Just in time for Thanksgiving, I finally got my thoughts all wired about Sitecore symposium this year. It is super hard to sum up the whole experience in one word, but, if I must I have to say it was ‘Marvelous’.
I must say Sitecore and their team really works hard to come up with a theme that connects and has an impact on all of us. While I walked away from Symposium, It was just not the learning, social and happiness for me this time. It was something beyond, it was the Connection I could feel literally. I was very much inspired by the ‘Human Connections in a Digital World’ theme this year. There are always some sessions that align with the theme that are very engaging. This year was no different, some key notes that were the key for goose bump moments on my end were the below
- Talk by Platon on Powerful Portraits was so mesmerizing, for a second I forgot that I am in Sitecore symposium. It was not one bit related to Sitecore, but, was much needed to look beyond, answer some questions you would not dare to and understand these personalities we all know from different perspective.
- Talk by Dr. Rana el Kaliouby on Emotional Analytics. This was by far my favorite session in terms of keynotes and main stage ones. It is just such an eye opener, it shows that we need to continue to think how to better our amazing systems and technologies we use in our daily lives to add a bit of something that will make the systems think for us and like us. It is simple in terms of logic and almost felt like Yes, we know it and we agree it. But, we are not there yet, kind of surprising. Take away from this is – Emotional AI is not a future thing, we need to act now and remember what makes us US. Would definitely hope Mr. Elon Musk will integrate this Emotion capture in Tesla. 🙂
- How can I not mention my two favorite people that I long to see on stage. Jake Johanssen and Sitecore CMO Paige O’Neill. When ever Jake dawns the stage you can hear every one just being happy, he makes us all laugh so much, love him for that and also guess what I could take a picture with him as I bumped in to him. Check us out here ! All smiles. 🙂 Paige is a true inspiration for me, I had an opportunity to meet and greet with her last year at my Symposium talk about Empowering Women. She is an awesome person with amazing stage presence.
Now, coming to break out sessions, I would be unfair to myself if I don’t start with mine lol. So, I will start there. Wow!!! I cant put in words how grateful I actually am to be up on that sparkling stage in-front of so many wise, enthusiastic people. Really feel humbled and proud at the same time to be able to deliver what we planned. You can check more details about my session here. Truly rewarding experience overall!
Below are some of the other sessions I could make it to between practice drills of my own session and other important keynotes. I must say I enjoyed all of them and learned a thing or two. You can now download the session materials for all of the below including mine from connect
- Not Impossible: Accessibility for all : This session is a continuation to the keynote by Mick Ebeling , CEO of Not Impossible Labs. His session last year on main stage moved me to tears. This time I was well prepared. 🙂 The co-presenter of this session are Liz Spranzani , SVP, Development , Verndale and Ross Lucivero, Managing Director, LA, Verndale. My two favorite people from my own company. It was very informative session and almost made us all question why do we even produce sites that are not Accessible. If we consider every one of us as equal beings, we should strive to show equality and accommodation on the sites we build as well.
- Marketers’ guide to getting started with Sitecore Cortex personalization suggestions : This session was like the most crowded session I attended this time around. People were literally standing and still paying attention. Kudos to Una Verhoeven, Managing Partner, AmpleEdge to get the audience so thrilled and excited about Cortex personalization. Key takeaways from my end were Cortex can be leveraged to provide personalization suggestions and it is important to avoid personal bias. Like anything else, honing is important to ensure personalization acts as expected.
- Sitecore AI (MVP Session): I can not give away a whole deal of information since this was MVP only session, but, it was very exciting session that almost got me dreaming in a good way. My next thing for sure.
- ‘O Solr mio! : Jeremy Davis totally nailed this one. I was literally looking forward to this one, kind of bummer it was on last day because with Sitecore going SOLR as default option starting 9.0+ it is immensely important we know our options and we know setup for production can be done in a simple and correct way , so we are rest assured on Website Search. 🙂 Love it!!! Very information and as always scripts were released right after the show.
All in all, this symposium was important affair for my personal growth, I walked away stronger, happier and fully satisfied. Best of all, I got to take Sitecore Pillow and Hedgie back home. My daughter owns both right now, but, yeah, glad I could get it back home. I have never been to Chicago, so, really hoping to see how Sitecore rocks it next year.
