PloneConf 2024 recap
We had such a great conference last week with the open source Plone community in Brasília, capital city of Brazil, that we just had to put together a quick recap and share it with you.
Day 1
The pre-conference training session on Monday with other Plone people from all over the world was the perfect conference ice-breaker. Karel and Astrid attended the content editing training session, and even Karel who's been doing this for years was able to learn some new tricks. Maybe one of you want to attend next time?
Day 2
Tuesday morning was spent "in office" - but remotely - from our hotel, followed by an afternoon sightseeing the very interesting city of Brasília with our very good guide, Flavio.
Day 3
The "talks" part of the conference started on Day 3. Choosing which ones to attend wasn't easy! With every talk it became more obvious how extensive the usage of Plone is in the world, and especially in Brazil. It's good to know that the open source CMS that we use to build your website is being used by so many entities that value it's strength, security and stability.
The group photo was taken during a break in the tropical rain, and then the Foundation member meeting took place. Plone has a strong community with an excellent structure and code of conduct, which helps to keep it active and future-proof.
New Foundation members (one of them is Astrid, yay) were introduced, and voting opened for some open places on the Plone Foundation Board.
Day 4
The week was flying by, the days were just packed. On day four, Juizi got a lot of airtime. Astrid's talk was the second one of the day, and Karel's one was right after coffee that afternoon. (Every day we were spoilt with delicious Brazilian coffee and local baked treats. The carrot cake was a favourite). Later Astrid squeezed in a quick lightning talk as well!
The Brazilian electoral system
Just before Astrid's talk, Lucas Lima from the team that runs the Brazilian elections gave a fascinating keynote - the scale of the Brazilian elections (mandatory, and electronic) is astounding.
Plone customization in 2024: the year of the elections
Astrid's talk was about a Plone customization that we did for srfreports.co.za earlier this year, ahead of the South African elections in May. Which fitted in nicely after the keynote!
Content is King - Keep your Kingdom from crumbling
Karel entertained us later in the day with his talk which focused on web content and how important it is. All of you web editors know this; it's good for the developers to hear it again too.
Day 5
The last day was again packed with interesting topics, again delicious coffee and baked goods, and then the reveal of the location for PloneConf 2025 - FINLAND! We can't wait.
Day 6
The conference ended off, as usual, with one or two days of sprints. Issues were identified and we split up to work on them in smaller teams. The Google doc is currently at 17 pages of topics that the Plone community is working on - with the common goal of keeping Plone elegant, mighty and open source. Just the way we like it.
The take away
Meeting with the open source community in person is vital for keeping Plone strong. This conference was again the perfect place to upskill ourselves, re-establish bonds, make new friends, share use-cases and identify and ensure the path forward for our (and your) favourite CMS, Plone.
