We didn’t plan for the entire Product team to be wearing the same Human shirts with White Ops hoodies—that’s just how they walked in that day. Actually, that’s how most White Ops humans walk in on most days, no matter where they are located. Our first User Summit did not change that.
Our mission for the User Summit was to give clients a peek under the hood of what we do. We didn’t do this to try to upsell them or make them sign another contract: we wanted them to get to know us and tell us how we can better ourselves to help them. White Ops’ clients each use our products in ways tailored to their needs. My team (Customer Success) ensures that each one is moving towards their goals to reduce sophisticated bot traffic as much as humanly possible (pun intended). Besides learning who can name the most James Bond movies, we had a few key takeaways.
No One Ever Does This
A common theme throughout the Summit was no one actually talks to each other about the problems and the possible solutions. At conferences, you’re talked at by big speakers on big stages with little bits of time here and there to get something done. Our main focus for this event was for it to be small, personable, and informative. The Summit provided clients a space to discuss sophisticated bots without shame or judgement—it gave everyone some much needed relief and empathy on this shared struggle. We had our Threat Intel and Detection teams discuss how they find potential threats and what they do to stop them. The Product team gave them an idea of what’s next for White Ops. Not only do our clients know what we do, they know how we do it and where we’re going.
More Than Just a Vendor
When you sign on to work with White Ops it means you believe in our mission just as much as we do. It’s more than a client/vendor relationship—it’s a partnership to make the Internet a safer and more reliable place. This is exactly why we didn’t hold this at a different location: it was at our offices, with our people, where we do the hard work for you. See where the magic happens because without your support, there wouldn’t be any magic.
This Isn’t the End
One Summit is good, but the conversation is ongoing. We were overwhelmed by the positive feedback we received from attendees, especially the calls for more events like this. I can assure you, this will not be the last User Summit we hold. Our clients have become a community themselves—they learned from each other just as much as we learned from them. We are excited to keep this community thriving with more opportunities to learn, grow, and win trivia.