For those of you who joined us in Las Vegas for the Imagine 2012 conference, we hope all 1300 of you made it back to your 35 respective countries, safe and sound. For those of you who weren’t able to join us this year, we’re sorry we missed you and hope that this wrap-up makes you dream about joining us next year. While there are too many highlights to recount each and every one, we still wanted to provide a summary of some of the more defining moments of the conference. We’ll also be posting video content and keynote/breakout presentations throughout the next few weeks on the Imagine site, so stay tuned for more to come. Here are the highlights from the event:
DAY 1:
* The conference started off with our much anticipated developer BarCamp – a series of rapid-fire presentations on Magento and X.commerce, with all content drive by attendees.
* Our popular WALL was launched – a collection of real-time attendee photos that were posted to Twitter with the hashtag #magentoimagine.
* Magento overtook the M Resort with a poolside opening night networking event. Watch this video to see where we got the tagline for this conference recap.
DAY 2:
* The theme for this year’s event was ‘What’s Your Story?’ Magento Go merchant, David Bandrowski of The Deering Banjo Company, walked us through his story and then gave a live banjo performance with George Grove of the famous Kingston trio.
* Magento Community 1.7 and Enterprise 1.12 were announced! Both new releases include REST API, developer productivity, different base pricing for customer groups and more. In addition, Enterprise 1.12 also now includes multiple wish lists, segmentation including personalized coupons based on a visitor’s interaction with the site and Mobile! (HTML 5 capabilities)
* Magento 2’s anticipated launch date was revealed; everyone can expect to see it in the first half of 2013.
* Angrybirds invaded the stage at the culmination of the morning’s keynote presentations. Why Angrybirds? They’re now a Magento Enterprise customer!
* The breakout sessions throughout the day were very successful, some of which were standing room only. To read about specific takeaways, see our final Day 2 recap.
* The afternoon keynotes started off with Stephen Messer, co-founder of LinkShare and serial entrepreneur with his take on Big Data. He argued it isn’t about big data; it’s all about big answers. Then Tim Kring closed out the keynotes with a look at storytelling using new social and mobile technologies.
* Day 2 finished up with another legendary party which included (among other things) cigars, fire juggling, dancers, blowing bubbles, and more! Be sure to watch the final recap video at the end of Day 3 below for some sneak peeks of the event.
DAY 3:
* Cindy Hallberlin, President & CEO of Good360 awakened the crowd during the morning keynotes with her inspiring story of how the company has donated more than $7 billion to 27,000 charitable organizations since its inception. The presentation continued with a personal message from Carly Fiorina, a member of the Good360 Board of Directors about how important eCommerce is not only for business but how it can be used to ‘do good’ as well. At the end of the presentation, Roy Rubin made the announcement that our very own, Bob Schwartz is joining the Good360 Board of Directors. Congrats Bob!
* Next up was Jim FitzGibbon, the former president of the Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts who shared some inspirational messages about how to live by a service-oriented culture. After taking us on a virtual trip around the globe with his presentation, 5 lucky contestants were brought up to the stage to compete for the chance to win a FREE 7 night stay at the Four Seasons Hotel in Bora Bora! After being quizzed in front of 1,300 people about information presented during the conference, Krister Lenman from Sweden emerged as the winner! We want to thank all of our contestants for participating and know that it wasn’t easy up there under those lights.
* More exciting content came out of Day 3’s breakout sessions. For access to the full presentation decks, visit the breakouts page and be sure to check back often as we’ll be updating this page over the next few weeks.
* During the course of the conference we held another contest for most innovative site of the year. Finalists included Warner Bros. France, created by Internim, Reed and Barton by Blue Acorn and Ten Thousand Villages by CorraTech. Each Imagine attendee was provided with a poker chip which they could use to vote for the site they liked best. Just before the closing keynotes, it was announced that Reed and Barton was the crowd favorite!
* Finally Alison Levine closed out Imagine with her captivating story about climbing Mount Everest not once, but twice!! She shared her incredible insights about challenges, journeys and teamwork that can be used on the mountain and off.
Overall we couldn’t be happier with the result of the conference and it sounded like attendees were just as thrilled. (Over 95% of you said that you would recommend the Imagine eCommerce Conference to a colleague.) We’re so happy to hear that!
If you couldn’t join us this year, we look forward to seeing you at next year’s event. For those of you that did make it to Vegas, thank you again for making this year’s conference a wild success. Be sure to check out our final 2012 Wrap Up Video to experience it all again.
Until 2013,
- The Magento Imagine Team
