On February 15-17, South Florida was the home of Meet Magento Florida 2023. The Hard Rock Hotel was a great venue for a gathering of merchants, agencies, vendors, and developers. I was impressed by the attendance and the enthusiasm and energy of the group. There were speakers and attendees who had flown in from different parts of the world to make this a truly global event. I was super excited to get a chance to meet new people, and reconnect with acquaintances I already knew.
Rave Digital and Aheadworks, the organizers of the event, did an awesome job creating a nice mix of educational content, social hours, exhibit floor, and wonderful food! Adobe was a proud headline sponsor of this event, and I was impressed at the flawless execution of this event. The content tracks were great with all the speakers providing relevant information and thought leadership. This Meet Magento event was slightly different in that a portion of Wednesday was dedicated to the sponsors and exhibit hall. This gave all attendees the chance to visit and learn from the sponsor booths without sacrificing the content sessions which were held the next day.
I had a dual role at this event, both as a representative of Adobe but also as a board member of the Magento Association. I was privileged to have an opening note spot where I provide an Adobe update regarding the community. Highlights from my presentation included a focus on a Magento Open Source customer, Nicks Boots, and demonstrating how a business can grow and prosper on the Magento Open Source code base.
In addition, I was able to provide an update on the community led prioritization process to identify pull requests (PRs) that all of us feel should be included in the Magento Open Source code base. I had announced this kick off in September, 2022 at Meet Magento New York. It was fulfilling to update the group on the fact that not only has the community been active in prioritizing areas for the code base, but that we have actually acted upon the voting from the Community. In fact, over 50% of the PRs that were upvoted by the Community are in the merge process! We are ready to pick the next batch. Please continue to vote on pull requests and help us pick the most valued ones from the backlog. Login into your GitHub account and vote with the thumbs up reaction. Voting for the next batch ends on March 3.
It was inspiring to see the efforts of our contributors and maintainers. They volunteer their time to help create a better offering for the Magento Open Source business that is looking to create economic prosperity through online commerce. I was honored to recognize a few of our top contributors for 2022. While I love this list, I’d love for more and new folks to join this list next time.
The Community cannot grow unless we continue to grow the ecosystem. I was happy to recognize a few folks who contributed to the code base for the first time in multiple projects. It would be awesome if some of our first time contributors find their way onto the top list next time.
With Magento Open Source being a great place for smaller businesses, and Adobe Commerce the solution for larger enterprises, together we are helping merchants of all types and sizes with one community through hard work, passion and contributions.
While this event was fun and productive, I did not get a chance to meet as many folks as I had hoped for. As I continue my journey in the Magento Open Source community, I’m always keen to hear from partners, vendors, agencies, and merchants alike. Feel free to reach out at rsomani@adobe.com.
-Ritesh
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