TYPO3 Conference 2019 in The Hague #T3CON19 – Your gateway to digital success!

The international TYPO3 conference took place this year on October 17th and 18th in the Fokker Terminal in The Hague and was held under the motto "Your gateway to digital success!". At this point, a big compliment and thank you to Ronald Meeuwissen and Alex van Brunschot from MaxServ B.V., who put this fantastic conference together! Bravo!

For me it was the first TYPO3 conference - Ingo, on the other hand, is already an old hand when it comes to TYPO3 (and conferences). The T3CON19 was actually a completely different experience than all TYPO3 camps or the CertiFUNcation so far - TYPO3 and the community - but on a business level. Definitely an exciting experience. But all things aside: The highlight of the TYPO3 Conference 2019 was of course the big TYPO3 Award Gala. More on that later.

The location itself - an old airplane hangar - was an eye-catcher; but the main stage was definitely the highlight. It was hosted by Jason Barnard - who likes to call himself the SERP man. If you google his name, you will quickly find out why. An absolutely captivating and interesting personality who packed the supporting program of the main stage with a lot of wit and charm. Chapeau.

At the beginning, Marco Esser - Director of The Hague & Partners addressed a few words to the audience and presented the history and the future of the region around The Hague. After that, it was time for the first speaker of the day:

On the first day, the "Higher Education & Universities Summit" took place in Area 2 - which I was allowed to host. A number of higher educational institutions that had created their websites based on TYPO3 presented there. However, the focus was not only placed on the pure creation process, but particularly on the problems and their solution within the framework of the projects. But first things first.

The opening talk was held by Christian Buelter - Product Owner at Pluswerk AG and responsible for the TYPO3 Higher Education Package - who presented the current status and all new features of the package. In 2018 he had already presented an earlier version of the package; However, not only has a lot changed in terms of its content and functions since then, but it is now even being used productively at some universities and colleges.

The Higher Education Package can basically be seen as a kind of kit with a number of standard options and elements for Higher Education websites and comes out-of-the-box, e.g. with ready-to-use templates for a wide variety of categories. In his talk, Christian gave a first insight into what these finished templates look like and also presented some sites that are already using the package productively. For those interested, there is also an interactive demo website.

PS: There is also a very amusing promotional video on YouTube : Mr. Edu – Promotional Video for the TYPO3 Higher Education package 😉

Next, Karin de Bouwmeester and Tja-Lin Mei presented the website of the Technical University of Eindhoven, which has not just undergone a relaunch, but is in a continuous optimization process. The two began their presentation with truly shocking numbers:

• the TYPO3 backend was populated by more than 400 editors,
• contained more than 80,000 unstructured pages,
• and the university secretariat received more than 20,000 calls per month (!) from prospective students who could not find the information they were looking for on the website

With the help of user research and interactive surveys, they have the opportunity to respond directly to the wishes and problems of the actual users and to optimize them step by step. An ongoing process that is definitely something to be proud of!

In addition to the visual relaunch of the website, the focus of the project was above all the initiation of a fundamental, cultural rethinking within the university. Gradually, not only a new, modernized version of the website is emerging, but also a new feeling for the topic of digitization.

It quickly became clear in the talks that the same problems seem to keep popping up in the education sector:

• little budget,
• lack of responsibilities,
• outdated technologies,
• long coordination and project times,
• non-obvious urgency of change.

We will certainly not be able to solve these problems in the short term, but it is to be hoped that at least the understanding of the relevance of a modern and technically clean website will prevail in this sector.

Yes, the headline is a bit random - but somehow it just sums up the day quite well. Since, contrary to expectations, I was not needed for the certification exam in the first few hours, I had the opportunity to listen to some talks myself and had some very interesting conversations. However, before the post gets out of hand here, I would just like to introduce you to my personal favorites on the second day:

This so-called F-form shows us content producers quite clearly how we can (and should) structure our content in such a way that the most important points are actually perceived. For me personally, this is definitely something that not only fascinated me incredibly, but also something that I will definitely try to implement myself in the future.

I am more than happy that I was able to take part in the TYPO3 Conference 2019! I not only had a lot of fun, but also the opportunity to exchange ideas with many interesting people, meet new people and above all a special, glamorous evening with fantastic food and an entertaining award ceremony! I'm looking forward to seeing some of you again this week at the TYPO3 Camp RheinRuhr 2019 - see you there!