Launching Search Central Live Deep Dive

0:10Hello and welcome to another episode of Search of the record, a podcast coming to you from the Google Search relations team where we talk about all things search and maybe have some fun along the way. My name is Martin Splitt. I am a search relations engineer at the search relations team at Google and with me is Cherry. Hi, Cherry. Hello. Would you like to introduce yourself a little bit? Not really. Do I have to? Well, I have another guest here, Gary. Hi, Gary. Would you like to introduce Cherry. Hello, my name is Gary Splitt. And I would rather not introduce Cherry, because in my opinion, everyone should know who Cherry is already, because she was already on the podcast year one, I think.

1:01Still, we introduce ourselves sometimes, no? OK. Cherry is Cherry. OK. That's great. That's great. Fine. I'll do it. fine how do we do this well how do you say so you are you are saying words and eventually they form sentences that people sometimes understand let's let let me try that that um so i'm cherry i'm from the search relations team and you might have seen me around on our videos, maybe blog, and maybe in person at our events. I'm the only person in the team who's based outside Zurich. And no, I'm not sad. I'm not lonely. I may not really get as much cheese as my teammates do, but I do get lots of sunshine in Singapore.

1:57Which we don't get here in Zurich. Well, it's also raining here now, so it's, yeah, this is going well. You're selling it so well. It's amazing. I am immediately sold on this. So I don't really know how these work. It might be helpful. That was fantastic. I'm supposed to do here. Tell us a little more about the Search Central Live events in Asia, because I'm not sure if everyone knows our Search Central Live events yet. I think they should, because how could you, like, do you live on a rock or something if you don't know our Search Central Live events? And I know that you are doing a lot of them in the APAC region.

2:34yes so maybe wait i should explain what search central life is right just in case right yeah just in case yeah so we started search central life actually long long time ago as webmaster conference was it 2019 or something right long ago oh no before that like the first name was was Google Dance. Yes. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that was 2006 or something. And then with Nathan, we reanimated it in 2014 or 15 or something, and then it was transformed into Webmaster Conference. And then now to Search Central Live. It's a flagship event series that is organized by our team. We bring search tops to your locations, in your languages, and also give you place, you know, to hang out with other people in the search world and for us as well to see people from time to time.

3:33And that's nice. Yeah, I think. We did virtual events as well during the pandemic.

3:44So our Search Central Live events have so far been like half day or full day events, right? But you have announced something different now. Yeah, so I think in APAC we have been doing a lot of search center live and usually it's for us it's about like a few hours. So we start about nine and then ends about five. And my mathematics skill is really good. I don't know how many hours that is, but it's like a full day thing. And I think in some locations it's like half day thing. And because we have been running a lot of these right in many locations and many years now. and I think we have always tried to also improve the events and we spend a lot of time looking at feedback as well from these events and actually quite often we see things like people want longer duration event can we make it into a few days event make it a week-long event can we get more advanced content can we have more practical workshop and all these things so I think since last year, Gary and I have been cooking up this idea of having a more advanced, longer, and also more extended version of Search Central Live events.

4:55And that's how we came up with Search Central Live Deep Dive. Ooh, nice. I don't remember why we chose that name, actually, the Deep Dive. Oh, I know. You do? I have a theory. It sounds like a Gary thing. Okay. I thought you'd been like maybe planting a seed in my head by talking quite a bit about diving and also I think it doesn't help that I see lots of like diving photos from Martin as well so I think I I think it was all planned I don't know but then I went like such a little like deep dive and then I had like the logo of Googlebot diving in my head and then yeah there's no turning back that's that's pretty amazing.

5:37I've seen the logo. It's fantastic. I love it so much. And is the only difference to the normal Search Central Lives that you do a multi-day event? Or is there other things like, I mean, on Search Central Lives, typically we have a Q &A session and then some talks and maybe a bit of networking. Is there something new coming to the deep dives? Yeah, so like with longer time, of course we can talk about more things deeper things we can have more um time for networking as well more you know interactive things as well or even like practical things that usually we might not have it things like maybe you know with hackathon or all these things we don't we probably won't have hackathon but at least a practical workshops that people can like you know do things while we are giving talk and stuff like that.

6:31We barely had time for those things if we are doing things, you know, like half day or full day. So of course, with longer time, we can explore these things. And I hope it's going to be nicer and hope going to give people more things. One of my pet peeves with Search Central Live is that we have these well-rehearsed talks that speed through one topic and then you do that information whatever you want. Basically, we don't have time. We have 25 minutes maybe for a talk. And it's very, very, very hard to contextualize the information that you just got. And then afterwards, people would ask reference back to one particular topic and then they would ask about it either in the Q &A or in the hallways or whatever.

7:31But why not do it on stage? Well, one reason is that you don't have time to actually contextualize everything. And also, how do you link the topic that you talked about to something tangible? Like, for example, if you're talking about crawling, then how do you show people how that looks like in Search Console or in server logs or whatever if you don't have the time, if you only have 25 minutes or even less? So, like, I'm super happy that, like, we will have actual time to develop topics and to contextualize topics. I think we see it in the community that when we manage to somehow contextualize something, then that particular topic becomes more or people become more advanced in that topic.

8:37like thinking about rendering, for example, in JavaScript shenanigans, we have at least two people who are extremely verse in rendering topics, like externally. You're smiling, so you probably know who I'm talking about, Martin. And I'm pretty sure that if you haven't started talking about rendering in a more, well in a deeper way and contextualizing stuff like javascript and crawling and fitting stuff together um it like the community wouldn't be there or at least not at this level that's true that that's a that's a good point and um i i think you're raising another interesting point which is like the the people ask them in the hallway and the networking bits um i think people are are looking for something different than just like the the front centric because it's nice that we can share our point of view on the stage but the interesting thing at least for me is really the hallway track where people come back and actually give me their ideas or concerns or or problems that they run into.

9:56And this feedback channel is really important. And I have the feeling that traditionally at conferences, including the traditional Search Central Live conferences, there isn't enough room for this. Yeah. Yeah. Also, things like lightning talk, I don't know, poster sessions, all these things are things that I think we really want to have. We pilot some of the lightning sessions, I think community lightning talk in some of our events. But then, of course, with limited time, it's just really hard to let people showcase all the amazing work that they do, all the stuff that they are using and things like that.

10:36So, yeah, I think with more time, we definitely can also have room for a lot more of that. Also, the lightning talk part, we also found that it's super important that specific countries have local communities. And with Lightning Talks, you kind of highlight people who are good in a particular topic. And then there is local, I hate that word, but influencer for that particular topic that others can go to, like asking them about, I don't know, rendering, for example. Like it's much or it feels that like if you have a local person, that's a more, they are more approachable than random Googlers from all around the world.

11:32They would go to those people easier. Yeah, okay. There is one thing that I find important to mention because I feel like people forget about it a lot or easily, is that conferences, you might see this one day or this half day event, but there's like a lot of work that goes into making these things happen. sherry nods vigorously i i know that you are you're doing a lot of work for the larger events specifically um so an event like this is also a lot more investment and a lot more time and and effort spent right so yeah i think there's definitely expecting like more wrinkles and like sleepless nights and stuff no but it's all gonna be worth it yeah true it's worth it's great like it's exciting but I think no I guess no no yes and it's exciting and I think it's not going to replace the traditional events that we we have been doing right because the the beauty of these search central life events is that we can run a pretty large number of them I'm not sure how many you are planning for the deep dives per year is it like a one-time pilot right now or do you already see this happen in the future so for now it's a pilot but definitely we hope that i mean if people like it then of course we're gonna run it again but then i don't think like at least with the current resources and stuff i don't think we can be running like deep dive like five times a year or things like that but um again it's also about balancing what people want Do they need the deep dive version or the non-deep dive version?

13:18In what market? So these things are really something that I think we will take into account for future planning. But for now, this one is a pilot and it's the only one this year. Okay, I see. Also for Deep Dive, or for this particular Deep Dive, we were trying to figure out a location that people can travel to easier. Because the target audience is not one country. Like with Search Central Live, usually we, especially in Asia, we say that we are expecting people from Japan, residing in Japan. And you need, I don't know, like you need to be able to speak Thai or something like that. With this one, it is a very wide range of audiences that we expect to apply, which also means that, like, to me, that feels way more inclusive.

14:25and also more, well, crazier. Like I have... Crazy is good. Well, here. I think. But we were talking about this with Cherry that like the event has to be in English because there's no way that you can like have local speakers in that case, right? Because it's like audience from multiple countries. But then do you bring in translators and then translate to a billion languages like UN style? Or how do we deal with that? And I don't know where we landed on, but it brings in new complications that like normal scl doesn't bring yeah and because i'm also slightly crazy so then we also started looking at like those translation logistic of it cost and all this and you know how it gets really really messy from there and that's why i think for this one it will be in english first and we will see how it goes.

15:45Budgeting is always fun. I remember even for the virtual unconference where we didn't have location and catering, translation was important when we did the localized versions and it's a lot of effort in just one language. So, yeah, I see that. The quality of the translation is also really important, right and it's like if you were to promise a translation then it really has to be of like certain standard so that it is actually useful yeah then yeah there's a lot more work going into that as well to make sure that it's actually something that people will benefit from yeah that's a that's a tricky one i uh let's see how the pilot is going to go i'm i'm looking for it and And when you say like a broader audience and a more mixed audience, what do you mean by that specifically?

16:46So different countries, I get that. But is there anything else that you expect is going to be different in terms of audience from normal Search Central Live events? No, that's just what I meant. Ah, okay. I'm just not working in comms, you know, so I don't know how to phrase things. Oh, yeah, no, wording is hard. Wording is hard. Good that we are off the record here, right? Just amongst us. Yeah.

17:15So knowing that this is a huge undertaking in the APEC region, does that mean that that's going to be the event for the year in the APEC region? Or is it that you are planning other events in the region this year as well? So because of time limit and resources and all that, so we toned down the number of the event in APEC this year a little. So usually we run, I don't know, up to six or seven events in the region per year and stuff but um for this year then because we're doing the deep dive and as you can see it's a new thing then of course it takes a lot more time so we only have that one deep dive um in the earlier part of the year and at the end of the year we're actually looking at having two more events um one in japanese one in chinese but then that wouldn't be the deep dive push and so it would be search center live yeah oh my oh that's that's exciting stuff there i really really look forward to that kind of event i was wondering if we we should probably also look at if the pilot works successfully um if we should like figure out how to get that into other regions as well but let's let's see how the the pilot is going this is based on on feedback or how did you decide um to do this in in APAC first well because I'm based here so it's like okay let's do it here but also we ran a lot of events here but like I think we we just decided APAC because it's like a pilot and then of course we will look at like other region as well if this goes well and I think one of the thing that so you talk about like how things happen and stuff we actually for everything thing because it's a new thing we try to listen to like everything like for example from the number of the days we're asking people like do you want it to be a one day thing or two day things three day things or more than three days more than three days sounds a little bit crazy that's bananas yeah okay yeah i know but then yeah so things like that or even the location right we ask people like where would you prefer the event to be because then you know it's easier for people to travel easier for them to I don't know like arrange visa or things like that and then to the content as well I think like maybe we should talk a little bit about content like Gary and I we look at like I think for now in the sheet we list out all the sessions that we can do and we had like I don't know what feel like 50 of them already and of course we cannot cover them all so it's just now like listing everything and see like what people would like like and see the profile of people that are applying and then again we will arrange that into the agenda can people already apply for the event or is that something that is going to happen in the near future so the application opens maybe I think we're thinking mid to end April and then the event is supposed to be second week or third week of July yeah but then again because we want to listen to all this feedback and stuff that's why we first had like the interest form asking people for all these things and then we will finalize the um details of these locations time and everything later but even like creating that interest form um like we spent so many hours on that stupid form um because we had to decide stupid i think well things things are relative I'm just myself.

21:14Because you have to decide a random, well, not random, like a predefined list of things. Like, for example, do you want one day? You want two day? You want three day? You want more than three day events? Do we agree? And then we start chatting about it. And then eventually we reach consensus that, OK, like we go with this list. But for example, with the locations, we were like zigzagging search engines, looking up like visa requirements for people and like local transportation, like where it's cheaper and where it's more expensive hotels, flights and all those things. While mostly Cherry was doing it, I was mostly sleeping.

21:59It takes a lot of time. And then once we have the feedback, then we actually have to validate it. Because for example, if, I don't know, Like 49 people say that we should do it in, I don't remember who's on the list, or what the locations are on the list. But for example, let's say that people choose Bali. And Bali is on the list, right? It is. Denpasar. Denpasar. Well, it's on Bali Island. But then we look at the venues, and the venues are crazy expensive suddenly because there's something happening there, then it's like, we have to balance budget with location as well. So, yeah, it's weirdly complicated.

22:53And then... Wait, we don't have unlimited budget? No, we don't. Unfortunately, we don't. No. That would be nice, wouldn't it? The things we could do with unlimited budget. so many events waiting. You would just go diving. No, I would go deep diving and search Central Life. More workshops, more sessions, more things. I think one... Wait, going back to the topics. I kind of want to talk more about the topics because... Please do. It's... something that is not 100 % clear in my brain is whether we are going to have technical topics or we are going to target more marketing stuff or a combination of them, of those.

23:49Or how are you imagining it? So are we doing technical topics or what are we targeting? I think it's also, so because we listed down so many things, and we have like like i said like 50 things as of now and it's still growing i think what we are going to do is also we're looking at um the profile of people who are applying that's why we ask so many questions in the registration form as well and from there i think it would also be clearer to us what is more relevant to people. We do that for normal SEL as well, right? Yeah, we do that all the time. But for normal SEL, there's some fixed things that we always do.

24:41Like, for example, because the event might be broader and we expect many different people. And it's a one-day thing. So it's not a lot of commitment as much as the deep dive. So then of course, the first talk is always something more basic, like bring people to the same level, make sure that people know what's going on after this, make sure that people know there are other people of different profile in that room as well. So I think with Deep Dive, it's going to be a little bit different in a way that we know that at least people that are coming are people who are committed to that two days or three days of search.

25:19so at least there's some clear profile there there's some kind of trends of things that we can expect that people would want from the event so it might be easier I guess are we also thinking workshops? now this sounds like a team meeting

25:45what kind of workshops would you do at the deep dive event well we could do search console i mean if we can convince the search console people to come over or daniel where daniel is not search console people well he's sitting next to me in the office so oh it's kind of a search console of people well are you disowning him no no no no he's he's part of our team he just has a particularly close relationship to search console so that's nice he knows most about search console i think i think apart from like tools like i mean we're looking at search console maybe google trends um outside the tools maybe we're also looking at things like i don't know gary we talked about robots txt as well oh yeah we talked about playing games as well, interactive stuff what?

26:48yeah, but that's like a surprise thing I wish yeah, that would be fun maybe you should do that no don't give her ideas Martin I have already done that no way stopping me now I mean at least at SCL Asia we tend to have some games or gamey thing. Like, for example, at one point, I think in Singapore, you had the pedals where people could vote on stuff. Yeah. Oh, you consider that a game? Okay. Voting is a game. We also have musical chairs and stuff. Ah, musical chair, yeah. Musical cherry. Yeah, musical cherry. Musical chair. it was fun just a little bit hectic but very fun yeah i can imagine yeah oh boy you know like stepping on each other and things it was really fun oh my goodness oh wow okay cool so there will be workshops um lightning talks as well i guess lightning talks yeah and if we have like a lot of submission then we're also thinking like poster sessions maybe but um you know like with these things it's like we need to see first what's coming in right because like we ask people do you want um to talk like pitch your idea um for lightning talk for i don't know case study sharing things like that so we need to see what's coming in how many of them and then only then we know like what kind of um time we should be allocated or what kind of sessions should we be um having that makes sense all right cool that's uh looking forward to see how how the pilot goes i'm pretty sure it's gonna be an amazing experience and i'm pretty sure especially because you put in so much effort up front with like figuring out what people want that i'm pretty sure the audience is going to be very very happy can you even call them an audience if they have to actually actively do things it's more like participants right but that's that's pretty cool new things coming to search central life is always exciting and um i think we are seeing a few cool things happening this year with search central life so um this is one more one more easter egg on your side you're also bringing it to other yeah like new new locations yeah so last year we brought it yeah Yeah, right?

29:24Last year we brought it to Turkey. People were pretty happy that we did. So that was nice. We also brought it to Romania and Poland. You were in Romania? Yes, we were. Without me? You didn't want to come. You had better things to do, apparently. It was in April. I don't know what you did in April, but you weren't. Yeah, that sounds like me. Yeah, you were too important for us, I think. Right. but we are bringing it to I am I mean I assume he was in Bucharest or something so I'm not from that area okay how do you feel about Budapest because we are bringing it to Budapest this year and you will make me speak Hungarian because that will be like people will be in tears oh my god can we do that making people cry I don't think we should No, I'm pretty sure they're going to laugh.

30:21Cries of, like, tears of joy. Tears of joy. Tears of laughter. So back when I joined, I had a friend in Dublin who dragged me to a Hungarian conference. And I very stupidly offered that I would do the presentation in Hungarian. And I couldn't find the words. because I didn't know that, like, okay, are you translating crawler to Hungarian or you're using the English term? Are you, like, S-E-R-P, SERP? When I said the actual word in Hungarian for search result page, people were just, like, blinking at me, like, what that? that. So yeah, it's an interesting experience when you try to speak technical language when you never had to previously.

31:29I had that when I did a German talk. And I think I made a specific effort not to use any English terms, even for things like tabs, like UI element of a tab. it's like kartei reiter which is a real world it's just like no one say again i i couldn't say it three times kartei reiter kartei reiter kartei reiter faster and and beetle juice just appeared a kartei reiter appears yes um so and and it just caused like people to laugh their their butts off in the in the audience that was quite funny uh yes so we're bringing it to budapest we will be bringing it to the Baltics probably we will definitely do one in Zurich as well and in Poland and Warsaw again and we are bringing it to South we already had one in Warsaw again you were too important and too busy for us I'm so sorry and we will be doing the first one in Africa, in South Africa more specifically So, very excited to...

32:42Oh, I love it there. It's like the first one ever, right? In Africa. Yeah. A really, really exciting one. I'm really, really looking forward to it. Yes. Wait a minute. Yeah. Then we only have to do one in Australia and one in Antarctica, and then we cover the whole world. Yes. Yeah. I'm down for both locations. Can I do Antarctica? Nice. Was that a pun? I think Antarctica is closer to me well yeah that's true I think I think you're closer to Antarctica no I think you're closer okay I'm hungry can we go now Hungary I thought Romanian not hungry sorry so if people want to know more about the events that we will be bringing to the world this year where should they go and how do they apply they should go to their favorite search engine and search for search central life or go to developers.google.com search where we also list them i think right yeah yes cool why do they have to apply anyway like why why can't they just like score a seat up here yeah oh well we have limited seats like we talk about you know unlimited budget things that we don't have and um you know so we have limited seats and all that and also i think with limited seats it's not just about budget and stuff right it's also making it more i think i don't know like cozy making it easier for people to interact as well when the event gets really really big sometimes it gives you different vibes and like different things too so yeah that's why they would have to apply and then hopefully they will receive confirmation email and then we will see them at the event nice fantastic in that case thanks so much for coming on both to you cherry and gary and talk to me a little bit about our wonderful plans for such central life this year and i think that's it for this episode already oh that sounds really cool Cherry and Gary Cherry and Gary Cherry and Gary Cherry and Gary Cherry and Gary Awesome Anyway Thanks so much for being here And I hope That People out there Found this useful And informational And interesting And Yeah Thank you everyone out there For listening And Bye bye Bye Bye

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