How To Choose The Right Cloud Computing Training Program
Introduction:
Cloud computing has become one of the fastest-growing fields in the IT industry, transforming how businesses store data, run applications, and deliver digital services. From startups to multinational enterprises, organizations are increasingly adopting cloud platforms such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) to improve scalability, security, and operational efficiency.
The demand for skilled cloud professionals continues to rise across industries, creating excellent career opportunities for students, fresh graduates, and working professionals. To meet this growing demand, training institutes such as Vio Technologies offer industry-focused Cloud Computing Courses that help learners build practical skills, gain hands-on experience, and prepare for successful careers in cloud computing. For more details viotechnologies.in
One of the most important steps in selecting the right cloud computing training program is understanding your career goals.
If you're a beginner, look for a Cloud Computing Course that starts with the fundamentals. A beginner-friendly cloud computing program should cover essential topics such as cloud concepts, virtualization, networking basics, storage, security, and an introduction to leading cloud platforms like AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud.
1.Cloud Support Engineer :
This role is ideal for those starting their cloud journey. Cloud Support Engineers assist customers in resolving technical issues, monitoring cloud services, and maintaining system performance.
2.Cloud Administrator:
Cloud Administrators manage cloud infrastructure, user accounts, storage, backups, and system security. If this role interests you, choose a course that includes cloud management, identity and access management (IAM), monitoring tools, security best practices, and platform administration.
3.Cloud Engineer:
Cloud Engineers design, deploy, and maintain cloud-based applications and infrastructure. This career requires strong practical skills in cloud platforms, networking, virtualization, scripting, and infrastructure management. A hands-on training program with real-world projects and lab exercises is especially valuable for aspiring Cloud Engineers.
Why Choose Vio Technologies for Cloud Computing Training?
Choosing the right Cloud Computing Course provider can make a significant difference in your career journey. Vio Technologies is committed to helping students and professionals develop practical cloud skills that align with current industry requirements. Whether you're starting your IT career or looking to upskill for better opportunities, the training program is designed to provide both technical knowledge and hands-on experience.
Industry-Focused Curriculum
Updated with the latest cloud technologies and industry trends.
Covers AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
Includes cloud architecture, networking, security, virtualization, and storage.
Hands-On Cloud Labs
Practice in real cloud environments.
Learn by deploying and managing cloud services.
Gain practical experience through live lab sessions.
Experienced Trainers
Learn from industry professionals with real-world expertise.
Get practical insights and guidance on cloud technologies.
Receive mentorship from certified cloud experts.
Real-World Projects
Work on industry-based cloud projects.
Build a portfolio to showcase your skills.
Apply theoretical concepts to real business scenarios.
Interview Preparation
Resume and LinkedIn profile optimization.
Mock technical and HR interviews.
Communication and soft skills training.
Guidance on cloud certification interview questions.
Placement Assistance
Dedicated placement support.
Job referrals and interview opportunities.
Career guidance from industry experts.
Assistance until you secure a suitable IT role.
Suitable for Beginners
No prior cloud experience required.
Step-by-step learning from basic to advanced concepts.
Ideal for fresh graduates and career starters.
Perfect for Working Professionals
Flexible learning schedules.
Upgrade cloud skills while working.
Prepare for career growth, promotions, or job transitions.
Certification Support
Preparation for AWS, Azure, and GCP certifications.
Practice tests and exam guidance.
Tips to improve certification success rates.
Affordable Training
Cost-effective course fees.
High-quality training with practical learning.
Excellent value for career-focused education.
Career-Oriented Learning
Focus on job-ready skills.
Practical assignments and case studies.
Industry-relevant knowledge that employers value.
Continuous Learning Support
Access to study materials and recorded sessions.
Doubt-clearing sessions with trainers.
Ongoing technical guidance throughout the course.
Placement Assistance Matters:
Resume Preparation
Build an ATS-friendly resume.
Highlight cloud certifications, technical skills, and projects.
Get personalized resume reviews and improvements.
Mock Interviews
Attend technical interview practice sessions.
Prepare for HR interview questions.
Receive feedback to improve performance and confidence.
Soft Skills Training
Improve verbal and written communication.
Learn professional email and workplace etiquette.
Develop presentation and teamwork skills.
Enhance problem-solving and critical thinking abilities.
Internship Opportunities
Gain hands-on industry experience.
Work on live cloud infrastructure projects.
Build practical knowledge before applying for full-time roles.
Placement Support
Dedicated placement assistance team.
Regular interview scheduling.
Job referrals to partner companies.
Career counseling and job search guidance.
Support until you receive a suitable job offer.
Industry Connections
Access to hiring partners and IT companies.
Networking opportunities with cloud professionals.
Industry expert sessions and webinars.
Recruiter interactions and hiring events.
Additional Factors to Check:
Portfolio Building
Create real-world cloud projects.
Showcase practical experience on GitHub or a portfolio website.
Certification Guidance
Training for AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud certifications.
Practice exams and certification preparation sessions.
LinkedIn Profile Optimization
Create a professional LinkedIn profile.
Learn how to attract recruiters and hiring managers.
Career Mentorship
One-on-one career guidance.
Advice on choosing the right cloud career path.
Live Project Experience
Work on enterprise-level cloud deployment scenarios.
Learn cloud migration, monitoring, and security practices.
Technical Assessments
Coding and cloud skills evaluations.
Regular quizzes and practical assignments.
Salary Negotiation Tips
Learn how to discuss salary confidently.
Understand current market salary trends for cloud roles.
Job Application Support
Guidance on applying through job portals.
Best practices for submitting applications and following up.
Post-Placement Support
Assistance after joining a company.
Guidance for career growth and cloud certification planning.
Alumni Network
Connect with successful alumni working in top IT companies.
Get referrals, mentorship, and career advice.
Regular Hiring Drives
Campus recruitment events.
Exclusive hiring drives with partner companies.
Opportunities to interview with multiple employers.
Conclusion
Choosing the right Cloud Computing Training Program is an important step toward building a successful career in the IT industry. Focus on factors such as an industry-relevant curriculum, hands-on cloud labs, experienced trainers, real-world projects, certification guidance, and strong placement assistance instead of choosing a course based solely on price.
A quality training program helps you develop practical skills and prepares you for real job opportunities. If you're looking for comprehensive cloud training with practical learning and career support, explore the Cloud Computing Course at Vio Technologies and take the next step toward a rewarding cloud computing career.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
1. Which is the best Cloud Computing Training Program for beginners?
The best Cloud Computing Training Program for beginners includes cloud fundamentals, AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), hands-on labs, real-world projects, and placement assistance. Choose a course that offers practical learning and industry-relevant skills.
2. What should I look for in a Cloud Computing Course?
When selecting a Cloud Computing Course, look for an updated curriculum, experienced trainers, hands-on cloud labs, live projects, certification preparation, flexible learning options, and strong placement support to help you become job-ready.
3. Is Cloud Computing a good career choice in 2026?
Yes. Cloud Computing is one of the fastest-growing IT fields, with increasing demand for professionals skilled in AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud. Completing a quality Cloud Computing Training Program can open opportunities for roles such as Cloud Engineer, Cloud Administrator, and Cloud Support Engineer.
4. Does Vio Technologies provide Cloud Computing Training with placement assistance?
Yes. Vio Technologies' Cloud Computing Course offers practical cloud training, live projects, interview preparation, certification guidance, and dedicated placement assistance to help students and professionals secure IT jobs.
5. Which cloud certifications should I pursue after completing a Cloud Computing Course?
After completing a Cloud Computing Course, you can prepare for globally recognized certifications such as AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner, AWS Solutions Architect – Associate, Microsoft Azure Fundamentals (AZ-900), and Google Associate Cloud Engineer, which can improve your career opportunities.
Journey to AWS Proficiency: Unveiling Core Services and Certification Paths
Amazon Web Services, often referred to as AWS, stands at the forefront of cloud technology and has revolutionized the way businesses and individuals leverage the power of the cloud. This blog serves as your comprehensive guide to understanding AWS, exploring its core services, and learning how to master this dynamic platform. From the fundamentals of cloud computing to the hands-on experience of AWS services, we'll cover it all. Additionally, we'll discuss the role of education and training, specifically highlighting the value of ACTE Technologies in nurturing your AWS skills, concluding with a mention of their AWS courses.
The Journey to AWS Proficiency:
1. Basics of Cloud Computing:
Getting Started: Before diving into AWS, it's crucial to understand the fundamentals of cloud computing. Begin by exploring the three primary service models: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS). Gain a clear understanding of what cloud computing is and how it's transforming the IT landscape.
Key Concepts: Delve into the key concepts and advantages of cloud computing, such as scalability, flexibility, cost-effectiveness, and disaster recovery. Simultaneously, explore the potential challenges and drawbacks to get a comprehensive view of cloud technology.
2. AWS Core Services:
Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2): Start your AWS journey with Amazon EC2, which provides resizable compute capacity in the cloud. Learn how to create virtual servers, known as instances, and configure them to your specifications. Gain an understanding of the different instance types and how to deploy applications on EC2.
Simple Storage Service (S3): Explore Amazon S3, a secure and scalable storage service. Discover how to create buckets to store data and objects, configure permissions, and access data using a web interface or APIs.
Relational Database Service (RDS): Understand the importance of databases in cloud applications. Amazon RDS simplifies database management and maintenance. Learn how to set up, manage, and optimize RDS instances for your applications. Dive into database engines like MySQL, PostgreSQL, and more.
3. AWS Certification:
Certification Paths: AWS offers a range of certifications for cloud professionals, from foundational to professional levels. Consider enrolling in certification courses to validate your knowledge and expertise in AWS. AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner, AWS Certified Solutions Architect, and AWS Certified DevOps Engineer are some of the popular certifications to pursue.
Preparation: To prepare for AWS certifications, explore recommended study materials, practice exams, and official AWS training. ACTE Technologies, a reputable training institution, offers AWS certification training programs that can boost your confidence and readiness for the exams.
4. Hands-on Experience:
AWS Free Tier: Register for an AWS account and take advantage of the AWS Free Tier, which offers limited free access to various AWS services for 12 months. Practice creating instances, setting up S3 buckets, and exploring other services within the free tier. This hands-on experience is invaluable in gaining practical skills.
5. Online Courses and Tutorials:
Learning Platforms: Explore online learning platforms like Coursera, edX, Udemy, and LinkedIn Learning. These platforms offer a wide range of AWS courses taught by industry experts. They cover various AWS services, architecture, security, and best practices.
Official AWS Resources: AWS provides extensive online documentation, whitepapers, and tutorials. Their website is a goldmine of information for those looking to learn more about specific AWS services and how to use them effectively.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) represents an exciting frontier in the realm of cloud computing. As businesses and individuals increasingly rely on the cloud for innovation and scalability, AWS stands as a pivotal platform. The journey to AWS proficiency involves grasping fundamental cloud concepts, exploring core services, obtaining certifications, and acquiring practical experience. To expedite this process, online courses, tutorials, and structured training from renowned institutions like ACTE Technologies can be invaluable. ACTE Technologies' comprehensive AWS training programs provide hands-on experience, making your quest to master AWS more efficient and positioning you for a successful career in cloud technology.
So I've been playing Death Stranding lately. Wait, that's not what this post is about. Well, it kind of is. Hang on. What is Death Stranding about?
A: Norman Reedus getting bare ass naked
B. Sneaking around ghosts with the help of your sidekick, an actual baby
C: Carrying 50 Amazon packages up a hill while trying to not topple over
D: Waking up in the morning and drinking 5 Monster Energy™ for breakfast
For those following along at home, the answer is actually none of the above. Despite the set dressing being bizarre to the point of near absurdity, what the game is actually about, like thematically, is actually really simple.
See, the development of Death Stranding was actually quite a trip. Hideo Kojima is the video game world's equivalent of an auteur director. He has a very recognizable personal style. It's thoroughly horny – he caught a bunch of shit for the design of Quiet in MGSV, but like, a lot of Kojima characters are just -like that-, including the dudes. Also, this is going to possibly be important later.
Anyway, so Kojima was going to do a rebootmakequel of Silent Hill, and the demo actually made it to the PS store and I could actually write a whole side essay about why P.T. (it was called P.T. for some reason btw) was brilliant game design for how it used the same hallway over and over and it was somehow beneficial to the overall feeling of horror. So Konami it turns out kinda sucks nowadays and they like, fired Kojima (they were huge dicks about it behind closed doors, too) and scrapped the project and kicked him out on the street and kept the Metal Gear series which was his baby (literally the baby in the sink in P.T., he snuck a bunch of messaging about the Konami situation into the demo like a breakup album) and Kojima would go on to form his own studio and poach some of the people who worked with him to boot.
So the thing about Kojima is this: he's got a reputation for already putting some wild shit in his games, like a ladder that takes like 10 real time minutes to climb in MGS3 for dramatic effect, and a boss in MGS3 that summons the ghosts of all the people you were too lazy to stealth past and killed, or a sniper battle with a really old guy that he wanted to have last two weeks or some shit until he died of old age but he was "told that "this was impossible and not recommended." That is a real quote I just looked up. So he's coming off the heels of making this hugely successful game with MGSV and the hype of the P.T. Demo and he fucking, he like took all the people that were going to be working on P.T. Along like Guillermo Del Toro was going to co-write it and Norman Reedus was going to star in it, and he's like, I'm going to make this game called Death Stranding. And the first trailer comes out for it and it's completely nuts. Norman Reedus wakes up naked on a beach crying with a baby and there are floating people in the sky? So we're all like hooooooly shit, there's no one to tell him "this is impossible and not recommended" anymore. What's he going to make now!?
So the whole time the game is in development I keep seeing these tweets where it'll be like, Kojima and one of his homies smiling with some saccharine message about being spiritual warriors and changing the world. And not just Del Toro and Reedus, there was Mads Mikkelsen (another guy Kojima puts in the game just because he apparently loves him), and the band Chvches, and also like, Keanu Reeves at one point? You know how everyone has just kind of accepted that Keanu is a being of light? Here he was endorsing Kojima. The hype was pretty confused and frantic.
The game eventually comes out. A lot of game journos hate it because I think there was this expectation it was going to be, you know, less weird and have more of the conventional structure of a video game. That's not to say the average gamer wasn't also dismissive of it, but I think on the ground level there was more of an understanding that like, yeah, Kojima just be like that sometimes.
Because the game was a timed console exclusive and your homie don't play like that, I spent the first year or so cautiously viewing Death Stranding from a distance. I wasn't sure I was going to like it – except for being really impressed with P.T., I wasn't actually a big fan of Kojima's games as games – but I -was- sure that I was going to buy it, because of the way Konami fucked him over, just out of support. And the shit I was hearing was really out there. The primary mode of gameplay is just delivery packages. You collect Norman Reedus' bathwater and pee and use it as grenades. You get a motorcycle that looks like the one from AMC's The Ride with Norman Reedus, and when you sit on it, his character in the game says "Wow, this thing is like the one from AMC's The Ride with Norman Reedus!"
But I didn't really want to know that much about it. Something has that much fucking crazy person energy, you want to go in mostly blind, right? So maybe people just weren't talking about this, or maybe I wasn't seeing it, but then I watched Girlfriend Reviews' video about it and they came right out and said it (link provided if you want to hear Shelby say it more articulately than me):
Death Stranding is basically about the exact opposite of Twitter. It's about remembering how to be kind to each other, how to reconnect in a world where people are so often hostile to each other by default. Prophetically, it's about a world where people are afraid to go outside or touch other people and how damaging that is. It's not a game about carrying packages, it's a game about helping people by being brave enough to walk through a wasteland carrying their burdens because they can't. It's about rebuilding the lost connections between people, about restoring roads and giving people hope. I bet, for Kojima and the people close to him, it's about how to answer hostility with compassion. You can't kill people in Death Stranding. You can and are absolutely encouraged to fucking throw hands with people sometimes, but all the tools and weapons are nonlethal. So I think Kojima took all the Twitter heat he got over the Quiet nontroversy, and all the feelings of isolation he had from Konami separating him from his team during the end of the development of MGSV, and all the support and encouragement he got from his bros Del Toro and Mads and the rest, and decided to channel that into making a game that was a statement about all of it. And sure, it's a little heavy handed, and sure, it's a little saccharine, and sure, the gameplay sometimes borders on miserable in service of creating emotional payoffs. For me, especially in 2020, this message is a huge success.
Social media should be an opportunity for all of us to feel more connected to each other, yet primarily it feels like one of the main forces driving people apart. Why is that? Why is the internet of today such a hostile place? I'm old enough to remember web 1.0: I can haz cheezburger memes; YTMND; the early wild west days of Youtube... What happened to us? I've thrown the blame at Twitter in the past, and I think the architecture of the user experience on Twitter is absolutely a big piece of the puzzle, because it fosters negative interactions. But in terms of the behavior, people have observed that 2018 Twitter was actually almost exactly like 2014 Tumblr. (For the record, Tumblr is now one of the chillest places left on the internet, because so few fucks are left to give.)
I think part of it is the anonymity. The dehumanizing disconnection of the separation of screens and miles. Louis CK, before he was cancelled, had a great point about cyberbullying, and why it's so much more savage than kids are IRL. When you pick on someone in person and you are confronted with seeing the pain you caused them, for most sane people it causes negative feedback and you become disgusted with your actions and eventually learn to stop being a shithead. Online, at best you can "break the wrist, walk away".
At worst, you can become addicted to "clout chasing" and the psychological thrill of being cheered on by your social ingroup. It's even worse if you feel like it's not bullying and your actions are justified because whoever you've targeted is a bad person so you don't have to feel bad about what you do to them. This is where reductive, unhelpful catchphrases like "punch a nazi" come in. For every argument, one or both sides have convinced themselves that the other side is subhuman because their beliefs are so disgusting. And sometimes it's even true! A lot of times, especially these days, people really are acting like animals or worse online. Entire disinformation engines are roaring day and night, churning out garbage and cluttering the social consciousness. (Kojima talked about this bit, too, way back in MGS2. As if I wasn't already in danger of losing my thread through this.)
The human brain was not built to live like this. You can't wake up every morning, roll over and open your phone, and be immediately faced with a tidal wave of anger and indignity. It wasn't built to be aware of fully how horrible the world is at any moment ALL AT ONCE, ALL THE TIME. And you will be. Because of another way that our brain works – the way we are more likely to share negative opinions. And because of the cottage industry built on farming outrage clicks, and because of constant performative activism.
It's not that I don't agree that being informed is important.
It's not that I don't agree that the causes people get riled up about are important.
They are. They absolutely are.
But we can't keep living like this. The constant, unending flood of tragedy, arguments, and hot takes. How much of the negativity we associate with online culture is the product of this feedback loop? What if the rise of doomer culture has been, if not entirely created by, has been nourished and exacerbated by our hostile attitudes toward each other? Incels and TERFs, white supremacists, radfems, tankies and Trumpers – it seems like on every side of every issue, there are people simultaneously getting it wrong in multiple directions at once and there are more being radicalized every day. They are the toxic waste left behind by the state of discourse. And any hill is a hill worth dying on.
So what am I actually advocating? I don't know. There are a lot of fights going on right now that are important and we can't just climb into bunkers and ignore our problems hoping that Norman Reedus and his fine ass are going to leave the shit we need on our doorsteps. We need to find the strength to carry those hypothetical packages for ourselves sometimes - and hopefully, for others as well. Humans are social creatures. We need interaction and enrichment.
We need love.
So just try to remember the connections between humanity. Try to put more good stuff into the world when you can. Share more shitposts and memes. Tell your friends and family that you love them. Share good news when you hear it. Go on a weird fucking tangent about Death Stranding. Find a way to "be excellent to each other, and party on, dudes."
The Two Werner Herzogs by John Redding & B. A. Hunt
Raffi Asdourian/Flickr (CC BY 2.0) | Pepe courtesy Matt Furie/mattfurie.com | Remix by Jason Reed
Werner Herzog, that hypnotic German filmmaker who once tried to murder his leading man, who taunted death atop a soon-to-erupt volcano, and who looking upon the screeching Amazon mused that he saw only pain and misery in the jungle, was on a press tour. He sat beside his producer Jim McNiel, both bundled up in the Park City cold, and listened politely as the Los Angeles Times’ Steve Zeitchik asked about his new film.
It was 2016 at the Sundance Film Festival, and Herzog’s latest documentary, Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World made its debut in the festival’s Doc Premieres section. The film saw Herzog turning his inimitable lens to the ramifications of modern technology, and initial reviews (at least those counted by Rotten Tomatoes) were uniformly positive. One critic for The Young Folks said Herzog took “the same adventurous spirit that made him drag a cruise ship across a Peruvian jungle in Fitzcarraldo” and put it toward exploring “the labyrinth of the internet’s history.” Many more remarked on the film’s wondrous, sobering, and truly Herzogian revelations about man’s place in the midst of an unprecedented technological revolution.
Zeitchik asked Herzog directly, why make a film about the internet?
“We should know in which world we are living,” he responded. “As thinking people, we should try to scrutinize our environment and know in which world we live.”
Well, this is the world in which we live:
Lo and Behold is a commercial.
It was produced by Massachusetts-based network management company NetScout, in conjunction with New York ad agency Pereira & O’Dell; borne not from Herzog’s own passions, but from those of a marketing team seeking to promote a corporation in the midst of a massive rebranding effort. Marketers might bristle at the exact term, “commercial,” preferring instead the term “branded content,” one tool in an industry-wise trend towards nearly-invisible advertising meant to implant a positive perception of a company’s identity.
After Lo and Behold played Sundance, several reviewers mentioned NetScout had provided the funding, but not one writer took that detail further. Critics focused on the film’s structure and Herzog’s larger-than-life persona, and no one stopped to ask just who NetScout was, and why they had made this film. Perhaps it was the promise of Herzog’s integrity and character he had fought and earned for himself throughout his career as cinema’s wild man that kept anyone from asking questions. In what world could the man, who has braved deserts, the antarctic, and war zones in the tireless pursuit of filmmaking, sell out?
Branding Cinema
Historically when one spoke of the cross section of advertising and filmmaking, they spoke of product placement -- James Bond drinking Heineken in Skyfall, Tom Cruise wearing Aviators in Top Gun, or E.T.’s beloved Reese’s Pieces. But something different happens when advertising agencies realize that they don’t just have to tag-along on a film, but can influence its very structure.
In the late 1990s, while scripting Cast Away, Tom Hanks and William Broyles Jr. approached FedEx with an unusual offer. They said let us use your company’s likeness, and in exchange you can help produce the film. Hanks and Broyles’ problem was that the inciting event of Cast Away was the gruesomely detailed crash of a plane branded with FedEx’s markings.
Company representatives recalled to The Chicago Tribune:
“[FedEx spokeswoman Sandra] Munoz said FedEx decided that the script highlighting the company's humble origins, its global reach and can-do spirit outweighed the aircraft disaster. FedEx provided filming locations at its package sorting hubs in Memphis, Los Angeles and Moscow, as well as airplanes, trucks, uniforms and logistical support. A team of FedEx marketers oversaw production through more than two years of filming.”
This new relationship in which a third party’s marketing team oversaw the production of a high-budget film, foretold a major change in the way companies and cinema interact.
A managing director for FedEx said, "As we stepped back and looked at it, we thought, ‘It's not product placement, we're a character in this movie.’ [...] It's not just a product on the screen. It transcends product placement."
In 2001, a year after Cast Away, BMW pioneered their cinematic ad series “The Hire.” The premise was simple: Clive Owen posed through a series of stylish, high-production value action shorts. “The Hire” played at Cannes and was so successful that -- in what must be some kind of a first -- the Jason Statham hit The Transporter was based on the ads. The genius of “The Hire” is that they are not films about BMW, but films in which the style and power of the automobile act as the architectural underlay for a compelling narrative.
This is branded content. It is not an attempt to insert a brand into a work of art, but to insert a work of art into the brand. As Naomi Klein once described it: ”the goal [of a corporation] is no longer association, but merger with the culture.”
Branded content is a graffiti artist covertly painting original work for a video game company, or a vodka brand working with a music festival to promote gender equality. At its best, it is The Lego Movie, in which the sensory experience of playing with LEGO blocks is lovingly evoked to tell a story. That film’s careful digital animation stands as not just some of the most impeccably textural filmmaking ever attempted, but as a cruise missile of nostalgia aimed at the viewer. The Lego Movie nearly doubled the worth of its parent corporation.
Such a thing has never really existed in film before, but it is very similar to the early years of television, when companies like US Steel, Alcoa, or Kraft would pick up the tab for a show in exchange for the prestige of having their name on it. A great deal of powerful programs were produced in this era of television, but none free from compromises. Rod Serling was just one of many talented writers who found themselves increasingly stymied by his sponsors’ patter of seemly changes. In the introduction to the paperback edition of his great teleplay “Patterns,” Serling cautioned us about mixing corporations and art: “I think it is a basic truth that no dramatic art form should be dictated and controlled by men whose training, interest and instincts are cut of entirely different cloth. The fact remains that these gentlemen sell consumer goods, not an art form.”
Censorship eventually drove Serling from writing about contemporary society to The Twilight Zone, where he could explore his stories of intolerance and bigotry in a politically-neutral fantasia.
A NetScout Production
Founded in 1984, NetScout specializes in network systems, producing both hardware and software. It was an early developer of packet sniffers, the technology that logs data being transferred over networks. Today, according to its own online bio, NetScout has a heavy focus on cybersecurity, anti-DDoS and Advanced Threat Solutions tech. It also provides web service performance platforms, cloud management, and packet brokers, among many other interconnected divisions.
All this to say, the company operates behind the scenes. It is not purchasing Super Bowl ad time to become a household name, rather its financial investments lie in the sustained prominence and upkeep of the internet’s infrastructure.
The seed of Lo and Behold formed in 2015, when NetScout was in the midst of a massive company-wide rebrand led by its then-CMO Jim McNiel, who would later participate next to Herzog in the film’s publicity tour. The company had spent the previous year making major corporate acquisitions, including the communications sector of Danaher Corporation, Arbor Networks, Fluke Networks, Tektronix Communications, and VSS Monitoring. The shopping spree consolidated their share of the communications market and helped the company more than double its revenue to the $1.3 billion it generates today. But NetScout remained a largely unheard of entity outside of the inner circle of the network management industry it had helped pioneer in the 1980’s. The company needed a way to boost its status and reach new clients.
And so, Lo and Behold was born in the walls of Pereira & O’Dell’s New York office, where the agency has serviced clients such as Intel, Fifth Third Bank, and Procter & Gamble.
It was Pereira & O’Dell’s executive creative director Dave Arnold who approached McNiel with a fresh, but risky idea. They would make a feature length documentary celebrating the creation of the internet and the boundless potential of its future. It would engage consumers with a focus on the importance of the technological innovations being made today, and toast the creators and engineers who contract with NetScout for their cybersecurity and hardware needs. The kicker: It would be directed by Werner Herzog.
In a 2016 AdWeek reflection on the film, McNiel wrote that Herzog initially balked at the idea, telling NetScout: “No! I do not do commercials.”
But McNiel managed to convince Herzog the film was not a commercial, but a serious documentary that would explore the world-changing and potentially apocalyptic ramifications of the internet.
Speaking to McNiel this month, he told us there was no second choice for a director. If Herzog couldn’t be won over, the entire project would be scrapped. Why?
“He’s an icon,” McNiel said. “And he’s a meme!”
Herzog the Meme
Popular arthouse directors have long been a favorite target for ad firms. This past year, Herzog’s friend and collaborator Errol Morris directed a series of 56 commercials for Wealthsimple, in which celebrities from all walks, including himself, tell anecdotes about handling their own finances. Wes Anderson has made ads for American Express, Darren Aronofsky has been recruited by Yves Saint Laurent, and Ridley Scott has made advertising history time again with his Hovis, Chanel, and Apple ads.
Many renowned directors from Scott to David Fincher to George Romero got their start making commercials. In Japan, Nobuhiko Obayashi was so good at TV spots he was given free reign by Toho to make his psychedelic freakout cult classic House. Even David Lynch, one of the staunchest opponents of product placement in cinema, has made commercials for Playstation, Gucci, and Clearblue Pregnancy Test. When asked during a Q&A if he finds this hypocritical, he answered bluntly: “I do sometimes [direct] commercials to make money.”
For Lynch, if the ads don’t bleed into the art then there is no reason for purists to hold directors’ advertising works against them; after all Inland Empire probably didn’t pay very many bills. Spike Lee has even opened up his own ad agency, and often blurs the line between his core filmography and his ad work, licensing to Nike and performing as his Mars Blackmon character from She’s Gotta Have It, retroactively making his feature debut something akin to after-the-fact branded content.
But Herzog was different. He came from the roiling, unfettered New German Cinema of Syberberg and Fassbinder, where they ranted and bled and snorted endless coke for their art. And even among that crowd, he was different. He came from the fringes, growing up in the mountains of Bavaria and making his first films with a camera he stole from a local university. In the 1970s and ‘80s, while his contemporaries in the movement like Volker Schlöndorff and Wim Wenders went mainstream, he kept his distance. His adventures in storytelling have taken him to every continent on the planet, and he has further cemented his legend with tales of being arrested, threatened at gunpoint, forging documents, and picking locks to forbidden zones all in the pursuit of cinema. Alone, the troubled making of Fitzcarraldo has probably done more than anything else to create the idea of Werner Herzog in the mind of western audiences, that of a madman mystic lost in the jungle chasing truth and art while eschewing formulaic Hollywood methods of filmmaking. His explicit anti-commercialism has made him appear incorruptible to his fans, who still at every chance possible put on impersonations of his signature Black Forest accent.
McNiel is right. In the era of the internet, Herzog has become a meme. Many new fans are coming to his works for the first time through YouTube clips from Les Blank’s documentary Burden of Dreams, about the making of Fitzcarraldo. Herzog’s off-the-cuff speech from the documentary about the Amazon jungle representing “the harmony of overwhelming and collective murder” has been uploaded a half a dozen times with tens to hundreds of thousands of hits on each clip, including one by its DVD distributor The Criterion Collection. Comedian Paul F. Tompkins has made Herzog one of his most memorable celebrity impersonations. His more misanthropic quotes have been turned into “Demotivational Posters” by internet users, and Know Your Meme has a full entry dedicated to exploring his presence as a joke online.
Herzog is aware of the online perception of his public persona, and although he has not exactly embraced it he has said it does not bother him and he is content to let parody Twitter accounts exist. As a result, fans who participate in this meme-ification continue to build his mythology. It is through these parodies that the idea of Herzog as a savant, able to pierce through the veil of civilization to reveal humanity’s dark nature, is allowed to flourish. It flourishes because Herzog is authentic, because he is a lawbreaker, an explorer, a true independent.
There is a phrase for the unquestioning devotion to Herzog’s work: Brand loyalty. It is this brand that NetScout sought to tap into it. The hiring of Herzog was as clear-eyed and purposeful as any good corporate acquisition. His prestige (or “brand equity,” as a corporate board of directors might put it) opened doors that NetScout’s opaque public image kept shut. McNiel confirmed this: “We did not really get any flat-out rejections [from interview subjects]. After all, this was Werner calling.”
Designing “The Connected World”
Since Lo and Behold’s primary purpose was to serve as an innovative business-to-business marketing initiative, it would need to speak to corporate clients by highlighting the world-changing technologies they were pioneering and celebrating the radical social impact their developments have had on the world.
It was McNiel who came up with the film’s 10 chapter structure and the list of interviewees. Prize gets like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos couldn’t fit Herzog into their schedule, but others like Elon Musk and hacker icon Kevin Mitnick did. According to McNiel, Herzog did conduct his own research and suggested names, and the film came together as a collaboration.
By the end of post-production, McNiel and Herzog had delivered an unique feature that was simultaneously, fascinating, existential, and most importantly a subtle monument of advertising.
But why then did it premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, which still insists it is an independent showcase run by a non-profit?
On social media, branded content is typically flagged with phrases like “Sponsored Content” or “Paid.” But there are no guidelines in place for branded films (indeed no authorities to even issue them). Minor steps are being taken to separate the branded from regular films; Sundance took one such step in 2016 with the debut of their Digital Storytelling showcase specifically for branded content. But that very same year, Lo and Behold played as a traditional documentary instead. Was this another door that the Herzog brand flung open for NetScout?
Each year, thousands of prospective filmmakers, many truly independent, many self-financed and motivated by love of the art and by a desire to have their unique voice amplified, spend $85 for the privilege of having their feature film considered at Sundance -- that number goes down to $65 if they’re early and up to a whopping $110 if they’re late. They do the same at Toronto, SXSW, Cannes, Tribeca, Berlin, and the hundreds to thousands of festivals launched nominally in support of independent cinema. Sundance took around 2,000 such submissions last year -- likely around $180,000, not including short films. Many filmmakers spend thousands of their own dollars on submissions. There has been remarkably little discussion about the fact that their films will be judged not just against the latest low-budget Hollywood productions indie-laundered through smaller production houses, but now, it seems, also against branded content: the agenda-driven works of telecom giants, car manufacturers, toy empires, and fast food chains.
Advertisers have found a new integrity in iconoclasticism. It is not a long leap from NetScout’s employment of Herzog as a modern-day Rasputin to, say, Wendy’s restaurants’ pugnacious Twitter feed. Each seeks to legitimize their company as an honest and self-aware organism, as idiosyncratic and hip as any of us. They are corporations seeking to become that thing they were asserted to be in the 2012 presidential campaign: People.
For the advertisers, it is simply work. They are upfront about their goals and tactics and trade publications frequently profile the individuals developing these campaigns. Often, there is an earnestness, talent, and true passion in their efforts.
“There does need to be some connection between what it is you’re trying to communicate, because you need to be passionate about it,” McNiel said. “The only way this stuff gets any kind of lift is if it’s regarded as real cinema.”
So branded content seeks to slide itself into our lives undetected, emulating the form and scope of “real” cinema.
However, the unusual thing about branded content is not that companies outside the film industry are attempting to make money off of films. Rather, it is that they are unconcerned with making money. Even mega-franchise films like The Avengers tend to proceed from the inside out — a college of production and distribution companies attempts to live off a product. The work of art drives the revenue, and success or failure as a company is based off the success or failure of the film.
But branded content is more opaque. Its success is judged not so much by how well the film itself does financially (a modest documentary like Lo and Behold fits snugly within NetScout’s significant marketing budget), but by softer concepts like reach and influence. Jim McNiel was candid on this point, telling us that “the primary benefit to NetScout behind the film is the number of impressions and perceptions about NetScout” (In the year following Lo and Behold’s premiere, NetScout’s annual media impressions jumped from an average 1.5 - 2.5 billion to more than 25 billion). Advertising is a medium designed to make you feel a certain way about a company. Couple this knowledge with cinema’s proven track record at affecting the audiences’ biases and assumptions and one need not be zealously anti-corporate to worry about the potential for future branded content to misrepresent and mislead the audience.
The Two Werner Herzogs
In early 1954, at the height of the housing segregation issue, while Brown vs. Board of Education was still being heard in the Supreme Court, the most infamous example of early television censorship occurred. Reginald Rose, the celebrated writer behind 12 Angry Men, debuted his new standalone episode for the television series Westinghouse Studio One. Called “Thunder on Sycamore Street,” the episode was based on the true story of a black family moving into a white neighborhood, and their neighbors’ slow plummet into racial violence. The Westinghouse people loved the script for its passion and realism, but had one small, insignificant change: the black family must be changed to, well, anything else. There was no way they would air a program about white Americans attacking black Americans. It was simply too hot a topic for mid-fifties audiences. So Rose re-wrote the script, and the episode that aired was about mob violence against a white family with an ex-convict father. The moral meat of the teleplay was pulled out entirely, but Westinghouse simply could not risk people thinking of that when they shopped for appliances.
It is difficult to know the extent to which such decorous censorship happened with Lo and Behold. A large chunk of the film is devoted to the negative impact of the internet -- most hauntingly in an interview with the family of a teenager, Nikki Catsouras, whose gory death in a car crash became a shock image meme. When Catsouras’ mother confesses that she thinks the internet is the modern-day face of the Antichrist, it seems for a moment that the film has at last found its bite. Such melanges of trauma and focused mania are hallmarks of Herzog’s best work. Those qualities are explored in the lion’s share of his films, from the surreal Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans to the tragic The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser to the fire-breathing Klaus Kinski performances of his most famous work, and, most pointedly, to his 1981 documentary God’s Angry Man, in which he studies a particularly fiery televangelist.
But the section with the Catsouras family is all too brief. They tell the bullet-points of their story and are gone, as we rush to the next location. Whether that was Herzog’s choice or not, it is difficult to know, but the thumbnail structure of Lo and Behold is a new and unique problem for the veteran filmmaker.
Jim McNiel told us that “the challenge with working with Werner is kind of keeping him from going too far down into the shadow of darkness.” However, he believed the dark elements were important to show, as too much praise of the future without conflict would make for a flat story. Focusing on the darker elements, he reasoned, would equally highlight the film’s more positive moments, allowing for the intended good vs. evil narrative to take hold.
Still, McNiel reported having to rein Herzog in when he went too dark, and it is perhaps his inability to submerge the film in those depths that leaves Herzog appearing at times more unsure of his subject than any other documentary he’s made, except perhaps for his ten minute short on the middling rock band The Killers, promoting American Express’ 2012 Unstaged concert series. While we have alternate terminology available for Lo and Behold, and for his road safety PSA From One Second to the Next (made for AT&T), we have no earthly idea what to call The Killers: Unstaged except a commercial.
After Lo and Behold premiered, it seems only New Republic’s Will Leitch worried about this new side of Herzog. He wrote: “It’s probably a fair question to ask at this point: Do Werner Herzog’s movies need quite so much Werner Herzog in them? There has been a growing fear among longtime admirers of Herzog’s films, of which I am certainly one, that Herzog the Public Personality has been starting to sneak in around the edges of Herzog the Director, and to ill effect.”
But Leitch’s distinctions between Herzog the Public Personality and Herzog the Director are miscalibrated, in the wake of his more recent, prosaic films like Queen of the Desert and Salt and Fire, which reviewers seemed to grit their teeth and swallow like medicine. The division between the Herzogs is more acute.
Until 2005, every Herzog documentary was self-produced by Werner Herzog Filmproduktion and distributed by various high-end channels like Canal+. This changed with Grizzly Man, his 2005 film about the life and death of Timothy Treadwell. That film was co-produced by Discovery Docs, the documentary arm of the Discovery Channel. Grizzly Man is a true masterpiece, one of his best films, and the presence of the Discovery Channel is a natural fit for the material (not least because their 1999 teledoc made Treadwell famous), but for the first time, Herzog made a documentary on someone else’s dime and under the control of a massive corporation. Further, it elevated Herzog to a new level of fame. No longer was he being interviewed by dry cineaste magazines, but on late night talk shows. And his personality was built for internet celerity. Look at the 2007 interview in which someone shoots him in the leg with an air rifle mid-conversation. His unruffled reaction was a minor Internet sensation, and Herzog still tells the anecdote on talk shows, though he often forgets to mention it was an air rifle, not a real rifle, that shot him.
The marriage of Herzog with US media giants was so successful that his next film, Rescue Dawn, was an MGM star-vehicle remake of one of his own, earlier documentaries. By 2012, Herzog was recutting others’ footage, adding narration, and packaging it as his own creation with Happy People: A Year in Taiga. Critics accepted the packaging at face value. There was no secret about Happy People, which Herzog condensed from a Russian television program, but critics were content to discuss “Herzog’s motives,” with hardly a thought for the man who actually went to Siberia and shot it, Dmitry Vasyuko.
In a very real way, Grizzly Man is a line in Werner Herzog’s filmography, marking the moment he became a Hollywood filmmaker. No Herzog documentary before Grizzly Man was produced by a third party; and no Herzog film (fiction or non-) since Grizzly Man has been an independent project. Yet our mode of discussion for the man has not updated since Fitzcarraldo, thirty six years and certainly several million dollars ago.
By and large, Werner Herzog is still spoken of as the young man shooting Aguirre on a mountaintop with a stolen camera and a gun in his waistband. Still remembered as the sad-eyed mystic observing that nature is “overwhelming and collective murder.” But the late Les Blank, who filmed the infamous speech about the jungle for Burden of Dreams, was perplexed by the public’s response to the man. He told Vice: “And the first time I heard it, I thought it was purely tragic. But I soon showed the film to an audience in San Diego where I screened some works in progress, and people started laughing when they heard Herzog’s speech. It never occurred to me that what he said was funny. To me, it was very painful, and I felt sorry for the guy because he was driven to that point of view.”
Herzog seems to have drifted from the pain Blank saw in him, towards the comic irony the San Diego audience imagined. Married, stable, in LA, he has changed from an uncompromising European artist to a wealthy California-based celebrity who stops in for guest appearances in everything from Jack Reacher to Rick and Morty. He is now a talk-show circuit veteran, host of an online film school, and a regular director of branded content for multinationals.
He has become a brand. And he is content to build that brand. Perhaps he never intended this to happen, but it's impossible to deny this is where he has arrived.
We are left with the paradox of two Werner Herzogs. Cinephiles simultaneously believe in Herzog the Philosopher who probes at hidden truths and is pathologically immune to the artifice of Hollywood, and in Herzog the Celebrity who is comfortable hamming it up in cartoons and talk shows.
Branding in the end is simply commodification; and the buying and selling of Werner Herzog extends beyond the bounds of his movies. He now runs a “Rogue Film School,” where lucky participants can attend a four day seminar including a one day meet and greet, all for a $25 non-refundable application fee and a $1500 seminar fee (with a $200 cancellation fee, god forbid), not including room or board. There, Herzog will presumably speak on how film is “not for the weak-hearted,” how it is a rarified domain only for those sturdy enough to break rules, pick locks, flaunt police, and, apparently, plunk down $1525 for a meet and greet. Those of us unable to make the cut can watch six hours of his film lessons at masterclass.com for the relatively cut rate price of $90. At MasterClass he teaches virtually alongside that other great outsider artist, Ron Howard.
By all means, there is no rule against artists, even great artists, selling out. Picasso and Orson Welles made a career out of it and their legacies remain intact. But as marketing schools teach that a brand is a promise, so we should ask what is the promise of the Herzog brand?
In 2007, Roger Ebert, to whom Encounters at the End of the World was dedicated, wrote in an open letter:
“Without ever making a movie for solely commercial reasons, without ever having a dependable source of financing, without the attention of the studios and the oligarchies that decide what may be filmed and shown, you have directed at least 55 films or television productions, and we will not count the operas. You have worked all the time, because you have depended on your imagination instead of budgets, stars or publicity campaigns. You have had the visions and made the films and trusted people to find them, and they have. It is safe to say you are as admired and venerated as any filmmaker alive--among those who have heard of you, of course. Those who do not know your work, and the work of your comrades in the independent film world, are missing experiences that might shake and inspire them.”
That is the Werner Herzog that was. An intense, comprehensive honesty, and a legacy of films driven from within, committed to truth.
That is the man the film community has never let go, even as we have another Werner Herzog: a television personality hawking self-improvement courses alongside Gordon Ramsey and Steph Curry.
To Whom Are We Beholden?
Lo and Behold represents the success of a brand carefully cultivated, marketed, and exploited. But that brand is not NetScout. Herzog’s wandering spirit, his philosophical integrity and aversion to banal civilization were repackaged and sold back to his audience. Just as LL Bean trades on its legacy as workwear for outdoorsmen to sell khakis to yuppies, Werner Herzog trades on his legacy as an Amazonian explorer to sell American Express and AT&T to an adoring film community.
Upton Sinclair once said that all art is propaganda. Likely he was correct. And so we should always be on guard, asking ourselves just what each piece of art we experience is propagandizing, and why.
Werner Herzog has spent his entire career insisting on the difference between fact and truth. “There are deeper strata of truth in cinema,” he wrote in his 1999 Minnesota Declaration, “and there is such a thing as poetic, ecstatic truth.” There also must be an ecstatic lie, in which we are led beautifully and elegantly to a dead end. Herzog also observed in that declaration: “Tourism is a sin.” And here we have Werner Herzog: Tour Guide, helping an internet security company tell us of the importance of internet security.
It is all, in the end, innocuous. NetScout has simply made an impactful film that effectively serves and works beyond its marketing origins. But will the general practice remain innocuous if another great filmmaker makes an invisible propaganda piece for say, a charter school think tank (as graced many festivals in 2009), or a toxin-spewing corporation like Monsanto (whose use of weed killer glysophate is defended by Neil DeGrasse Tyson in another industry-funded documentary), or a weapons manufacturer? What are the ethical limits of a festival like Sundance -- both for creating a space for true independent cinema, and for ensuring audiences and critics know just who made their film and why?
Sundance above all has been cursed by its success. The always-elusive balance between industry access and big-money irrelevance has been especially difficult to find in Park City. A 2010 Time profile has festival founder Robert Redford worrying that “Sundance has been ‘sliding’ of late, blaming ‘ambush marketers’ for taking over storefronts to promote their swag and celebrities who just show up for the paparazzi attention.”
Was Lo and Behold essentially another example of Redford’s dreaded ambush marketing? Certainly yes. Was Werner Herzog just another celebrity showing up for paparazzi attention? Certainly not.
But it is, perhaps, because of the latter, that the film community failed to see the former. If the people who are paid to scrutinize and agonize over films missed this, what hope does any viewer have in the future to know who made the movies they’re seeing and for what purpose?
We at Roll20 continue to expand at a rate that frankly defies all our expectations. As such, we’re looking at a new round of hires differently than we have in the past-- we’re starting to dream a little bigger instead of simply playing catch up.
Below is a mix of opportunities to work with our team on what’s next. To ensure that your application has the best chance at advancement, please be certain to follow the directions for the individual positions (and know that you are welcome to apply for more than one posting, but will need to apply separately). The positions listed below are:
DevOps Specialist
UI/UX Developer
Content Realization Specialist
Marketplace Coordinator
Customer Support Representative
If you’re selected for a followup interview, we’ll let you know within a few weeks. Based on prior experience, we will receive too many applications to respond to each one individually, but we will update this blog post if the position has been filled.
Roll20 is an equal opportunity employer.
Just in case you didn’t know, Roll20 is an online platform for tabletop gaming with a worldwide audience. Since its inception in 2012, it has grown to more than 2,000,000 players with more than 10,000 years of games played.
DevOps Specialist
Roll20 is seeking to expand our development resources by engaging a DevOps Specialist as a part-time or full-time independent contractor. We work mainly in the browser and mobile (iOS/Android) space, with a heavy focus on Javascript and HTML5. We use cutting-edge web technology as an integral part of our service, including Canvas, WebGL, and WebRTC.
Contractor will work with our in-house Lead Developer to expand Roll20 by administering and scaling our web architecture. You’ll assist by tuning PostgreSQL, securing our Google Compute engine cluster, defending against DDoS attacks, and generally ensuring that the Roll20 service is rock-solid for our millions of players from around the world. When we roll out a new feature, you’ll help make sure that it will work at scale.
We all wear many hats at Roll20, and as such our ideal candidate is someone who has a solid background in running servers at scale, but can also pitch in on coding backend or frontend functionality as well. So if you know your way around Ruby or Javascript, or at least have some familiarity that we can help you build upon, you’ll be at the top of our list. Bonus points for avid tabletop gamers and those with experience working on a technical team remotely in the past.
Work is done remotely so you can contract with us from anywhere in the United States, but priority will be given to candidates from the following states: Kansas, Nevada, Virginia, and Oregon.
Contract qualifications include:
Experience managing Ubuntu Linux servers in high-scale environments
Experience with the following software tools/providers:
HAProxy
Ruby (Sinatra/Rack/Rainbows)
NodeJS
CloudFlare (and/or other DDoS prevention services/tools)
Google Compute Engine, Amazon Web Services (S3)
PostgreSQL
Familiarity with Javascript and HTML5 development, including Backbone, Firebase, Canvas, and/or WebRTC.
Strong communication and writing skills
In addition to the requirements above, we will prioritize contractors who have experience playing in Roll20 on a regular basis, including utilizing advanced features such as the Roll20 API.
To apply, submit a PDF resumé/portfolio along with your proposal including hourly rate to [email protected] with the subject line “DevOps Specialist Application”. Please also include a brief introduction of yourself telling us why you would be an asset to our growing team. We’d also love to see a Github profile showing off previous projects, or another form of portfolio (previous web applications, open source projects you have contributed to, etc.).
UI/UX Developer
Roll20 is seeking to expand our development team with a UI/UX role. The position will be a full-time independent contractor. Work is done remotely, meaning you may contract with us from anywhere in the United States. Roll20 development consists in the browser and mobile (iOS/Android) space, with a heavy focus on Javascript and HTML5. We use cutting-edge web technology as an integral part of our service, including Canvas, WebGL, and WebRTC.
The contractor will be responsible for polishing the user experience for the Roll20 website, virtual tabletop, and tablet application. This will include reworking existing interfaces, improving internationalization, and inventing new features to improve the user experience. The contractor will also be required to communicate directly with our players to gather feedback and provide technical assistance on their projects.
Work is done remotely so you can contract with us from anywhere in the United States, but priority will be given to candidates from the following states: Kansas, Nevada, Virginia, and Oregon.
Contract qualifications include:
Portfolio of existing work showcasing experience with related technologies
Strong web development skills (including multiple years of experience in a team environment) with Javascript (the Good Parts), HTML/CSS, and Ruby (Sinatra, not Rails)
Professional Visual Design and Human-Computer Interaction experience
Strong communication and writing skills
Self starting, flexible, and comfortable working inside a small team
In addition to the requirements above, we will prioritize contractors who:
Have a strong portfolio of existing work on a site such as Github
Have experience with MediaWiki
Have experience with iOS and/or Android development
Have experience with WebGL, Canvas, and/or NodeJS
Have experience working with PostgreSQL
Have experience with Firebase
Have experience playing in Roll20 on a regular basis, including utilizing advanced features such as the Roll20 API, Character Sheet Creation, or Marketplace Submissions
To apply, submit a PDF resumé/portfolio along with your proposal including hourly rate to [email protected] with the subject line “UI/UX Developer Application”. Please also include a brief introduction of yourself telling us why you would be an asset to our growing team. We’d also love to see a Github profile showing off previous projects, or another form of portfolio (previous web applications, open source projects you have contributed to, etc.).
Content Realization Specialist
Roll20 is seeking to expand our adventure adaptation resources by engaging additional Content Realization Specialists as remote, part-time independent contractors.
Applications must meet the following criteria:
Freelance experience including:
Invoicing
Remote meeting tools
Ownership of and accomplishment with the following software and coding tools:
Adobe InDesign
Adobe Photoshop
Basic HTML
Minimum 100 hours in the Roll20 interface including:
Previous use of Plus Level features, including Dynamic Lighting.
Strong competence with Roll20 Dice engine.
Ability to quickly demonstrate proficiency in multiple tabletop gaming rulesets.
In addition to the requirements above, candidates familiar with Asana, the Roll20 Marketplace, and a variety of tabletop gaming rulesets will be prioritized.
To apply, submit a PDF resumé/portfolio along with your proposal including hourly rate to [email protected] with the subject line “Content Realization Specialist”. Please also include a brief introduction of yourself telling us why you would be an asset to our growing team. Additionally, you must include a link to your Roll20 account.
Marketplace Coordinator
Roll20 is seeking a Marketplace Coordinator to oversee continuing expansion for independent creators on the Marketplace.
Your contract with us will be geared toward supporting our growing community of artists. You will interact with Creators via email, handle updates to the Roll20 Marketplace on a weekly basis, and push initiatives for overall improvement of the Marketplace site.
The ideal candidate for this position will have excellent written and verbal communication skills, a strong history in visual design or e-commerce, and the ability to wear many hats in a fast-paced environment.
Work is done remotely, meaning you may contract with us from anywhere in the United States. It is likely that this position will start as part-time with an opportunity for full-time advancement.
Contract qualifications include:
2 years experience in e-commerce or client support.
Ability to collaborate, self-motivate, meet deadlines, and work in a closely-knit collaborative environment.
Experience proofreading/reviewing creative content and a basic understanding of common copyright issues.
Strong familiarity with the Roll20 interface and Roll20 Marketplace content.
At least a basic understanding of graphic design and/or proficient in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator.
In addition to the requirements above, we will prioritize candidates who:
Experience with Wiki applications.
Familiarity with a multitude of tabletop gaming rulesets.
Experience in product development in the gaming or publishing industry.
To apply, submit a PDF resumé/portfolio along with your proposal and rates to [email protected] with the subject line “Marketplace Coordinator”. Please also include a brief introduction of yourself telling us why you would be an asset to our growing brand. Additionally, you must include a link to your Roll20 account.
Customer Support Representative
Roll20 is interested in expanding our customer service resources by adding a Customer Support Representative to our team.
Your contract with us will be geared toward assisting our growing community of tabletop players and aiding the Community Manager with day-to-day tasks. You will be interacting with the Roll20 community via email, forums, and social media.
The ideal candidate for this position will have excellent written and verbal communication skills, a strong history in high-volume customer support, and the ability to wear many hats in a fast-paced environment.
Work is done remotely, meaning you may contract with us from anywhere in the United States. It is likely that this position will start as part time with an opportunity for full time advancement.
Contract qualifications include:
2 years experience in a customer service environment.
Experience with social media platforms & scheduling tools.
Ability to collaborate, self-motivate, meet deadlines, and work in a closely-knit collaborative environment.
In addition to the requirements above, we will prioritize candidates who:
At least a basic understanding of graphic design and/or proficient in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator.
Experience with Wiki applications.
Familiarity with a multitude of tabletop gaming rulesets.
To apply, submit a PDF resumé/portfolio along with your proposal and rates to [email protected] with the subject line “Customer Support Representative”. Please also include a brief introduction of yourself telling us why you would be an asset to our growing brand. Additionally, you must include a link to your Roll20 account.
Edit 02/21/2017: Having received a more than suitable potential hiring pool for the Customer Support Representative position, we are no longer taking applications.
Edit 02/27/2017: Having received suitable hiring pools for Content Realization Specialist and Marketplace Coordinator, we are closing applications for both positions.
AWS Training: Your Ticket to Thrive in the Cloud Computing Revolution!
In’s rapidly evolving technological landscape, cloud computing has emerged as a game-changer, revolutionizing the way businesses operate and individuals engage with digital services. Among the numerous cloud service providers, Amazon Web Services (AWS) stands tall as a pioneer and leader in the field. Understanding the impact of AWS and gaining proficiency in its functionalities can be your passport to success in the world of cloud computing. This article aims to shed light on the significance of AWS training and how it can empower you to navigate the cloud computing revolution.
A Pattern Shift in Cloud Computing
Embracing AWS as a Leading Cloud Service Provider
As the demand for cloud-based solutions escalates, AWS has solidified its position as the go-to platform for individuals and organizations across the globe. With a versatile range of services encompassing computing power, storage, networking, databases, and more, AWS offers an unmatched infrastructure to support diverse business needs. By undertaking AWS training, you can unlock the full potential of these services, harnessing the capabilities of AWS to drive innovation, scalability, and cost optimization for your projects.
Mastering the Fundamentals: Essential Concepts and Services
Before delving into the vast AWS ecosystem, it is crucial to build a strong foundation by understanding the fundamental concepts and services. AWS training provides an organized curriculum that guides you, step by step, through the basics of cloud computing, AWS architecture, and key services like Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), Simple Storage Service (S3), and Relational Database Service (RDS). By familiarizing yourself with these core components, you gain the necessary knowledge and skills to embark on your cloud computing journey confidently.
Navigating the AWS Training Journey
Comprehensive Learning Paths: From Newbie to Expert
AWS offers a diverse range of training options tailored to meet the needs of individuals at various skill levels. Whether you are a beginner looking to understand the basics or an experienced professional seeking to specialize in a particular domain, AWS training has got you covered. With structured learning paths designed for architects, developers, data engineers, and more, you can embark on a journey that aligns with your career aspirations. The systematic progression ensures that you acquire the right knowledge, hands-on experience, and certifications to excel in your chosen field.
Hands-On Labs and Real-World Scenarios: Learning by Doing
One of the most effective ways to master AWS is through hands-on experience, and AWS training excels in providing just that. By incorporating practical labs and real-world scenarios, training courses simulate the challenges you are likely to face in actual job roles. This experiential learning approach equips you with the ability to apply theoretical knowledge in practical scenarios, fostering a deeper understanding of AWS services and their practical implications. Furthermore, the training platform provides a safe environment for experimentation, enabling you to explore and experiment with different AWS configurations without the fear of disrupting production systems.
Expert Guidance and Community Support: Learning Together
AWS training goes beyond self-paced courses, offering opportunities for interaction and collaboration with experts and peers. Instructors with rich industry experience provide guidance and support throughout your learning journey, ensuring that you receive the necessary expertise to overcome hurdles and gain insights from their practical wisdom. Additionally, AWS training fosters a vibrant community where learners can actively engage, share experiences, and seek advice from fellow enthusiasts. This sense of camaraderie and shared learning creates a supportive ecosystem that enhances your growth and enriches your AWS training experience.
AWS Certifications: Showcasing Your Proficiency
Recognized Industry-Standard Certifications
To validate your AWS expertise and stand out in a competitive job market, AWS offers a comprehensive certification program. These industry-recognized certifications are a testament to your proficiency in various AWS services and demonstrate your commitment to continuous learning. By obtaining AWS certifications, you gain a competitive edge, making you an attractive candidate for job opportunities that require cloud computing skills. From foundational certifications like AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner to specialized roles like AWS Certified Solutions Architect or AWS Certified Machine Learning Specialist, AWS training equips you with the knowledge and credentials to showcase your capabilities effectively.
The cloud computing revolution is here to stay, and harnessing the power of AWS can unlock a world of opportunities. By investing in AWS training at ACTE institute, you equip yourself with the skills, knowledge, and certifications needed to thrive in this transformative landscape. From mastering the fundamental concepts to navigating the vast AWS ecosystem, the comprehensive learning paths, hands-on labs, expert guidance, and industry-recognized certifications pave the way for your success. Embrace the cloud computing revolution, embark on your AWS training journey, and witness firsthand how it propels you towards professional excellence in the ever-evolving world of cloud computing.
What is AWS? AWS, or AWS for short, is a collection of cloud-computing services. Amazon Web Services: The Basic Architecture
Today we will learn about Amazon Web Services: The Basic Architecture
You’ve probably heard people talking about Amazon Web Services, but you may not know exactly what it is and how it works. Or you may have heard some bad things about it, and you’re not sure if it’s right for your business. In this article, we’ll answer all your questions and help you understand how AWS can benefit you and your business. If you’re ready, let’s get started.
