Our Head of Technical Ollie Picton made his 3rd visit to Codegarden, Umbraco's annual conference in Odense Denmark
I am thrilled to share the highlights from my amazing experience at Codegarden in Odense, Denmark. It was an honor to receive an MVP award, recognising my contributions to the Umbraco community, and Enjoy's innovative work with Camira Fabrics earned us an Umbraco award for Best Commerce Solution.
This article reflects on these achievements and the memorable moments from my time at Codegarden.
Arrival and Day One - Monday
I arrived in the charming city of Odense on a bright Monday afternoon, ahead of the start of the Business Summit for partners and Codegarden, Umbraco's annual conference,
My first day was off to an exciting start with an interview lined up with a technology journalist. We discussed Enjoy's innovative work using Umbraco and Umbraco Commerce with Sherwin Williams for Valspar paints. It was a great opportunity to share insights and discuss the benefits of open source and the new native headless features within Umbraco.
On Monday evening I met up with Codegarden friends and colleagues in Odense. We shared stories, and had a laugh over a few beers, which set the tone for the days to come.
Business Summit & Pre-Party - Tuesday
Tuesday was packed with great sessions at the Business Summit and an evening dinner. The discussions were insightful, offering a view of Umbraco's direction and commercial performance. The keynote speaker had some interesting views on leadership and differences between generations.
The highlight of the day was the pre-party, a nostalgic 1990s themed event. It was a blast from the past with everyone embracing the retro vibe, from the music to the outfits and a rave cave. The night ended as is tradition in Proud Mary's with a game of pool and more beers.
Keynote and Community Teams - Wednesday
Wednesday began with an inspiring keynote from Filip, the CTO, and Emma, the Director of Developer Relations. They shared key updates, including around Umbraco 14, which boasts a new UI built using web components and a full management API for easier integration with external systems.
There were no new announcement's on features or acquisitions with the focus on Umbraco’s "4 Lighthouses" that light the way for key areas of focus for Umbraco and the Community.
One of the most exciting parts of the keynote was Emma talking about the various community teams. I'm proud to say that I'm a member of the Commerce Community Team. This team is dedicated to improving the product based on real world experiences building Commerce solutions using Umbraco.
Umbraco MVPs
I was humbled to receive my first MVP award at Codegarden. An MVP (Most Valuable Person) is someone recognised for their contributions to Umbraco and the community. Congratulations to all the new and renewed MVPs!
The unique thing I love about Umbraco is it's friendly and supportive community. I am proud to be a part of this as a co-organiser of Umbraco Leeds.
Umbraco Awards
On Wednesday evening, our team was thrilled to win an Umbraco Award for our work with Camira Fabrics. This project marked our second headless build, utilising Next.js, Umbraco Commerce, and the Content Delivery API.
We created a B2B ecommerce solution featuring customer-specific pricing, fully integrated with Camira's ERP and HubSpot CRM.
This achievement would not have been possible without the hard work and dedication of our developers, the support and vision of our client, and the contributions of the wider team.
Thank you to everyone involved for making this success a reality.
Highlights from the Talks
Codegarden 2024 featured a lot of great talks. It is challenging to see them all in between the friend making, hammers and beers, but thankfully this year they were all recorded. Some of my personal highlights are below.
Building Search Experience with Umbraco & Algolia
In this talk Anna demonstrated the seamless integration of Umbraco and Algolia, showcasing the simplicity and flexibility of this powerful combination.
Anna highlighted why and when this integration can be beneficial and how it can transform a website's search functionality. She guided us through the integration process, sharing insights into common challenges.
The integration approach utilised Umbraco's own Umbraco.Integrations.Search.Algolia package.
Having collaborated with Anna previously, it was inspiring to see her expertise in action.
Bake, Don't Fry - Astro & The Content Delivery API
Adam's session on Astro was enlightening, showcasing the use of the Content Delivery API, how to integrate it with Astro and explaining how the static site generation works.
Having worked a lot with Next.js I was impressed with it's island architecture and the clean markup that Astro produces.
Umbraco - the importance of community
Phil's talk emphasised the importance of community, a core value of Umbraco, and the benefits in attending meet ups.
His focus on men's mental health and loneliness resonated with me. Phil has been instrumental in my own journey with Umbraco encouraging and helping me to get more involved in the community.
Absolute Umbraco superstar and lovely bloke.
HEDY: Creating a programming language for everyone
Felienne Hermans talk on creating a programming language for everyone was both inspiring and educational, highlighting inclusivity in tech and how to teach children to code.
I have used her language Hedy with my 5 year old daughter and she proudly declared after the second lesson "I am a programmer now".
This was one of my favorite talks and incredible that you can code in non English languages using Hedy.
Async All the Things
Jason's talk on async/await in .NET was really well presented. I loved the interactivity and how he explained how async code works. He passed large boxes of cheese to the crowd to demonstrate how threading works in asynchronous vs synchronous code.
Really enjoyed this one
Other talks I really enjoyed
- Jeffrey Schoemaker - Blending AI with Umbraco. Jeffery explored blending AI with Umbraco, and showed various ways he would integrate generative AI into the CMS. Also announced was a new product from Perplex that allows you create content directly from a Word document.
- Mark Seemann - Three data architectures for the server. Mark is a legend in the .NET community having literally written the book on Dependency Injection. This talk was a fantastic look at different server data architectures and the advantages/disadvantages of each
- Rik Butterfield - Green Code: A Blueprint for Eco-Friendly Websites. I met Rik at my first Codegarden in 2022 and it has been great to see his various talks on sustainability at events. This talk had lots pf practical tips on how to make sites more sustainable and was really well delivered. Nice one Rik!
- Matt Sutherland - Fighting ghosts and monsters: How we prevent scary hallucinations in our AI platforms. Matt's talk on generative AI was informative and fun and included an Eminem cat rap video that I can't get out of my head.
Thursday at Codegarden
Thursday at Codegarden 2024 was packed with excellent talks and memorable events. The evening kicked off with the Umbraco election, featuring a whimsical lineup of surreal candidates.
Later in the evening, we enjoyed Umbraco Bingo, an event filled with quirky and crazy prizes that is always a great laugh.
The night ended at the venue with a high-energy party that saw everyone letting loose and dancing the night away. The festivities continued well into the early hours, eventually concluding at Proud Mary’s.
The camaraderie and joy shared among friends made it a night to remember. Another fantastic Codegarden for myself and Enjoy - roll on 2025...
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