It’s difficult to categorize the sprawling event that will be Acquia Engage Europe, which will be taking place on the 17th & 18th June at the Royal Gardens Hotel in Kensington, London.
This conference will bring together technologists, creatives, analysts, marketers, practitioners, and others in the wide world of digital experience.
The breadth of participants is not surprising, when you think about how much goes into crafting and executing a compelling digital presence.
But it’s not easy to scan a packed, multi-day agenda and calculate the potential must-attends. So as a service to our developer audience, we’re going to narrow our focus, look at the conference from a developer’s perspective, and boil it down to just 5 reasons a developer should attend.
Starting with…
1. The Sessions
Build is the AcquiaEngage track that is most developer-focused, but there are two others tracks that also host promising sessions: “Manage” and “Optimize”. Here are a selection of some sessions, from all tracks, that have developer appeal.
(Progressively) Decoupled Drupal
A deep dive on decoupled Drupal and how it can deliver greater flexibility for your front-end presentation layer. The speakers will also cover how it can be used in multiple channels like websites, mobile, digital displays and more.
Shockingly Fast Site Development: Acquia Lightning & The Future of Developer Tools
The second half of this Day 1 morning session will dig into solutions you can leverage now with Drupal 8.7 and Lightning 4.0. We'll also dive into the new Acquia Developer Studio and how it can supercharge your development toolchain.
From 0 to Drupal 8/9, Migrating like a Pro
A technical architect and a senior manager of professional services, both from Acquia, will explain Migrate, a powerful tool that is now part of Drupal core, and can power the migration path from D6 and D7 to D8. In this session we'll learn how easy it is to upgrade from old Drupal versions to Drupal 8, and you'll learn to leverage the power of the Migrate API to perform more complex migrations, from other sites, other databases or even completely different sources like csv documents.
Following this presentation, the topic will expand further to Drupal 9. This upgrade will be unlike any other you've seen in the past for Drupal, and we'll take time to answer questions like: What will it involve? When is it coming? When do we need to be ready for it and what can we do to prepare?
Debunking the Myths of Digital Governance
How can small digital teams maintain and launch hundreds of sites? Can its success be attributed to products and technology, or is it a result of process and organizational best practices? How do some companies go from taking months to launch a site to weeks? Learn best practices gleaned from a large network of experienced platform owners, and tactical things you can do immediately to ensure that your site production systems and teams are running like a well-oiled machine
2. Real-World Stories from the Field
Acquia customers have some valuable tales to tell -- using Drupal and Acquia tools out in the cold, cruel world.
Some stories you’ll hear:
Building a Customer Engagement Platform: How Syngenta has Optimised Site Creation for Speed and Agility, by Catharine Vaysse, Syngenta
Maximizing Uptime, Downtime = Highest Lifecycle Value, by Kalle Rosti, Digital Marketing Manager, Konecranes & Juha Karonen, CTO, Mirum
One platform, one WaterAid: How we Made Website Rollouts Easy(ish) in a Global Organisation, by WaterAid’s Digital Product Manager Isabel Glover, and two members of their development agency, Access.
A New Digital Destination Website for Transport for Wales
Lessons in getting a new rail franchise's website live in under 10 weeks – leading with the customer experience to give the brand digital freedom. By Peter Gough, Managing Partner & Founder ORM, the agency that made it happen.
Three Acquia customers have a panel discussion about projects: Matt Mowlam, Group Digital Director PageGroup Plc; Ryan Garvin, Corporate Marketing Manager, Infovista; and Andrew Till, vice president, Technology & Marketing, Harman Connected Services
3. Paths to Personalisation and E-Commerce
Acquia Lift: Incorporating Personalisation into Your Customer Experience
Learn personalisation best practices and how Acquia Lift can support your existing digital marketing program. A brief demonstration of Acquia Lift will be followed by a discussion of key personalisation topics including: staff resourcing, interpreting analytics, and brainstorming personalisation opportunities. Offered by an Acquia Technical Architect, a Senior Project Manager, and a Senior Technical Account Manager.
The Buyer’s Journey isn’t Linear. Why is Your Website?
How to use personalisation to transform your one-size-fits-all pages into automated content machines that will actually do what your website is meant to do: anticipate buyer pain points and facilitate the buyer’s journey. This session, by Ryan Garvin Corporate Marketing Manager, Infovista, will show you how Infovista is using Acquia Lift to address two completely different macro audiences simultaneously with content that is actionable and relevant. Then see how to use deep, nuanced targeting to position content that matters to your customers at the right time, in the right place – where they actually convert.
Commerce is a moving target, and attendees will learn about Acquia Commerce Manager and how powerful it can be to build meaningful digital experiences. They will also understand the challenges that can be faced while building a headless e-commerce platform and how to overcome those. Led by an Acquia Program Manager and a Senior Technical Architect, this session will cover technical topics (like how to build a multi-region multi-brand ecommerce sites factory architecture), user experience (how to enable commerce content on your ecommerce platform) and business impact (how can a platform like this boost your online stores conversion & engagement).
4. Get a Preview of Future products.
An Innovation Showcase at the conference will feature Dries Buytaert, Founder and Project Lead, Drupal and Co-founder, Board Chair & CTO at Acquia, and Matt Kaplan, VP Products at Acquia. Both are excellent public speakers and presenters. See what Acquia has in store for developers, as they share the vision of the Acquia product roadmap and highlight innovative customers.
5. A “Birds of a Feather” lunch with topical roundtables, and also throughout the conference: hallway conversations
Interested in Drupal 9? There will probably be a table for that at the Birds of a Feather lunch.
There will also be plenty of opportunities to interact with the many A-list technical Acquians, and presenting partners, in attendance.
Got a questions? You will be able to find the answer at EngageEurope.
Interested?
Here, again, are the deets:
Conference website: Acquia Engage Europe
Dates: 17th & 18th June, 2019
Location: Royal Gardens Hotel, Kensington, London
All there is left to do is register today.
Hope to see you there!
