Meet Magento Romania took place on Monday, the 8th of May 2023, in a fabulous location in Cluj-Napoca. It was the first in-person event after the pandemic and the expectations were quite high, but the general feedback (and ours as well) was that the organizers did a terrific job.

Magento has long stood as a pole of innovation, and the Meet Magento events held across the world united developers, marketers and eCommerce enthusiasts. When the pandemic hit, it was like a pause button was pressed on the whole world, and these interesting events were no exception. The lively energy of face-to-face interaction, the rush of brainstorming sessions, and the buzz of networking opportunities faded into a silence that was filled by a new normal of virtual meets and webinars.

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For a community so deeply rooted in collaboration and human connection, this shift was more than a logistical adjustment. Add to that a great level of incertitude propagated in part due to the acquisition of Magento by Adobe. The Magento Association’s lack of response didn’t help either, and you can see why when the Romanian event was announced, many of us saw this as great news.

When the possibility of in-person meetings arose, there was a general feel of excitement. It’s still early stages into the new era, and probably that’s why there are still a few reluctant ones. The attendance was indeed a bit on the low side, but that was somehow expected, as not everyone was quite ready to attend events in person.

Meet Magento Romania 2023 was rich with presentations led by industry experts. There was a tech track, where names like Mathias Schreiber, from the Magento Association, Ray Bogman, Head of Customer Engineering at Adobe, Marius Strajeru from Arnia and many more, talked about about the latest trends, best practices, and emerging technologies in the Magento ecosystem.

Our tech team found all of them very engaging because beyond all the other benefits, the event has always provided a platform to stay updated with the latest advancements, updates, and releases related to Magento. The insights helped them understand new features, enhancements, security patches, and performance improvements that they can further leverage in their own projects. 

Additionally, they could interact with other developers and gain insights into effective solutions for addressing technical issues and optimizing their workflows.

In parallel, the organizers ran a business track, where the speakers gave interesting insights about the role of AI in eCommerce personalization, digital marketing, loyalization and other captivating subjects. Roman Balteanu from Google presented an interesting topic about the power of AI and how to harness it in our marketing efforts, and Vlad Marincas, CEO of Aqurate, our partners, spoke about personalization in eCommerce and what their powerful platform can do to enhance shopping experiences.

Attending both tracks was inspiring and motivating for our team. They learned about success stories, emerging technologies, innovative projects and cutting-edge applications of Magento in real-world scenarios, which can in turn, stimulate creativity, encourage out-of-the-box thinking, and fuel the team’s motivation to explore new possibilities.

The event was a lot more than just a conference – it was a great way of gathering eCommerce and Magento enthusiasts in the same place. Moreover, as news about Magento was so diverse in the last couple of years, the fact that the event brought in representatives from both the Magento Association and Adobe, sent a strong signal that the connection between the two is very strong. Moreover, Ray Bogman – Head of Commerce Customer Engineering at Adobe Commerce – emphasized that the Magento community is still seen as one of the greatest pools of technical knowledge for Magento.

Having so many Magento enthusiasts in the same place proved to be extremely beneficial and created excellent networking opportunities. The Clever++ team was able to interact with other developers, industry professionals, potential clients, and thought leaders. We even managed to get some of them to sit down with us and share valuable insights and we can surely say that these moments helped us build valuable relationships.

Flo, our Head of Marketing and Business Development had a sit down with Mathias Schreiber and Ray Bogman, where they touched on interesting subjects like the actual focus of the Magento Association, how the future looks like and what ways there are to involve the community more. Ray Bogman emphasised on the importance of the Magento community on the development of both Magento and Adobe Commerce and also on the future AI-driven enhancements of this already complex eCommerce platform. So, all in all, really meaningful talks that help put at ease both developers and merchants when it comes to Magento’s future in the whole eCommerce ecosystem.

But beyond all these, we felt that our presence at Meet Magento Romania 2023 helped us bond more as a team. We did all the preparations, the stand and the goodie bags together and we all felt that we shared a beautiful experience outside of the regular work environment. In the end, we could see the feeling of excitement when the event turned into a real success in everyone’s eyes.

Conclusions

As a conclusion, it might not have been the biggest event in terms of attendance – and frankly, nobody expected it to be – but it reopened the road for other events like this in the future. The talks were enticing and offered insights into Magento’s latest updates and industry trends. Somehow, we were left with a strong impression that Adobe is committed to supporting Magento open-source. But on top of that, we got to see old friends and noticed that the passion for this great ecommerce platform is still there. And we left with the pleasant feeling that with a joint effort, doubled by ongoing support from Adobe, Magento has a great future ahead.

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