Instruqt On the Road: KubeCon 2022 in Detroit

A couple weeks ago, some of my fellow Instruqtors and I hit the road to attend KubeCon 2022 in Detroit, Michigan. KubeCon is always a wonderful event for connecting with industry leaders, catching up with clients, and learning some of the latest industry trends. 2022 was no different, as the event was filled with engaging conversations and fascinating insights.
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I wanted to whip up this brief blog to highlight some of my observations from the event, as well as some of the feedback we received from Instruqt users and customers.

Hosting a Live Workshop (Without Instruqt) Can Mess With Your Sleep

Anyone who has hosted a live workshop or training knows how stress can build as the event draws closer. No matter how much you rehearse, it’s hard to shake the fear that something will go wrong. Will anyone show up? Will too many people show up? Will the event’s wifi crap out? Will I forget my computer charger in the hotel room and look like a fool when it dies mid-workshop? Will I spill mustard on my shirt minutes before I go on stage?All of these fears are natural, but something we heard over and over during the workshop-heavy event was that presenters using Instruqt had far more confidence about how their workshop would go. Here are a few of the things we heard from people using Instruqt to host their events:"We expected 50 attendees and got almost 300 at our workshop.""Instruqt lets me focus on teaching folks rather than stupid things like installing and configuring.  People can focus on what’s important."“Instruqt ‘just works and lets me focus on showing our technology.”With Instruqt, you can enjoy a full night’s sleep knowing that your workshop will go off without a hitch.

Learners Love Instruqt-Powered Workshops

On the other side of the workshop coin is the experience learners have. A bulk of the conference attendees are there to discover new software engineering tools that will enable them to work more efficiently. It was amazing to attend some live workshops and watch Instruqt in action. And we heard a lot of feedback about how much learners enjoyed attending workshops powered by Instruqt. Sometimes the experience was so good, they did not realize they were using the Instruqt platform!

Here is a sampling of that feedback:"I just took a workshop that utilized Instruqt. I have to learn more about your platform.""I just took a workshop (that wasn't using instruqt), and it was a sh*t show.""I keep seeing you guys everywhere, so I had to come to your booth and see for myself.""This is the biggest workshop we've seen all conference."“What is this platform that I used in my last workshop? It is really cool!"In addition to learners and presenters, we heard a lot of feedback from folks on how they’re using Instruqt to fuel their customer journeys. One of the great differentiators for Instruqt in the market is the various ways and teams, that can utilize the platform to improve the way they increase their product adoption through storytelling and hands-on learning. The wonderful thing about attending conferences like KubeCon is the expo hall. There, vendors showcase their latest technology and new capabilities.

Excited to see our customers using Instruqt to demo their products at the booth.Here is a sampling of what we heard from sales and sales engineering teams while at KubeCon."Your platform has made my job so much easier.""Instruqt makes my life a breeze.  We’re now starting to send customers an Instruqt track to answer their support questions.""This has been a significant contributor to better qualifying leads by letting them work on a real system before we get the sales team involved.""We are running all our demos on Instruqt.  We can easily spin up demos based on the questions the person is asking at the booth."

Learn How our Customers are Using Instruqt

To learn more about how our customers are using Instruqt for live events, check out this customer story from Abby Bangser, Principle Engineer at Syntasso.

Instruqt Featured on the Kubernetes Bytes Podcast

Our Sales Engineering guru Sean Carolan was invited to join The Kubernetes Bytes Podcast with the fantastic hosts Bhavin Shah and Ryan Wallner. Tune into their podcast to hear the latest from the cloud-native data management world. They share their thoughts on recent cloud-native news and talk to industry experts about their experiences and challenges managing the wealth of data in today's cloud-native ecosystem.

Until the next KubeCon

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‍We love being a part of the tech community and participating in all the fun. We see events like KubeCon, as a great opportunity to meet our customers, share knowledge, learn, and make new friends. I’m looking forward to the next KubeCon in Amsterdam in 2023, hopefully, I’ll see you there.