First In History - Meet Magento Sweden

14th March 2016 will remain a symbolic date for Meet Magento series of conferences around the world. For the first time Magento enthusiasts from this Nordic country gathered in Stockholm to exchange knowledge and experience on the platform we are all working on. After organizing a few Magento MeetUps, the team of Nordic Web Team (opens in a new tab) took an effort to make this conference come true. This successful event will always remain in my memory as the first Meet Magento outside of Poland I have ever attended.

On Monday morning the conference was opened by a host who highlighted the importance of this event for Swedish eCommerce market. Next on stage was Thomas Goletz (opens in a new tab) from Meet Magento Association (opens in a new tab), who talked about Meet Magento past conferences in 2015 and upcoming ones in 2016. Looks that there will be a lot of interesting countries and markets to visit this year as MM trend is getting stronger every year.

As Snowdog we provided Meet Magento Application for all attendees which allowed everyone to rank each presentation (if you haven’t done it yet, go and leave feedback for organizers), contact speakers, browse sponsors and contact info and of course create personalized agenda for the conference day. Organizers also used sli.do to post questions directly to speakers. Application had a very nice voting system. I personally liked the idea, so we will keep it as a good idea for Meet Magento application development.

Starting at 10am, there were two tracks (business and technology) available in separate conference rooms. One of the biz presentations I really liked was the one about internationalisation of local businesses. Sïmon Saneback (opens in a new tab), an eCommerce expert of Swedish market, made a 30-minutes presentation full of practical details and suprising problems that may occure when going global. Taxes, returns, local spirit differences, online purchase habits, payment preferences and more… Very inspiring.

Another presentation which was very interesting to follow was case study of NA-KD (opens in a new tab) presented by Jarno Vanhatapio. Specific data presented on the big screen with instant interpretation and follow-up actions taken by this company provided a big picture of fast growing fashion industry. Real-time marketing and social media trendsetters managing are factors that NA-KD takes seriously and apparently with great success.

Around networking area there were a few really nice adds-on provided. Ice cream and popcorn machines, ping-pong table and photo-booth section were cool. For those who had a black label on their badge there was another surprise prepared by organizers. A visit to Skyview globe right next to the venue. Stockholm by night looks amazing!

Another surprise was a new idea to handle After Party at Meet Magento. I was looking forward to something extraordinary. Online teasers were frequent and mysterious – and I was not disappointed. Instead of standup party, Nordic Web Team invited everyone to round tables where we had dinner and at the same time we created teams that took part in a crazy music/film quiz. An amazing host of the party warmed up the audience and soon everybody was dancing on stage, hugging each other, waving napkins and… No. Those memories stay within Magento family having fun at Meet Magento Sweden Afterparty. Long story short – it was legendary!

Thank you Jonas Wärngård (opens in a new tab) and Johan Liljeholm (and the rest of your team) for this spectacular event. I am looking forward to the next year edition and hope you are having rest now.

Well done, Gentlemen!