The ultimate guide to Google Cloud Next 2023
I had the chance to travel to San Francisco 1️⃣4️⃣ times for Google I/O or Google Cloud Next. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, many conferences have been held online. I am very happy that Cloud Next 2023 will be in-person this year. 💚
To be fully prepared and enjoy this 3-days event, I’ve created this checklist sharing my tips as an attendee. I am so excited to go there again and meet the cloud community. 🚀
Before the event
- 📣 Reminder: You must have book your flight, your hotel/airbnb and check your visa/esta.
- 📆 Check the agenda and book your sessions here: https://cloud.withgoogle.com/next/session-library.
- 💬 Feel free to check the available FAQ: there is many items from inclusion to safety measures.
- 📌 Check if your Google Developer Profile like https://g.dev/jlandure is well linked to your Cloud Next profile. If not, please see how to do it following the FAQ entry to be sure you get the right badge.
- 🏅 Do not forget to indicate in your Next profile here if you are a Google Cloud certified or if you are Champion / Innovator or a Cloud GDE to be sure you have access to the dedicated lounge. In 2019, I got awesome swag as a certified professional Cloud Architect : a Google Cloud coat.
- ⚡️ ProTips: Don’t wait for the last day to book your session. Some of them are already booked. Before each session, it may have 2 lines : one line for pre-booked persons and one line for the others. You may enter if someone who booked the session doesn’t show up.
- ⚡ ️ProTips: Check for the top speakers you want to follow and then apply for their sessions. For example, I will attend the Steren Giannini’s session on “Cloud Run and Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) for faster application development”
- ⚡️ ProTips: Feel free to filter for the most top-advanced talks at Cloud Next — there is 30 sessions marked as “advanced”
During the event
- 👕 Dress as usual as you can. You will walk a lot so you should wear comfortable shoes.
- ⚡️ ProTips: If you are part of a GDG / GDE / WTM / GDSC initiative, wear a T-shirt of your community to recognize yourself as a community member in order to engage in a conversation.
- 💧 No need to bring your own refillable water bottle. Google used to give one bottle to each attendee when you take your badge.
- 🎁 Feel free to ask questions at the sponsor booth. Try to grab some swag to bring back home.
- 📝 Create a note by session to write down the impactful messages of the speaker.
- 🛜 Feel free to sum up ideas on your favorite social media channel to grow your personal branding. Do not forget to mention the speaker(s) and the official hashtag #GoogleCloudNext.
- 🍻 Don’t forget to enjoy the after events or even side events organized by others companies. It is a great way to enjoy new places in San Francisco and network.
- 🤯 More than 250 general breakout sessions are scheduled at Cloud Next. Choose wisely your sessions.
- ⚡️ ProTips: Keep time to rest to energize your body.
If you are an introvert, it is very important because you will stay near hundreds of people around you.
If you are not a native english speaker, speaking to others will take you some energy.
- ⚡️ ProTips: Take advantage of quiet time to charge your mobile. 🔋
Around the event
- 🎙️ You should create some content to share what you learn at Google Cloud Next: it could be article, podcast, videos (shorts!) or even talks. Several Next Recaps will be done by the community or by partners: you should submit a proposal.
- 🌉 San Francisco is quite a big city. You have to make sure you are in a safe place. I used to get my hotel at a maximum of 10 min walk from the venue in the city center. Doing so avoids me having to order an Uber each time I want to travel.
- ⚡️ ProTips: Check if your mobile provider works in the USA and add an offline area of San Francisco in Google Maps. There is plenty of Wifi available in SF.
Bonus: my favorite tourist spots
- 🚴 Enjoy the bike trip across the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito and go back on a boat.
- ⚾️ The SF Giants play the Sunday before Next! The view is awesome!
- 👻 Visit Alcatraz by night.
- 🥾 Enjoy a walk trip in the city center from Chinatown to Pier39 through Lombard Street using a Cable Car.
- 🏠 Take a picture of the famous “Painted Ladies”.
- 🚗 If you rent a car, you can go to Muir Woods National Monument if you want to see Sequoia 🌲 . Otherwise, if you are more interested in the seaside, you can go to Santa Cruz 🏖️ following the west coast road called “California State Route 1”.
📌 Check out this website to find more information on San Francisco : https://www.sftravel.com/
Conclusion
⭐️ I hope this article and these tips will help you to make Cloud Next an unforgettable one.
👋 I’ll be there so feel free to ping me on my social networks! I am always up for chatting about tech, community and… Google Cloud. ☁️
📖 If you want to feel the ambiance, check out my article on Cloud Next 2019 (written in french 🇫🇷).
🙌 Now it’s your turn. If you have other tips or tourist spots to share, feel free to comment!
