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Sitecore Symposium 2017 – Marketers, start planning your sessions

Marketers, hopefully you have already registered to attend Sitecore Symposium 2017, and while this is not an ad for the conference, I will point out that the early bird savings ends soon (8/31/2017). If you have not registered – and are active Sitecore users, or are planning to use Sitecore – please make it a priority to attend or sell your boss on going. This is not just a conference for your dev team; we are a long way from those days.
Years ago, organizations like Forbes predicted that the CMO will hold a larger bag of money than the CIO when it comes to technology decisions, and that day is certainly here. If your marketing team is not making the decisions, they are certainly key stakeholders in the process. Therefore, as marketers we need to be deeply familiar with the toolset with which you plan to grow our business.
Last year’s Symposium in NOLA was a great success. There were so many fantastic sessions and memories, I truly left the event more excited for next year than any other conference in my attendee history. It is a perfect balance of knowledge and networking, and there was so much info to consume it became a bit of a trick.
Sitecore Symposium 2017 Slide
SO, we are quickly approaching October and this time, “What happens in Vegas” should be planned, well documented, and reviewed with your peers. I mean…the stuff from the sessions. What you do on your own time…that can stay in Vegas.
Below, is the beginning of a two-part post on what specific sessions I plan to attend. This post will focus on Tuesday, October 17th, while the next will cover Wednesday and the shorter day of Thursday. (I will not be covering any pre or post-Symposium activities in this series.)
I need to point out – I wish I were more than one person. At nearly every time slot I want to be at more than one session. If you can travel with 2-3 in your group, divide and conquer with good notes to share out. In general, don’t miss:
The Keynotes: Sure, there is a lot of super-flashy branding, promoting, and loud music with executives looking “cool.” But, there are also usually some large reveals in these Keynotes about direction of the product, support, and other surprises (usually at the last closing – so don’t leave early). Oh, and, Mark freakin’ Hamill! Yeah, Luke Skywalker (or the Joker if you are all hip and stuff) will be speaking.
Partner Theatres: See what Sitecore Partners are up to – usually with the chance to ask questions and have a snack.

Here are some specific Sitecore Symposium 2017 Breakout Session Recommendations for Tuesday, October 17th:

11:45-12:30

Marketing Track: “Why are you not using Sitecore Analytics”
Sitecore’s Analytics is a bit open-ended. A lot is out of the box, but so much can be done with proper setup of taxonomy, goals, and campaigns. This will be a chance to see what is possible and best practices around it.
Marketing Track: “Revamped Commerce Platform accelerates marketing”
Sitecore’s Commerce offering should be a focus if it fits your business model. Any chance to knowledge-up on Sitecore Commerce this Symposium should be taken.

1:45-2:30

Developer Track: “Introduction to Sitecore Marketing Automation”
Marketers should try to stretch a little and check out some of the dev tracks. Some of it will be over your head but there is often plenty you can learn from these, and Sitecore’s Marketing Automation is worth checking out.
Marketing Track: “The path to riches: Analyzing campaigns from click to revenue”
The Path Analyzer is a powerful reporting tool. If you saw it last year in the theater, you will want to attend this session to get a real-world view of its use.
Strategy Track: “Masterclass: Generating business value using context marketing – Part 1”
This seems like a good solid high-level marketing session and I anticipate there will be plenty of take-home nuggets of information. Plus it is a two part session, so either, it will be so good that it needed two sessions, or I can skip part two…(kind of like my blog post…if I am being fair…)

3:15-4:00

Marketing Track: “Adding AdWords to the experience”
Google AdWords and Sitecore should work in harmony. Let’s see it happen!
Strategy Track: “Masterclass: Generating business value using context marketing – Part 2”
See above (Part 1) – If I like part one, I will be here. Otherwise I am going to the Adwords session.
Jake Johannsen
Those sessions along with the keynotes, partner theatres, meals, beer crawl and whatever else goes on with dinner et al, should have me fresh as a daisy for Wednesday and Thursday!

Look for the Wed/Thur breakout session summaries later this week.

 

Personal kudos to Sitecore for bringing back Jake Johannsen as emcee. He really knew how to bring us back to earth after some of the more “out-there” futurist presentations. Looking forward to his wit again this year.

My creeper photo of Jake.
 

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Rick Bauer, Senior Solutions Architect

As a 5-time Sitecore Strategy MVP and Senior Solutions Architect at Perficient, Rick provides insight, training, and a passion for a fully-realized potential of the Sitecore Customer Experience Platform and Content Hub. He utilizes his years of hands-on Sitecore know-how and certification to help deliver clear solutions and actionable results for marketers - both new to the platforms, or looking to take them to the next level of maturity.

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