The first day of full MVP sessions has wrapped up and now I have the chance to look back on today and think about “what did I learn?”

I’ll tell you what I learned: I like Apple Pie moonshine, I suck at multiple choice, and I don’t get the chance to really talk to my good colleague Nick often enough.

The sessions

The day started with Lars and Scott bringing us on a journey of disruption. I really liked the message that existing businesses are being threatened by new competitors who are understanding how to use technology to reach the customer and deliver them the experience they are looking for. This is an opportunity for everybody to prepare and face this shift, and it will start with the CMO and the CIO redefining how they work with marketing technologies.

The rest of the day I spent in the technical track where we reviewed upcoming features and the product roadmap. I think I can safely say that the current vision for Sitecore is very ambitious. Oh, and Azure stuff is happening too:

And then the multiple choice happened.

The game was simple: question displays, there are four options, pick the right one and get points. Apparently, I don’t like simple. In a group of 72 contestants, I at one point was sitting in 68th. There were a few people who got disconnected and couldn’t pick answers, which means there were likely people who weren’t even answering who were doing better than I was! I went on a late run and managed to climb a few spots, but it was too little too late. Congrats to Dan Solovay and Nick Wesselman for fighting it out to sit on the thrones. 🙂

Down on the Bayou

After the sessions, buses arrived and we were off to the swamp to catch a glimpse of some gators, enjoy some local cuisine, and have a good time hanging out with all the MVPs. I liked the catfish and the pulled pork, and tried a little moonshine shot that actually tasted like apple pie. Through the evening I got the chance to talk to quite a few folks, but I realized it was absolutely ridiculous that I needed to fly to another country so that I could have really great conversations with Nick Allen.

I’m fairly certain we didn’t solve any big issues Tuesday night, but these conversations did reveal a very important fact: we all need to periodically carve out time for this kind of conversation in order to create opportunities to reflect on what it is we want to be doing, why we want to do it, and what stands between us and achieving that.

Thank you Sitecore!