Grace Lau
One day down, two more days of Google Next 2018 to go. Will the keynote lineups be as long as yesterday? Is it possible to own too many tech-branded t-shirts? How many more awesome testimonials can Google get on-stage from big-name customers? Read on to find out...
8:19am - Way more orderly queuing today to get into the keynote hall.
8:33am - Pre-keynote artist can beatbox, loop pedal, sing live, play the guitar, and is generally just a crazy talented human being.
8:35am - Is she… mixing in quotes about AI and ML from Diane Greene into her music? This is epic.
9:09am - This song is apparently called “You WIll Know My Name”—except everyone is still wondering what this talented DJ’s name is. DJ introduces Alison Wagonfeld, Google CMO—but doesn’t tell us her own name. 😢
(9:13am - Her name is DJ Kawehi!!!! Thanks Twitter!)
9:55am - Just passed the halfway mark of the keynote: A flurry of guest speakers from Google’s team and customer portfolio have appeared on stage so far. Google’s customers are big. And famous. Chevron, 20th Century Fox, and Cisco are all aboard the Google train.
11:32am - Dropping by the Sustainability Sessions to see how Google Cloud can help with measuring air quality. Lots of potential because of the amount of data resulting from government regulations and constant monitoring. 🤔
12:50pm - The NCAA basketball hoop / booth is where the party’s at. Lineups all day of people wanting to show off their jump shots.
2:05pm - Checking out a panel featuring Warren Lenard (Finish Line’s VP of Tech and Operations Solutions) and how LumApps (our customer!) completely transformed their company culture and improved collaboration. Absolutely amazing story. Highlights:
- So far, Finish Line has logged 80,000+ files shared, 30,000+ Hangout Meet sessions, and they’ve saved 144 trees annually—all from moving to Google.
- Another perk that Warren cited: risk reduction. No more worrying about locally stored files or version control.
- Lessons learned: if you’re migrating, go as quickly as you can and keep the timeline as tight as possible. “The co-existence period frankly sucks.”
- In a 2-month period, Finish Line migrated the entire organization—14,000 employees—from Microsoft to G Suite.
2:52pm - FREE BEER ON THE FLOOR. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.
2:57pm - Also, ice-cream cones are magically appearing in attendees’ hands.
3:00pm - How about some cloud Bingo with the Copper team? Wonder who’s going to win the $100 gift card...
4:04pm - Crowds are thinning out. Looks like people are going home to prep for tonight’s festivities at The Next Fairgrounds.
Aaand we’re out. Hope you enjoyed today’s sessions! We’ll be back tomorrow to wrap up Google Next 2018. 👋
P.S. Did you have a chance to check out the crm that’s designed for, and recommended by, Google? Do you have to talk to customers, partners, vendors, leads—and do you know how to use Gmail? If so, then you’re going to love Copper. Try it out for free!
