My First Codegarden: What I Learned and Loved

Arriving in Odense

This year I finally got to experience what everyone in the Umbraco community has been talking about since I started working with Umbraco - Codegarden. 

Did I simply attend as a spectator? Of course not, my first event also included getting up on stage myself to not only collect my MVP award but also to talk about the highs and lows (pun intended) of life living with Diabetes, and the bittersweet reality of the technology we use. But before I get into that, I want to reflect on some of the most memorable talks and experiences I attended throughout the week.

My week kicked off with a bright and early morning 30km cycle around Odense, it was great to get out and see a side of Odense I probably wouldn’t see normally - the countryside! I had great conversations along the way with fellow Umbracians and cyclists, followed by well-deserved coffee. 

But the excitement didn’t end there, as I then spent the afternoon at the “Exploring Umbraco 14” workshop, kindly hosted by Phil Whittaker and Jon Whitter. This was a great opportunity to delve into the new Umbraco 14 back office.

Tuesday was finally drawn to a close with an awesome 90s-themed night, which even saw the CMS team’s meeting room turned into a “Rave Cave” - it was here that I started to realise Codegarden wasn’t just your normal tech conference.

Codegarden kicks off

We then came to the big day - the first official day of Codegarden. The day began with a brilliant welcome from Karla, followed by some motivational keynotes from Emma, Filip and Kim. I was amazed to see how quickly the community has grown from some of the stats Emma showed us, to the fact that Umbraco is used almost all over the world. It feels great to be a part of those stats.
With each release, especially the recent v14 update, it often feels like there couldn't possibly be more to add. However, Filip, Umbraco’s CTO, proved this assumption wrong, revealing that much more is on the horizon, with v15 expected in the near future. I'm excited about what's to come with Umbraco, and it was great to see the current efforts being put into Umbraco Cloud.
And then, of course, we had the announcement of the new MVPs and the celebrations of the renewed. It was amazing to be up on that stage alongside my fellow newly appointed MVPs, a title I once felt was unachievable. A great success for true all-round, with two new MVPs, myself and Sean Thorne, and two renewed MVPs, Busra Sengul and Matthew Sutherland.

The Wednesday morning talks were inspiring, I think many had to make a difficult choice on which to choose, we had the lightning talks in the social space, as well as a case study on the empowerment of content editors, plus a deep dive on what’s happened from v13 to v14. The morning's longer talk covered how AI can be integrated into Umbraco. As I said, it was such an awesome way to kick off the day, I am sure many will be watching back the talks missed.

I spent the morning in the social space, watching the Lightning talks whilst eagerly waiting for my turn on stage. At noon, I took to the stage to discuss a subject close to my heart: diabetes. Through a case study, I aimed to highlight the critical importance of user testing and research, especially when creating a product designed to help keep someone alive. Overall, I was happy with how it went, and I like to think I inspired others to consider their users more carefully when designing the next best thing.

The afternoon continued strong, with Andrew McKaskill's talk, he discussed how enterprise businesses could utilise UI Builder.

true’s own Matthew Sutherland took to the stage on Wednesday afternoon to discuss AI, with “Fighting ghosts and monsters: How we prevent scary hallucinations in our AI platforms”, and in ‘true’ Matt-style, he demonstrated many horrifying ways AI has got it wrong - and reminded us that, yes, AI is awesome, but AI learns from us, and we all aren’t awesome, and maybe training AI isn’t as black and white as it may seem. I may be biased, but it really was a great talk.

In the evening, we had the awards night - showcasing all of the talented Umbraco solutions and packages out there. Despite not winning this year, we still had lots of fun celebrating with everyone.

Codegarden rolls on...

Once again, Thursday was a jam-packed day of talks, with many difficult decisions to be made about which ones to attend. I started my day watching my fellow Core Collaborator Laura Neto’s talk, "Let's Package It Up!” It was great to see Laura on stage in a very crowded room - clearly, everyone was eager to hear about her journey of building her first package. 

One key quote Laura mentioned in her talk, which I believe many of us need to remind ourselves of daily, was “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” Laura demonstrated her true determination in this talk and has subsequently created an awesome package that I look forward to trying out.

And then I finally got to experience what everyone had been talking about - Bingo, which was just as, if not more, weird and wacky as I thought it would be. And whilst we all stickered our bingo sheets, a very serious election was taking place. #TeamGiraffe.

It was a great feeling to be up on stage representing the Diabetes community, and in some ways, a voice for many. One of the standout aspects of Codegarden for me was feeling genuinely represented as a woman. Typically, at tech conferences or meetups, I find myself as one of only a few women in a room dominated by men. However, at Codegarden, it quickly became evident that this wasn't your typical tech conference (in many ways...). One of its many unique qualities was the impressive female representation I observed, in the room and on stage. Don’t get me wrong, there is still a long way to go in terms of diversity, inclusion and representation within the Umbraco community, but it is evident that this has improved since last year.

Overall I left his week feeling inspired, motivated, slightly relieved that my talk is done, and happy that my hammerschlagen skills have improved since the last time I played! I'm certain that in a year's time, I'll once again be amazed by the growth of the community, the rapid evolution of tech and Umbraco, and the increasing weirdness of Codegarden.