This day was bittersweet, as it has been so nice to finally be around people in person (yes, I realize that sounds a little redundant!), while at the same time, I think we were all a little homesick by now.
Learning
There were several informative sessions today, one of my favorite’s being All aboard! Why cross-team buy-in is the key to smooth sailing. In this session, Kentik’s BI Director, Kate Schiffelbein provided some great advice for getting everyone on board when it comes to guiding data driven practices within an organization. Here are the highlights:
Aim to understand how things work / how decisions are currently being made including:
- Their processes, needs, & clients
- The terminology they use
- Their level of data maturity
- Why the organization is producing the results they are
- The social climate
- Where you can make improvements
Things to keep in mind:
- Not everyone understands the terminology you might be using
- It’s harder to get buy-in when the business team is having issues
- Focus on metrics that actually matter & try to steer clear of vanity metrics
- You may need to help the team get organized
- Ask questions from a non-threatening standpoint
- Stay flexible and open-minded
- Don’t try to be a hero
Things to do:
- Schedule brainstorming sessions or a quasi business consultation with the team
- Give the team leader homework or host a collaborative working session to help guide them
- Speak their language & adapt your approach
- Find your champion
- Avoid producing content that is not adopted
- Become an ally that has brought more tools to the table
Sponsors
The “Activation Hall” was packed full of conference attendees admiring the extraordinary booths of a select few partners who made the cut for sponsorship. Sponsors this year were asked to implement experiential marketing and boy did they deliver 😃
These booths were over-the-top with creativity and provided more than your average pamphlet + swag and a demo! Some of the most memorable setups include the ones from the following data driven organizations:
Continual hired a professional makeup artist who ended up being the talk of the town. She had a waiting list longer than a CVS receipt and made up everyone (including myself) in true NOLA fashion, so they could attend all the after party events they could handle in style. They also enabled visitors to create their own stickers and even offered beer and kombucha as refreshments.
Rudderstack really seemed to understand the needs of conference attendees, offering up cold brew coffee with accouterments and draft beer.
Lightdash provided demos and gave away some awesome reusable straws under the condition that recipients joined their Slack community, which I thought was a super creative way to grow. They also had an awesome tie dye station, where attendees could create their own tie dye shirt in the design and colors of their choice, although the shirts do include their logo (for brand recognition of course 😉).
Atlan went all out with a carnival theme that included a prize wheel and fun prizes, and even sprinkled on a little extra nostalgia, by bringing along a snow cone vendor with all of our favorite flavors.
Spoiler alert…. we’re prepping to have our own booth at next year’s Coalesce 😏 – but I will say, it’s definitely going to be a challenge topping what others have done this year. We’re welcoming any suggestions, btw 👂
Coalesce 2022 Coming to a Close
At the closing remarks talk, Tristan announced that Coalesce 2023 will be hosted in San Diego from October 16th through the 20th and tickets are currently available at an extremely discounted “super early-bird” rate of 70% off 🤯 – So get your tickets ASAP!
The day concluded with an amazing event at Mardi Gras World, where guests were shuttled from the hotel and greeted with a Jazz band and hurricanes upon their arrival. After exiting the building full of larger-than-life Mardi Gras floats, attendees were served up New Orleans’ finest benefits from a Cafe Du Monde food truck.
Going into the main event space, we found an incredible dinner spread, multiple open bars, and an astounding piano band that performed all of our favorite songs 🎶
The highlight of the conference for me was briefly meeting Tristan at the closing party in line for drinks, where he even posed for a pic 🤩
I can’t imagine a better conference, but I for one, can’t wait to attend next year’s dbt Coalesce conference!
Great news 📢 – Videos from all of the Coalesce 2022 sessions are now available on-demand, so you can check them out for yourself on your own time.
