In Berlin, the future is called Xtopia

Monday last week (Nov. 17th) i travelled to Berlin to help my colleague Marc Schneider man the Sitecore booth at the Xtopia event. My first trip to Berlin ever in fact, but definately not the last.

In short, the event was mainly all about keynotes and sessiona about future technology, and not really directly linked to the CMS world. However, since the event was targeting the developer community, there was many reasons for us to attend. Of course we used the opportunity to promote the Sitecore Xpress.
I am not fluent in German, since I haven't spoken the language for many years, but I did manage to put together the following advertisement: "Kostenlos für Entwickler" (Free for developers) which we rotated on our screen in between the demos.

We had quite a good turnover during the event, with many interesting partner leads, a few customer leads and lots of valuable networking with developers (some already certified Sitecore developers).

Unfortunately for me, I was unable to attend the keynotes and sessions. But from what I could gather, the technogoly revealed was cutting-edge stuff that will probably not be in top-of-mind of us mere mortals for another year to come. The oldest technology present at the event was apparently the two Microsoft Surface systems (you know, those table sized computerscreens inserted into a small table which support multi-touch commands). Something I think is more of a gimmick than an actual tool. Sure, it would look impressive to edit a sitecore website using the touch screen, but it would still just be a gimmick. And yes, the Surface is in fact a year old or so, but you get the picture.

 

A few closing statements about Berlin, it is certainly worth the trip, and the food and service at restaurant Bond is definately worth recommending. But the Tegel airport is some rookie architects attempt of being funny.
At least it had a Starbucks.

 

As one adventure ending is usually replaced by another one beginning, I am currently in London to become certified as a Sitecore Instructor. More info about this project to follow in a few days...

Innovation is coming in just 3 weeks...

CM Innovation that is. It shouldn't really come as a surprise to me, since we are a Global Sponsor of the event, but it did anyway just now, so I thought I might as well write a short post to remind myself.

3 weeks, thats pretty close. I guess I have been to busy traveling to realize it. But rest assure, Sitecore is coming well prepared. We have our keynote speaker lined up, the booth material is either done or in the works, and we have a great spot at the show!

If you are in the area of Brussels Airport around Thursday December 4th, be sure to come by and meet us. The event should be free for visitors, so there really is no excuse.

More info available here: www.cminnovation.eu

Some of our competitors will obviously also be present, but curiously enough, only one other looks to be a Global Sponsor as well.

Looking very much forward to the exhibition, and also to the annual CMS Awards show, which will take place during the evening on the 4th.

See you then.

Lessons learned while travelling

After a full weeks absense from catching planes and eating second-serving food, I'm now back in business. I flew to Oslo today to be ready for a full day of training in Kongsberg, Norway tomorrow morning. So there I was, munching on a club-sandwich at the hotel restaurant, when I realised how much and how little the actual travelling had taught me so far. Not what I learned from the business perspective, but things surrounding the actual travelling itself.

Since I haven't always been in a role where travelling was part of my job, you can safely say that I had to learn the ropes from scratch.
OK, must stuff in travel are pretty self explanatory: remember your passport, be in the airport on time etc etc, but some things come from personal experience.

 

So without further ado, I hereby present a list of things I've learned:

When travelling, do remember cash.
I learned this the hard way once I went to Antwerpen. I was just in time for my meeting if only I could catch a cab from the trainstation. Finding the cabs was easy, but none of them took creditcards. None.
In Copenhagen, and the rest of Denmark for that matter, all cab-drivers accept all major creditcards, so naturally this came as a surprise to me. Anyway, I had to walk about a kilometer to find a working ATM, get cash, get a cab, and thus I ended up being 15 minutes late for my meeting. Lesson learned.

When travelling, do yourself a favor and check hotel services up front.
This lesson is not as important as the one above, but still entitles to be presented here. I know that most often you book your own hotel, which in some ways make this comment unnecessary. But in the cases where you are paid to come and do a presentation, and the involved party has booked your hotel for you, this comes in handy. It is actually very simple, since most hotels have a website. Just be sure to check for things like available internet access (wireless or cabled, free or not).
In case your shirts got crumbled in the suitcase, do rooms come with an iron, do you care? Does the hotel have sauna, pool, spa? If you intend to make use of those facilities, remember to bring your speedos trendy, yet subtle swimwear.

When travelling, make sure you have airport lounge membership.
This particular one, I must admit I haven't taken care of myself. But I can't count the amount of times I have looked at people walking into the nice lounges and thought, dammit I need to get me one of those cards. A good friend of mine already recommended getting a Diner's Club card, since it can get you into a lounge in most airports. Why don't I have one yet..? Utter stupidity, plain and simple. So until I get my act together, I will be enjoying coffee and incredibly expensive internet access next to screaming babies and drunk British people in the "monkey-class" bars which are present in most self-righteous airports.

When travelling, remember entertainment.
Ok, this is almost too stupid to mention, but it deserves being added to the list. Bringing a book, a magazine, a newspaper or similar can save you from a mild attack of momentarily insanity when you go through the seat pocket in front of you in the plane and realize that you've already read the inflight magazine and security instruction chart a dozen times. Another good travel companion is of course a music gadget (iPod or whatever you can afford). This could save you from a potential headache from listening to the screaming infant in the seat behind you. That and a double gin & tonic. Another option is to boot up your laptop and work, but frankly, the elbow space in those seats doesnt really justify anything but watching a movie. It is possible to work, definately, but I try to have that done before I get on the plane. Also, batteries tend to run out of juice, so having some good old fashioned reading material can be a life saver.

 

Allright, so this list was basically the tip of the iceberg of what I could remember while writing this post. So I will take any good advice you can provide (hint, hint).

In the meantime, do remember to check all the great Sitecore blogs and news-stories out there, theres quite a lot going on at the time...