How was Imagine 2019? Recap from global Magento conference
Emotions after Imagine 2019 have died down, now it’s the time to summarize. With Strix team, we spent 3 intensive days in Las Vegas, full of meetings with the whole Magento community, networking and knowledge exchange. It was a good time! How did we like the global conference for the biggest e-commerce innovators? If you are curious — we invite you to read a short recap.
Imagine 2019 is a global Magento conference for the biggest e-commerce innovators. Let’s read Strix team post-conference thoughts!
Marcin Piwowarczyk, Commerce Design Director
What was the hottest topic of Imagine 2019 from your perspective?
The entire conference was called “Expand the Experience”, so this topic was manifested everywhere. For example — how to create better customer experiences, strengthen loyalty and build communities using Magento platform integrated with the portfolio of Adobe Experience Cloud products. That’s why Magento becomes a part of this great Adobe family under the name Adobe Commerce Cloud. From our point of view, as a Strix company, a very hot topic turned out to be PIM. The number of people interested in our open-source solution Ergonode was very large. The feedback we received from merchants and developers was priceless. We are pleased with the positive attitude and willingness to support by many people in the Magento community.
Can you share with the community the most important thing you’ve learnt during Imagine 2019?
Hmm… I would say that: remember to talk, talk and talk. Exchange experiences with others and do not be afraid of this. It pays off in the future. Greater openness is the key to success.
Gary Specter said during his speech: “The magic and power of Magento comes from all of you” — do you really feel the “spirit” of Magento community at the conference? How does it express?
The Magento community is one big family, everyone tries to give you honest tips and share knowledge and experiences, there are no big-headed “white collars”. There are friends and good colleagues. Making new contacts at Magento Imagine is very simple. This “community spirit” is very much lacking in many Polish events.
Bartłomiej Szymański, Head of Software Development
You attended Imagine conference for the second time — that was a good time for you, wasn’t it?
Yes, it was great! I was very impressed by the place where the conference took place and the number of participants, which gave an incredible opportunity for networking. This year it was also a special edition for me because one of our project for TOUS Poland was nominated to Imagine Excellence Awards 2019 in the key category: Best-in-Class Omnichannel Experience. Our project was appreciated for the world’s first implementation of Magento 2.3 Commerce with fully functional Multi-Source Inventory.
Which presentation during the conference did you like the most and why?
“A long way from Monolith to Service Isolated Architecture” by Igor Miniailo. Igor raised a very important issue of what Magento architecture will look like in the future. He also outlined a brand new, fresh picture of the code structure, proving that Magento can be associated with a modern approach to software development.
What value do you think developers can get from such meetings for the Magento community?
Gaining new contacts, meeting other developers from all over the world, exchanging knowledge and experiences — it’s really worth getting involved in networking at such events!
Łukasz Bajsarowicz, Magento Developer
What’s your best memory from the Imagine 2019 conference?
I remember the most meetings with the community members in a restaurant or bar and hours of talking not only about work but also about travel or private matters, in a close atmosphere.
I know you attended the Magento Product Roadmap presentation. Can you tell us more about how Magento will develop in the upcoming months?
Adobe did their homework. As announced, Magento is to reach the undervalued market of small and medium enterprises. Including further important elements: PageBuilder and Adobe Stock integration (to facilitate the creation of high-quality content), or integration with Google Shopping and Amazon Marketplace (enabling opening to new promotion channels) will affect the attractiveness of the platform for companies with lower initial capital. Personally, I look with interest at the development of the Magento Functional Testing Framework project, which will be required soon to verify the quality of extensions and which has not been touched upon in Roadmap.
What is the most valuable lesson you’ve learnt during Imagine 2019? Could you share it with the developer community?
Sure! Magento Imagine is an opportunity to meet the most important figures in the Magento market. We have a chance to talk face-to-face with people we know only from everyday Twitter discussions or Github consultations. Conversations with each other at the stands, during countless side-events, as well as during DevExchange brought the greatest benefits to me.
Borys Skraba, CEO Strix Poland
You regularly took part in Imagine conference. This year, for the last time, you had the opportunity to attend it in such a shape. How will you remember this event?
The Imagine conference has always been a time for me to meet with Magento enthusiasts, establish business relations and more. I think that despite changing the formula, the high level of this event will not change in the future. At this year’s Imagine we, as a Strix, had several premieres — including releasing the very first issue of Magezine — a magazine for Magento community.
Where did the Magezine idea come from?
At Strix, we’ve been working with Magento for 10 years and over time we see a growing interest in the platform around the world. But… we noticed that there was no periodical magazine that could be a platform for sharing Magento news, tips and know-how with the entire community. We wanted to gather the most influential people from Magento world in one place. It turned out that this idea was a good one. In the first issue, we have articles written by unquestioned experts in e-commerce and experienced developers — e.g. Joshua Warren, Ben Marks, Guido Jansen, Igor Miniailo, Riccardo Tempesta, James Zetlen.
How did the community react to Magezine?
Very enthusiastic! Even beyond our wildest expectations. All copies went like hotcakes, people approached our stand with congratulations for a good job. Of course, we are happy with the reaction. It has proved that our intuition about creation the paper magazine was right. Now we have a lot of work ahead of us on the new issue.
Maciej Kaczorowski, Frontend Developer
This was your first Imagine conference — what made the biggest impression on you?
To be more precise it was my first that big conference. The enormous scale of such an event was felt in every inch. The way people were open for talking, sharing their own experiences with everybody — positive energy was overflowing, there were smiles everywhere. One of my favourite things was to see the united community, the community which has grown rapidly with their own mindset focused on improvement.
Your mission at Imagine 2019 was to introduce community Ergonode — the product information management system. Were people interested in terms of PIM systems?
Ergonode, yeah — could say our own little baby with potential. As we know e-commerce is growing fast, people are lacking of automatization of updating products in their online shops. We could meet with the community, get to know the needs of customers, especially from the perspective of Magento Core Architects — their opinions are priceless, pointing to weaknesses that we could fix with new solutions. People were amazed by how fast the application is, the feel of UX design, smoothness of the frontend flow — that what made us happy, that we are moving in the right direction. Nobody said that will be easy — we have taken up the challenge to make the most human-friendly PIM solution at the market. The goal is high, but to step further we need to go high.
Did you manage to see any of the speeches? What was the most valuable thing for you?
Between presentations of Ergonode, I did manage to find some time for self-education. As I am performance freak I could find something for me — “Performance Profiling: Tools of the Trade” by Rowan Merewood from Google — wait! Isn’t that amazing to be able to listen to a guy who is part of that tool somehow? I was delighted, my endorphins went up — love it. To expend my experience I am looking not only for the programming part. It is important to be open-minded with other topics. As a Frontend Developer, it is good to know how the UX works. How they influence the market, how they design, how they study the market. I was able to find an interesting talk from many experienced people. The name of the topic was “Optimizing Mobile Conversion: 7 Surprising Results from Magento Community Study”. Each of them had a different perspective with different approaches.
I have learnt a lot after returning home from Vegas. The city of sin — was my sin about desire more knowledge?
Have you attended the Imagine 2019 conference? Share your thoughts with us!
See you soon Magento community! :)
