Cancel
Start searching
This search is based on elasticsearch and can look through several thousand pages in miliseconds.
Learn more
This search is based on elasticsearch and can look through several thousand pages in miliseconds.
Learn more
This year, the entire community gathered at a historic venue, the Old Amsterdam Commodity Exchange. About 300 TYPO3 enthusiasts gathered in a beautiful brick building right in the heart of downtown. This year, the conference lasted only two days and was divided into “Business Day” and “Future Day.” We were also represented with two presentations, one on each day.
Business Day was kicked off by Alain Veuve, who shared his perspective on digital transformation. Overall, the day focused partly on case studies and partly on the broader topic of Agile. Our contribution to Business Day was a presentation I gave on the topic “Reinventing punkt.de.” It covered some of the content you’ll find here, but also delved a bit deeper into the motivations behind restructuring one’s own company. In addition to the various interesting talks, general networking was, of course, once again a major focus of the event. For the first time, in addition to the exhibitors in the break area, there was also an opportunity for these and other companies to showcase their products and progress on the Expo Track.
My personal impression (aside from any specific presentations), however, was a strong sense that TYPO3 is making great strides again and that the overall mood was positive. Even though there was still intense debate at last year’s Agency Meetup Days about whether agencies should adopt additional technologies because TYPO3 had become too fragile as a mainstay, there was no trace of such concerns this year. Thus, Patrick Lohbacher’s final presentation—which once again clearly highlighted the challenges TYPO3 faces compared to competing systems—fell on fertile ground. When we discussed it that evening, we realized that such a presentation would likely have been unsettling last year. Now, drawing on a sense of strength, it’s good to set goals and pursue them. My personal example of this was my short talk on the Expo Track about the work of the TYPO3 Marketing Team, which spontaneously resulted in two new sign-ups for the Marketing Sprint in December.
TYPO3 is on the move, and everyone is pitching in.
In the evening, the presentation of the first“TYPO3 Awards”and a stylish gala dinner demonstrated a willingness to experiment compared to the otherwise rather casual celebrations at the social events. Unfortunately, not everyone had received the information about the dress code early enough, so evening attire ranged from tuxedos to hoodies—though this in no way detracted from the festive atmosphere. After strolling down the red carpet and a reception in the area outside the ballroom, everyone took their seats at the designated tables and waited eagerly for the awards ceremony. The first surprise was the truly magnificent conference video, which had actually been edited and dubbed just in time to be shown at the start of the awards ceremony that very same day. Twelve awards were then presented: ten in various categories and two directly from the main sponsor of the TYPO3 Awards, Microsoft. Unfortunately, the festive atmosphere of the evening was somewhat marred by the host’s English pronunciation, which elicited more snide than amused laughter, and by the fact that every sentence was read directly from the cue cards. All in all, however, it must be said that it was a successful event, and with a few minor improvements, it will hopefully be held again.
If you’d like to read more about the winners, you can do so on our friends’ site at t3n. The entire awards ceremony was introduced by the respective category sponsors, and afterward, all the nominees were featured in a short video. Unfortunately, these segments weren’t accompanied by a voiceover, so it wasn’t always possible to understand what made the nominees and winners stand out.
During the get-together that followed the event, many good conversations took place. Once again, I was able to truly admire the sense of community within this open-source community. Whether competitors or agencies you’ve never met before: you always get the feeling that everyone wants to move forward together. There’s never a sense of jealous secrecy; people engage in serious discussions about current project issues, business challenges, or even successful projects. All with the goal of growing the TYPO3 market together.
After the previous evening, everyone was running a bit late in the morning, but when Mathias Schreiber (PO of the TYPO3 CMS) and Benni Mack (Team Lead of the TYPO3 Core Team) kicked off their keynote on the topic “TYPO3: We Are Still Here” with a cool clip for the new TYPO3 7 LTS, almost everyone had managed to drag themselves out of bed. The second day was entirely dedicated to the theme of “Future” and focused mainly on identifying goals and setting benchmarks. We from punkt.de also gave a presentation that day. Daniel Lienert and I had prepared it, building on the topic of Agile from the previous day and adding our toolset in the area of continuous integration. We demonstrated which tools we use to support our Scrum process in a way that allows us to ensure regular releases through testing and deployment. You can find more on this topic from our site here. Unfortunately, our presentation overlapped with Benni Mack’s talk on “What’s Next at TYPO3,” so our audience was limited to five people. We took it in stride, though, and had some interesting discussions with our audience instead.
To wrap up the day, the venue for the next conference was announced—it will be Munich.
We’re excited to see the concept and are definitely looking forward to being there again next year.
All in all, the conference was a successful event. Aside from the question of whether the high cost of holding it in Amsterdam was truly worth it in terms of cost-benefit, many good conversations took place, and the very successful and motivating TYPO3 year was brought to a fitting close.
In my opinion, the next TYPO3 conference could focus a bit more on technologies and place less emphasis on the topic of Agile. But that’s certainly a matter of personal preference to some extent. In any case, it was great to see everyone again and to work together to drive the project forward even more.
