Preparing for AWS re:Invent (for Attendees and Online Viewers)

The excitement is building for AWS re:Invent and I am looking forward to my trip to Las Vegas. I’ve got important information for attendees and for online viewers!

AWS re:Invent for Attendees
If you will be heading to Las Vegas for the conference, here’s what you need to know:

What to Bring -Be sure to bring your laptop, mobile device(s), cameras, and the like. Feel free to share you re:Invent experience with your online network – blog, take pictures, tweet (we suggest using #reinvent to tag), and so forth. Wear comfortable shoes, and stay hydrated (we’ll make sure to keep you well-fed).

Scheduling – Visit the Session Builder (online or mobile) to see what’s happening.

We’re running over 150 sessions in 16 tracks, so choose with care. Use the session builder to create your schedule. Seating is first-come, first-serve so be sure to get to the room on time.

All of the session content will be posted to the AWS page on SlideShare, tagged and organized by track.

Keynotes – Plan to attend the three keynotes to hear from Andy Jassy, Werner Vogels, and Jeff Bezos. Andy will lead off on Wednesday. He’ll talk about the latest news and AWS innovations and will be joined on stage by some of our customers and partners. Werner will speak about application architectures on Thursday. Later in the day, Werner and Jeff Bezos will conduct a fireside chat.

AWS Booth – Come to the AWS booth to talk to AWS staff including service team members, product managers, solution architects, and account managers. Bring your technical and business questions and we’ll do our best to answer them for you.

Developer Lounge – Come to the Developer Lounge to hang out with other developers, write code, and to meet the AWS Developer Relations team (the guys and gals behind the AWS SDKs and tools).

Code Challenge – Starting at 11 AM on Wednesday and Thursday, we’ll be posting a Code Challenge in the Developer Lounge and on the re:Invent Twitter feed. We’ll post 6 challenges on Wednesday and another 5 on Thursday. Show off your knowledge of EC2, S3, and the other services and compete for Kindle Fires and other cool prizes.

AWS Live Stage – Eight stealth companies will be launching at re:Invent on the AWS Live Stage. 

AWS Report -I will be interviewing guests on the Live Stage at 2 PM on Wedneday and Thursday. If you are interested in sitting down for a 5 to 7 minute inteview, send me some email (awsreport@amazon.com) ASAP. I will also be doing roving reports from the show floor and uploading them to our YouTube channel. Look for the crowd and the camera, and feel free to line up!

Hands-On Labs – Visit the AWS Hands-On Lab and take advantage of 16 unique self-paced labs. You’ll get hands-on experience with AWS and will learn how to use it in a variety of situations.  Each lab will take you about 1 hour and seating is limited to 150 attendees at a time. The AWS labs are hosted on qwikLab, which (of course) runs on AWS. Topics include creating EC2 resources, Auto Scaling, using Amazon RDS, bundling EBS-backed AMIs, and much more.

re:Play Party -Attend the re:Play party from 6 to 9 PM on Wedneday. Hang out in the Rock-n-Roll 80’s lounge, play laser tag and retro arcade games, sing karaoke, get your party t-shirt, and more.

Feedback – We’re already planning for next year’s re:Invent. We are looking forward to your suggestions and your feedback.

AWS re:Invent for Online Viewers
Please don’t feel left out if you can’t make it to Las Vegas this year!

We’re going to do our best to capture the excitement (and the content) of the event and make it available to you online. Here are some ideas for you:

Live Stream – Register for the re:Invent live stream and watch the keynotes as they happen.

Twitter – Use your favorite Twitter client to search for our hashtag (#reinvent).

Videos – We’ll be uploading video to the AWS YouTube channel just as quickly as we can.

Presentations – Presentations from the sessions will be uploaded to the AWS page on SlideShare as quickly as possible, tagged and organized by track.

— Jeff;