Are any of you attending conferences or user groups over the past few years?

I don’t often get the chance to attend conferences outside of official Kentico events like Connections.

That said, I try to join as many Umbraco meetups as I can in my local area - there’s a great community of meetups and user groups across the UK. I attend local ones regularly and drop into virtual sessions whenever possible.

Last year, Michael and I launched the Kentico User Group UK. We’ve both been really busy this year, so we haven’t managed to run our first in-person meetup yet - but I’m hoping to arrange one soon! If you’re based in the UK, feel free to drop me a message. I’m thinking about hosting the first session at IDHL’s Leeds office.

I’ve definitely become more selective about attending in-person events compared to a few years ago. Mainly for three reasons:

1. I moved from a city to a smaller town, so getting to meetups now involves more travel and time.
2. With kids and work, I’ve learned to value my time more carefully.
3. There’s so much great content online these days, from tech influencers to recorded sessions, that I often feel pretty well covered.

That said, I’d still make the effort for a meetup if it meant catching up with friends I don’t get to see often or if it focused on something I really care about. And yes, Kentico is high on that list!

The event you mentioned sounds great, but since it’s in the US, it’s not realistic for me. The thing is, the Kentico community is relatively small and scattered around the world. So I’ll be looking forward to the next Kentico Connections instead.

Thanks Sean and Kentico for sponsoring Beer City Code 2025. We're happy to have your support. Love to see any Kentico users in the community in Grand Rapids!

I just attended CMS Connect 25 in Montreal (Brian was also there ^). I wrote about my experiences in a blog post if you're interested in my thoughts on the sessions and event.

In regards to the discussion about in-person events, attending this one was another great reminder why gathering with others to learn and discuss is fun, valuable, and important for personal and professional growth.

I also recognize it's not always possible to attend events in-person (as Milan mentioned above) - a lot is dependent on where you happen to live and your budget for travel.

Prior to COVID I'd attend about 5 per year. Out of those 5, 3 of them were Kentico related in one way shape or form. The other 2 were more coding/technical related and business related.

The Kentico User groups I attended were often 3 hours or so away driving. Not a big issue really, however, if the user group is only an hour or two long, I now question the value of the content and my role attending the user group. If someone asks me to present a topic, I'll 100% be there. If I'm just attending, then I'll look at the content and value it adds to me and the company and then make a decision.

My favorite conference I attended about an hour from me in Wisconsin Dells, WI was THAT Conference. It's a pretty unique conference that I know many Kentico Partners in the area have attended and spoken at. However, last year was the last event they had and don't anticipate to have any in the near future.

We had a meetup in for .NET about 25 minutes from me. I attended about a half dozen times, and it ended up just being 8 guys who worked at 2 different companies trying to get each other to do their work. They stil meet, I don't go. There was a Kentico user group in Green Bay and/or Milwaukee and Minneapolis, but not much activity with those two either.

Now there are literally no meetups within 2 hours of me that have any attendance. Like Milan said, there's so much great content online these days, from tech influencers to recorded sessions, that I often feel I have what I need. From a comradery standpoint, nothing beats meeting your friends and peers in person though. That alone is one great reason I'll spend money on a meeting, conference, meetup, etc.

Brenden,

Thanks for sharing your experiences and perspective!

It's sad to see what happened with THAT Conference. I never attended but I always heard good things from the people that did.

COVID definitely had an impact on a lot, as did the end of the "become a developer in a bootcamp" hype cycle.

I find it interesting that video and social media tech content has also become competition against in-person events. I never attended conferences to watch sessions because they were often made public 3-6 months later. I did attend local meetups for the presentations because people would present on things outside my focus area and I could ask questions to get more insights. However, if pure knowledge was all I wanted, I would have stayed home and watched YouTube videos.

Why did I go out to local meetups and travel to conferences?

• Supporting speakers that I knew personally

• Hallway conversations

• Making new connections

• Participating in something that felt bigger than myself

• Recurring meetups and conferences became ways to stay in touch with newly made friends and get myself out of the house

I wonder how much of that people get today without in-person events 🤔. It seemed like those things were important to many in 2019. Something else changed, but I'm not sure what.

I still really enjoy attending user groups, especially when there's a chance to meet like-minded people and exchange real-world experiences. I also go to some of the bigger tech conferences organized by software vendors, and recently I've started attending quite a few AI conferences and gatherings as well. On a personal note, I find the CMS Experts meetups particularly interesting and inspiring. It's great to connect with others who share a passion for DXP.