Thread by @QuinnyPig

And we're up with the sun for another #reQuinnvent livetweet thread, this time the #reinvent Partner Keynote.

The music is *GREAT*, which is fortunate because when you're an @awscloud partner you absolutely will dance to their tune.

I should disclaim here that neither I nor the Duckbill Group are @awscloud partners for a variety of excellent reasons and a few bad ones, ranging from "elimination of perceived conflicts of interest in bill negotiation" to "I don't like shakedowns."

"Are you saying the AWS partner network is a shakedown?!"

No. It isn't. But when I started it was a $2500 fee, and to a solo consultant that wasn't nothing. I invested that money in starting a newsletter instead, and that's the @LastWeekinAWS origin story.

It's starting a minute or two late, because they're still frantically trying to find a single customer who made a decision based upon a vendor's @awscloud partner network status. #reinvent

Dr. Matt Wood wonders why everyone's in his living room at 8AM.

Now @dougyeum takes the stage.

Marketing did a diving save to strike the "COVID Co-Brand" wording from this slide. #reInvent

"Here are the 27 things we've launched so far this week."

This is what @ajassy says it takes to #reinvent. My 8 keys are different.

https://twitter.com/QuinnyPig/status/1333805902948810755?s=20

Companies with a big cloud push this past year. #reinvent

"Can I tell our customers to 'get bent' in a slide?"

"Yes, but you have to phrase it slightly differently." #reInvent

Fun fact: nobody remembers what "ISV" is an abbreviation for. They're certainly not going to explain it to you. #reinvent

"Enterprise companies want to unshackle themselves from the rigid, expensive, and brittle monolithic IT stack. Like Oracle for example."

That's got enough fire that I can just quote @dougyeum directly without editorializing it at all. #reinvent

"SaaS Factory?" Sounds like a Java ProblemFactory to me. #reinvent

Now @cohesity founder @mohitaron takes the video stream to talk about a collaboration with @awscloud that probably involved setting a burning bag of dog poop on the front porch of a Microsoft branch office.

He talks about Enterprise struggles with the cloud in such a way that I never want to talk to a big enterprise ever again. He's not *wrong* exactly, but it's a very slanted view of the situation. #reinvent

His solution is "Helios," a single pane of glass that lets you manage everything the same way--NO NO NO NO NO why won't this terrible pattern die?!

#reinvent

*FWEET* Flag on the play! @mohitaron misused the phrase "begs the question" when he meant "raises the question." Ten yard penalty, first down. #reinvent

I don't understand why a partner keynote (generally watched by AWS partners) features a ten minute sales pitch for one partner's solution which isn't for partners. What sponsor tier is @Cohesity again? #reinvent

Launching today, @awscloud SaaS Boost, an open source reference environment. Soon you too can build excellent SaaS offerings like AWS's own... uh... give me a second, it's on the tip of my tongue... #reinvent

"Here at @awscloud we will commission our sales people to push your crap" is certainly a thing to be advertising. #reinvent

Those are... a lot of @awscloud partner programs. What do they think the Partner Network is, SageMaker?

"We're going to stop badging partners by tier, and instead start promoting specific solutions."

Oh good, I sure am glad they'll start promoting 20 person consultancies over @Accenture now that the tiering stuff is gone. #reinvent

Now Dave McCann videos in from elsewhere to talk about his corner of the @awscloud universe.

Here's his spectrum. I like mine better.

I am unclear why the @awscloud VP of Marketplace is apparently giving his keynote via what appears to be a potato instead of a webcam. #reinvent

Just like Agile! Will we be getting a Software Modernization Manifesto? #reinvent

With managed entitlements, it's never been easier to be a Cloud Karen. #reinvent

Marketplace offers a lot of advantages, all of which pale compared to its real benefit of "letting you work around your company's procurement team." #reinvent

There's now an API to allow a computer to click through the terms and conditions without reading them way faster than you can click through the terms and conditions without reading them.

I'm not kidding. #reinvent

Now tagging in two more sponsors--sorry, *partners* to chat about something.

Every time I try to say something nice about Procurement, they ask for something like "six years of audited financial statements" before they'll let the Duckbill Group lay waste to their AWS bill.

We are four years old. #reinvent

Frederic: "So you probably want to hear what does @Okta offers to AWS partners?"

Dave McCann: "Nah. It just amuses me to drag partner executives on stage for a command performance. Can you do a little dance for our customers now, please?" #reinvent

Ooh, now @sandy_carter takes the stage. She's fun. #reinvent

Whoever is working the slides got distracted and tried to join a Chime meeting on the wrong computer apparently.

Fun fact: @sandy_carter's keynotes always feature some kind of inspirational quote like this. She's got a very noticeable style of giving presentations. I really like it.

All of the Partner stuff is very enterprisey / complex, but something about @sandy_carter's approach to it differs in that it doesn't leave me feeling like I'm the idiot for not getting all of its nuances. More like this, please!

I got to talk with @sandy_carter earlier this year. It's a good listen: lastweekinaws.com/podcast/scream…

They have a lot of these.

"I bet you're wondering if we have any new premier partners!"

I was actually wondering what the hell a premier partner was in the first place, but sure, okay.

#reinvent

Now @sandy_carter mentions how partners can @deloitte their customers. #reinvent

(Fun fact, @sandy_carter is ex-IBM.)

Holy crap they're doing a MainFrame consultancy. Until now the AWS/400 was just a joke of mine.

#reinvent

A sustainability focused energy competency. #reinvent

There's also a Travel and Hospitality competency, launched in the worst year on record for those industries. #reinvent

Talking about a migration by Southwest Airlines with the help of Onica, the thing Rackspace is desperately trying to ruin.

#reinvent

For some inexplicable reason they're using last year's numbers instead of 2020's... #reinvent

I don't like this pattern, but I'm willing to change that opinion. Do I know anyone who works at Southwest on cloudy things who can answer a few questions? I promise not to make fun of you for helping me. #reinvent

And now surprise guest @ajassy. He was super lucky to be invited! #reinvent

In #reinvent rehearsals:

@dougyeum: "May I wear an awesome pair of shoes too?"

@ajassy: "Hell no. We have a dress code. Fulfillment center workers and @primitivetype wear reflective vests, CEOs wear fun shoes, and you wear dress shoes."

Who wore it better? #reinvent

"We built RedShift which is the biggest and most successful data warehouse, but @SnowflakeDB is also doing rather well." --@ajassy at #reinvent

Meanwhile, in the market:

I mean, the data lives on @awscloud either way, but a great question for a customer-obsessed company during the partner-keynote is "who is the customer, anyway?" Credit to @benbridts for the insight in the hallway track Discord.

And @dougyeum wraps up the keynote.

I will be offering analysis / mocking the #reinvent partner keynote / making fun of @awscloud at 1pm PST today at twitch.tv/lastweekinaws.

#requinnvent