Last week we had a pretty major event here at Rustici – our first ever user summit. Inspired by one of our favorite pastimes, we landed on calling it Rustici: The Gathering. Given this was our first time out and that our customers live in many different places (35 countries to be more accurate), we landed on a virtual format to include as many people as possible.
So, what did it look like?
Hosted over three days, we offered 28 different sessions spanning everything from the eLearning standards to diving deeper into our products, and we watched Joe Donnelly and Matt Byrd eat Nashville hot chicken while Ryan Donnelly peppered them with some of the most burning questions the support team sees. We had the honor of having industry experts Megan Torrance from TorranceLearning and Andy Johnson, SETA Contractor with the ADL Initiative, join us to share their knowledge on xAPI and where things are heading with ADL’s TLA efforts, respectively. Bonus points to Andy for not only tackling the complexities of the TLA but also schooling us on Magic: The Gathering. Not an easy feat in 45 minutes!
Along with a slew of in-house experts talking about everything from the SCORM Cloud API to uncovering all of the Rustici Engine features, we had several customers give us a first-hand look at how they are using Content Controller in the wild, including AWS sharing how they use Content Controller behind the scenes of AWS Academy, Sherwin-Williams walking us through their extended enterprise efforts to train retail partners and distributors and SANS pulling double duty sharing how they use Content Controller Launcher and leveraging some automation options through the Content Controller API. Other shout outs to our customer guest speakers, Watershed, Continu and Go1.
For our first time tackling a user conference, I must say it was pretty magical. We had close to 200 customers join us for at least one session, 75% of the team at Rustici either presented or produced a session, and we had a total of 8 guest speakers. Early indications from our surveys tell us we should do this again, and we will. Producing an event of this size and scope is not for the faint of heart, so we’ll likely do this annually and excited to see a new tradition enter the mix here at Rustici.
A virtual round of applause
A big thank you and shout out to our customers that gathered and the team at Rustici that fully embraced our first user summit – especially our fabulous marketing team that took an idea we’ve tossed around for years and made it a reality.
For our customers that couldn’t make it, no worries! Just let us know if you want to access the archive of Rustici: The Gathering, and we’ll get you set up. We’ll also be sharing some of the sessions more broadly for those that want to get a glimpse of what it’s like to work with us and a closer look at our products or exploring the standards.
