The week in Vegas culminated with the gathering of all the North American Sitecore MVPs for the 2014 MVP Summit. Starting off with a solid breakfast was a must for most of the group, especially those who had stayed out until the wee hours of the morning. If a coffee shortage had occurred, blood might well have been shed!

Luckily for all, food and liquids were in plentiful supply and the group was small enough to feel cozy. The MVP summit had a lot of ‘secret stuff’ that can’t be shared, but I can say that it looks like the future of Sitecore is going to be pretty exciting!

Continue reading “Sitecore MVP Summit 2014: Return of the Jedi” →

After a busy day of tracks on Day 2 followed by a late party at the club, Wednesday’s sessions seemed to be starting a little early for pretty much everybody. 🙂 My plan for Wednesday was to see a few key sessions and spend more time meeting folks at the booth, so I apologize that there were many sessions going on that I can’t recap.

As a general overview of Wednesday, the crowd was a little quieter and the desire for coffee seemed to be pretty high. I got a chance to chat with quite a few of the Sitecore folks, still donning their purple shirts, which was nice since I’ve only ever spoken to most of these folks on the phone. It’s always great to put a face to the name/voice! To everybody who came by and said hello at the booth, thanks so much, I love meeting those of you that chat with me on twitter and here on the blog.

Now, on to some session stuff!

Continue reading “Sitecore Symposium 2014 Day 3: The closing sessions” →

Day 2 of the SYMNA held much excitement as the keynotes and tracks kicked off with a bang (or at least with dancing). Michael Seifert delivered an excellent opening keynote to set the tone for the day (say “Experience” one more time) which entirely focused on learning the complete context of a customer in order to truly understand their experience. A few slick Sitecore 8 screens later and we were all itching to get our hands on it.

For me, the really neat part of it all was the tie-in to the Microsoft Azure machine learning computing. I can really see that part taking experience prediction on a whole new path that we haven’t gone down yet. However, this type of computing may be quite a ways off for a lot of small-to-medium business who are still wrapping their minds (and content) around basic personalization and A/B testing.

Continue reading “Sitecore Symposium 2014 Day 2” →