See You in September at Illuminate!

User Conferences are powerful. I remember well the previous startup-turned-grown-up- company that I was blessed to be part of. User conferences there were always rewarding experiences. Preparations were stressful and until the first day of the actual conference, I could feel as if everything was going to fall apart. But of course, every single conference went down without a hitch. Personally, I learned a lot about public speaking in this context over the course of the years. I learned how much fun it can be to talk about the things I am building with the people that use it. And I learned the power of creating networks between users––networks that last to this day, and careers that have taken off from there.

I am extremely happy that at Sumo we were able to build on these earlier experiences when we created Illuminate. We are now looking forward to our third user conference coming up in just a few weeks and the feeling of excitement and pressure internally is just like it always was, and maybe a bit more so. A core value we refer to often internally is that We Are In It With Our Customers. To us, those are more than just words and I am confident that you have observed this in your interactions with Sumo. At Illuminate we have the opportunity to be in it together in the same space! I would like to passionately invite you to join us in San Francisco (close to the airport) on September 11 and 12, 2019. Let me try to highlight why I am excited to attend myself.

First, certifications. Only introduced a few short years ago, our certification program has been a runaway success. And we are not talking about certifying you to understand boring, bureaucratic processes––our teacher-led certification programs are really highly interactive training sessions. Sumo Logic is a powerful platform and we have a track record of helping participants to quickly learn and appreciate the ins and outs. Our certifications will enable you to help more folks in your companies get the most out of Sumo Logic. This is something we see over and over again and something which we think is very powerful. Even if you are already certified, we think this is still a reason to join us, because there will be a total of three new certifications and seven in all!

Then, consider hearing from two groups of people who are seemingly different and yet so very much the same: our engineering and product folks, and our users themselves. With over 50 sessions planned, we have created an agenda that focuses very directly on practitioners. Led by Sumo’s product development team, talks will dive beneath the surface to provide not only a glimpse of how we do things but also what the next things are that we will be doing. These are the real hands-on-keyboard people that build and operate Sumo Logic and I am confident that you will enjoy meeting and hearing from them. In addition, we have more talks and presentation from you, the users. We have observed in the past that user and practitioner-led sessions are always well reviewed and appreciated and often lead to long discussions that continue throughout the conference and into, um, the hotel bar at times!

Finally, I am personally extremely excited about having Jeremy Rifkin as our featured keynote speaker. Mr. Rifkin is a highly regarded Economist and the author of 20 books on the impact of scientific and technological change on society. Some of us have been reading his book ‘The Third Industrial Revolution’ with great interest. And as a German myself I have been following the impact he has had on policies in Germany and the European Union with fascination. I believe that independently of ideological persuasion, you will find what he has to say on how we got here and where things are heading on the macro-level thought-provoking and well worth processing. And we share a common belief in the power of technology to help solve our greatest challenges.

With this, I can’t wait to see you in September. Make sure to say hi!