Codegarden is one of the highlights of the year for me, aside from family holidays that is.
I absolutely love codegarden and I think the main reason why is summed up in this quote from Jason Wodicka when I was chatting with them in the hotel lobby last year.
"Codegarden isn't like a normal tech conference. It's a community of people getting together for something they all care about." - Jason Wodicka
So when my employers ClerksWell gave me the green light to go this year I was over the moon.
I believe that we shouldn't just expect to go every year, we shouldn't take it for granted. So with every codegarden, I go with the attitude of "what if this is my last codegarden?"
So, I try to make the most of it. I talk to as many people as I can, take in as much information as possible, have as much fun as I can, and finally, take as many pictures as possible.
Travel
It's always good to find other people who are on the same flight as you so you can travel together, it can make the journey feel a lot quicker and who knows you might end up eating at Warpigs if you follow the right people.
Business Partner Summit
This year I had the pleasure of attending the evening meal at the business partner summit with my colleague Kateryna Ovsyannykova who is the COO at ClerksWell.
The food was lovely and it was a great chance to chat with our friends from Bluegrass in South Africa and Jen from BlueModus, who is a fellow Umbraco Cloud advisory board member and a newly minted Umbraco MVP.
Pre-party at Umbraco HQ
I was experiencing my usual nerves when approaching the pre-party but this year I had arranged with my friends Owain and Matt that if any of us throughout the entire codegarden were feeling isolated, lonely or anxious we would reach out and find each other. That really helped, just knowing we could do that.
Umbraco HQ for the pre-party
There was a 90s theme to the pre-party but I couldn't find my casio watch in my bag. Luckily I found it after I got back home after the event.
I introduced Kat to lots of people and I chatted to many friends, former colleagues and made new friends.
Post pre-party party
After the pre-party we made our way to Proud Mary's in Odense for some more drinks, chat, darts and pool. I think this pool table is the worst maintained table I have every played on. No offence Mary.
Mary should not be proud of this table.
After the games of pool it was time to go to bed to get ready for the big day.
When I got back to the hotel, I just had to take this picture, it was so pretty.
Hotel Odeon at night
Day 1
There was the usual walk down through the industrial area, with the added delight of roadworks where the solution for the cars to get round it was to drive on the pavement. Which I've never seen before. There was also a really cool lift in use for the builders on one building to get up and down the scaffolding safely and with ease. I forgot to get a picture of that.
Special atmosphere
The first morning has always got a special feeling about it. It's when the most people are there and everyone is very excited to get started.
Look mum, I'm on the tele
I really feel like I am embedded in the Umbraco Community in so many ways, and in the keynote speech I saw my name or picture on a few different slides. I'm not trying to be big headed here. I'm just proud. My mum has sadly passed away, so I get validation off the internet these days 😆
100 MVPs
One of my favourite parts of the keynote speech this year was when they announced the new MVPs for 2024. I was so proud to see so many people, who I like to call my friends, go up to collect an award. I didn't get chance to capture all of them but here are some pictures I took of them.
I was also honoured to receive the Umbraco MVP title for the 7th time.
Day 1 Talks
I attended so many talks during the two days, they were all very good. It's hard to pick a favourite talk, but here are some of the talks I enjoyed and what I got out of them:
Jeffrey's talk about AI in Umbraco
This was very inspiring. It made me think about how to blend AI into Umbraco in a way that is not clunky and time consuming, but it compliments your workflow and because part of your tool chain as an editor to improve and speed up the process of content creation, giving you the AI where you need it and in the right way.
Jeffrey's AI talk
Mads Mørch Schou's talk about GraphQL
Mads was so nervous to give this lightning talk. I know he had always wanted to give a talk and he worked hard on his slides. He gave us some great tips and information on how to work with graphql and heartcore. It inspired me to want to try it out myself.
Mad's graphql talk
Georgina Bidder's talk about diabetes
This was very insightful. I hadn't quite appreciated how reliant people are on technology for their health conditions. And when an app gets an update that stops the app from working properly, people's lives are affected.
Georgina's diabetes tech talk
Ronald's talk about using Umbraco Deploy to migrate site off Umbraco 7 into Umbraco 13.
I had forgotten about Umbraco 7 if I'm honest, but I think it's great that HQ have created the ability to migrate content directly from Umbraco 7 to Umbraco 13.
Ronald's Deploy talk
Lotte's talk about dotnet templates
Templates are something that I have used a lot but I haven't created myself yet. This talk explained the process really well and made it seem so easy to get up and running with.
Lotte's dotnet template talk
The late afternoon backoffice show
I loved this session. It was a great way to deliver content which might have been boring if it was just slides but the interview format and comedic style was just what we needed. By this point, the prospect of moving to a new backoffice is getting less scary.
The late afternoon backoffice show
Food
The food at the venue was very green and salady. My favourite dish was the chicken, I can't remember which day it was but it was lovely.
The layout
I really liked the layout this year, there was more space for people to sit down and eat or stand up if they wished.
Umbraco Awards
In the evening of the first day was the Umbraco Awards. It was good to see all of the different solutions that had made it to the finals. The package awards were mixed in with the regular awards this year, too, which was good. There was a packed room to watch the award show. Andy and Karla did a great job presenting the awards, even if there was a glitch in the slides.
Congratulations to all the winners and nominees.
uMarketing Suite trio
Pool
Later that evening I went to play pool with Marc and Paul from uSkinned, Dean, Mani and Steve and the Gibe team. it was a great evening of pool and I hope we do it every year.
Marc focusing on the pot
Paul pretending to be Dennis Taylor
Day 2 Talks
The talks on day 2 were also very good. I especially enjoyed Jason's talk about how we should async all the things to improve performance and help with sustainability.
The facilities
The outside area seemed a lot bigger this year, less closed off and I was glad there were no outdoor urinals.
Bingo
Thursday at Codegarden would not be the same without Umbraco Bingo, which no one wants to win. My good friend Owain managed to save me a seat with Dean, Warren and the Gibe gang, as well leaving room for Mike from HQ. I had a great view from right near the front, for the first time. The election theme was fun, the rabbit was brutal as ever and the grand bingo prize was suitably too big.
The disco
The disco was brilliant again this year, and when we got to the special social event at midnight the dance floor was packed. It was basically some Dutch techno rave music that I've never heard of but I loved. I danced the night away with Umbraco friends. What could be better?
Friday morning
The Friday morning is all about the hackathon for me. There were talks going on, but I knew I could catch up with them on the app at a later date. So I attended the hackathon and was so pleased to submit my first Umbraco 14 pull request, and it was merged too.
Summary
Codegarden 2024 was the best yet in my opinion. Thank you to the organisers, speakers and workers on the day who made it run so smoothly.
The Friday feeling