Collisions and Community at C2C Connect Live: New York City

Trevor Marshall ( @tmarshall ) had just left the stage after over an hour of nonstop conversation, but he was ready for another interview. The CTO of Current, an aptly-named disruptor in the developing fintech space, had come to the event to participate in a panel discussion with Spenser Paul of DoiT ( @spenserpaul ), Michael Brzezinski of AMD ( @mike.brzezinski ), and Michael Beal of Data Capital Management ( @MikeBeal ), immediately following a one-on-one fireside chat with Paul, who also brought his labrador Milton onstage with him for both sessions. Now Marshall was sitting at a wooden dining table in an open workspace overlooking Manhattan's Little Island floating park, enthusiastically describing a proof-of-concept his company is running with Google Cloud's C2D compute instances, an offering powered by AMD's EPYC processors.

"It's cool to actually be able to put a face to some of this technology," he said. "We have a lot of compute-bound instances, and for me, I was like, 'Oh, it's the C2D guy!'" Brzezinski had discussed AMD's role in bringing C2D instances to Google Cloud customers, but Marshall hadn't known until the two were seated onstage together that his fellow panelist is directly involved in selling the same technology he hopes to adopt. "I'm going to be reaching out to that guy," he said. "I do have some questions. That will actually unlock some progress in our stack, and I think that's pretty sweet."

Marshall's positivity and excitement to collaborate reflected the prevailing atmosphere at C2C Connect Live, New York City, the most recent of C2C Global's regional face-to-face events for Google Cloud customers and partners, this one hosted at Google's 8510 building in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood. The scheduled program put Marshall in conversation with Brzezinski, AMD's Global Sales Manager, Paul, DoiT's head of Global Alliances, and Beal, Data Capital Management's CEO, on the topic of innovation and cost optimization on Google Cloud. These sessions were designed as a starting point for the reception that followed, where the panelists and guests shared their stories and explored the topics discussed in more depth.

"You get an opportunity to say the things you feel like people are interested in, and then you get to talk with them afterward," said Brzezinski. "They'll come and ask you more about what you said, or say, 'you mentioned this one thing, but I want to know more about something different.'"

"You collide two atoms together, you create something new. You collide two people together and have an open discussion, you learn something new, get new insight."

Thomson Nguy ( @thomson_nguy ), Vice President of Sales in the Americas at Aiven, was grateful to be able to meet both Brzezinski and Beal in person, having worked with both companies, AMD as a vendor and Data Capital Management as a customer, but only remotely. "We're an AMD customer, we're a Google customer, but also we've got one of our customers [at the event] that can actually use the price performance that AMD can drive, and so it's actually being able to connect relationships along the whole value chain," he said. "Working together as partners, we can actually create real value for the customers."

Nguy particularly appreciated being able to make these connections in an informal setting, where sales was not top of mind for him or his team. When he and Beal met, before talking shop, the two reminisced about Harvard Business School, where both earned their MBAs. "This event was very natural," said Nguy. "It wasn't like going to an AWS summit, where you get lost in 10,000 people at the Javitz center. It's a very intimate place that lets you connect and talk with people, and it has that really cool vibe, a community vibe that I really appreciate." Faris Alrabi ( @faris.alrabi ), one of Aiven's Sales Team Leads in the Americas, wholeheartedly agreed. At most events, he said, he feels obligated to pitch, whereas, at C2C Connect Live, he went out of his way not to.

Attendees repeatedly echoed these sentiments. In conversation with Nguy in front of a spread of refreshments that depleted rapidly over the course of the reception, Geoff MacNeil of Crowdbotics, another company that brought multiple team members out to the event, attributed the unique value of this intimate setting to the possibility of chance encounters. "Collisions create innovation," he said. "You collide two atoms together, you create something new. You collide two people together and have an open discussion, you learn something new, get new insight." Nguy and MacNeil also exchanged information to discuss opportunities to partner in the future.

New business deals aside, however, the ability to meet and share ideas and impressions in person, guests agreed, was reason enough to attend already. "Even if we left this event without getting a single lead," said Nguy, "the experience of being here and understanding our customers and the way they think and the way they talk in a lot fuller context, I thought that was super valuable."

C2C Will be hosting many more face-to-face events in the coming months. To connect with Google Cloud customers in your area and spark more innovation for your company, register for these upcoming events below: