The organizers from Square Moon and Clickworks did it again! Successfully reaching the target of two hundred attendees, they made EngageU 2024 the largest in-person FileMaker conference in Europe this year. With thirty-five speakers from around the world, four tracks of mostly highly technical sessions, this conference reminded me on the good old times of FileMaker DevCons and all the reasons for attending I shared in my video thirteen years ago.
Back to Malmö
The third instalment of EngageU returned back to the city where the first one was hosted two years ago - Malmö, the third largest city in Sweden. But unlike the previous one, this time the conference was held in Clarion Hotel Malmö Live, a congress hotel big enough to accommodate the conference itself and all its attendees under the same roof.
All in one place
By letting all attendees stay in the same hotel where the conference was taking place, this year EngageU brought what I liked so much at most past FileMaker DevCons - enough space and time for networking. Especially nowadays when conference sessions are being recorded and we can watch them later from the comfort of our homes, being able to meet all the other developers, discuss issues and ideas, inspire and get inspired, and share the enthusiasm for the software platform we chose to work with every day, this to me is the greatest value of a conference of this kind.
Technical sessions
One and half day of technical sessions organized to 3 consecutive tracks, with the fourth track deliverd by sponsors, which were no way less technical, provided so much interesting content that almost no one stayed outside of the session rooms during the sessions. All this was preceded by half day of fresh information from Claris and another half day with two pre-conference trainings tought by Alexis Alen and Matt Navarre.
Excellent food and social events
After the focused pre-conference trainings, intended for smaller part of the attendees, many of us kicked the event off with a joint visit of the nearby brewery to taste some local beers, but most importantly talk and have fun together. It was great to see all the familiar faces even from the U.S. and Australia, many of which I have not met personally since the last DevCon before the COVID pandemic. Monday and Tuesday lectures were interspersed with tradditional Swedish "fika" breaks and lunches, with sufficient tasty food to get rid of everyone's hunger and just enough time to not only eat but also talk. On Monday we had an amazing three-course dinner, all together, similar to the FBA dinners I remember from the U.S. DevCons.
Record Claris and Winsoft participation
The number of representatives of Claris, including top managers, broke the record any European FileMaker conference organized before.
Ryan McCann, the new interim CEO, Andrew Lecates, Director of Product Marketing & Evangelism, Douglas Wallis, Wesley Powell, and David Loeb not only presented what's new and what's comin in the Claris platform but stayed with is for the whole conference to meet developers and answer questions. The meeting room reserved for Claris was occupied all the time and the Claris delegates almost didn't have a chance to rest.
Winsoft, a business unit of Vocaza, Claris' key partner, FileMaker localization provider and exclusive representative in Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle-East, Africa and South Asia, was not only present, represented by Mihaela Cornaton, Priyadarshini Chatterjee, Nirupama Navle, Panthita Wongwairot and Cathy Gumery, but also convinced several of their customers and partners from these regions to come to this event.
This all upgraded the networking and meeting opportunities to an even higher level.
Great value for sponsors
The organizers also made the conference great for anyone wanting to present products or services to the attendees, with space for ten exhibitors right in front of the session rooms, where the food and beverages were provided during the breaks, with the breaks being long enough to have decent conversasions, and boldly promoting sponsors before and during the event. It was a no-brainer for us so we gladly decided to sponsor the event and contribute valuable prizes to the closing session lottery.
Enthusiastic support for faster calculation engine
Our focus as a sponsor and exhibitor was, consistently with the other recent conferences, on our Initiative '24 to convince and help Claris to make the FileMaker calculation engine significantly faster for everyone. I was glad to see so many developers enthusiastically supporting our endeavor once they heared my arguments why this is a good thing to do and why it is achievable with reasonable amount of efforts. With the helpf od the EngageU attendees, we even crossed the magical milestone of half of our target number of votes, collecting 210 new points just at this event alone.
If you have not voted yet, read about the inititive and about why and when even a single millisecond can matter. If that still does not convince you to vote and ask your peers to vote as well, feel free to schedule a video call with me and I will be glad to try to convince you face to face.
