Ask Reuben

Virtual Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC20)

How different will this years virtual conference be than past years physical conferences?

Do I have to watch live?

What is difference between plenary and breakout?

Do I have to watch every breakout?

Do I have to register?

How long will recordings be available?

Where can I ask questions?

Where can I see past conferences?

This year we are running our WorldWide Developer Conference (WWDC) virtually.  In anticipation of some questions, here are some answers

Where can I register?

This is the URL for the virtual conference https://4js.wwdc20online.virtualconference.com

Do I have to register?

Yes.  This helps in the provisioning of the service and in our communication with you.

Is there a cost?

No

What talks are available?

Scroll through the agenda to see the various presentations.

How do I watch a talk?

In the agenda, find the talk(s) you are interested in.  (If you click on the star in top right corner of each talk it will mark it as a favourite for you) Just prior to the talk starting or as it in progress, click on the talk and you can watch it live.  Shortly after the talk is finished, a video recording will be made available on that talk page and you can click on the talk to watch a recording.

Some talks are replay, and not talks, what does this mean?

Due to vacations and time zones, not all our presenters are able to present live.  In that case the talk will be a replay of a video they have uploaded.

Can I download presentations?

On each talk page, you will be able to download presentation material made available by the speaker.

How different will this years virtual conference be than past years physical conferences?

We have tried to keep some concepts the same with our virtual conference.  That is the one day of plenary sessions, the couple of days of breakout sessions, the training, this is what you get at our physical conference.

What we have not been able to include that you would get at a physical conference is …

  • selected customers doing a customer experience session
  • the awards evening, “The Olgas” where we present trophies to our deserving customers
  • the fun social activities

and we miss out on the customer to customer interaction, or the interaction between customers and our team members.

On the plus side, the tool we are using does give us the ability to record presentations, something we don’t normally do at our physical events.  It also allows us to reach out to those that don’t attend the physical events.

Do I have to watch live?

No.  The times have been chosen so that our European/African customers can watch at the end of their business day, and our North American and South American customers can watch at the beginning of their business day.  This also helps our speakers from those regions.  Each session will be automatically recorded and be available online for a number of months after the event on the conference site.  We are also not taking up your whole day and so you should still be able to do a good chunk of your day to day activities.

What is difference between plenary and breakout?

During a physical conference, a plenary session is held in the main room and is the only talk on at that time, whilst a breakout is scheduled into smaller rooms and there are multiple breakouts on at that time.  The plenary is targeted at all participants whilst a breakout is targeted at a smaller range of participants.

Do I have to watch every breakout?

No.  You are free to choose how many breakouts you watch.  I recommend you watch all the plenaries but you can pick and choose the breakouts that apply to you and your organisation.

Can anyone in my team watch?

Yes.  We would expect you to get different people to watch different breakouts.  We would appreciate it if they all registered individually.

Will the breakouts be repeated?

Attendees of the physical world wide event will know that in the past two years we have repeated some or all of the breakouts so that if there is a clash of breakouts you can attend both.  This year as they are being recorded, each presentation will only be made once.   If there is a clash you can choose to watch one live, and watch a recording of the other presentation.

Some breakouts are refreshes of material presented at prior conferences, one of the reasons for doing this is that we are conscious that not everyone got to see these at prior events and it is also an opportunity for us to capture that talk on video.

What is format for training / labs?

Regular attendees of our conferences will know that we put on a days Labs for early arrivals.  This year Scott and his team are taking the opportunity to promote our new Self-Paced Learning Portal.  I won’t steal Scotts fire, on day one he will introduce this new initiative, his team have put together two smaller courses specially for the conference you can attempt over days two, three, and four, and then on day five they will work through the lab exercises.

How long will recordings be available?

On the conference site for a number of months, and then we will have the recordings made available to us for uploading to our You-tube channel.

Where can I ask questions?

During the live presentation there will be a chat window.  I will also be setting up a forum board that can be used for subsequent questions you have if you watch a recording.

Where can I see past conferences?

4js.com/wwdc is our one-stop easy-to-remember URL for our worldwide developer conferences.

Will next years conference be physical or virtual?

We hope that next year the world has returned to a state where we can have a physical worldwide developer conference.  We value the interaction that occurs between our customers, and also between our customers and our team that occurs at the physical events.

What language will be used?

All presentations will be in English.  Please contact your regional support office for help with a translation.  As we have recordings, they should be able to help provide a transcript.

Todas las presentaciones serán en inglés. Comuníquese con su oficina de soporte regional para obtener una traducción. Como tenemos grabaciones, deberían poder proporcionar una transcripción.

Toutes les présentations seront en anglais. Veuillez contacter votre bureau d’assistance régional pour une traduction. Comme nous avons des enregistrements, ils devraient être en mesure de fournir une transcription.

Alle Präsentationen werden in englischer Sprache gehalten. Bitte wenden Sie sich für eine Übersetzung an Ihr regionales Support-Büro. Da wir Aufnahmen haben, sollten sie in der Lage sein, ein Transkript bereitzustellen.

Tutte le presentazioni saranno in inglese. Si prega di contattare l’ufficio di supporto regionale per una traduzione. Poiché abbiamo registrazioni, dovrebbero essere in grado di fornire una trascrizione.

所有演讲将以英语进行。请联系您的地区支持办公室进行翻译。当我们有录音时,他们应该能够提供成绩单。

Semua persembahan akan dibuat dalam Bahasa Inggeris. Sila hubungi pejabat sokongan wilayah anda untuk terjemahan. Oleh kerana kami mempunyai rakaman, mereka seharusnya dapat menyediakan transkrip.

What tool are you using?

We are using https://www.virtualconference.com/.  IIUG members /  Informix users may notice it is the same tool they used earlier in the year, see https://www.iiug.org/en/2020/05/05/iiug-insider-issue-237-april-2020/#_Toc39494367.