UPDATE - The event got cancelled - see you all another time.
As a Magento Extension Developer, I enjoy quite a bit of time working in my home office. But sometimes you have to leave your environment, GitHub, and Slack for a few days.
At the end of March, I’m attending the Adobe Summit in Vegas provided no virus induced cancellation happen until then. Recently, the Magento Imagine Conference joined the Adobe Summit so it should be interesting to see how that impacts the event as a whole.
“Over 3,000 business leaders, innovative retailers, expert agencies, and technical developers connect each year to shape the commerce industry. As a recent addition to Adobe Experience Cloud, Magento brings its Imagine community to Adobe Summit. The commerce customer experience is even more powerful as these two audiences come together.” Magento Imagine
Big Dam Run
As in previous years, the Big Dam Run is still taking place. I’ve sponsored and run in this race in the past. It’s a good event to see old friends and make new ones. This is part of the magic of the Magento Community.
I’ve started training for this year’s run. Will you be running, too?
PreImagine
PreImagine is one of the events, this year organized by the Magento Association. It’s booked out this year and is sure to be a great event. I’m very excited to attend this event and reconnect with you all as well as meet new folks.
“This is one of my favorite events, and it’s not just for the beer. I liked supporting this event in particular as it gives us all a chance to get to know the Community on a smaller scale, just chatting one on one I met some fellow community members and “recuperated” from the flight over a few drinks and some laughs as we gear up for the full-on conference days.” Kristof in 2017
Conference & Lab Speakers
Now that you’ve attended the pre-event events, you might be buggered out. I am impressed with the diversity of speakers for Adobe Summit. This includes industry as well as gender. The range of topics provides something valuable for everyone in our industry.
PWA Studio
Still in its infancy in 2018, PWA Studio has come a long way since its inception. Unfortunately, it still has some way to go. You can see my assessment from half a year ago on my blog. It will be interesting to see what people think two years later and what Adobe will do in the future. The best place to check out the current state of PWA Studio is on Github.
Since my blog post important progress has been made. I'm especially excited to see that extensibility is finally being tackled. The conversion to GraphQl is also nearing completion and improvements to the service worker, routing and image handling have also landed.
At Fooman, we have been working on GraphQl coverage for our own extensions since that is the foundation piece for any PWA-powered storefront, be it PWA Studio, Vue Storefront, et al.
“While PWA Studio opens up Magento to the React ecosystem, let's make sure this invitation is as open as possible. Also if I understand the current direction of PWA Studio correctly it will be easier for a React developer to learn to work with Magento than a Magento developer who has no knowledge of React yet.” Kristof in 2018
Conference Tips
As with any conference, it’s important to wear comfortable footwear. There is a lot of walking, standing, and chatting with friends and colleagues. So, if you’re not used to talking all day, pick up some Ricola to have in your pocket once you land in Vegas. You may also want to have hand sanitiser to use discreetly.
Ask your new friends for their Twitter handles to connect with them. Don’t forget a follow-up tweet, after the conference, too. It’s hard for us all to remember who we met. These large events are easily overwhelming for the more introverted engineer.
Brand awareness is one of the benefits of Live Tweeting from events with hashtags. Try to quote the speaker with their Twitter handle rather than say you’re at such-and-such session.
Extension Developers Network (ExtDN)
One of the benefits of the long air travel to Las Vegas is catching up with fellow ExtDN members from all over the world. We continue to advocate, as an organisation, for extension quality and extension integrations.
If you want to join in our effort, please head over to the ExtDN website and hit the Join Button to see the kind of things we are looking for. We’d love to have you! It's always a good idea to find any of us for a chat at the conference.
Thanks, Sponsors
These events are heavily sponsored. I’d like to thank the sponsors in advance for your dedication to our ecosystem.
Let’s Connect During Adobe Summit
The best part of any conference is the people. And, pardon my jargon, but as a German living long enough in New Zealand, I may use some Kiwi words you’re not familiar with. This blog post has some fun terms that you may enjoy.
Cheers