AWS Re:Invent is Amazon Web Services big conference event, which they used to run late every year in Las Vegas during a couple of days. This year the event is a three weeks long online event, which you can attend at no cost.
After two of these three weeks, I am disappointed with the arrangement. There are plenty of (recorded) sessions, all of which they present at different time block, probably to accommodate general geographical areas of the Americas, Europe+Africa and Asia. The schedule is a little bit overwhelming to get a grip of at times.
Here is where it is stupid. It is a virtual conference, with mainly recorded material. Why on Earth do these sessions need to have scheduled slots? Why not have a buffé of sessions which people can watch on-demand?
I have had sessions I was interested in which ran at the very same time. Other runs of these sessions were at times where I would have to get up very early or stay up very late.
This event runs over three weeks, so there is not any specific day that they have filled with valuable sessions and events, for me.
It would be hard to find any way with the less-than-optimal scheduling system.
As I see it, it is more of a time for AWS and AWS sponsor/partner marketing, plus some partially misguided attempt at trying to re-create parts of the physical event.
There has been valuable information for sure, and the price for the event is quite good. But it could have been much better, and I hope another virtual Re:Invent will be a different and better experience.
What do you think of virtual Re:Invent? Good or bad? Do you think other big conferences have done a better job with their virtual events?
Top comments (2)
Perhaps they have live QA session or something similar which requires them to set a schedule like that? Would be nice to see all the records later of course.
That would have been nice, but there has not been any indication of that for the presentation sessions I have watched. There has only been a survey about the session to submit.
There has been some game day events which are first come first served, which I would assume do have more interaction, but that is a very small part of the whole thing.
Right now I am not sure I want to bother trying to find anything for the 3rd and final week. It will hopefully be available to view on-demand later anyway.