Adobe Unveiled: Innovating Product Adoption and Retention Through Events

May 30

Featuring Shea Cibulsky, Senior Marketing Manager of Global Adoption & Retention Events at Adobe

Shea Cibulsky is Senior Marketing Manager of Global Adoption & Retention Events at Adobe. Shea runs the customer learning event program, Experience Makers The Skill Exchange, focusing on customer learning, with an emphasis on a greater understanding of how to use their Adobe Digital Experience solutions. She loves building customer relationships and of course, events. Shea lives in Reno, NV and when she’s not executing a digital or in-person event, she is busy enjoying time with her family.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

Learn how Adobe builds their event topics and selects passionate speakers based on customer interviews.
Dive into the streamlined process of onboarding event speakers and ensuring their content truly resonates with the audience.
Understand the continuous evolution of event formats, inspired by attendee feedback, to maintain relevance and engagement.
Hear about the critical role of technology in event planning and the impressive success of Adobe's virtual events.
Hear valuable advice for those looking to start or improve their event programs, including the importance of research, team support, and learning from other successful events like Adobe Summit.
See how Adobe uses metrics to measure the success of their events, not just through registration and attendance numbers, but also via product usage and post-event impact analysis.
Learn about ongoing program improvements from integrating more networking opportunities in in-person events to automating workflows through Cvent for virtual events, discover how Adobe continuously hones their event strategies to enhance speaker and attendee experiences.
Hear about the creative ideas generated from regular team touchpoints and the collaborative efforts with internal Adobe resources that drive program success.

In this episode…

In the latest episode of “Solution Seekers,” host Paige Buck sits down with Shea Cibulsky, Senior Marketing Manager of Global Adoption and Retention Events at Adobe. The conversation dives into the intricacies of running successful customer learning event programs, focusing on “Experience Makers: The Skill Exchange.” This program emerged as a response to disjointed and ineffective events previously run by various Adobe business units. Through research and direct conversations with Adobe users, the Skill Exchange was designed to offer a seamless and engaging customer experience. One key takeaway is the importance of understanding what the audience truly wants: a blend of peer insights and company knowledge to ensure rich, actionable content.

Embracing Feedback and Technology

One significant element of the program’s success is its adaptability and responsiveness to attendee feedback. Shea elaborates on how continuous touchpoints with her team and advanced technology like Cvent have revolutionized their workflow. By employing an automated speaker resource portal, the onboarding process for their latest event—with 70+ speakers—was streamlined and received enthusiastic participant approval. Shea also articulates how crucial it is to measure the program’s impact using metrics that not only track attendance but product and solution usage as well. This evolving approach has been instrumental in optimizing both speaker and attendee experiences, exemplifying how robust feedback mechanisms and cutting-edge tech can elevate event programs in a digital-first world.

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Resources Mentioned in this episode

Sponsor for this episode…

This episode is brought to you by Kennedy Events.

Kennedy Events creates stress-free conferences and events, providing expert management and design for all your corporate event needs—from in-person to hybrid and virtual events.

To learn more about our services, visit our website at www.kennedyevents.com and schedule a consultation today to find out how we can guide you in making your event successful.

Transcript

Paige Buck [00:00:02]:

Welcome to the Solution Seekers podcast. I'm your host, Paige Buck. Past guests include Julie Liu of AvePoint, Sarah Biseiso of Informatica, and Janice Beals of Vertex Pharmaceuticals. And today I am delighted to be speaking with Shea Cibulsky. Shea is Senior Marketing Manager of global adoption and retention events at Adobe. Shea runs the customer learning event program, experience makers the skill exchange, focusing on customer learning with an emphasis on a greater understanding of how to use their Adobe digital experience solutions. She loves building customer relationships and, of course, events. Shea lives in Reno, Nevada, and when she's not executing a digital or in-person event, she is busy enjoying time with her family.

Paige Buck [00:00:51]:

Before we get started, today's episode is brought to you by Kennedy Events. Kennedy Events creates stress-free conferences and events, providing expert management and design for all your corporate event needs, from in-person to hybrid and virtual. And you can learn more about us at Kennedy Events dot com. Hi Shea, thanks for joining me.

Shea Cibulsky [00:01:10]:

Hi Paige. Thanks for having me. Excited to be here.

Paige Buck [00:01:13]:

I'm excited too. Could you start by telling me about the genesis of the experience makers, the skill exchange? What was your initial vision?

Shea Cibulsky [00:01:22]:

That's kind of a loaded question, but I'm happy to. So, you know, the skill exchange was brought about when I came on board in June of 2020, which is an interesting time to come into a new role, right? We all know probably where we were in the summer of 2020, home. But what I did was I came over to Adobe and really looked at some programs that were running kind of dysfunctionally, if you will. So they were kind of running from different business units, all with different goals, but all with the right idea at heart, how we can engage our customers more and provide them with additional learnings. And so I took a lot of research and a lot of time to build out some thoughts and ideas, and these programs were going away, and we knew we needed to fill a gap. And the Skill Exchange was born from just a few months of research, a few months of conversations with some stakeholders, a lot of creativity, and really interviewing customers on what they wanted to see from an event program.

Paige Buck [00:02:29]:

I think it's really powerful that you were given a directive or given the freedom to go ask both your peers and your customers. So that research that you just encapsulated in like one little clause in a sentence, can you say a little bit more about what those conversations were like and what you uncovering?

Shea Cibulsky [00:02:51]:

Absolutely. So it was a lot of diving into what these programs were, what they were trying to attain. It was there a goal behind these in person events that were no longer going to happen. And if they could create a new event in the world we were living in, what would they want to see? What type of content, what type of format? And so I did a lot of, I also called it opinion gathering as well. So while I'm doing a lot of research with these different business units internally and taking a lot of notes, there's a lot of opinions that are thrown at you, and so you have to kind of catalog them in your brain as far as what would work and what wouldn't work. And really, my goal was not to just say, this program isn't running anymore, I'm sorry. We're replacing it with a new one. So we did absolutely take all of the good nuggets that were happening on prior programs and built them into the skill exchange.

Shea Cibulsky [00:03:55]:

But I think what makes our program stand out is we really focus on the customer, and we have these one on one conversations directly with our users on what they want to see built within the program. And they're the reason why the skill exchange has been around since our first program executed in November of 2020.

Paige Buck [00:04:17]:

And what are some of the themes that you heard from customers at the time that helped you shape this?

Shea Cibulsky [00:04:25]:

Yeah. Right off the bat, customers wanted to hear from their peers. It was really important that they learn what their counterparts are doing within our product. So really diving deep into that peer to peer connection. So turning the content kind of upside down from Adobe, telling our customers what they want to hear, to customers sharing their business cases, their strategies, their pain points with their peers, and really giving those tangible takeaways. Here's what our problem was. Here's how we started the implementation of it. Here's the pain points, and here's what our solution looked like, and you can roadmap it for yourself as well.

Shea Cibulsky [00:05:10]:

That was critical from our customers as they wanted to hear from others. They didn't want Adobe to go away from the content game, though. So, you know, they, they wanted to hear from their peers, but they also wanted to hear from Adobe. So it's a real balanced game of Adobe content versus customer generated content. The customer generated content is my favorite. So it tends to win out because it receives the greatest feedback from our customers. That is by far our heavy hitter.

Paige Buck [00:05:44]:

Mm hmm. So you've been, I mean, it's funny because I think we can both take this for granted now that you're almost four years, you're in the fourth year of doing this and how it's grown. But in that first event, run up to that event, so you come on in June 2020, you execute on this by November. There were a lot of firsts, like, how are we going to even do this? We're all stuck at home. How are we going to make that speaker who's hiding out in a corner of his basement from his family of four upstairs, how are we going to make him look good and present well, and can you cast back to that time? I mean, some of it feels like. Like, no does now, but. But they were completely new.

Shea Cibulsky [00:06:27]:

Yeah, I think trying to come up with. Well, I'll first by offer, I will first say this was a proof of concept event for us. We had no idea what goals to put around, registration, attendance, what anything was going to look like from a customer experience. We just knew we wanted to build something for them that resonated with them and doing it in a digital way. Where I started, Paige, and this is no surprise to you, is with Kennedy events, because I had no idea how to run a digital event. My team didn't know how to run a digital event. We knew how to run webinars, but we knew that this program was going to be very different than a webinar experience, which is great in its own time and place. So I think for us, it was really putting all of the players together from a support perspective and a technology perspective.

Shea Cibulsky [00:07:26]:

And that took, I mean, June to November seems like no time at all. And we didn't really have a lot of time to build all of that out. And so there were a million and one learnings from that November event, technology wise, you know, promotion wise. But what we did find out at the end of the day, once we were fully that program was executed and happened, it blew away any goals we could have put together from a registration or attendance or customer experience perspective. We knew that despite the times, despite our speakers huddled in a corner of their bedroom and a makeshift desk, that this type of engagement, this type of learning superseded what they were going through and that it was important. So we saw tremendous feedback, positive from our customers who attended and by the numbers that we saw in, you know, sitting behind their computers was phenomenal. Was it my most favorite event of all that we've done so far? I mean, it's tough because it's one of the top, because, yes, it was beyond what we expected, but also there was a lot of learnings and things we wouldn't do again. Even, you know, talking with my fantastic partners at Kennedy events, we know there's certain things we would not do again from that November 2020.

Shea Cibulsky [00:08:51]:

But all of those learnings lead us to where we sit today.

Paige Buck [00:08:55]:

Well, you're on an entirely different platform than you were then, times two.

Shea Cibulsky [00:08:59]:

We've switched multiple.

Paige Buck [00:09:02]:

Let's just divide all of it up.

Shea Cibulsky [00:09:04]:

Yeah.

Paige Buck [00:09:05]:

So now you have another partner and vendor in CVent, and it's enabling you to do a lot more. Yeah. What's that experience been like? I know it's, you know, it's a massive, massive platform.

Shea Cibulsky [00:09:19]:

Yeah, it's a really big platform. I've had some experience on it with it before, but it's drastically changed its look and feel to the user since I had once used it before. Um, you know, it's, it's one of those systems where you don't know what you don't know about a platform. We are launching our biggest event so far in August, and we just rolled out maybe two weeks ago, three weeks ago. Now our speaker resource portal through Cvent, which we've never used before, and is something that has really taken our program to the next level from an automation perspective, to onboard 70 speakers for a digital event. Whereas before it was manual between my partners at Kennedy events and myself sending emails requesting speaker assets, now it's being automated through the speaker resource portal. And so far, knock on wood, the feedback has been amazing from our speakers. So CBeT has been a really good partner, really stepped up to answering a lot of our questions and building some customizations for us that we didn't know we had the ability to have created.

Paige Buck [00:10:31]:

I think this might be one of the things that people who don't plan and produce events at this level wouldn't know is how often. It's about like building out a new workflow, coming to understand a new software. You know, just in the last three years, we've made, you know, just had an awareness of how deeply ingrained technology is in our day to day workflow that seems it's, it is so intrinsic that it's not even obvious, obvious on a daily basis. It's like, can't do a sick. If your Internet goes down, you can't do a single thing when the rest of your day, we all know that now, but it doesn't matter what sort of business you run, technology is integral to what you're doing. And then when you want to level up a winning event, suddenly you're looking at things you're not looking at, like, how can we make it more shiny or make the signage more gorgeous, or make that, you know, you're looking at workflows and platforms.

Shea Cibulsky [00:11:31]:

Yeah, I think one of the big pieces that we look at, there's two really key creative up levels that we look, that I look at, and one of them is that speaker experience. I've talked about it before and how to create just the top notch speaker experience, because without our amazing speakers, there would be no skill exchange. And so I treat them like the vip's that they are. And part of this workflow of building out this speaker resource portal is to up level their experience and to make it more seamless and automated and professional. And so that process, while it took a good amount of time in building and testing, has led us to the point where we are receiving that amazing feedback from our speakers. They appreciate the automation. We certainly appreciate the automation. And the second part is the attendee experience.

Shea Cibulsky [00:12:26]:

So whatever we can do to make that attendee experience next level for them, not stagnant. So creating something new and different with each event, our brains are always finding.

Paige Buck [00:12:40]:

Solutions to that, finding new ways. After that first event, what, you know, you talked about the overwhelming positive feedback, but what metrics did you use to gauge success and how did that lead to more, you know, to scaling, to saying, we're not just going to do this again, but we're going to do this again multiple times?

Shea Cibulsky [00:13:01]:

Yeah, I think the overwhelming instant metric was that registration and attendance number. I couldn't, off the top of my head, I think we had around 1200 registrations and half of that in attendance, roughly. We had a really high attendance rate for this first event as well. We also measure, and I think this is something that Adobe does, maybe not all events do this, or probably not all events. We measure product or solution usage. So we really hyper focus on the content that's being presented and what you as an attendee should be taking out of it. What features within our solutions are we teaching you? Are we showing you? Are we improving? And we measure that usage now, that measurement has changed and morphed from 2020 to now, but the combination of those two, really seeing how our content is engaging our users within our product, and we can see that and measure that across a certain amount of time. A combination of those two factors really kind of set the stage for building out the program for 2021 and beyond.

Paige Buck [00:14:21]:

You're touching on something I'm really curious about for you and for other clients of ours, which is how long a tail does do your metrics, the KPI's that you tie to an event, how long do they run out after the event? For how long are you looking at that usage rate for certain solutions?

Shea Cibulsky [00:14:44]:

So I think if you had asked me this question. Two years ago, I would say we looked at that usage 60 days after the event. Now it's fluid. We can look at how our content has impacted usage. I mean, as far out in the future as we are today, so current. So, you know, we could look at measuring our content from an event in 2023 and see how it's shaped today. How have those attendees sitting in an event last year are using the features that we or that our program showed them, talked to them about, had takeaways that were really relevant to those particular features? Incredible. Ongoing.

Paige Buck [00:15:33]:

That's really incredible. I mean, one, I think that's a credit to the strength of your internal efforts. And it's also just incredible to see how those, like, just the tools that you're leaning on that, that affect business decisions.

Shea Cibulsky [00:15:49]:

Yeah. It's important to our team to look at that feature usage. We want to say our content that we're producing is impacting how our users are adopting our solutions. And if we don't have a way of measuring that, then it's just kind of, yeah, we think we are. We believe we are. We don't really have anything. And so I know our internal teams have spent a lot of time building amazing dashboards for us.

Paige Buck [00:16:17]:

That's, that's really cool. What, when you think this actually kind of gets to what you were saying, what do you think are some of the most essential internal components that you have at Adobe that I bet your competitors or your peers would envy having somebody internal to build out dashboards for you?

Shea Cibulsky [00:16:37]:

I was just going to say we, you know, we have, I have an amazing team that is, you know, basically behind these doors that you can't see that just work to help enhance our ability to prove the value of the programs we have and prove that our, and show the results of our customers wishes and show them that the feedback that we're receiving is resonating with how they're using our solution. So I'd say absolutely the ability to have these dashboards built within our systems is critical. I also have great partnerships internally with my team by Adobe product. So each event I run will have a content team or person by Adobe product. So if I foreshadow to our big event in August, it's digital. It supports five Adobe products. I have five content teams that each are owning the agenda, the speakers, the content for each adobe product that they're responsible for. And I think that's really unique in the sense that we don't have just an overarching content team, but one that specifically designed and built for the solution that they support.

Shea Cibulsky [00:17:55]:

So their knowledge of the Adobe product is really resonates with the customers that we're bringing on to speak.

Paige Buck [00:18:02]:

How do they support those customers? Like in, I know a little bit of what goes on behind the scenes in the months running up to something like this, but just in developing their content, thinking through what they want to share, making sure they're like, I know. And I think you know, too, what it feels like when you're going to be a speaker and you're like, but what would people want to actually learn from me? What could I possibly teach them? How do I organize this into something worth knowing? How do you support them in that?

Shea Cibulsky [00:18:31]:

Yeah, I think the best way that we support our speakers and our attendees is through interviewing our customers and knowing what type of topics are top of mind for an event. So we come on board. Our content team kind of comes on board with key topics they want covered in our digital event in August. And they reach out to speakers who they either have relationships with, who've raised their hand to speak for a different event, maybe a webinar, and they own that relationship. As far as here's what we're hearing from our interviews, this is the topic that we would like, and you raised your hand that this is something you're passionate about, which is key, right? You don't want a speaker speaking about something that they're like, yeah, I could talk about it, but so it's really important that it's something that they're, they're into as well. And then we just have a workflow back to that workflow process of how we support them, from onboarding them as a confirmed speaker to content check ins, which we're in that process right now. So each speaker has, gets about 45 minutes of a content check in with all of our, for all of our sessions. We do dry runs of all of our sessions, and then we'll go into speaker recordings the end of July or not end of July.

Shea Cibulsky [00:19:56]:

Sorry, everyone at Kennedy on my team beginning July. And so I think even just from a speaker myself perspective, that support from our content team on what points, what key points are critical for attendees is really helpful. One of our biggest standards across all of our skill exchange events for all of our sessions is at the end of your session, what are the two to three takeaways that you want attendees to take from your session and turn around and incorporate back in their office tomorrow? And if there's no answer to that, then we need to go back to the drawing board on what your session is about, because it's all about a learning and taking something away from the session and being able to implement it. Implement it back at your office.

Paige Buck [00:20:46]:

Yeah. It's not as simple as you were wowed, you were inspired, you were simply like, I can take this, I can do that.

Shea Cibulsky [00:20:53]:

Absolutely.

Paige Buck [00:20:54]:

Which in turn goes back to your, like, the fact that you've now built the ability to measure. Like, are they doing that? Are they engaging with the tool? Are they doing the things they learned?

Shea Cibulsky [00:21:05]:

Yeah. Are they doing the things? And we were able to look at that and say, they are doing the things. This is a very popular topic. We should build upon it. We should dive deeper. Or this one might have seemed too technical. I mean, we don't always hit home runs on all of our content. So the content that may not have hit the areas that we wanted to, from a feedback or attendance perspective, we still take a look at that.

Shea Cibulsky [00:21:32]:

I mean, we're really critical of after every event and we feed back ourselves, what could we do different? What could the content. How could the content be different? So we're always trying to evolve and make sure that what we're presenting at every skill exchange comes from the customer, resonates with the customer, and has a clear takeaway.

Paige Buck [00:21:53]:

Can you think of any experiences where you had something that didn't land the way you thought it would and that surprised you and how you unpacked that challenge or adapted it? That might be a tricky one.

Shea Cibulsky [00:22:07]:

Yeah, I think I have a really good one. We have a segment within our program called Experience Maker Spotlight, and I attribute it, although I haven't done this ever, to, like, rapid speed dating, where you have just a quick time to learn about somebody. In our case, we have three different customer speakers in this spotlight that are sharing a unique tip or trick in this 15 minutes rapid, rapid session, and then they all come together in a Q and A. But what we find is, and what we found is that three speakers might be too many. That 15 minutes doesn't give our attendees enough information and enough processes to get them where they need to go at the end of the day. And so we've already, even from our event, we participated at Summit in March. We've already transitioned our August spotlights to only be two speakers. So we're cutting out, you know, a third of our speakers to give those two spotlight speakers more time, more ability to dive deeper, and to give an opportunity for attendees to get more from their session.

Shea Cibulsky [00:23:19]:

So I think that what we recognized, we were trying to squeeze too much in a short period of time, all with the greatest of intentions. But the feedback was, they want more time with the speakers, not less.

Paige Buck [00:23:33]:

Yeah, well, I think that's a really lovely example because I think sometimes we have our own theories of, like, what will keep somebody's attention, what will get them hooked. What we need are lightning rounds, and we'll, like, wake everybody up, and there'll be this little burst, like, that's nice. And what I really wanted was more.

Shea Cibulsky [00:23:51]:

Absolutely. And we, and we hear. So when, when, when our attendees get surveys and we give our, you know, please fill it out. We really, really listen. We read them all. We, we take everything into account. We absolutely do. That is the only way our program can stay fresh, can stay relevant to our users, can be important for them, and to keep coming back multiple times, you know, event after event.

Paige Buck [00:24:16]:

You just said that about fresh and relevant, and I'm wondering how you keep it fresh and relevant for you, because I've been in a job where I had four or five events I produced, and they were the same every year. So, like, oh, here we come with this again. Here we come with this again. And for a couple years, that felt great. And then it started feeling like, what am I going to do to wake myself up? And.

Shea Cibulsky [00:24:38]:

Yeah, well, the good news about being here at Adobe is that things are always changing. So even if I have a plan a and a plan b and a plan C, another plan comes up. So I'm always on my toes. But for me, I'm now being able to focus on workflow and process is really important to me because I am a team of one. So I'm the only dedicated, like, dedicated person at Adobe to this program. But there's a whole team behind these doors, right? We talked about Kennedy events. We talked about the content teams that are my solution leads for all of my content, but nobody else is. And then my amazing team that runs all my dashboards, I mean, goodness, that's their full time job, right? But there is nobody that's assisting with the process, the workflows, the building out.

Shea Cibulsky [00:25:31]:

And so for me, if something happened to me, goodness, knock on wood. How do you run this program? What are the steps to success on the skill exchange? And so for me, keeping it fresh is making sure that I have a process in place. I have these workflows like the speaker resource portal built out, and then just regular touch points with the team after each event. What worked, what didn't. Wouldn't it be cool if we did these networking opportunities next year so we're constantly having these conversations and debriefs after every event to build upon and add new components, and that's what keeps it fresh for me. And also, I love our Adobe users. I don't have to say that no one's, you know, I am an Adobe employee, but at the end of the day, our customers are amazing. And they have just been such a joy to work with that it just makes this program so much more special.

Shea Cibulsky [00:26:34]:

I'm not tired of it yet.

Paige Buck [00:26:36]:

Yeah, well. And when you can be looking for things like continuous improvement, new tricks and I can see how it keeps it fresh.

Shea Cibulsky [00:26:45]:

Yeah.

Paige Buck [00:26:46]:

How do you. You were talking about the importance and of the care of the customer, like, as a speaker, but also then the care of the customers who are your attendees. And you have, you know, you mentioned your attendance rate in November 2020, and we didn't touch on the fact that by November 2020, a lot of us were really burned out on virtual events. It was like, virtual events, or, don't make me show up on screen at another thing. I don't wanna. I don't wanna drop my comment in chat, for God's sake. Right. Like, I can't muster the enthusiasm for another experience like this.

Paige Buck [00:27:24]:

I've been stuck indoors for too long. And yet you had what I would think would be an incredibly low attrition rate without any of that. You had a really. You had a really low attrition rate for a free digital event.

Shea Cibulsky [00:27:37]:

Yeah.

Paige Buck [00:27:39]:

How do you like. I mean, besides everything that you said about how amazing your customers are, what would you attribute that to?

Shea Cibulsky [00:27:46]:

Goodness. I mean, like, I'd like to say attribute to all of our work, but, I mean, part of it is. Could have just been. It's not luck, Paige. But I think what we did with our event in November was different in the sense of that it was. It wasn't just a single webinar with a topic. Right. It had multiple tracks, beginner level, intermediate to advanced level, multiple customer speakers, multiple Adobe speakers, an opening keynote.

Shea Cibulsky [00:28:20]:

So it felt like a mini-event versus a standalone webinar. And people were missing people at this point. Right. So we weren't going anywhere. And so feeling like you were going to an event, I feel, was a draw for our program and probably sheer curiosity, right? There hasn't been anything like this at Adobe from a product perspective. You know, because of COVID all of the in-person events were stopped. And so this was an opportunity for customers to go, oh, you're speaking at a. An event that's digital.

Shea Cibulsky [00:28:57]:

It's not a webinar. It's a little bit different. We have all these other speakers and agendas going on, and I think people were just curious to learn. And once they got on board and they joined the event, they were. I think we all were taken aback by just how amazing the content was.

Paige Buck [00:29:15]:

I just think the value proposition to the attendee must be really strong, like deepening, I imagine. And from some things you've told me the tools you're helping them with are things that are really integral to their job day to day.

Shea Cibulsky [00:29:30]:

Absolutely. So it's how they measure their data. It's how they communicate to their own customers. It's how they're building out their platform. So it's how they're building workflows. Back to, I think that our word of the day, our buzzword today. And so it's all relevant content that is not thought leadership. It's really digging and digging into the weeds of the Adobe products and really sharing start to finish.

Shea Cibulsky [00:30:00]:

If you're looking at a beginner-level track that we call learn, what are the steps that you need to take to learn more about our product? Here's step one, step two, and step three, and then there's some customers telling you how you can better utilize the product. So we really focus that content on what they want to learn.

Paige Buck [00:30:25]:

Yeah. Now, as you've expanded and scaled, repeating these digital, not repeating, but like, replicating and improving these events has looked like going to EMEA and AIPAC and beyond. What have you used to shift the program or not? Take for granted that we're not one. We're not just a monoculture. It feels like it if you're on TikTok, but we're not a global monoculture yet, thank goodness. And I mean, it sounds like you have some internal resources, but that you also approached this really thoughtfully.

Shea Cibulsky [00:31:07]:

Yeah, I mean, we do host. You know, I sit in North America, so it's easy to pick on my west coast speakers to speak for us all the time, or to promote an event on the west coast. We really pride ourselves on the diversity of our speakers, not just from a global perspective as well. I mean, I look at our August event, and we have, even though it's in North America time, we have speakers in London, Ireland, South Africa, India. We have tracks that have 63% female speakers. So diversity. And members of all different cultures as well. So just really focusing on the fact that I'm a team of one sitting here in the United States, how can we support all of our customers abroad? And that's really not just rinse and repeating our events.

Shea Cibulsky [00:32:05]:

So we really, can't be in multiple places at the same time. I can't run, you know, twelve events a year of this magnitude. And so we really are focusing on how we can spread that content out to all of our users across the globe. Whether they can attend the event digitally live, or we provide them with on-demand content that they're able to digest at a later time, that suits them. But, you know, even though our event in August is 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., Pacific, we're going to have speakers all across the United States and then multiple time zones, plus speakers in the countries I just mentioned that are joining us at their time. And so really being able to support outside of the US is critical as well.

Paige Buck [00:32:57]:

I think it's also huge that you have at Adobe, not you personally, because we've talked about it, but we haven't figured out how to clone you yet.

Shea Cibulsky [00:33:06]:

Let me know.

Paige Buck [00:33:09]:

Every time I joke about that now, as AI becomes more and more integral, I actually creep myself out a little bit. I'm like, someday. In fact, I heard a story over the weekend on a tech podcast that I listened to about somebody who built an AI engine and fueled it, shall we say, or like seeded it with a bunch of perspectives from their client's CEO and then used it to vet their ideas because they had a very nervous client that would, wouldn't, you know, mid-level or like senior management clients who wouldn't, couldn't make decisions fast without running it by their CEO. So they would vet it, show the client the chatbot’s educated response from the CEO's perspective, and it would help speed up their client’s decision-making.

Shea Cibulsky [00:34:03]:

Creative.

Paige Buck [00:34:04]:

That's super creative, super creepy, really inspiring, right?

Shea Cibulsky [00:34:10]:

Yeah.

Paige Buck [00:34:12]:

But without cloning you, you are able to get the perspective of real humans, not, not chat bots, to, in the, in all the global places where Adobe operates. So you're asking your internal people, what are your customers experiences in Africa, in India, in Asia?

Shea Cibulsky [00:34:34]:

And they're very different. I mean, not everyone's experience or needs are the same. So us is very different than APAC, very different from our EMEA region. You know, we do host standalone events for those time zones. When we are building out our plan and our schedule, we do as best as we can, knowing that there's only twelve months in a year and there's not twelve event months in a year, that's for sure. So we do certainly our best to work with our global partners to provide what they need as well.

Paige Buck [00:35:07]:

When you're looking at all the ways to improve, like continuous improvement for both process documentation, workflow, speaker experience, are there, are there people that you tap? Are there places you go for inspiration? Are there events you're attending that you're like, oh, I must steal that idea.

Shea Cibulsky [00:35:27]:

Yeah, absolutely. So I definitely took some ideas from Adobe Summit that we participated in March. They have a whole, you know, it's much bigger than the skill exchange, obviously. And I think that's where the idea of could I do a speaker portal like the summit team did. I certainly look at our internal events and see what my internal partners are doing. I'm speaking at the cvent connect conference in June. So I'm utilizing the speaker resource portal as a speaker. And we use that to get some takeaways on how we can build out our own internal speaker portal for the skill exchange.

Shea Cibulsky [00:36:07]:

So I definitely have my pulse on other events and what's going on and what they're doing to be able to get creative and, and to make improvements. I don't have all the answers. I'm always looking for ways to improve and so, yeah, just getting creative and looking at other events. Absolutely.

Paige Buck [00:36:25]:

Yeah. Yeah. It's such a, it's, it's really easy to just sort of be like heads down on our own things. But until that, your job requires you to be, to stay curious.

Shea Cibulsky [00:36:35]:

Yeah, I feel like my head is on a swivel at all given times. Like just absorbing everything, you know, emails I might get, inviting me to different things, conversations with my partners at Kennedy, you know, what are you seeing? What, what would be fun to try? So just ask. I'm always asking questions.

Paige Buck [00:36:52]:

Yeah. What do you think are some of the key differences that you have to be thinking about an employing when you were taking this content live and in person as you'll do in November or as you did at, you know, in, in a piece of summit versus when you're doing it digitally.

Shea Cibulsky [00:37:14]:

I think the first piece is, is that we scale our, we have it, we have a different program skill exchange in person than we do a skill exchange digitally. So our in person event in November will be content for our intermediate to advanced level users for two different Adobe products. So we have to, I don't want to scale, I don't want to say scale back, but we just trim some of the content we have for time sake. Right. So, you know, and for space that we would need. But we definitely make adjustments to our in person event to add in more networking time. Right. That face to face.

Shea Cibulsky [00:37:55]:

We don't have that digitally. We try with our. With the live components we have the best we can. I think we do a phenomenal job, but nothing takes the place of, like, me sitting in your office with you, Paige, and saying hi and asking you questions. And so we absolutely take advantage of that time we have in person to build out additional opportunities for our customers to network or for our internal teams to come and engage with our customers. So we have customer advocacy will come and have a conversation with our attendees as well and set up a table and have some swag or something to give out. So we just take a look at it. We don't try and replicate a digital to our in person.

Shea Cibulsky [00:38:38]:

We know that that is not a good way of doing business and it's not really thoughtful to our users.

Paige Buck [00:38:45]:

Yeah, yeah. Do anything with the live program and the networking that give you, like, conversation starters or ways to connect, like, deeper ways to connect without over engineering it for folks.

Shea Cibulsky [00:38:57]:

Yeah. We're still in our early planning stages for November. There's a lot of ideas coming out about having kind of some. Some very thoughtful topic, topical tables, if you will, so attendees can come and have lunch with other users of a certain Adobe product and engage them. That was one of our big takeaways from Summit, is how we can bring all of our skill exchange speakers and our attendees together to allow them to have more informal conversations versus kind of the session, the standard breakout session. So we'll kick off our planning for November shortly, where we dive into all of those fun pieces, but it's always something that we're looking at is how we can engage those conversations.

Paige Buck [00:39:40]:

Yeah, that's really amazing. Something that you said to me when we were prepping for this session was that you're still wowed by being part of something so impactful.

Shea Cibulsky [00:39:54]:

Yeah. It's incredible to think back that in June of 2020, this program didn't exist. And it's almost crazier for me to think that in November of 2020, we created. We hosted our first program, like, to be able to have that quick turnaround and today to sit here in 2024. And we've, you know, I think last year had over 10,000 attendees of the skill exchange across our year, and this year we're looking at, you know, 14,000. I'm just in awe of the amazing work that everyone does. And I try to take. I try to sit back and go, okay, Shea, you're a part of this, but I also am a person that's like, hey, we got to keep these wheels going.

Shea Cibulsky [00:40:47]:

What's, you know, what's next? What are you hearing from customers? But I try to take time after Adobe Summit to just go like, this is incredible. Like this. The passion that our users have, the support that I have from Adobe leadership to run this program and too, and for them to give me that freedom to say, this is what I think will work best for 2024. Here's the plan I put forward. And to have that support from them is just phenomenal. And being in person and seeing people walk through and have badges on that Adobe studio created and that we painstakingly built out, it's just. It's a very humbling moment for me to just sit back and watch that happen. It's magic.

Paige Buck [00:41:39]:

That sounds really rewarding.

Shea Cibulsky [00:41:41]:

Yeah.

Paige Buck [00:41:42]:

All right, we are going to do your takeaways on the fly.

Shea Cibulsky [00:41:46]:

Okay.

Paige Buck [00:41:47]:

And I'll seed one for you because meta, you know, have takeaways. If you are giving advice to somebody who is trying to build a program like this or up level, maybe either a struggling or a nascent program would tell them to have takeaways for their absolutely sessions. What else would you, what else would you advise?

Shea Cibulsky [00:42:11]:

I think if you're just starting out, it's easy to be overwhelmed. Where to begin? I think the greatest gift you can give yourself is time for research and discovery. So know. Know who you want your audience to be, and ask specific questions of internal stakeholders, of your customers, your potential attendees. What do you want to see from an event? If they can give you the answer, then you have already a key to success. You know what's important and top of mind for your attendees. So I spent a good amount of time just sitting on calls doing research, discovery. The next takeaway, I would say, is surround yourself with people that think like you.

Shea Cibulsky [00:43:03]:

So I'm an events person, my husband, not an events person. He would not be somebody I would bring onto my team. He's on my team in life, but professionally, he's not my events team. So I would say find your events person, whether it's an internal person that you can bounce ideas off, or if you're able to find an external partner that you can help bounce ideas off. That was critical for me. That was one of the non negotiables when I came on board, was that I needed help. I couldn't do this by myself. Recognizing that is not a hindrance.

Shea Cibulsky [00:43:38]:

It's really, it changes things when you take, tell somebody, I'm one person, I can't do it all. I will need help. So I think those are my biggest, two biggest takeaways is do research and discovery and spend time on that. Don't rush through it. Don't pretend like you know what everyone wants to see out of an event. I'm not an Adobe product expert, so you don't want me telling you, our adobe users, what's important to you. So know your audience. Learn about them, learn about what they want to hear, and then find a partner, find a support person.

Shea Cibulsky [00:44:13]:

It doesn't have to be a big team, but somebody you trust.

Paige Buck [00:44:18]:

Yeah. Well, I also liked the advice that was inside. The advice about, it's not a failure or a weakness to say, I'm just one person and I'm not the expert. I feel like I spent. I tell the younger people on my team, I'm like, I spent the first two decades of my career faking it till I made it feeling like I had to pretend to everybody that I knew the answer to everything. And I get to spend the next decades of my career saying, I don't know. What do you think?

Shea Cibulsky [00:44:47]:

Yeah, absolutely. And that's transformational, right? Just the weight off of your shoulders, number one. And to be able to give that ownership and that knowledge to somebody else. And you'll hear me. If you sat on any speaker calls that I've ever been on with about content, it'll be me, a speaker, and a content team, a content owner. I will instantly tell my speakers, you don't want me to tell you about how to use Adobe. I'm looking for you to. I'm going to learn from you.

Shea Cibulsky [00:45:17]:

Yeah. And then I turn the call over. I can talk to you all day about everything I need from you as a speaker, what to expect at the event, the operational side, how we're going to make this the best experience for you. But when it comes down to being the expert of Adobe, I turn that over to the customer and our content team.

Paige Buck [00:45:35]:

Yeah. It's so empowering. It feels exactly the opposite as what you would expect. It would feel like when you're. When. When you're. When you come from that place of fear that I had as like a young professional, when you finally let go and say, what do you think we should do? How would you approach this problem? It's like. It feels like, incredibly freeing and opening and empowering instead of like, oh, no, I'm out on a tightrope and everybody can see, I don't know, everything.

Shea Cibulsky [00:46:04]:

Holding on with your life. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Paige Buck [00:46:07]:

Yeah. That's an incredible piece of advice. Thank you, Shea.

Shea Cibulsky [00:46:11]:

Welcome.

Paige Buck [00:46:12]:

Well, so I've been delighted to talk to Shea Cibulsky, a senior marketing manager at Adobe. Shea, thank you so much for your time today.

Shea Cibulsky [00:46:19]:

Thank you so much for having me.

Paige Buck [00:46:20]:

Yeah. We will put ways to find you whether you want to be found or not in our show notes.

Shea Cibulsky [00:46:26]:

Find a way if you need.

Paige Buck [00:46:28]:

Find a way in this, in this world you can't possibly escape. We appreciate your time and wish you continued success with this program.

Shea Cibulsky [00:46:37]:

Thank you so much. Paige.

Paige Buck [00:46:38]:

Thank you.

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PAIGE BUCK

Paige Buck is the co-owner of Kennedy Events, a large-scale event management company based in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York City. Our team creates stress-free conferences and events with a positive impact, which allows our clients to resonate with their audience. Kennedy Events specializes in producing flawless product launches, award ceremonies, fundraisers, and multi-day conferences while keeping our eye on retention and engagement goals.

About Kennedy Events

Kennedy Events began with one goal in mind—to produce high-level corporate events with just as much strategy as style. Maggie founded the company in 2000, found her match in Paige, and in 2011 the two became official partners. Since then, these two resourceful and brilliant creatives have pooled their strengths to build one one of the most the most sought after corporate event companies in San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles.