A Successful 2016

These days, you see quite a few year-in-review features. On YouTube and Spotify, you can find remixes of the year’s best songs; various industries publish their annual revenue figures and statistics; Google summarizes the most popular search terms; and various TV shows air a look back at the past year. In my post marking our 20th anniversary, I already touched on some of what we’ve accomplished this year. I’d now like to expand on and complete that report.

On the Path to Success in Development and Hosting

There have been quite a few personnel changes in our three development teams. We’ve had a team reshuffle and new additions—we’ve been able to bring on a total of three developers this year. Our technical team, which handles hosting, also has two new colleagues on board. In general, a lot has happened in the hosting sector. In addition to launching the new brand (punkt.de Hosting), we’ve also developed a new, innovative product— the proServer. It’s tailored to the needs of TYPO3 and Neos developers and offers greater convenience than traditional hosting products.

In addition to four new clients we’ve been able to win over this year, we can also be proud of winning the TYPO3 Award with nph deutschland e.V. (a case study on this will follow). But we have plenty to be proud of with our other projects as well. Six of our client projects went live this year with major changes, though for us, that doesn’t mean a project is complete. Our clients greatly appreciate that, through continuous integration, we enable them to implement new ideas for their web projects promptly and on an ongoing basis.

News from the Open Source Communities: Neos and TYPO3

We’re increasingly relying on open-source products when implementing our clients’ projects. And because we know how important it is to be actively involved in these communities, we’ve done quite a bit this year. Both Daniel Lienert and Sebastian Helzle are active as core developers for Neos; they not only participate in code sprints but also devote their free time to further expanding the system. In addition, they’ve launched a Neos meetup for the Karlsruhe area to share tips and tricks for development with Neos developers, on the one hand, and to help users and clients get to know the system better, on the other.

Fabian Stein and I are active in the TYPO3 community. As members of the TYPO3 Marketing Team, we handle organizational tasks such as planning the TYPO3 Agency Meetup Days (#T3AMD) and the Marketing Sprints (http://t3marketingsprint.org/), as well as driving certain projects forward. This year, for example, our tasks included the launch of typo3.com, a TYPO3 Standard presentation, as well as providing support for the upcoming typo3.org relaunch and for TYPO3 GmbH’s brand strategy.

That's another thing that sets punkt.de apart

Throughout the year, however, we didn’t just work hard to make our customers happy—we also...

• Given presentations at various events: from data analysis with Kibana and continuous relaunch to layout testing and more Scrum-focused topics
• celebrated our 20th anniversary with a big party
• Donated backpacks to refugees and local organizations
• cooked our own food at this year’s Christmas party and still enjoyed a delicious meal
• Received the kununu “TOP Company” and “OPEN Company” seals
• Took sixth place in AlphaJUMP’s“Coolest IT Internship 2016” competition
• Covered more than 10 km in four hours during the scavenger hunt at the company kickoff
• Printed a total of over 150 Neos-, TYPO3-, and punkt.de-branded cable clips using the 3D printer

Outlook for 2017

We’re now heading into the coming year full of enthusiasm, and in addition to new case studies on completed projects, you can also look forward to us soon offering Nextcloud hosting. In addition to TYPO3 and Neos events, we’ll be exhibiting at the IT&MEDIA FUTUREcongress, among other venues, and of course we’ll continue to support our existing and future clients with their digital challenges.

And finally, I’d like to wish you all a great start to the new year!!!