Chromie at the Cloud Summit?

Cut to the chase for two survey questions from the Google Cloud Summit:

Yes RantWoman is considering using Google cloud products. One consideration in technology choice will be do the tools work with the various accessibility tools needed around the Friendly Neighborhood Center for Extreme Computing. Let's see: speech to text, text to speech, throw in Google Translate. What about capacity to index a series of voice clips, possibly with ability to distinguish one language from another? And do not forget tactile and other maps

We must not forget another highly desirable quality: ease of learning / designing for users with varying levels of technical prowess.

Would RantWoman recommend Google products to her peers?  RantWoman really does not know yet; she kind of has Business Analyst brain and is thinking about what all comes with use of the products and what questions buyers into comparison shopping need to ask of vendors. RantWoman would find it interesting to know what questions vendors wish potential customers would ask.

RantWoman is aware that if she wants to project technical competence, perhaps tighter and more formal presentation would be in order. On the other hand chronically underresourced nonprofits seem to be a realm where RantWoman finds her way easily. Hold that thought along with the organizational culture, IT needs and resource constraints of said sector.

Now the point of the two survey questions: Chromie the ambiguously gendered Chromebook, and a new buddy, Pixel the oddly-behaved Smartphone have a bit of a scheduling dilemma: RantWoman  signed up to attend the Google cloud summit. Then when a friendly voice called to confirm that RantWoman plans to attend, RantWoman sort of absently said yes even though in fact the summit lasts all day and RantWoman can attend both ends but has a schedule conflict in the middle, oddly enough related to IT and other needs of a couple different nonprofits. Luckily for mapping and wayfinding enthusiasts, RantWoman's other meeting is walking distance from the Cloud Summit so going away and coming back is an option.

Anyway RantWoman signed up but forgot to make her customary reasonable accommodations request: do you have handouts or slide presentations? if so, RantWoman always appreciates a path to get them electronically. RantWoman forgot to ask in advance and will, no harm, no foul ask upon registration. RantWoman knows it sometimes takes time to handle such requests but often the request yields something that can make a big difference. Anyway, show us what RantWoman and Chromie can do! Plus RantWoman bets she will not be the only person in the room who cannot read slide presentations or who would like them up close on a personal device.

Honestly, the usefulness of handouts varies. Handouts in advance can be a great help just in mapping out what might come along during the presentation. Sometimes RantWoman is better off just listening to the room and interacting with handouts another time, and not only because for instance her Chromevox is a little uneven.

But there is more to handouts than putting paper in someone's hand. On Saturday RantWoman was at an event where she had asked to have handouts emailed in advance. RantWoman got one handout but it turned out there were others. The presenter was apologetic about forgetting to email the other handouts. However, the presenter had a clear link to find the same handouts online. By the time she came over to apologize, RantWoman had already found the documents on Pixel and Talkback was chattering away, in an earphone for once. Plus the link means that RantWoman will be able easily to share electronically, always a big plus.

The last thing on RantWoman's mind: the networking reception. RantWoman is getting better at teamwork and RantWoman thinks she should just not attempt such encounters alone. But an app that helps one find people who have just presented would be really fun. Is the whole cloud overkill though?

And, what should RantWoman focus on in her own networking effort. Stay tuned?

September 13th, 2017 McCaw Hall, Seattle

Know before you go. Get the most out of your Summit ’17 Seattle experience.

Hi (RantWoman) We’re excited to welcome you to Summit ‘17 Seattle. Before you attend the event, please take a two question survey to tell us what you think about Google Cloud. We’ve gathered some helpful highlights and resources to help you enjoy Summit ’17 Seattle. A few things to know before you go: Registration opens at 8:00 AM but please come early as the keynote begins promptly at 9:00 AM. Please bring your ID in order to pick up your badge. Your badge is your ticket in, so be sure you wear it to all day. Lunch will be served in the Pavilion from 12:45 PM to 1:45 PM. We will be hosting a networking reception from 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM at the Cloud Showcase and Partner Zone. Don’t forget to stop by The 5th Nine where you can meet and mingle with real Google Site Reliability Engineers (SREs) and talk about DevOps and what it really means to operate at cloud scale. We have a jam-packed event in store for you including keynotes and sessions covering topics on advances in big data, apps dev, and machine learning, and more. We look forward to seeing you there!