This was our first MagentoLive event in the UK and great learning’s came from it. Compared to Imagine, it was a more closed door event with over 700 attendees. (The attendee list increases year after year). Thanks to Jeff Herrera, Head of Partnerships for the Solutions Partner invite.
General Session in a few minutes #MLUK14 pic.twitter.com/rzKz0NzQuH
— DCKAP (@DCKAP) July 15, 2014
Being an Enterprise Implementation Provider, Solutions Partner meeting offered an abundance of insightful information. The B2B side of Magento is growing rapidly. There were over 320 Enterprise customers in the United Kingdom which translates to a number of fruitful opportunities for Solutions Partners. Paul Boisvert, Director of Product Management, offered the Magento product roadmap for the next year and half.
Paul at #MLUK14 pic.twitter.com/hVWz3nXZwT
— DCKAP (@DCKAP) July 14, 2014
Magento continues to invest on performance and will continue to address that particular pain point as the year progresses. Craig Peasley, Head of Marketing, discussed the topic, “Don’t wait to hear from Magento, We need to hear from you.” Though this was obvious, it rang a bell. In retrospect, it would be good idea to take some of our customer success stories, present them to Magento, and work with them to market those success stories. Susie Sedlacek, Vice President of Consulting and Training, shared the implementation life-cycle for a successful Magento project.
Critical touch points while doing @magento implementation. #MLUK14 pic.twitter.com/lCkvppSYim
— DCKAP (@DCKAP) July 14, 2014
The critical touch points included the following; Business Requirements, Functional Requirements, Technical Requirements, Architecture, Coding, Testing, Launch, Maintenance & Support. The variety of courses being offered by the Magento U Course Catalog is not only useful but also makes it easier for the Magento ecosystem.
At the Industry Partner meeting, an array of extensions was discussed, which included an analysis of what it takes to deliver a successful extension in the market? – The conclusions to that examination were the following components; write clean code, test the extensions, avoid encrypted code, what is the product roadmap for an extension (12-18 months). The suggested solution to a wrong turn in the development of a successful extension was to provide the user with quality customer support with extremely capable personnel. During the meeting, Karen Baker from WebshopApps, asked some great questions.
#MLUK14 @magento Steve Denton. pic.twitter.com/IK97U2ma44
— DCKAP (@DCKAP) July 15, 2014
Steve Denton, Vice President of eBay Enterprise Marketing Solutions, offered the eBay perspective on mobile, local, global and big data development. His thoughts on those topics helped remind me that Magento is in great hands. Some sessions had so many folks eager to attend and listen to the speaker that they even chose to line up outside the session room to listen. Fire-side chat with Craig Hayman, President of eBay Enterprise – Open Source always wins (This is great to listen to from the eBay Enterprise President)
The after-evening party was comprised of a variety of entertainment that consisted of drinks and games such as table tennis and billiards. These activities made it easy to unwind and network. The friendly environment engineered by the numerous breaks cannot be discussed without including the delicious chocolate treats that are a staple of all Magento events. The food, snacks and drinks alone made Magento Live a personable environment for everyone to enjoy.
Solution providers needed to focus on the quality of implementations, noting that one lackluster implementation could play spoilsport to the whole Magento product. The Magento team reinforced their focus of building a stronger Magento ecosystem. This was self evident with the training investments made so that the Magento community can grow and refocus its identity on quality controlled opportunities. Beth Gomez and Ben Marks offered a ton of help by emphasizing their clear standing that assistance is always available for training and community building. I would sum up the event with Craig Peasley’s quote, “Don’t wait to hear from Magento, Magento needs to hear from you.”
Thanks to the entire Magento team for putting together a great MagentoLive event. MagentLive UK- 2015 is scheduled for June 22-23. See you next year!
DCKAP is a Magento development company with Certified Magento Developers and e-commerce experts, we provide Magento services nearly 30% of the top clients listed by Magento.
