, and they won't be a waste of money.

Irritation Advertising Part One: Web Pages

I have a confession to make. I use AdBlock Plus in all my browsers. I simply don't see ads.

The reason I block ads is because of the really spammy ones. The ones that whir, flash, jigger around in my peripheral vision, shouting "Look at me! Look at ME! LOOK AT MEEEEEEE!"

Advertisers really think that the way to get my willing compliance is to annoy the living crud out of me - or give me a migraine? (Seriously: that's a thing. I don't need more migraine than I already have. It's very effective aversion therapy for adverts.)

So they spoil it for everyone else. I don't mind sidebar ads, provided they don't compress the actual content into a Brazilian-waxed mini-strip down the middle. I don't mind ads that don't jump up and down like a clingy, demanding three-year-old, having tantrums when I don't pay attention. Sometimes, targeted ads that play nicely will even get my clicks. But the others, the irritating ones, have poisoned the well for the rest, because you can't filter for "spammy", so I block the lot. And I'm very, very far from being alone in this, as industry stats illustrate so well.

I appreciate that this breaks the unwritten compact between content consumer and producer: that the presences of adverts - even if not the deliberate click-through - are what pay for the content we consume.

So, this is my message to the advertising industry, and to the content makers: get your act together.

• Advertisers: stop equating causing irritation with getting attention. Would you reward someone for stamping on your toes?
• Producers: apply controls on who advertises through you, and how they do it. Play nicely, and come down hard on those who won't.

Do these things, and consumers might stop routinely using AdBlock Plus and its rivals.

AdBlock is not the disease, it's the symptomatic treatment for one. Cure the disease, and patients won't need the medicine.

Get the money in...but in the right way!

We recently cancelled our contract with a cloud services provider (who shall remain nameless). They're not a big player...and perhaps that was the problem.

We were hoping to buy virtual Windows servers from them, to host our enterprise software platform, so we'd signed up for a month to try it out. And during that period it transpired that the only payment methods they offered were PayPal or Skrill manual payments. No subscription service, no Direct Debit or even a continuing credit card mandate. We'd have to pay months in advance, to be sure of continuity of service.

Now, if it's, say, an online magazine membership, that's OK...ish. This isn't. It's the kind of service on which you build mission-critical systems - and those have to work, and be bullet-proof. Their failure is, quite literally, not an option.

So that led, with considerable regret, to the email I sent today:

(Please forward these comments to your management team.)

After due consideration, we have decided to terminate our relationship with [your company].

Although the Windows VPS service appears stable and fast, we cannot risk the commercial damage of having our mission-critical systems offlined by a missed manual payment, because you do not provide an easy automated funding option.

PayPal, particularly without a subscription option, is simply not a professional way to collect fees. It would only require one staff member to be ill, or on holiday, and a manual payment therefore missed, and our Windows-based enterprise platform would be downed. (To be blunt, we expect our suppliers to work for us, not vice-versa.)

And whilst there is the possibility of paying well in advance, we feel that our money would provide us more benefit in our own account, until needed elsewhere.

We have stopped our server, and hereby terminate our contract with you. Please cancel our service.

Jon
--
Jon Green
Managing Director, Adeptium Consulting Ltd. http://www.adeptium.com

The company in question had very helpful, friendly, tolerant customer service - their reply says volumes about that:

Dear Mr Green,

Thank you very much for your e-mail.

As requested, we will cancel the following subscriptions at the end of the contract:[...]

Even if we can not keep you as our customer, we would like to express our gratitude since we valued our business relationship very much.

We would be pleased to hear from you again, and we wish you much success in the future.

If you have any questions or need help, please do not hesitate to contact us.

There's a lesson in this. It doesn't matter how excellent your product, nor how keenly you price it, nor how helpful your staff: if you make things too difficult or risky for people to use your services, all the rest was for nothing.

It's a lesson I hope I remember when I need it!

Banksy, Billboards, and Targeted Adverts

So I got into a bit of a discussion on Facebook. It was all about some controversial, but interesting, words from Banksy. You probably should go read them, and come back to this. I even set up the link to open it in a new window, because I'm just nice like that.

A former and well-respected colleague, Wail Sabbagh, contended that billboards and the like were little different from postcard adverts in a newsagent's window. How I replied to that is what forms the main thrust of this blog. I said:

"I've spent too much time in the States to let that one pass! I hate in-yer-face advertising, everywhere; unavoidable. It's all "Look at me! Look at ME! Look at MEEEEEEEE!", and has recently led to the trend towards "annoyance advertising" - "It doesn't matter if you irritate the cr*p out of people so long as they're looking." The bloody-awful whistler accompanying one DIY barn chain's adverts is an example of that. In our house, it's target practice time for the MUTE button.

The world doesn't revolve around advertising, but that message hasn't quite reached the US: you have to go backwoodsing to get away from placards everywhere and TV that doesn't let you watch 10 minutes without badly-made sales pitches. It's an extreme - but it's going the same way here.

So I've sympathy with the sentiments behind Banksy's comments, if not his conclusions.

Although I'm not entirely happy with the personal-information culture behind it, I welcome the move towards targeted advertising. Instead of a gazillion products in my face, a gazillion-minus-epsilon of which I'm never going to want to know about, I get stuff that's actually relevant to me and has a chance of making a sale too, if they don't annoy me too much telling me about it.

I will be delighted when targeted, effective advertising undermines the case for big billboards, and for placards blighting every green and grassy roundabout, and we can finally do away with that environmental spam and see the world around us properly again.

Maybe Banksy has a point.

And that set me thinking further.

You'll notice, if you don't have adverts blocked, that there are ads around this blog too. I'm hoping they're targeted; that they are relevant and interesting to you. If they're not, tell me. There are things I can tweak.

Let's take it as assumed that, in a capitalist society, adverts are not optional if business is to survive. (Of course, the same is true in Communist states too, it's just that they're "advertising" state policies, initiatives, propaganda and the like.) Let's also assume that most billboards have little or no effect. They're an outmoded way of promoting a product or company: unless there's something truly novel being advertised, the expenditure is rarely recouped in revenues. There's limited evidence that TV advertising yields any better benefits for the price.

That leads us to online advertising, then. From a business perspective, it's fantastic. At last, there's a direct, tangible link between cost of display and revenues: the "click-through rate" and "completion rate" (CTR and CR) are metrics we can use to determine precisely how effective both the advert, and the spend on it, are. Better still, customer profiling, whether personally-identifiable or anonymised, based on prior purchases and clicked ads, allow the marketing industry to be laser-accurate in the types of adverts shown to a given viewer. They're going to be interesting. It's stuff that the viewer's already shown an interest in seeing, maybe buying. The CTRs and CRs don't lie.

And this could mean the end for billboards, placards, environmental advertising as a whole. ("Minority Report"-style personal promotion aside, but that's a while yet to come.)

The question is...how much privacy are you prepared to sacrifice, if it means we can finally tear down every advertising hoarding in your life?

Odeon, Customer Service, And How Not To Do It.

This incident is pretty trivial, but it really got me thinking about customer service.

So...I get O2 Priority Moments with my mobile contract, and saw that there was a special offer: 45% off a large nachos/drink combo at Odeon. As it happens, I wanted to see a new film, Pacific Rim, so that sealed the deal: I save that offer, book tickets through Odeon's mobile app, and off I head to my client's local Odeon.

At the cinema, and off to the food section. Now, let's be honest. Cinema snacks are grossly overpriced: they exploit a captive market, and encourage customers to spend almost as much on noisy grazing as they do on the tickets. A tray of nachos, with a squirt of cheese sauce and a bucket of drink, normally costs £7.50. Even with the discount, at £4.13 it's not cheap, but at least I'm not going to taste tooth grindings along with the corn. So I order it, and, whilst it's being dispensed, pull down the offer on the phone.

Fail. Repeatedly. I keep getting, "The server isn't responding. Try again." Now this isn't entirely true: the server has been very helpful; she's already delivered my nachos and drink, but I think they meant the one on the network. I show the lady that I've got the offer, it's there on the phone, but something's gone wrong where they dispense the magic offer codes. She can't enter a code that I can't give her, and doesn't have an override on the till, so calls a supervisor.

I show him the same thing, and he says, "Sorry, the problem's at O2's end. I can't give you the discount."

I explain that I've clearly got the offer, it's there, it's saved, all it needs is a till override, and we can go ahead. "Sorry, the problem's at O2's end. I can't give you the discount."

"But it's an Odeon offer, O2's just providing the access." "Sorry, the problem's at O2's end. I can't give you the discount."

We go round this loop several times. It's like talking to Robocop.

Eventually, I point out, "Look, the food's been opened and served. There's a slush drink melting. I wouldn't have ordered this lot at £7.50, I'm certainly not paying £7.50 for it, and it's going to go to waste if you don't sell it, so let's use a bit of discretion and get this paid for."

You guessed it. "Sorry, the problem's at O2's end. I can't give you the discount."

Inevitable, wasn't it? I look him in the eye, say, "What a damned waste of food," and walk off.

It's not like I'm unknown at that cinema. I go there probably at least once a week. I'm a regular. The supervisor could have said, "Look, I can't put this through the till, but I've seen you here before - as a goodwill gesture, why don't you just take the food on the house this time? Sorry the system didn't work, but hopefully it'll be fixed for next time. Enjoy the film!" I would have walked away a happy customer, they wouldn't have lost any more (let's face it, the food was headed for the dumpster anyway), and honour would have been satisfied.

Instead, I felt like I was dealing with the worst kind of traffic warden, I was left with a bad taste in my mouth, and I'm not inclined go back to the Guildford Odeon for the rest of my contract's length. It's a shame. I know the manageress - she's really nice, and she deserves better of her staff, but I just don't want to deal with Robocop again.

Would you treat your customers this way?

Oh, and the film? Great. Go see it.

But if you do that at an Odeon, just don't order any discounted food that you wouldn't be prepared to pay full price for.