Transcript
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Welcome back to be tob growth.
I'm looking lyles with sweet fish media.
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I'm joined today by Sergio Cloudyo.
He's the global head of enterprise and commercial
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experience at Adobe. Sergio, how's
it going today, sir? Fantastic,
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Logan, thanks for having me today. Absolutely Dorothea on your team over there
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at Adobe recently connected us. I
was just looking for you know, I
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saw that adobe summit was one of
the biggest events that kind of caused a
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commotion when people saw that it was
going from a live event to a virtual
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event earlier this year. is as
everything was was changing very quickly earlier this
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spring, and Doro connected me with
you. said that Sergio would really be
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the best guy to talk to to
really unpack the learnings and and what you
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guys went through in not only taking
a big event virtual, but taking a
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big event virtual very, very quickly. So I'm excited to dig into that.
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For a little bit of context for
folks listening to this. Sergio,
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tell us a little bit about your
role both at Adobe and your role in
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the summit event, and then we'll
get into kind of what the experience was
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behind the curtain a little bit and
get into some of those learnings. Absolutely
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so. As you said, I
come from Adobe. I'm the head of
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global enterprise and commercial experience for a
digital experience business and and, as you
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may know, adobe is the leading
software provider for creative software used by designers
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and creatives and marketers around the world. We also have our doc cloud business,
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which is our digital document business,
Wi pdf it. They'll be sign
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and then we have our digital experience
business. Our digital experience business is responsible
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for technologies that are used around from
businesses around the world to transform their businesses
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into digital enterprises. And our digital
summit every year is the culmination of all
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of our digital experience products coming to
life and and and bringing marketers and technologies
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from all around the world together to
discuss what is going to be happening and
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what the future of technology should be
for for for marketers, for ECOMMERCE professionals
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and for it professionals. So our
summit, as I said, it goes
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on every year. It it's typically
in March and this year, obviously march
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was a bit challenging for us with
with everything going on the world, with
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pandemic, and so in preparation,
you know, summit some it typically takes
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us about a year's worth of planning. So once one summit is done,
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in the end of March, we'll
say, two thousand and nineteen, we
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start planning for Summer Two thousand and
twenty, and so, you know,
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plenty of the a lot of the
hard work that had gone into bringing this
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event to life had already been completed, you know, towards the end of
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two thousand and nineteen, and and
was ready to get get ready to launch
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in in the beginning of two thousand
and twenty and so to, you know,
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be coming into the environment that we
were coming into and the the company
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leadership, you know, keeping a
close eye on what was changing and what
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was happening in the world and what's
happening in businesses and wanting to make sure
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that we were doing what was best
for ends, what was best for employees.
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The decision came down to cancel the
live and in person event but still
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deliver the experience and all the goodness
that was expected to be presented to our
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audiences through a virtual environment. Now, for us that was not without its
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challenge, is being that that call
came twenty five days before we were scheduled
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to go live. I'm glad you
said that because I remember seeing that when
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people started talking about it on Linkedin, you know, adobees canceling, canceling
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the the summit event, the live
version that is, and I couldn't remember
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how far out it was, but
you talked about taking a massive event that
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takes a year, literally a year's
worth of planning, twenty five days out
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from when the event is scheduled to
happen. That had to give you a
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little bit of more than just a
little bit of a gut wrenching feeling in
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the pit of your stomach. Am
I right? Absolutely so. When we
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say massive, some it it typically
takes place every year in Las Vegas.
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Spans across multiple casinos and hotels and
it happens in the Las Vegas Convention Center
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and we expect typically, you know, crowds anywhere from nineteen to twenty two
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thousand people that are there with us
for three to four days, you know,
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gathering all that information and truly immersing
that experience so to you know,
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receive the call that in twenty five
days we were meant to, you know,
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take such an impactful experience like that
and Reimagine it quickly for a digital
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environment. To be delivered on March
thirty one was was, as you said,
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gut runching but also an inspiring challenge. You know, it's not every
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day that that. You know and
we love the role that we play for
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the business. You know, we
are, you know, as the leaders
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for our digital experience in ourbcom experience
for DX, we're responsible for helping communicate
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the value of our products and help
connect those products with our customer needs,
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and so this was another opportunity for
us to use those principles to reimagine alive
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and in person experience and deliver and
experience in a virtual environment that again connected
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with their needs and help deliver the
value that they get out of this this
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live, in person event. I
want to go off something that you just
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said. They're Sergio, that word
reimagine. I imagine that part of that
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reimagining for you guys was, okay, this is a live event where digital
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has always been the companion. Now
it's the main dish, it is front
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and center, and that that took
a little bit of a mental shift,
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I'm sure. Right. Absolutely.
Yeah. So, you know, typically
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the way that this event is run, we have our adobe corporate events team,
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which is run by Julie Martin and
her team in Adobe and we typically
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partner with the the events team in
delivering the the digital companion experiences to to
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align with the content that's being introduced
at the live and person event. So
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their team typically will plan all the
logistics, all of the content, the
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entire experience that someone goes through once
they land in Las Vegas and even,
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you know, a little bit before
in terms of the registration and in the
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marketing that goes behind it. And
then typically what we would look at doing
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from a companion perspective is to say, okay, what content is being introduced
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on stage and what are the experiences
that they may go through on a show
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floor and how do we match that
in a digital space so that when someone
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hears about a new product announcement or
update on stage at summit, when they
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go to their mobile devices, that
they go back home to their their desktops
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and they want to research more about
that product, they can find that information
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online. Some of the other experiences, when I say companion experiences, might
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be, you know, the experiences
someone goes through on their device checking their
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schedule or kind of wayfinding around the
event or the idea that we actually we
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still do stream the event live while
the events taking place in person, and
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really that's just that's kind of meant
as a value add for people that didn't
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have a chance to be their live
and in person. So, you know,
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the when I say companion experience is
always tethered to a live event.
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That's happening. But now we found
ourselves an environment where that we no longer
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have that live space. We're no
longer bringing people out to centralize location and
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having them there for four days at
a time. So now we had to
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look at well, how can digital
be a a channel for us to deliver
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that value that people expect, being
able to hear the content and the updates
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and the thought leadership that they'd be
looking for, being able to attend breakout
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sessions and meet with, you know, experts and specific technologies and understand advanced
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techniques with the technologies that they're used
to using, and then also being able
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to connect with product experts on in
a one to one basis, being able
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to ask questions. You know,
those are the types of things that people
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tend to really love about these experiences
and how do we bring that love into
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a digital space in a matter of
twenty five days. Yeah, absolutely,
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coming back to that short that short
time frame not only a massive challenge and,
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like you said, and inspiring opportunity. I love that outlook. So
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do you talk to me a little
bit about what you guys went through and
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thinking through? There's really two things
in my mind, as you take a
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live event digital and you think about
how do we how do we recreate that
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experience? You can't just say hey, this is what they expect here and
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we delivered the same thing there.
You want to get them to the same
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result, but it might take a
different path to get there because you've got
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to think about the two things.
I'm thinking of our what is the technology
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going to look like to enable what
we want to enable, and how is
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the behavior, if you're going to
be different, of the attendees in how
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easily they can access things, in
attention span, how you paste things,
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all of those sorts of things break
down those two for us in what you
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guys started to realize envision as you
took this and planned it as a fully
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digital experience. So, speaking to
the the last points, that's really where
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we started. How the last points
are around you know, what is most
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important to a visitor when they're attending
an event and understanding that they're they're traveling
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across the world, across the country, to be able to spend three to
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four days listening to thought leadership content
from our executives and from from experts around
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the industry, and so we needed
to be able to deliver thought leadership content
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that high level, kind of top
tier content. They also come out there
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for these these workshops and these these
labs and working sessions where they get to
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be hands on and hear these advanced
techniques dive deeper into some of the technologies
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that they're using. And then the
third is to be able to connect with
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others. And so one of our
second principles that that we we often talk
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about when we approach is events is
at the offline strategy for delivering those experiences
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doesn't nececessarily translate into an online environment. And so when I say reimagine,
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we had to look at okay,
well, looking at those values that they're
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looking to receive from the experience.
How do we reimagine that for a digital
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space? And what are the vehicles
to deliver content? What are the ways
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to connect people? What are the
ways to surface those sessions, and so
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that led us to our our core
strategy of saying to deliver that thought leadership
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content or any content, we're really
going to need to heavily invest in video
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for this experience, to deliver that
catalog of a hundred and fifty to two
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hundred breakout sessions. We're going to
have to be able to design and experience
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that surfaces the right content to people, surfaces learning paths, allows them to
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filter and search through content, because
it's an entire library and they want to
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be able to quickly access what's right
for them and then follow that path as
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they would if they were in alive
event. And then the third piece was
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that one to one connection. How
do we facilitate conversations between people and and
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there there are a number of ways
to do that right. We're doing this
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now over virtual conferencing, but there's
also components like chat, which we have
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been using very heavily at adobe to
help provide even more enhanced experiences. And
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so how do we take chat and
how do we how do we what conversations
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can we have in the amount of
time that we have that would be of
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value to our visitors. Looking at
chat, it gave a our chat module.
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It gave us the the opportunity to
sorry our chat module, which was
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powered by drift, gives us an
opportunity to have a driven conversations and then
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handoff and to live in person conversations. And so when we we were very
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deliberate about think about the conversations that
people have when they're at these events,
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everything from, you know, looking
for information desk and wayfinding, you know,
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where do I pick up my badge? Where do I find this session
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that I'm interested in, to,
you know, how do I connect with
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an expert on a product that I
have a question about? And so using
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our drift chat module allowed us to
script some of those conversations to help people
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find their way around the the virtual
experience, help them find the right content
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that they needed. But then when
they had the specific question around content that
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they were watching, whether it was
additional information on Indovie experience platform or Marquetto
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then it would then allow them to
connect to an evangelist or to a a
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product representative that would be able to
have an in person, live conversation with
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them to help answer their questions.
So those were the three main features that
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we focused on. reimagining this because
ultimately, for us, our our mantra
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was, you know what is going
to help deliver the best experience for the
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user and what is going to de
risk that, and so we you know,
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there were plenty of other features that
we could have added to make this
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a full event experience, but we
wanted to focus on those three to really
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make this impactful for the visitors.
was there anything specific that surprised you,
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Sergio, about user behavior, either
engaging with chat, we're getting stuck somewhere,
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or asking a question that the team
hadn't really anticipated in scripting out the
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first part of those ai driven conversations
was was there anything that you guys wish
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you would have done or something that
surprised you that maybe you adapted to on
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the fly, that other digital event
organizers maybe should be thinking about for for
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their next event, or something that
you guys took and are applying to the
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future that surprised you along the way
throughout this experience, specifically on the User
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Behavior Front? Absolutely so. You
know, thankfully we have adobe analytics,
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and adobe analytics allows us to have
to get a deep insights around user behavior
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and how they engage our sites,
and we are certainly taking learnings from this
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experience and continuing to evolve our future
experiences, including an experience makers live event
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that we have coming in July,
as well as a an adobe Max event
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in in October. And so those
insights include things like, you know,
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well, as a result of all
the pivots that we had to make in
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the in the the beginning of as
we were adapting to the emerging situation,
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we had a plan A, Plan
B and ultimately we ended up in kind
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of a plan see, Plan D
scenario. So, you know, plan
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a was obviously doing a live event. Plan B was, okay, we're
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going to do a live streaming event
that's going to be very well produced and
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you know, we're going to have
people in our our speakers and a studio
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environment. And then, you know, all of the shutdown orders came through
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and kind of the the shelter in
place, and so that remove the ability
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to allow people to be in these
produced environments. And so now we were
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exposed to a number of complexities,
how being people being able to film from
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home, as well as varied Internet
connections. I mean, you know,
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at that time, I think now
there's been such a huge reinforcement of internet
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infrastructure and bandwidth speeds and all that
what people have available at home. But
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in the beginning of this, you
know, we were certainly concerned about the
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inconsistency of band with speeds and the
sustainability of someone stream. So that really
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pushed us to go from doing a
live event to, you know, our
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plan see, which is simulive event, to plan D, which was fully
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on demand. And the the decision
to go fully on demand was deliberate in
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the sense that we weren't sure where
people were going to be in terms of
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their their ability to commit time to
this experience, and so, you know,
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we were we were very deliberate about
shortening the length of our segments,
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of our content, but also adding
in chapters and some flexibility for them to
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be able to browse through content as
they would, you know, any other
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streaming type of content. Now,
what that did and what we learned from
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that was that, you know,
in a number of few short weeks,
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we set an expectation of going from
this being a live event, the happening
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at this for of the point in
time, to a fully on demand event.
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And a lot of what we were
starting to see after the event was
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live. We received a lot of
great feedback, you know, a lot
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of positive feedback, but also some
some items on a wish list, and
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one of those were that there are
some attendees that really enjoyed the flexibility of
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the live experience and that tended to
be more of that executive audience. And
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then there were some attendees that really
carved out a particular point of time and
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their day wanting to watch that content
simultaneously with the rest of the community and
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wanted to they wanted to run community
watch parties where they were all watching something
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at the same time, and so
that made a bit challenging to do.
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And again, you know, people's
time. It's precious, especially when you're
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trying to balance working from home and
being a parent and all the other things
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happening around you. So, you
know, we'd seen visitors who had carved
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out two hours of their day to
be there for a moment in time and
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then when they got there and they
saw it was all on demand, then
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it was the response that we were
seeing. It was that they would have
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scheduled their time differently if they knew
that they could access the content on demand.
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And so those are all valuable in
sights, you know, things that
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we're learning from how people were responding
to the content, how they wanted to
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be presented to them certainly, you
know, driving us to include much more
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of a live component in our future
events to be able to deliver on that,
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with a healthy balance of that on
demand content that people sat down so
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valuable. That's really interesting, Sergio. I think it made me think of
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two things. One, whenever I've
gone to events, to me it's the
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content, yes, but oftentimes the
content can be delivered in other on demand
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fashions and and the event organizer probably
has made made allowances for that. And
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you know, just like you guys
previously did with previous in person live summits,
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with with streaming, not making some
of that content available when you're not
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in those sessions. But the biggest
point for me is is the networking aspect,
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knowing that this is going to be
a focused group, I'm going to
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be among my peers and not only
am I getting content, but I'm getting
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it not in a silo. So
that's really interesting. Seems to kind of
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reinforce my experience there as an event
attendee and really interesting to see where you
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guys take that from here. The
other thing I just saw, like a
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news article or something, that Amazon
Prime is rolling out a new watch party
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feature where you know you can you
can basically have like a watch room where
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you can have friends all in the
same room and be watching a movie or
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a show together when you're not in
the same place and have some sort of
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chat experience. That's really like.
I didn't even read the full article,
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I just saw a little snippet,
but that kind of reinforces this this craving
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for folks who are consuming our content. As much as I am a big
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fan and a big proponent of on
demand content, it's part of the reason
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podcasting is been on such an explosive
rise, and I think that is still
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true. But at the same time
we're craving that connection and sometimes when you're
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consuming content with others, either there's
an entertainment factor, like it looks like
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Amazon prime is trying to tap into, or there's there's an enhanced learning component,
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which it sounds like your attendees were
looking for. How can I consume
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this content and chat with my peers
about it? So you mentioned when we
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were chatting a little bit offline,
Sergio that you guys had to get pretty
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creative. You had to adapt very
quickly with the the time frame we've touched
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on several times in this conversation.
Had to adapt pretty quickly and bring in
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people from different areas where you might
not have been expecting to work with a
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different team. As we round out
the conversation, can you tell us a
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story or two about how you guys
were able to pull in different team members
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and, I think, most importantly, what were some of the surprises?
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Where did you pull someone in that
you didn't think you were going to need
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to and and that led to an
outcome in creating this digital experience that really
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mapped to the results that you were
trying to get to, because what we
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want to do here is share with
listeners anything that they can take is they're
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looking to lean into virtual events or
execute something similar, maybe at a smaller
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scale, but something similar to what
you guys were able to to do cross
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functionally. There was there anything that
surprised you in pulling in other team members
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or coming up with creative solutions across
teams? Absolutely, you know, it's
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some it goes back to that first
point that I made, that that twenty
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five day deadline. It was got
rained wrenching, but it was also inspiring,
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and inspiring in a in a very
broad sense of bringing an inspiring the
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entire team globally. You know that
that deadline, that that desire to turn
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this experience, this digital experience,
into a in experience that was worthy of
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Adobe customers, really became kind of
a driving mantra and a unifying force for
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for for the entire company, and
to see the way that team showed up
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and offered their support, offered their
areas of expertise and offered their collaboration.
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I mean, one of the things
that we found was that this was a
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big problem, big challenge that we
were all going to have to address,
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that we had to do so in
a in a very constrained timeframe and we
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had to reach across two teams that
we're not even familiar with working with each
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other before. We had people that
were coming from the creative club business,
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people that were coming from the dog
club business, people that are on the
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DX business that we're working on this
event, as well as people that typically
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do not work in digital environments,
adapting and and bringing their level of expertise
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in terms of, you know,
how people want to engage offline and what
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we can learn from that to build
this experience online. And largely you can
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have success in small teams and you
can have success in large teams. And
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on average, our discussions, and
we're orkxtreame calls for these teams had anywhere
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between three thousand, two hundred and
sixty seven people at any given time on
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these conference calls and and working together, you know, very in a very
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well orchestrated fashion. We had members
from studio. So that's the bizarre adobe
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creative team, are adobe digital web
product management team. We had our commercial
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and enterprise demand teams involved, we
had our global events teams involved, we
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had our international teams involved, we
had our lead routing and marketing operation teams
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involved and it was amazing to see
all of these teams building this experience together
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in their own smaller work groups and
then coming together and continuing to build the
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larger pole. It was it was
like watching, you know, a series
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of small pit crews kind of going
and, you know, putting the lead
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generation tires on one side of it
and putting the video analytics tires on the
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other side and and you know,
contributing the marketing automation strategy and the email
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Kateence, email communications perspective, as
well as the engineering and the design that
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went involved. You know, watching
design and engineering collaborate together on this was
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was extremely inspiring. Being able to
see US LEVERAGE ARE ADOBE XD product in
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our our collaboration features and xt having
these cloud hosted files, creative files,
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where you had fourteen team members at
a time that were updating and commenting and
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some were creative and somewhere were more
client facing and someone more engineering focus,
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but they would all come together in
one space to help build this experience and
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and so you know, it was
it was a really great way to see
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that these are teams that don't normally
work together and they may be dedicated to
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different parts of the business. Yet, you know, for this type of
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effort, everyone kind of put wherever
they came from to the side and all
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focus together on this project. They
remove themselves from their own sprint schedules,
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they remove themselves from their different priorities
and said this is our priority and however
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we can make each other most successful
is what we will do. I love
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to hear that. It's a testament
to the team you guys have over there.
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At Adobe a testament to the leadership
group that's able to rally the the
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teams together for for other teams out
there, Sergio, for marketing leaders going
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through a similar pivot or thinking through
something that they're going to have to change
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in the second half of the year
here and get done quickly? Any recommendations
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or advice to those folks that you
think you know helped help that collaboration,
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helped that team work happen on your
team as you guys pulled together in this
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twenty five day stretch? Any advice
for leaders going through something similar that maybe
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listening to this now? Some of
the most important things, who were clarity
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around the vision for the experience,
having all of the leaders be aligned on
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what the what the main objectives are, which, for us, it was
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to deliver the best experience possible for
our users based on the values that we
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discussed thought leadership content, breakout session
content and one to one connection. Those
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were our main values and and as
as long as we aligned every detailed the
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experience to those values, then we
were on the right path. The second
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was this idea of risk. In
large organizations, obviously we tend to want
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to include a lot of people in
the process and we set a lot of
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checkpoints up for ourselves that require certain
rounds of reviews and create opportunities for more
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inputs. But we had to be
very specific that those were going to be
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our three main principles and anything that
did not align with those principles in the
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time frame that we had would create
risk, and ultimately risk to whether the
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technology would not be supported, may
not work, but also risk to those
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three things that we were focused on
in the experience that. Yeah, so
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kind of avoiding those wouldn't it be
cool if, like eating, not going
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down those tangents, even if it's
a great idea, if it could pull
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away from those three main priorities which
you set by having that clear vision,
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then we're not going to go there, as much as it's a good idea,
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and it could be cool if we're
not going to go there. Right,
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correct, right. So conversations around
you know, it would be great
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to have a social feed solution,
but it could create risk with the video
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stream deliverability and so we were not
willing to sacrifice the quality of the video
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content that we felt was so valuable
for the audience, and so you know,
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that was one of the things that
was we configure this out in future
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versions, but for this version we
need to focus on those three and it
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was great. It was. It
was a great way to unify everyone around
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what the main deliverables were. And
and not to mention, or not not
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to skip over one of the very
important things, which was also pipeline,
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right, the ability for this experience
to drive pipeline. I think that is
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something that was completely different in this
in this environment, than ever before in
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terms of what digital was meant to
drive. From an event perspective, it
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had to make up for that sales
pipeline that the the sales teams would have
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an opportunity to grow and in person
event. Here we had to take this
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digital experience and not only deliver entertainment
value but deliver demand in sales value for
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the company. And so that was
another area that could not be compromised.
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And so all of the content,
the strategy for those breakout sessions was for
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that to be gated and require information
that could can then be used to help
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nurtured leads and and so that was
another main focus and and if it compromised
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our ability to do that, that
was one of the things where hey it
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would be cool if we could do
this. Yes, we could do that,
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but at what cost? It would
cost us either our sales pipeline value,
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it would cost us our engagement on
video, it would cost us the
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ability to let users ask questions,
and so those were really our guiding principles
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through every meeting that we had.
And you know, we're very creative company.
379
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There are always a lot of ideas
that were coming up and we had
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to put them in a parking lot
and they're certainly being explored for these future
381
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events, but in that twenty five
day window it just wasn't realistic. Yeah,
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I love that as a great summary, Sergio. I mean, as
383
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I was taking notes here, really
the three keys were getting the leadership and
384
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then the broader team aligned on on
the vision. What are the top priorities
385
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that we need to if all else
fails? What are the three things that
386
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we have to do? So getting
aligned on that vision, minimizing risk as
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it's associated with those top priorities that
you laid out in that vision, and
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then number three, really focus on
what results are we trying to drive?
389
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If we deliver what we're trying to
deliver, what should success look like?
390
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And keeping that at the forefront of
everyone's mind. I think if you take
391
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those three whatever the tech, whatever
the size of the pivot that you're trying
392
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to make in taking a live event
virtual or going from on demand content to
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live streaming content, whatever the experiences
you're trying to craft, if you keep
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those three things in mind, I
think you're going to be better off.
395
00:29:03.259 --> 00:29:07.059
Well, Sergio, again, hats
off to to your entire team for making
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something happen on such a tight window
and delivering a great experience to those those
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folks that did make it did consume
that on demand content. If people listening
398
00:29:17.009 --> 00:29:19.250
to this would like to stay connected
with you, maybe ask the follow up
399
00:29:19.289 --> 00:29:25.720
questions on the topic today, or
they want to stay in touch and learn
400
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about some of the other online events
that you guys have coming later in the
401
00:29:29.400 --> 00:29:32.599
year, what's the best way for
them to reach out or stay connected?
402
00:29:32.640 --> 00:29:37.759
Absolutely I'm I'm pretty active on Linkedin, so they can find me on Linkedin
403
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under Sergio Claudio and most recently posted
a recent blog post that is on the
404
00:29:42.150 --> 00:29:48.869
adobecom blog about our story and pivoting
and using the adobe technology to power this
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00:29:48.990 --> 00:29:52.549
event, so they can find more
great details. For myself and other leaders
406
00:29:52.710 --> 00:29:56.339
from from the adobe experienced business,
and also on twitter at at Sergio Claudio.
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I love it. Sergio, thank
you so much for being our guest
408
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today. I really appreciate it.
Thanks so much for having me, Logan.
409
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One of the things we've learned about
podcast audience growth is that word of
410
00:30:08.849 --> 00:30:12.809
mouth works. It works really,
really well actually. So, if you
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love this show, would be awesome
if you texted a friend to tell them
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about it, and if you send
me a text with a screenshot of the
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text you sent to your friend,
Metta, I know I'll send you a
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copy of my book content based networking, how to instantly connect with anyone.
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You want to know my cell phone
numbers. Four hundred and seven, four
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nine hundred, three and three,
two eight. Happy texting.