Last Friday was the Shopware Community Day 2016 - aka SCD – and my first Community Day as a Shopware employee. The whole experience was different to say the least, but I mean that in the best way possible.
I naively imagined I would spend the day attending various interesting presentations and visiting the exhibition hall, just as I would normally do as a visitor. How foolish I was – of course, I abandoned my idea of moseying about just a few days leading up to the event.
Fortunately, this is Shopware and not any ordinary company event. There was plenty to do besides general housekeeping and as luck would have it, I was assigned as a sprinter to the Deep Sea Labs (which, contrary to what the name suggests, keeps you on land).
Since our motto this year was “Digital Blue”, the Deep Sea Labs was designed as a space where visitors could explore different bleeding edge technologies, devices and toys, thus inspiring them to discover the uncharted depths of the digital ocean. These gadgets came from our Open Device Lab, which we use at the Shopware headquarters for purposes of research and development. Since time and space is limited, we brought along devices which we consider most important for the future of online retail, including: Amazon Echo, Amazon Echo Dot, Amazon Dash, Myo Band, Muse Headband, Microsoft Kinect, Oculus Rift, Samsung Gear VR, VR Headset from Zeiss, HTC Vive, Beacons, LifX Light Bulbs, Google's project Tango and the LEAP motion. As you can imagine, there was quite a lot to talk about and test, and for most visitors, it was their first opportunity to experience these devices. Many visitors were particularly shocked by how smooth VR works, which inspired conversations about its application in eCommerce.
Since I was on stand-by, I thought there would be a bit of downtime. Wrong again! I was busy throughout the entire event, jumping between the different stations (HTC Vive, other VR gadgets, LEAP motion and the "internet of things") and speaking with visitors with various technical backgrounds. In addition, I was able to set up the “new” computer for the Oculus Rift, since the original computer died only a half an hour before the visitors arrived. The entire experience was a whirlwind, and I enjoyed every minute of it.
In total, there wasn’t a lot of spare time to explore the different counters, attend talks or pause for a rest. However, I did manage to make it to the Shopware Connect talk, which is especially interesting for me since this is my core project at Shopware and I was eager to hear the audience’s reaction. Later in the evening, I was also able to try the Shopware Ocean Jump (powered by PayPal) right before they closed. This was a free-fall from about 8m into a giant cushion. The most challenging part wasn’t the jumping, rather the gymnastics required to get out of the cushion.
At the end of the conference, we packed up our counters in record time and made our way to the Bamboo club to enjoy burgers and beers. The after show party was definitely the most impressive I’ve seen from any company event.
Conclusion:
The SCD 2016 was amazing. Period. Even as an employee. Although I didn’t experience much more than the Deep Sea Labs, I am already looking forward the SCD 2017 and am curious to see where our journey will lead, what we’ll encounter this the upcoming year and if we can amaze our Community again, just as we did this year.
First published on: sven-finke.de