Live From dbt Lab's Coalesce Conference!
I’ve always known New Orleans to be a conference town. After all, my husband and I met at one. in 2014 when I first touched down here in this lifetime.
Since then, I’ve witnessed some epic Collision Conferences, Essence Fests, Tableau Events and more without having to pack a suitcase. It’s a welcome influx of culture to an already cultural city.
For this week ahead, The Hyatt Regency in downtown New Orleans is my home as dbt labs puts on a conference that rivals even pre-covid productions. It’s nice to be back in the game.
The Spotlight’s On London
One of the first things I noticed upon arriving at Coalesce is that many attendees are from London. I found this interesting because Coalesce, in addition to online streaming, is also having a simultaneous event IRL in London. I was especially fortunate to meet Abimbola Adebayo, Founder of Pinnu Analytics while reaching for some zen green tea in the conference lobby. When I asked her why she chose to bring her 4-person team to New Orleans for a week instead of attending London’s day-long event where she lives, she said that she wanted her team to get the fullest experience. That’s how they will collectively determine their entry into the next step of growth.
A Small Reunion
I find a lot of joy in watching remote teams find their IRL flow at conferences. My favorite team so far has been the team at Count, a new and upcoming platform that proposes canvases, versus dashboards and notebooks, as the new central technology for working with data. We bonded over watermelon salad and mini burritos while comparing favorite programming languages and the landscape for data across cities.
Forget Process, Trust the Oasis…
I’m an avid tweeter constantly in desperate need of a charge. Usually my phone and I find it at a conference venue’s bar in between sessions. Mid-first glass of Cabernet, I began conversing with my neighbors and found they were from a different conference within the same building. Both in leadership at New York’s Postlight, they and I managed to find both work and play in common. Asa a result, I rejoined Coalesce hoping that similar synergies continue to happen at my conference.
Love what you read here? Experience Coalesce for yourself virtually by clicking the link below.