Reflections on Kentico Partner Connections 2024 Miami
It is absolutely crazy to admit that this year makes a decade of working exclusively with Kentico products and almost as many years of attending the Kentico Connections conferences—since Boston in 2014! The only ones I’ve missed were 2015 in Orlando (ironic since I live here now!) and 2017 (which I don’t believe there was a Connections that year). I am also including 2020-2022 where they were held virtually too.
This year’s conference in Miami was particularly exciting because it was in my home state of Florida. That meant I would be able to drive instead of fly and I could also bring my wife and dog along too! Everyone, meet Frankie.
Image: Frankie loved exploring the city and was particularly fond of the food scene (obviously!)
Partner Connections
Kentico + Partners = success
If one thing was clear with the messaging of the Kentico team at this year’s event it is that Kentico is here for their partners!
Kentico is working extremely hard to keep new features coming at an unthinkable pace, they’re here to help the partners win new business, and they’re excited for what the future of XbK holds as it matures in the market. It has now become quite obvious that Kentico has positioned themselves in an excellent spot in the market with the decisions they’ve made over the last few years with the product (decisions that weren’t quite as clear in years past!) Finally, I feel confident to say that Kentico believes that we the partners play a vital role in bringing it all together.
Kentico is listening to our feedback and using it to influence their roadmap for the future of Xperience by Kentico. I don’t know how many times I heard various partners discuss how delighted they were that Kentico not only made promises about the timeline for delivery of features, but then they kept the promises and delivered on them. That helps us close on client projects, period!
This year even included a competition (with prizes!) using a specially build Kentico Xperience app to get points for answering quizzes, giving feedback on sessions, and uploading photos of our time in Miami (see attached photos at the end of this post for some of mine). I still can’t wait to see all the photos uploaded by everyone else, so hopefully they’ll get published somewhere.
Although I attended the technical track, the sessions were light on technically dense topics, which was actually welcomed because the main focus consisted on both new features being developed as well as a particular emphasis on migration paths and challenges with migrating from older versions and non-Kentico platforms alike. I am happy to see that instead of diving in head-first, Kentico is being very deliberate about where to include features like AI. Though Kentico.ai has a nice ring to it too, no? 🤔
In regards to migrations though, Kentico is already waiting in attack formation for when the inevitable drama with competitors ensue, such as the current Wordpress / WP Engine debacle that is currently unfolding. I was delighted to hear that Kentico is offering a sizable discount for clients thinking of switching from Wordpress and WP Engine. What an winning strategy!
I will again emphasize how impressed I am with several Kentico staff members and some of the MVP’s as well. Both Sean Wright and Chris Hajjar are a treasure-trove of knowledge about everything related to the Xperience by Kentico product. Not only have they been instrumental in helping me pre-Connections with my XbK project, but the time and effort they and the product team spent on creating and presenting useful and relevant content to further explore topics that matter to partners was extremely helpful.
Trevor Fayas never ceases to amaze me with his endless devotion to the Kentico product and ever-willingness to discuss with anyone about it! I had a great discsussion with him about his transition from a partner to a customer of Kentico’s now, all while maintaining his MVP status. What a legend!
Finally, Brian McKiever’s presentation "Top 10 things NOT to do with Xperience by Kentico," which included many of the MVP’s trials and tribulations with learning the new product, was both extremely insightful and informative, and I can already say I’ve faced a few of them myself in the work I’ve done with XbK. If it hasn’t already, it should become a blog post, Brian!
While it was great to see friendly and familiar faces including some that I haven’t seen in years—since the Las Vegas 404 Conference in 2016—I think I also spoke with more new faces from agencies that I have heard of but never met at past events. This was both refreshing to see, and made for a better conference overall in my honest opinion.
Kentico Partner Connections Miami felt different than years past, but in a very good way. It sure was nice to get out and be social, that is for sure, but it is also nice to know we are supporting a product that, although it is in its infancy, is built on strong foundations, with a fantastic team that is dedicated to making the greatest DXP on the market!
I am eternally grateful to Dominik and team for enabling me to start and grow Refined Element, based solely on working with their product, and also with building a community of partners and friends.
