A presentation at DevRelCon Earth 2020 by Kevin Lewis
So you want to run an online event? PRESENTED BY: Kevin Lewis Developer Advocate
Hi, I’m Kevin Lewis London Developer Advocate at Vonage. Formally ran a developer events agency. • Conferences. You Got This, Women of React, BarCamp London. • Hackathons. UKGovHack, Parliament Hack, Anvil Hack, Sex Tech Hack, BASH Festival of Code. • Meetups. London CSS, London Node User Group, Thundercloud Ldn. • And other more weird formats. @_PHZN @VONAGEDEV 2
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It’s 2020 - the year that everything has changed. @_PHZN @VONAGEDEV 4
Women of React Conference @_PHZN @VONAGEDEV You Got This 2020 From Home Vonage Developer Day 5
Core Considerations for Running Online Events Complexity of Operation Creative Flexibility Moderation Bandwidth Attendee Experience Speaker Experience How confident is your team? How much creative flexibility do you want? How much people-power do you have for moderation? What is an ideal experience for attendees? How involved/complex can your speaker experience be? Are you concerned by a higher level of complexity? On-stream branding Could you moderate more than one channel? How much networking do you wish to facilitate? If your speakers are internal, this might not need to be a concern. Placement of elements Interactive elements @_PHZN @VONAGEDEV How involved is your incident-response process? What do attendee experiences with sponsors/partners looks like? 6
A quick primer on streaming terminology @_PHZN @VONAGEDEV 7
SCENE 1 SCENE 2 🎙 🎙 🎙 Video - Camera Video - Camera Video - Screen Audio - Microphone Per speaker Audio - Microphone Image - Background @_PHZN @VONAGEDEV Image - Background 8
April 25 2020 @_PHZN @VONAGEDEV 9
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Open Broadcaster Software @_PHZN @VONAGEDEV 14
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Sources for Speaker with Slides Background Blue box graphic Blue box text Web browser with captioning Speaker video & audio Speaker screen @_PHZN @VONAGEDEV 16
Skype @_PHZN @VONAGEDEV 17
Skype for Content Creators NDI @_PHZN @VONAGEDEV 18
YouTube Live. You can turn comments off. @_PHZN @VONAGEDEV 19
Discord @_PHZN @VONAGEDEV 20
ROLES Discord has role-based permissions. Speakers, Moderators, Organizers. CHANNELS MODERATION Themes. Speaker Questions. Backchannels. Only for attendees. Dynobot commands. No voice. Excellent team. 21
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Women of React Conference Complexity of Operation Creative Flexibility Moderation Bandwidth Attendee Experience Speaker Experience Had to manage a Skype call, Discord and OBS. Able to fully design all scenes including layouts and sources. Attendee moderation on a single platform. Two platforms to manage. Check-in on Discord. Dyno commands made handling channels easier. Ability to ask questions through Discord. Skype NDI is interesting (read in a critical tone). Was on a single machine, making the bus-factor low. @_PHZN Fiddly, but could also play music into stream through VLC. Still had a large team. Captions could be designed & baked-in. @VONAGEDEV Captured in Discord post-event. Join Skype call. Scramble to share screen. MC had quite the job. Non-registrants could still watch. 23
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Streamyard @_PHZN @VONAGEDEV 29
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You Got This From Home Complexity of Operation Creative Flexibility Moderation Bandwidth Attendee Experience Speaker Experience Fewer moving-parts. 7 pre-set scene layouts. No ability to edit them. Same as Women of React. Same as Women of React. Canvas = live. Only one screen share at a time. Fewer moderators. ‘Backstage’ was very useful. Cloud-based, so other people could jump-in to operate. Clear backstage and live areas. Can drop in early with no impact on the stream. Pain to play pre-recorded videos over 5 minutes @_PHZN @VONAGEDEV 36
Online events run the spectrum from a live TV-show to emulating physical events. @_PHZN @VONAGEDEV 37
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Vonage Developer Day Complexity of Operation Creative Flexibility Moderation Bandwidth Attendee Experience Speaker Experience One platform. Customizable floor plan. 3 levels of chat - global, table, DM. Single integrated platform. Need to shift stage permissions regularly. Interactive UI components aren’t editable. Same as attendees, except they can also access the stage. No way to turn off DMs. Quite resource-intensive. We had a table set aside for moderators. Q&A is always visible even if not used. If you don’t like panning a canvas there’s no way to turn it off. Could livestream to YouTube Live No way to edit recordings. Can’t change layout of broadcast stage. @_PHZN @VONAGEDEV 43
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Live Captioning @_PHZN @VONAGEDEV 45
Open captions via OBS Browser @_PHZN @VONAGEDEV Closed captions available in YouTube via CC button External to platform or an additional screen share 46
Let’s wrap this up @_PHZN @VONAGEDEV 47
Pros Cons The most creative flexibility The most complex Supports open-captions Low bus-factor Moderation & community Speakers can damage stream 2 screen experience @_PHZN @VONAGEDEV 48
Pros Cons More clear for speakers No open-captions Operator in full-control Pain to play longer videos Enough creative flexibility @_PHZN @VONAGEDEV 49
Pros Cons Integrated experience Resource-intensive Clear where everyone is Can’t customize/hide UI Can livestream to YouTube Need to shift roles often Captions are awkward @_PHZN @VONAGEDEV 50
Thank you! @_PHZN @VONAGEDEV 51
Many developer relations professionals are having to figure out the world of online events. In this talk, Kevin shows you how he ran three different events – each with different tooling.
for free. You
can too.