We were thrilled to be a diamond-level sponsor this year at the Magento Imagine conference. While our founder, Jeff Finkelstein, has attended the last six Imagine conferences (check out his highlights from Imagine 2016!), this was the first year we brought a full team out to the event to participate. We spent three intensive, exciting days on the Marketplace floor and had the opportunity to talk with individuals and companies from all sections of the Magento ecosystem. Our whole team took away huge educational benefit from the event and had a blast doing it!
We had an incredible flow of traffic through our booth throughout all three days, of the conference. It was great to engage with Magento merchants about different pain points, talk with other system integrators about common challenges and meet such a huge variety of technology partners. We want to thank everyone who took the time to stop by and chat with us over the course of the event!
Prize Winners
We had a blast giving away some amazing prizes. This year we had a MacBook Pro, MacBook Air and 20 Amazon Echo Dots up for grabs. We wanted to take the opportunity to give back to the community at this year’s conference, so we had 22 chances to win. Here are some highlights from our giveaway!
An Inside View of the Magento Imagine Marketplace
We brought out a diverse team for our Marketplace booth, including a member of our Sales and Strategy team, a Senior Developer, a Senior Project Manager and one of our Marketers. We had a huge range of conversations and interactions and each team member left with a different but equally beneficial takeaway from the event.
Our Magento Imagine 2017 Booth Team – From left to right: Shawna, Kelly, Jared and Mike
Mike Stacey – Senior Developer
Mike’s Take: “This was a challenging but rewarding experience, as a developer sales is not my natural skillset, but it was amazing for me to spend time really talking about what makes our company awesome as well as really getting to compare notes with others in the ecosystem about M2. The hunger for M2 knowledge in the crowd was HUGE, everyone really wanted to know what the best practices are, the best coding standards and information about migration and it was great to have those conversations and compare notes.”
Shawna Maas – Sales & Strategy
Shawna’s Take: “It was amazing to spend three days really promoting Customer Paradigm as an up and coming development firm in the Magento Community and really get to experience such a positive reception first hand. It was also great to learn about all of the different solutions for the system that may not always appear front and center when you are doing research online – working in Sales and Strategy it was amazing to learn about so many solutions I may have never known of before that can benefit our clients.”
Jared Shields – Senior Project Manager
Jared’s Take: “Imagine was a fantastic way to connect with the Magento community on a personal level. As a Project Manager I work with many of the companies that were in attendance on a regular basis, so to be able to put some faces to names I work with regularly was a great experience. The whole experience really opened my eyes to what an amazing community of people we have and how easy and beneficial it is to make connections with others in the Magento ecosystem. I can’t wait for Imagine 2018 to expand my network even further!”
Kelly Mason – Marketing
Kelly’s Take: “I feel like I learned so much in three days at this event – talking to such a huge variety of people, in different positions throughout the Magento sphere – it really gave me an amazing feel for problems and similarities we share across the entire ecosystem. It was great to connect with others in the community to learn how we can better support our common goals!”
M2 Is Here In a Big Way
The overarching theme for our entire team was the focus on M2. Nearly every conversation we had throughout the conversation was M2 centric. It is clear the Magento is making huge strides to support and improve the platform and with end of life looming for the 1.X platform it was awesome to be a part of the conversation. We are excited for all of the upcoming features on M2, and would love to keep the conversation going with you! We are always available to help you build you M2 success story!
Closing Thoughts
The Magento Imagine conference was an incredibly beneficial experience for our entire team. From our Senior Developer, to our Marketer, to our Sales and Strategy team member to our Senior Project Manager – each team member felt the benefits of being immersed in the ecosystem for three days. The Magento community is big, welcoming and helpful – and the Magento Imagine event does an incredible job to help foster and build upon that sense of community. It is an event where Merchants, technology partners, developers, Magento staff, system integrators and more can meet and mingle. This is a perfect event to find new solutions for any problem you might be having and THE event of the year to grow your Magento network. If you didn’t make it out to Magento Imagine this year be sure to put it on your schedule for 2018 – we can’t wait to see you there!
About Kelly Mason
Kelly is a Marketing Assistant at Customer Paradigm. She loves creating engaging and educational content and connecting with the community through social media. Outside of the office, she can be found eating her way through Colorado one brunch at a time and hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park.