Past pre-Rising Pictures

The Question that Started It All

Over 8 years ago, back in 2015, “David from California” was working at Uber during the “early days” when a co-worker “Kristen from California” asked “What are ‘Best Practices’ for Report Tags?” Having written and taught Reporting Writer, Calculated Fields, Integrations, and Workday Studio training courses for Workday a couple years earlier as a Workday employee, “David from California” knew where to click to create report tags, and also knew one activity that showed how report tags are useful. That limited exposure was far from enough to know any “Best Practices”. Who knew report tags best practices? A quick search on the Community resulted a few pages that mentioned anything about “Best Practices”, not to mention specific report tags best practices (recall, this was many years ago.) So, a post wondering if other customers would share their report tag approach (also, approaches for other related topics such as Temporary Reports, and Report-Specific Calculated Fields) was meant to collect a dozen or so volunteers. Instead, within a few days, there were over a hundred comments, which was a lot back then. (Actually, it was a ton of comments back then.) It took months (a much longer story) before we eventually had our first Share-a-thon. It was spread across 3 days, was fully remote, and we used something called WebEx (as Zoom was not yet known to us.) Our first every YouTube video attempted to prepare people for our sharing approach, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYcKXZiK70o

Lunch at Rising 2016 in Chicago

The Rising conference was for the first time in Chicago back in September 2016. This was 5 months after our first ever Share-a-thon back in April of that year (and was 100% remote.) Meeting for lunch in Chicago was our first attempt at an in-person Share-a-thon. Unfortunately, even with balloons and a group of tables in the south-west corner, we later heard from sharing fans who did not find us that they at least found each other (and had their own nice sharing table lunch.) We had several topics decided in advance thanks to votes in our registration (SurveyMonkey). For this one, we were smart enough to take pictures, thanks to some encouragement from Parky, the Parkinson’s Disease mascot, making his first appearance at Rising.

pre-Rising 2017 in Chicago

We were in Chicago the weekend before Rising back in September 2017. This was our first year trying out the idea of flying in a day before the conference starts. The history of how this came about is a longer story. The short version is that “Floyd from Tennessee”, and “David from California” proposed a session for the conference focused on the importance of customer sharing. We reacted to a surprising result by inviting sharing fans to join us one day year, in a hotel on Sunday afternoon. Smart phones existed, but if any of the 80+ smart sharing fans who joined us thought about taking pictures, please let us know, as we lost track of any photographers. Instead, this picture shows our Sunday night dinner. Many could be highlighted but calling out “Doug from Pennsylvania” taking the first of annual selfie with “David from California”.

pre-Rising 2018 in Las Vegas (picture 2 of 2)

Another picture from our Las Vegas pre-Rising weekend back in 2018. This room had a low ceiling, and one divider. Before choosing between topics at numbered tables, sharing fans and session facilitators gave a preview of their Shares and Asks in front of the full group to help people decide. This was our first year with such a large group in one room. One sponsor (“Kane from Florida”) enjoyed the event so much that he proposed doing a remote sharing event in between the annual Rising conferences. Soon after, we kicked-off “The Sharing Show” weekly, which is now monthly (currently in Season VI), with its own YouTube channel of over 50 videos going back 5 years.

pre-Rising 2018 in Las Vegas (picture 1 of 2)

We were in Las Vegas for our pre-Rising weekend back in September 2018. This was our first year in a room sponsored by Workday®, which was born out of our desire to share with eager customers about Prism. Since it was relatively new 6 years ago, and there were few customers who could share about Prism. So, Workday brought in their Prism team for some great Prism Q & A and some valuable sharing. The picture shows prior to a large Prism breakout, over a dozen different sharing sessions on round tables. It was a fantastic default choice of tables, which started of a circle theme for the Customer Sharing Movement. T-shirt color was tie dye.

pre-Rising 2019 in Orlando

We were in Orlando for our pre-Rising weekend back in September 2019. This was our second year in a room sponsored by Workday. It held over 200 sharing fans (we had 20 round tables, with 11 chairs at each.) In a favorite Share-a-thon picture, “Michele from Califoria” is sharing on her laptop during Report Bursting session. Also highlighted is “Floyd from Tennessee”, “Charlynn from California” , “Denise from Montana” and “Kane from Florida” all posing with “Logan from California” (of GMS fame). T-shirt color was blue.

pre-Rising 2023 in Pleasanton

We were in Pleasanton, next to the Workday HQ, for our pre-Rising weekend last year, in September 2023. This was our first year combining our annual Share-a-thon with a Learn-a-thon, more of a focus on education. We also introduced our first sharing fan challenge puzzle, and actual jigsaw puzzle, with bitmojis of over 40 Customer Sharing Movement members and contributors. Highlighted in this picture is “Alex from Alabama” (holding his Bitmoji jigsaw puzzle piece), and a keen eye might spot both “Teresa from California” and “Logan from California” (both of GMS fame) in the far background. T-shirt colors were berry Share-smile and purple Learn-smile.

pre-Rising 2024 in Las Vegas

Understanding all of AI and its impact on us? Regardless, join us on Sunday, Sept 15, right after our lunch break, at 1pm PDT, as we welcome back Dr. Gina Guillaume-Joseph for her special "What is AI, and the Impact on Humans“ KEYNOTE during the pre-Rising weekend Share-a-thon and Learn-a-thon.

No promises, but this one hour session might be available for remote sharing fans, for those who will not be in Las Vegas on 9/15.

Contact Us if you are interested in the remote option.

Take a walk down memory lane by clicking through pictures of past pre-Rising experiences.