Behind the Scenes with the RootsTech 2021 Conference

is upstairs watching hi family oh yes do some shout outs we have we have two girls and a boy um and they sometimes come in to work with me so um it's that's been a really not a really fun thing for me to be working at home i'm only five minutes from the family search office so it's not like i'm far but but i do enjoy being at home it's been fun and you know brian he called me um on microsoft teams one of these meetings about four months ago i don't know when was it september maybe yeah hey could you help me do a few mock-ups for the research yeah we're spending like a week and uh that one or two days um has turned into full-time 100 of my time working on ridgetech and it has been amazing it's been awesome so and how many how many different mock-ups would you say have been created oh man hundreds it changes literally every day and so so i was changing things up until right before we called so it's constantly changing and it's been pretty insane trying to trying to get this ready okay well and i know why people are here they are here because they want to know what is going on with roots tech and we are going to show them some of the prototypes which might change right but we want to show them what you've been working on and what they can expect and we will answer we will answer questions and so i think let's kick it off and let's start showing them what it's going to look like and jen can you tell us a little bit about why or maybe how roots tech is different this year than any other year while curtis pulls up his screen yeah well i don't know if you've heard but rachel ruth tech is all virtual this year so you get this experience right now i would be stressing out with brandon beckstead for those of you who know him right we're trying to make sure all the chairs are set up in the right place that the fire marshal is set that the taco stands are ready to go we know where everyone's gonna line up uh i don't have to worry about that stress this year so i handed it off to these two chairs they have to worry about can the website handle all the people right so we have to create a convention center but virtual a place to host everybody and i just can't even tell you before we even get started brian and curtis are two of the best and any of you that listening out there don't even think about taking them because they are incredible at what they've done in just a short amount of time we're almost like letting everyone know the secret brian like this has been nothing short of a miracle so anyway handing off all the stress to them we really appreciate jen doing that by the way and really really nice of her it is so exciting and um jen tell us about the global aspect of this um experience because that's one of the big differences right huge yes we have so many people coming so already you know just a share we have over 202 countries or territories that are represented that have already registered and registrations are just climbing every single day and we you know that's just that's huge these people can't travel to salt lake city to come to a convention and so we are so excited how the growth of this is taking place and i'm sure brian and curtis will talk about this as one of the big challenges but one of the great opportunities is the languages and people just coming from all over the world and we literally are transforming this event into a place where anybody can come and learn and experience and be inspired so oh it's crazy and it's free it's free it's free okay curtis walk us through curtis and brian walk us through what we are looking at and if you have specific questions about rootstech and first let's make sure this is a disclaimer this is a prototype this is what um the end experience may be slightly different but you know this is what are we 28 days away um so this is probably closer and i think people want to know what can they expect so what are we looking at curtis yeah so right now we're looking at what we're calling the main stage for those who have been to roots tech before they know there's there's a lot going on there's a lot of different sessions and stuff but there is a main stage there and that's where all the keynote addresses are given and that's where all of the you know the guest celebrities come and talk and that's exactly what we're going to have here we do have some amazing keynote speakers that are going to be presenting at this year's roots deck and it'll all happen on the main stage which will be going constantly throughout the whole time 24 hours straight main stage content with 12 different keynote speakers they all speak different languages but it's okay it'll all be available in 11 languages so even if they're speaking spanish you can come and enjoy it so is there like one that you're really excited about or that's surprising that you can tell us about jen well there's so many great keynotes like i said there's 12 of them now there's one specific that we met with his name is diego and he is a why a soccer player if you're american he plays football and um he's he's from i said uruguay right did i say that already and he's played all over the world he played for brazil all over in latin america played in europe for a while extremely good still playing by the way and he loves family history he loves it and he was so excited to come and give any and he gave an incredible message i actually understood like two words but um he was just so energetic and so excited to come and talk about family history yes okay have fun um and so still pay attention to roots tech social and the website because not all of the keynotes have been addressed or announced and make sure you're registered rootstech.org register and participate with us okay brian can you tell us a little bit about what we're seeing at the top and what do you think people should do when they first come to the website yeah so if you look across the top here you the home is just when you when you tap on home that's when you're going to get the live stream of the main stage and they'll also be some announcements you can connect into a calendar to show what's being showed during during that live stage and so that's pretty much your your home but as we kind of move across here the tabs across the top we have the section called guide me now i don't know if anybody's ever played with some learning management systems uh one popular one out there that's really popular today is one called master class where you can kind of really curate your whole course and so if you're coming to this roots tech and you're like you know i'm new to family history i have no idea where to even start whatever what to view what what we've done with this section is we have curated pretty much courses uh to help you just guide you through your experience so that's what you will find here uh in uh the guide me section okay okay okay and i love that you use the word curated so if you have an intent or something specific you're interested you're getting started then this is a great place to come um what if you just want to look at all the what's available the classes that are available where would we where do we do that so well that's great the next one next tab over you see sessions so if you just you tap on sessions over there you can search by title topic speaker company uh when you tap on this you'll see uh we've got categories we have a of course a category category called the keynote so you can jump in and see the keynotes after the keynotes are are viewed and done on the main stage they will be available as on-demand sessions so that's where you'll see it here but we have different categories you can tap on any of the categories and uh jump into the different sessions and you can also have a search here to search for things you also see on this this page there there's a filter by country and language so as jen was saying you know we we've got a lot of people from all over the world here and we've got content that's being submitted from all over the world there too so you can also filter by language and country oh wow um okay tell us jen a little bit about the sessions and how they're different this year as far as let's go with the number the obvious one i don't want to scare anybody but um we have over 800 class sessions that will be available in different languages and and we really are changing kind of the format too a lot of these classes are going to be about 20 minutes long um so not so long a little bit shorter from all over the world and being taught in different languages or you know from originating languages not really translated or anything but um what's so great about that is there's learning coming in from all over the world and there's a lot of them and hopefully a lot shorter so that you can kind of dive into those things a lot easier we also have this section called tips and tricks where you can listen and watch um classes that are like three minutes long uh just these quick little snippets that will help you on your journey of whatever wherever you are uh in the family history realm so okay so so curtis as you're sharing this and i know that you mentioned your role have you done um have you met with like have you shared this with customers and gotten their feedback on how to make this better so we um we're actually putting together a test right now we have we've talked to a bunch of people we we've finally got it to a place where we feel like we can test it with some people that are kind of on the outside um that might be people who would who would maybe attend so we're going to be getting that feedback here later this week actually so we're going to get into that right now and it's just it's remarkable to see what what's been created okay tell us about curtis show us the next piece because i think this is really important and uh i think this will be cool so so it's my playlist um with any of those sessions let me go back to a session and show like from a search result for example yes um if i see a session here that i like i could just click on that plus and it would just add it to my playlist so then it's just kind of like my watch list on on netflix or something where you can just kind of collect all of the series all of the sessions that you want to watch throughout the throughout the few days and it's not just they'll be there even past the conference right so like you can just start to collect everything that you want to watch um and it'll just be collected there so that you can just go and watch what you want to watch okay so we've got a couple people asking um will each day be different or will it be the same each day on the main stage i think is the question they're referring to that's a good question so main stage there'll be 24 hours of live streaming uh content the next 24 hours will pretty much be the same pieces but in a different order because we don't expect you all to sit in front of your computer for 72 hours i hope you don't but if you do great you're listed as my one of my die hards um and so it will be similar but different in a different area and then the third day will be different so uh there'll be a lot going on on the main stage all of these classes that curtis is showing um those will be on demand there will be some classes that will be live as well but for the most part you can go in right from the first day and start adding them to your playlist um or just start watching them too and again there's so much we know you can't do it all in three days so that's why building your playlist and then coming back uh the weeks or days or even months later okay that's another question um kylie is asking how long will the content be up and available yup so we don't really have any plans to take it down honestly it'll be at least for a year that's kind of our promise that you can come in here and learn at that point for the next event we might start refreshing and changing and switching it out a little bit but okay brian we have a question for you um kylie is asking are your daughters packing the goodie bags um she didn't really ask that but they want to know if there's goodie bags and i'm like i don't know i think you have to get your own goodie bag right i just want to answer that question at this point anything's possible i think our kids might be asked to stuff cookie bags kylie let us know where you are and we'll see if we can we can help out with that um okay so curtis can you tell us a little bit and i know there's more to go through but we're having questions about closed captioning um and and translations um kathy is asking how the language streams work and who wants to answer that one oh yeah brian could answer that one better most of our content that we got in here we're we're really running this underneath the covers uh we're running these videos out of youtube a lot of them and so uh this platform really if i get technical there we've got embedded youtube player on this platform and so we will have available uh subtitles in the youtube platform so if you've ever watched youtube videos on that player and done subtitles with it you're going to be very familiar with with how to go about that because we're we're using we're we're using the common youtube player so there's a way to go in there and select a little setting on the player and you're able to go in there and if we have the trends the subtitles translations with the videos you'll be able to select the language but if you if we don't even have the sub the language subtitles there youtube has this feature where you can actually auto translate so um you can actually hit auto translate and youtube has tons of languages that it will auto translate into so we we feel this is going to give us a really broad reach to a lot of people oh cool it's so cool say 11 languages like are all the sessions available not many languages so the sessions are a little different they they've come in in their originating language whatever language it was taught in and then you can use the youtube feature that brian's talking about to get it in your language if you'd like but the main stage the live stream part will be available in 11 languages it'll either be dubbed or subtitled depending on the language so and there are she did mention closed captioning there are some classes with true closed captioning um and it for asl so there's a handful of those yes awesome okay curtis now um i know when i was talking to jen earlier about this one of the most exciting things about roots tech is the expo hall because you walk in and there's just this energy and um there's you know all of our friends our partners and and the presenters so what is that experience going to be like yes yeah for those that have been to roots tech they know that there's it's just this huge area where you can just go from booth to booth and so it is cool we are going to have a virtual expo hall and there will still be vendors there that have their own little virtual booth so so like find my past might have wow their own little virtual booth where they have some booth demos um they might have who knows they may have some special offers or they might have some new products to show off or something but it will be up to each company to to decide what they want to have in their virtual booth but it will be a cool opportunity for people to just be able to go kind of wander the virtual expo hall and see what the different companies have to offer and i love um something that you have all talked about especially when i've heard the roots tech team talk about since it's roots tech connect how are we facilitating connections and i don't know if that's something that you can share with the the prototype but um i'd love to know there's two things people want to know connections and then how can they get help because and that's another thing roots tech is famous for is all of the volunteers so who wants to which one should we answer first i i wonder if we should talk about this first one which is that came to my mind there's relatives at roots tech this to me is one of the coolest things um that was so for those who have been to roots tech before that we had this relatives of roots tech feature so on the rootstech app you could go in and see who you were related to now brian and i we we work at rootstech every year we have our own booth that we're part of the discovery booth um and one of the funnest things for me was to meet people there and then just say hey let's see if we're related most often they were even distantly but it was really really cool to see hey we're ninth cousins you know and um so this and that was with 30 000 people and now to be able to connect with 200 000 people and to see how you're related and we're gonna have a map like an interactive map that you can look and see where all of your connections are so this is going to be one of the coolest things i think um that has been created just for this conference right and this is this is big technology stuff that's happening here too right brian how many like help us understand from an engineering or a building perspective what kind of effort goes into creating an experience like this this is this is a really big effort just because of the size right i mean we're looking at how many are coming and participating this this is a humongous effort uh for us to pull off um so anyway um it's been quite a journey i i just wanted to just also just jump on to what curse was saying i actually on the screen here i actually pulled up a beta site of some actual working code now this is always dangerous to do like a live session but um down here you'll see when you jump into the in the on the platform there'll always be this little button at the bottom that says connect and this connect will allow you to direct message anybody in the in the conference any participant that's participating any speakers uh speakers message them you can jump into chat rooms uh so there'll be a lot of opportunities to connect in multiple ways but i wanted to show you also in the chat tool here as curse was talking about was just see how you're related if i scroll down here in my client here it says here show my relatives so if i'm opted into the relatives at roots tag and i tap on this button here it's going to pull my top 10 closest relatives that are related to me and then it says here i can show more and pull in 10 more and then 10 more and then i can also view the view the map of my relatives that prayers was talking about so if i tap on that it's going to actually take me out to an experience that we've got for the relatives at wrist pack where i can see my relatives mapped on a map that are participating in the conference so marketable okay pretty cool here so i come in here and see how gertrude marine you know here she is right here what's my relationship with her and pull up um my relationship with with her and then i can also um send a message to her through the family search messaging user messaging i can search for a friend so i can come here and let's say i want to search for a friend say i'm gonna search for curtis oh there's curtis right there that we're talking to and i can just now see how i'm related to curtis hit view my relationship hey look word my cousin wants for me curse that's really great hey and wendy do you know another fun fact about brian and i yes we want to know all the fun facts not only are we ninth cousins once removed but we also share a birthday we do our dads worked together at hill air force base his his dad was my dad's manager for a short time and then going back even further and we learned this actually at roots tech a couple years ago our fourth great grandfathers were both in the martin handcart company together and they both passed away uh short after crossing the sweetwater most likely buried in the same common grave so we have we have a lot in common which was really cool that was a fun discovery at roots tech that we made um how how soon will the um relatives at roots tech be available we've got people asking um deborah wants to know when it goes live because she's excited to jump in here and start connecting well so what i've been told here right now is it looks like february i think 23rd when it acts the main stage actually opens and goes live that's when they'll turn it on okay so just be ready be ready for all this excitement and there was something else and and so just just to indicate what we're looking at this is the beta version of the site what curtis was showing was the prototype so this is actually like um what's working which is actually really cool keith what else can you show us well yes so yeah so just it's so it's not all uh fake stuff this stuff's really actually this has gotta work by time we get to february 23rd right so anyway uh here's curtis right here look i can even chat with curtis right here and type him a message hey chris and this is really just a private chat between me and curtis uh it's not private anymore everyone's seeing it yeah we can we can see really verbose conversations yes i am here yes um um colette is asking about q and a's with presenters um yeah that's a great question though there will be um some opportunity for some q a with a few of the presenters and but there's always an open i guess it's opened a chat an experience and i don't know if you guys are able to show it as i'm talking about it but there is a place for you to comment on classes uh the speaker will sometimes be in there um helping answer questions we will also have a handful of moderators um who will be helping and answering those questions too so there's always this chat so whether it's fed by the community you could be end up chatting with community members who are also listening to that same class or um the presenter will be on there too so yes there'll be some scheduled though chris you could probably show that how it looks in the prototype better on that i mean we had this in the live code yeah each question will highlight the presenters and chatting with the presenters and you'll have a chat room every every session will have a chat room associated with it show us all the things and we're also getting questions about um like schedules or where the broadcasts are at so there's the main stage there's the video on demand you mentioned um so there's gonna and then there's the expo hall there's gonna be multiple like um just if you guys will pull that up because i think the calendar is actually really gonna it's gonna be very helpful for everybody especially around the world and in different time zones so to answer that question they'll be able to come to roots tech see you kind of automatically jump into the main stage so you can watch that right from where you are but you'll also be able to see what's coming up next and really the only thing that has a schedule is the main stage everything else mostly is um is on demand but you'll see here at the top actually you can click on these buttons you know if you want to see thursday friday or saturday if you want to see the main stage the live q and a's and then there's a few other things um so this calendar is awesome i i think this feature is going to be so helpful and right from here you can jump to it if it's going live or even see what's going on in the chat room yeah and add to playlist like medicine and okay this is super awesome um and you know i wish some of this was live now i'm like i want to watch some of this stuff we are also getting questions about um handouts and things like that um and i don't know we need to we need to answer the ask me anything experience and then people want to know about handouts but but curtis you can continue showing this oh yeah there you go let's talk about ask us anything so um that's another thing we wanted to keep from from the actual risk tech in person conferences there was all these people that had these ask us anything shirts no hold on they didn't want to keep the shirts no we don't want to keep the shirts the staff is very happy i'm not making them wear that shirt this year thanks for coming what are you talking about jen we love wearing that shirt we would go into walmart with that shirt yes i saw someone ask us questions they do yes i've seen people in my neighborhood like riding a bike with that shirt and i'm like wait where'd you get that you know you can ask him anything but we do have that in here and so they they can click on this anytime they open up the chat window there's this ask us anything always at the top um and when they click on that then we have these these different categories and that they can choose from and let's say they click on places and then they can they'll be served up with a few people that have that are experts in that area that they can start a chat with and and so let's say they wanted to talk to randy and they they start a conversation with him and and he can answer their question i i think we should give everyone watching randy's work email and then if anyone has questions during the conference they could just and reach out to him directly i think for sure they should ask him lots of questions during the class look for randy hoffman anytime you can and just you know ask him questions we can say that because he's on the discovery team okay and then um talk to us a little bit about um the other handouts yes yes a lot of people so i i know exactly who you are asking this question because a lot of people at rootstech love you know the syllabi and all the different things that you can collect and get um so all of that will be available in a virtual space um so for those presenters who did provide a syllabi that will be available so what you're seeing here is this downloadable resources section um and so you can download or view those things when they are available um most expo booths um will have those as well so just like you used to go into a booth and collect those things i can't deliver the mini snickers bar that they would give out in their booth i'm sorry about that but uh you can come and collect uh all the handouts as well yeah okay all right and and if that like just whatever the presenter provides would be available in the downloadable resources and then connecting with the presenters there might be live q and a's but you can also find them um and okay just like that yep so whenever you're in a session there will be they will show up in that chat window too so you can start a you can just look at that conversation that will be a group conversation or well no i guess a direct conversation with that that presenter so yeah you could ask questions for that person which is really cool and it really all depends on the presenters and um if they'll be there so again we're not guaranteed that all the presenters will be answering questions for 72 hours straight um but there will be someone on those uh conversations who can help you yeah okay so they're still going to get the ask me anything they're still going to get the downloadable resources hundreds and hundreds of classes a lot of localized content and lots of different languages um there's also an opportunity for um streaming all of the um did you guys see my screen go weird okay good it just just something um and then all keynotes everything so really how can people prepare for rootstech what would you recommend that they do the one thing we can't give them is the taco stand so you know make sure you got your favorite snacks and soda ready to go and your bunny slippers because you'll want a comfy outfit as well no it i mean in all reality i think there's a few things we can say they can prepare for but number one is probably to make sure that they have a family search account and remember the login there will be certain things you won't be able to do unless you log in um and relatives at roots check relatives and same with um even chatting uh you've got to be logged in for that to create a playlist you got to be logged in so that is like number one i would say in this virtual world number two maybe um have a great computer with um some a charger yes okay um and we're getting lots of questions so before i go to some of these questions curtis is there anything else in the prototype that you want to share oh we've got um deborah is saying she noticed when you pulled up the list of presenters that there was a way to show your relationship to presenter um how does that work and i guess the presenter would have to opt into that right i think it's if the presenter opts in is that right brian that that you'll be able to they'll be just like everybody else kind of looking at the opportunity to see if you're cousins that's correct so you'll you'll do that in the relatives at rootstech experience but yeah as far as other things on this page brian and curtis i mean i know we have a speakers page we haven't really shown that yet if you want to jump just to the speakers maybe you love certain presenters you know obviously these ones are all past people that we've been working on the prototype with but you can go in and see people who are speaking and jump to their class um yeah what sessions they're going to speak and things like that yeah but we pretty much showed the big things right brian anything hold on steve rockwood has an instagram account well it shows that he does but [Music] we could create one and we'll have randy hoffman run it okay so we used to show the menu before you close out of this um curtis yep so at rootstech store yes we haven't talked about that right yeah jen tell us what's going to be at the store there is a roots tech store in fact it's live right now um but i don't i don't know the link but anyway you can go and purchase there's actually all sorts of stuff way more than we usually would have in our in our physical store um but there's jackets and t-shirts and bags and mugs and if you don't have those bunny slippers i think there's even slippers that you can buy or a blanket um so there's actually a very wide variety of things that you can go in and purchase and it'll be shipped right to you is this where brian's daughters are stuffing goodie bags to sell for me um okay is there anything else here that we need so there's faqs there's things like that okay so we've got some really really good questions coming in and um i can't wait to ask you guys so i think i think curtis you can stop sharing and um i don't know why it's just been fun to like bring up randy during this i spent her bringing a friend i'm sure he's not watching but um okay so people are asking if this is their first time is there someone to kind of mentor or help them kind of prepare and or get the most out of their experience email yeah randy hoffman's your guy so there's definitely people to help you through the experience once we start not so much what you know before we get there but but be sure you're following all of the rootstech um social platforms as well as if you've registered we are sending out emails that will help you get prepared and to think about all those things now once you once we start uh you know they were showing you the chat feature and really you can go in and start chatting with them and asking any even if it's hey i'm new i don't know what to do and that person will be available throughout the whole conference you know maybe you really like that person's answers and you want to just go back to that same person every time we're actually trying to cultivate those kind of connections so yes okay okay um everyone is asking about the t-shirts that brian and curtis are wearing actually nobody is but i really feel like there's a story there and we need to know so one of our favorite parts of roots tech was for for the discovery team it was that was a place where we would launch our new products and so this time of year is always stressful for us because we're always ramping up to have our next product ready um and last year this that's what this shirt represents is the it's the where am i from experience that was launched at last year's rootstech and brian's was from a few years ago but um these are special desks because we wear them at the conference because and we're just excited because our product is now live um so that's why okay i have to just invite you guys to share the story um and we had brian on before when we were talking about discovery and internally at family search which there's like a thousand employees the discovery team which brian and curtis are on are famous for their pranks for the things that they do and can you tell us about uh is that a panda t-shirt or something um do you want to tell that story yeah tell us he's like nervous okay we hope dan's watching so um yes okay the panda story okay there's there's a penis so we have a we have a colleague that we work with named dan call and um dan is a good friend of ours and and uh one of the projects in discovery we were working on is is was it was a chinese um discovery product and um so he he works a lot with the chinese and stuff well dan he has he has these wingtips that he wears that are like black and white and he came one day to work wearing i think like a black vest and a black tie and a white shirt and um and one of the one of the team members in chinese uh called him giant panda you know as a nickname so uh for for his birthday we got the whole team together everything and curtis designed a special t-shirt with a panda on the front that says giant panda in chinese and and he didn't know about it and so we had all these people that got these shirts on his birthday and then another thing you know about dan is dan does not like to wear the same shirt and so we always have this prank trying to wear the same shirt as dan and so we all got a panda shirt for him not but we don't stop at the office we always take it all the way into his home so we always coordinate with his wife angie and his kids and we made sure that they had shirts too so when he got in the office and saw everybody wearing the same shirt and offered him that shirt when he got home we all had it on that's that was the prank that was the panda shirt prank wow okay wow i just love learning about the way that you guys connect and you're building reach tech connect and it's fun and there's ways that we can learn about each other and connect in in t-shirts and birthdays i think that's fantastic okay jen we're getting more questions about the size can you tell us how many people are you're expecting um you mentioned the number of countries that are coming but we never really talked about the number of people and and it's growing a lot um so right now we have um over 220 000 people who have registered who have said i'm interested and i want to come and that number is growing a lot now that the holidays are over and everyone is focusing on this so it's incredible just to think about that it'll be interesting to see how many come that you know during the event but also experience it after so very very excited about the numbers it's incredible so so come bring your family bring your friends you know do virtual watch part watch parties whatever um as we're sort of wrapping up we have a few more minutes do you guys want to highlight any and we had questions about is there an african-american track or you know tell us a little bit about some of the more unique tracks that people can expect to see gosh there's there's so many of and i can't even list them all but they're really there's these categories and that's how you know if you think back to the prototype you can go and search for a certain class or look at the different categories and there's going to be a lot of those so yes definitely classes focused on you know african heritage but even um you know they're going to get more narrow this year because we have more opportunity for that but then very broad so lots of categories that you'll be able to look through and again much more expansive than you're used to so get ready okay okay now um brian and curtis this is a question for you and then jen i want you to think about it too can you we've talked a lot about the highlights and the things that are working can you tell us about maybe a struggle or a challenge that you guys have had and maybe you know how you've pivoted or what you've learned from it because it can't be all fun and games [Laughter] like don't sign me up for this again ever again no i've enjoyed it you know what's really cool is is you've seen um everybody's family searching the organization or in to rootstech we're committed and what's really cool about this was it wasn't just like hey brian we need you to help with this but it was like brian we need you to help with this but anybody you want you get and that's what's been been so cool about it it's like if i could go pick the the smartest developer that we've got at familysearch.org and says i need him on this project and um craig who's the the vp over the engineering division he'd say you've got them and you've given them to me and and so it's been really cool to see just there's there's a lot of people engaged in making this experience successful for you and it's just it's been really really fun yes there's been challenges i mean when when you you're trying to pull something like this off and and you come into it on september i think if i was working for any other place i would say you you're crazy there's no way we're gonna pull this off but but this organization you know what i knew we could do it and we're going to do it so um really cool wow um jen talk to us about what it's been like with your team and doing things differently um this year and maybe some some of the the opportunities for growth oh my goodness you guys we are events people which means most of us just love to be around other people so it has been so hard in this virtual world to um to meet and to do everything we need to from our own homes but um and and it's really hard to just think we aren't planning on chairs and trying to plan all those things that's what we normally do and so um can't wait until we can be together again but for now it's just exciting to see this and you know brian mentioned so many people at the department and it the in the company that are coming together i think that's been the most exciting this year is it's sort of like all hands on deck and so many people are making great things happen so for us a small team of just nine people uh there's no way we could have pulled this off and um so it's been really kind of exciting to see that so i can't i can't wait to see it all come to happen together i'm worried i'm going to be like a nervous wreck like running everywhere like there's nowhere to run and there's nowhere to go i just have to sit here and watch it it's so weird i think and curtis since you have been a part of this and you've had a lot to do with building you know the visual part what are you hoping people will experience what i mean that's your that's your your profession is user experience so what is your hope yeah um it's always scary to me to to launch anything um but to have something be live and add a whole another dimension but well i really hope my hope is that that we can pull off the same thing that you get when you're there in person and one of the coolest parts to me and and every year it's i meet these different people at ridgetech that just lightened my life you know and um and so i i hope that people come um and do make connections still with others around the world um and that it helps them in their family history journey that helps them learn a little bit more so that they can find the people they're looking for and have have those amazing family history experiences that's what i think the the whole purpose of this thing is is to help people feel that um and to you know have that make their life a little better so that's what i hope curtis taking it home make it at home i mean this is why i mean we are it is an honor and i'm speaking for myself but everyone to be able to serve the customer that we serve and the opportunity to work every day in a space that facilitates connections like curtis talked about and like jen talked about how vast and huge the efforts are and brian saying you know this this didn't even exist in september and you can you got permission to get you know the best talent which is another vast um poll and so i i think as we wrap up um i would love just to hear from each of you like kind of you're what you're most excited about personally and um brian are any of your girls going to be attending do we have any events available for people younger so i know that's two questions yeah so i hope they attend but you know uh i think they will uh and um uh the other thing is i just lost what i was what your question was yeah because i i well what are you most excited about you know i know what i'm excited about notification after it's done [Laughter] he's literally going on a vacation right after that that's awesome i'm just keeping it real right no but i you know what you're it's always exciting you know i've been in software development for for over 25 years and and the one thing that's always so rewarding being in software development is creating something and then seeing it built and used and so that's going to be what i'm most excited about is actually seeing you know people from all over the world lots of them connecting on a platform that we that we've built um that is going to be so rewarding wow yes that that is worth the extra hours right um curtis what about you is there anything you'd like to add as far as what you're most excited about um so i kind of mentioned that like the site like the experience i hope people have but i just wanted to add too that like to be able to work you kind of mention this too but to be able to work on something that has this much meaning to me is really really amazing like i've been i've been a designer for 20 years and for half of my career i was working you know just at different places doing stuff for different companies that i didn't really have a connection to um and it was fun i loved my job always but but to be able to be working here now and specifically on this project to be working on something that um actually that i have um a lot of happy feelings about like it's something that makes my life better um and and i so i just i'm excited that it will that it will be reaching so many more people like brian said like it's just awesome to see that number keep climbing and climbing um and so yeah i'm excited to see how long this reaches people too and there's something for everybody there is you know i'm going to count the number of times of mic drops after curse speaks right but every time he talks it's like mike dropped no he's got more to say let's keep going pick up the mic again and give it to curtis to drop again yes curtis hey when um if i you know get sick i'll ask you to fill in for me well you're really good at what you do okay jen thank you and jen um tell us what you're you're most excited about as we wrap up and if there's any other messages you want to leave sure i you know i am so excited really just to see this thing happen there's something special about roots tech and it took me a few years to kind of start figuring it out but i really really truly believe that one of the things that makes it so special is that there are literally hundreds of people there ready to help you who love you already before you even come and we spend a lot of time making sure that everybody on that side is there willing to help um we do trainings you know to help people understand to be kind and loving and in this new virtual world we're even doing more trainings on that okay how do you do it in chat um and so i just there's something so special about rootstech and i really do believe it's because of the ask us anything mentality that we're there ready to help and just at every turn it doesn't matter what your question is we'll help you with it however we can so just excited my favorite part is after the event is to hear all those amazing stories of connections and how people helped and went above and beyond more than you could ever even imagine we could have like a whole you know 20 shows just on those stories so i love that i can't wait um gosh any last minute messages you mentioned something for young people yes we hope you will all see and notice that there are young people um teenagers and young adults who will be gathering specifically for kind of a challenge that we have created just for them um so there's there's gonna be something for everybody my friends well thank you so much for participating and thank you for the questions that people have asked and i think that i for one am just more excited than ever to participate with people from all over over the world and learning about and connecting with each other and our families and brian and curtis keep going jen you know like your team's doing an amazing job and everyone we cannot wait to hang out with you um the last weekend or it's the 25th to 27th of february and work for us

Channel: FamilySearch

Views: 16,639

Rating: 4.9130435 out of 5

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Id: NrozAbjKqBc

Length: 51min 21sec (3081 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 27 2021