Gareth James’ Speaker Journey at Meet Magento NYC 2023

When I got the news that I was selected to be a speaker at Meet Magento New York this year, I was excited, nervous and motivated! I spent a good chunk of September prepping my slides and practising my talk to make sure I was as ready as I could be.

So, there I was, leaving my house at a painfully early 3am to catch my flight from Manchester Airport. After the long flight and a short layover in Dublin, I was greeted by torrential New York rain. Luckily, that was the only day we had bad weather and the rest of the week was perfect for exploring New York and taking part in Meet Magento.

Speaking at the Event

Being up on stage among the legends of the Magento community was an absolute honour. I won’t lie, I was a tad nervous at first. But after a few minutes, I found my groove and my talk flowed nicely.

My talk covered a process to follow when dealing with a disaster on a production site. I went through the steps required to make sure everyone involved stays calm and doesn’t panic so that they can focus on getting the issue resolved, with plenty of Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy references!

The crowd was great! They asked some interesting questions that made me think about how we do things at Space 48. It’s given me a few things to consider for improving our processes and the talk itself.

After the talk, everyone I spoke to was supportive, and I received some great feedback!

Key Takeaways

There were so many great talks and conversations that I could fill a couple of these posts. But  I’ll stick to my top 5 takeaways.

1. Adobe’s Parul Sinha is doing some great work pushing the Magento community forward with the community contributions voting system and pushing for more inclusivity.
2. Mathias Schreiber‘s leadership at the Magento Association promises an exciting shift towards a more open and approachable Magento Association. I’m eager to see what’s next.
3. Mage-OS is working hard on spinning up the tech for their community-driven fork of Magento Open Source. It will be interesting to see what they do.
4. Talesh Seeparsan’s dive into AI and its future was mind-blowing. There’s so much potential in these powerful tools, and I’m keen to explore how they’ll shape our roles down the line.
5. Igor Miniailo‘s talk on B2B in Adobe Commerce unveiled some recent changes and promising future enhancements. I’m eager to get my hands on these improvements.

Exploring New York

Between the event buzz, I managed to sneak in some sightseeing. New York is a city that’s brimming with interesting sights and experiences. I’m already itching to go back!

Lastly, a massive shoutout to Marsha Naidoo and the team at Above the Fray for pulling off an absolute blinder of an event! Cheers, folks!