This was 2019 - Sitecore Symposium & such

2019 - Sitecore Symposium

Sitecore Symposium is done – and so is 2019. Well, almost. Winter is coming.. and so is Sitecore 9.3. Almost.

You probably already read many posts about the big new announcements – Sitecore SaaS and Sitecore AI. If not, you should. Or you can also watch the videos of the keynotes now.

Horizon - the editing experience

It is exciting news. The experience for customers will change with Horizon as the new editing environment.

This project was announced a few symposia ago – we saw a first somewhat working demo last year and with Sitecore 9.3 we should will see the first version. As this first version will be limited -and also optional- the currently known editors (content and experience) will remain in place until Horizon is mature enough to take their place and become the full-fledged new experience. Probably combined with Content Hub, as Sitecore is making good progress with the integration of the StyleLabs SaaS platform that was acquired last year.

New development experience

But not only the editors should be excited. Also developers working with Sitecore will see new stuff in the future versions as this SaaS platform is bound to change things.

We will see more .net core and other enhancements to make our development experience evolve (in a good direction – I think).

Sympo and more...

But Symposium was so much more. We had a Magic-al basketball player with one of the most remarkable keynote sessions of the last symposia – I’m sure lots of people will remember this for a long time. It doesn’t happen a lot that you witness a Mexican wave going through a Sitecore crowd just because the speaker is walking between the audience (and everyone wants a picture).  And he had something interesting to say too:

Even @MagicJohnson is saying to think outside the box. I guess my beyond the box session on #SXA fits that picture. Use it, and go beyond 😉 #SitecoreSYM pic.twitter.com/zmiYHVCatz

— Gert Gullentops (@Gatagordo) November 7, 2019

SXA

Which brings me to a personal highlight of this years Symposium: I was able to give an enhanced session on SXA – using it and going beyond the out-of-the-box stuff. I did spend a lot of time preparing it as during the preparation Sitecore decided to give me the 9.3 preview (one of the benefits of being mvp), including some new fancy (Scriban) features which I had to include (and customize) in the presentation. But it was fun, and I think it went well - so I might do that again next year. Or maybe I’ll try SugCon, or a non-Belux user group, … we’ll see what 2020 brings us.

Breakouts

Symposium is not only keynotes with big speakers and/or announcements. There are lots of breakout sessions and I must say the overall quality of those was rather high this year. There was mine of course (😊), and my co-Reffer Bart’s on Forms (😊) but I enjoyed several others as well. Matthew Dubbs (Test Specialist @ Sitecore) did a very good job on stage and thought me a few tips on performance testing (remember the robot detection and analytics cookie).  SXA Blues Brothers Mark & Adam showed us a few new things in SXA 9.3 (Scriban …) and the Corey/Gary duo managed to introduce us to Blazor and show that headless is not necessarily Javascript (well done guys – can’t be easy doing this so remote).  Alexey Vaschenko had the honor of presenting Horizon and especially how we (developers) will be able to extend it with Sitecore Host plugins  - can’t wait to try that!

Sorry for those who I forgot to mention – so many sessions, I couldn’t attend all of them…  Some speakers already shared their presentations – and Sitecore just released all slides as well – so you might want to check those (or attend a local user group session as some presentations are repeated there).

Luckily for us, in between five exhausting days of Symposium sessions and Sitecore MVP sessions, we also found some time to

check the local wildlife

visit Harry Potter

play ball with some fellow MVP's

enjoy an Orlando Magic victory with my colleagues from The Reference

do some #HedgieHunt - even though we had so little time, and speakers didn't get one ☹  - my hedgie collection has a new addition

And most importantly meet, greet, talk, drink and mingle with other attendees and share ideas and silly small talk with Sitecore community members.

If this all sounds like music to your ears, get ready to join the 2020 Symposium in Chicago 😉

2019

Yes, 2019 was a remarkable year.  It started with a renewed MVP title and the release of a new website for Fluxys – an exciting SXA project we had been working on (and still are).

Together with a few colleagues I decided to get (back) on my bike and climb the legendary Mont Ventoux. It took a lot of training, sweat, painful knees and a variety of swear-words. Especially during the hilly trainings, I wondered what the hell I was doing. But in June I was on top of the mountain, and it was such a monstrous experience… I’ll probably do that again in 2020.

The sad news was that I had to say goodbye to my good pet/friend Jef - after 11 years he got hit by a car (actually his 2nd time, but this time fatal).

RIP my good friend Jef. It has been 11 wonderful years 😿😭😿 pic.twitter.com/yx96pYbgU9

— Gert Gullentops (@Gatagordo) September 24, 2019

Together with all my other cats he perked up my Symposium presentation though. And the house is filled with a few kittens now.


And so 2019 is almost over, MVP application is done...  just one more Sitecore upgrade to finish, one more Sitecore presentation to give, a Sugcon call-for-papers to answer,  and then make sure that tree is cat-friendly.




We see 2020 at the Horizon..  Get ready for a tremendous year!