Five Things I Can’t Wait to See at this Year’s Episerver Ascend Conference

Episerver’s annual Ascend Customer Conference (http://www.episerver.com/ascend) is always an event that I look forward to. Set in the glitz and glamour of the heart of Las Vegas, the Ascend conference is a rare opportunity to meet, interact with and pick the brains of some of the most innovative and talented members of the Episerver community. It’s the best opportunity in North America to find out the future direction of the Episerver platform, to meet with experienced partners and to find out how other customers have innovated using their web site to drive more conversions and sales while improving customer experiences and brand perceptions.

This year’s show promises to be larger than ever before, with more than 30% more attendees expected to join what was already a sizable community. Held again at the Cosmopolitan Hotel, this year’s Ascend Customer Conference has a lot to look forward to. In that spirit, let’s go through the Five Things I Can’t Wait to See at this Year’s Episerver Ascend Conference:

1. Keynote Speakers – Last year’s speakers were phenomenal and would be a tough act for anyone to follow, but Episerver has done an excellent job with this year’s line-up. It starts with Mel Robbins, an award-winning TV host and motivational speaker who will be speaking assisted by the Passing Zone, an American comedy-juggling duo. Joining the conference this year also will be Scott Hanselman, a Principal Program Manager at Microsoft is one of the company’s most popular bloggers and web developer personalities. And of course, Episerver’s own James Norwood, chief marketing officer and executive vice president of strategy will be speaking and sharing his vision for the future direction of the Episerver toolset. 
2. Code Bash – This year, Microsoft is sponsoring a Code Bash contest pitting teams of up to 4 developers against one another to come up with fun and exciting new uses for Episerver, coded right there at the show floor. Members of the Ameex team will be participating in the event, but it’s not just for coders. Designers and even businesspeople (gasp!) are highly encouraged to join, as well. Find out more and get tickets: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/episerver-ascend-code-bash-tickets-31152491942 
3. Community Partners – Ascend is special because it’s one of the few places where the entire Episerver community comes together in one location. And it’s an amazing sight to see. This year, the Partner Village this year is closer to the food, which makes it a lot easier to pick up a delicious bite to eat while you also have time to meet with the entire spectrum of Episerver partners, all in one room. It’s fun seeing service partners, implementation companies, design agencies and staffing companies coming together to provide Episerver customers with world-class options.
4. Automated Personalization – To suggest that there is some interest in the ability to deliver completely automated, but fully personalized, experiences may be a bit of an understatement. Thanks to the acquisition of peerius, Episerver can now allow customers to have real-time predictive analytics that leverage machine learning and big data. This allows our customers to get closer to the ultimate online marketing dream: fully-automated, completely individually personalized experiences without resorting to a painful-to-manage list of segmentation rules.
5. YOU!!!! – While we all look forward to having fun, learning and spending time in the sessions, the truth is that seeing YOU is what we are looking forward to the most. It’s the only time we get to meet Episerver customers, partners, trainers, developers and team members together. Learning from one another’s experiences, building new relationships and equipping one another to be more successful, productive and capable than ever before is what it’s all about.

Ameex is extremely proud to sponsor this year’s Ascend Customer Conference and to continue to showcase our experience and talent with the toolset. This year’s show will be even more interesting, as we will be debuting a new product that streamlines and automates the conversion of Ektron web sites into Episerver web sites. Thanks to its dynamic migration features, conversion times are made almost instantaneous, saving tremendous amounts of time and energy without sacrificing quality. Stop by and see us at Table 17 for a demonstration of this interesting new tool. We’d also love the opportunity to speak with you about project development, staff augmentation services or even ongoing maintenance and managed services support.

Contact Ameex

Contact Brian Browning (brian.browning@ameexusa.com or at 804-920-1956) to learn more about how Ameex can assist you in learning more about Episerver development. 

1.               Keynote Speakers – Last year’s speakers were phenomenal and would be a tough act for anyone to follow, but Episerver has done an excellent job with this year’s line-up. It starts with Mel Robbins, an award-winning TV host and motivational speaker who will be speaking assisted by the Passing Zone, an American comedy-juggling duo. Joining the conference this year also will be Scott Hanselman, a Principal Program Manager at Microsoft is one of the company’s most popular bloggers and web developer personalities. And of course, Episerver’s own James Norwood, chief marketing officer and executive vice president of strategy will be speaking and sharing his vision for the future direction of the Episerver toolset.

2.               Code Bash – This year, Microsoft is sponsoring a Code Bash contest pitting teams of up to 4 developers against one another to come up with fun and exciting new uses for Episerver, coded right there at the show floor. Members of the Ameex team will be participating in the event, but it’s not just for coders. Designers and even businesspeople (gasp!) are highly encouraged to join, as well. Find out more and get tickets: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/episerver-ascend-code-bash-tickets-31152491942

3.               Community Partners – Ascend is special because it’s one of the few places where the entire Episerver community comes together in one location. And it’s an amazing sight to see. This year, the Partner Village this year is closer to the food, which makes it a lot easier to pick up a delicious bite to eat while you also have time to meet with the entire spectrum of Episerver partners, all in one room. It’s fun seeing service partners, implementation companies, design agencies and staffing companies coming together to provide Episerver customers with world-class options.

4.               Automated Personalization – To suggest that there is some interest in the ability to deliver completely automated, but fully personalized, experiences may be a bit of an understatement. Thanks to the acquisition of peerius, Episerver can now allow customers to have real-time predictive analytics that leverage machine learning and big data. This allows our customers to get closer to the ultimate online marketing dream: fully-automated, completely individually personalized experiences without resorting to a painful-to-manage list of segmentation rules.  

5.               YOU!!!! – While we all look forward to having fun, learning and spending time in the sessions, the truth is that seeing YOU is what we are looking forward to the most. It’s the only time we get to meet Episerver customers, partners, trainers, developers and team members together. Learning from one another’s experiences, building new relationships and equipping one another to be more successful, productive and capable than ever before is what it’s all about.