WPEngine hosted their inaugural Summit yesterday at the Sofitel London St. James Hotel, and not surprisingly it turned out to be a great event, packed with relevant content and first-class speakers.
As a WP Engine partner it’s predictable that we would give the event raving reviews, but honestly, they made it easy for us. The first thing that struck me was how natural the compère was. If James Dowell is looking for a job on the side, the stage is calling!
The morning session kicked off with ‘The Future of Digital Experiences by Generation, Gender and Geo’ which then moved onto ‘Big Ideas & Open Source’. The informal interview format really worked, with real world references citing the sound reasoning behind WordPress as an enterprise solution. One example illustrated how the HR giants Insperity, slashed their development costs to 1/5th, by moving from Sitecore to WordPress, saving millions of dollars each year.
Kudos to the organisers at WP Engine for curating a great mix of speakers and subjects too, there was something for everyone, from VR to AI and even GDPR! ( the hottest acronym at Angry Creative right now). If I had to pick a stand out session, I’d say Paul Armstrong from HERE/FORTH. Paul’s delivery was full of energy and a razor sharp wit. Despite having ample opportunity, he refrained from plugging his book, so Paul, here’s one for free: Disruptive Technologies is available on Amazon now! Should be a great read if it’s half as insightful as the session.
A mention to Claire Graves at the Webby Awards who’s story of her younger self (before the days of smart phones), got lost while traveling Europe. The tale made a valid point of how technology companies now have the power to literally lead us down their preferred path, removing the opportunity for happy accidents. Claire went on to show some of the past Webby winners, and their 5 word acceptance speeches, here’s a rundown of the top 10, Personally I like no.6 ‘Can you hear me, now!
Paul Armstrong’s talk on Disruptive Technologies, sharp and very witty!
The day concluded with 2 sessions, the first from Klarna, who showed us how a multi $billion business with a beautifully presented brand, shifted to WordPress in only 4 months! The story was incredible and inspirational to any agency or brand who believes WordPress can offer this level of stability under the pressure of high traffic demands. Finally, WPEngine’s Founder, Jason Cohen, highlighted some of the great new features of the WPEngine platform, my favorite being the Content Performance. Looking ahead to the 2018 roadmap we can expect more innovations to appear in the WPEngine dashboard, including new data intelligence tools and server performance enhancements.
Overall the Summit was insightful, actionable and extremely well organised. Oh and a nice touch with the aftershow beer tasting!