If you are one of the customers who are still on Sitecore XP or XM hosted on infrastructure managed by your or external team and you do not want to move to SaaS products – you should know that Sitecore is not going to leave you behind and during Sitecore Symposium you will find also sessions that will help you understand where Sitecore is heading and how your organization can get as much as possible from it.  In this article, I will list all the presentations you should see and explain why they are important to you. 

 

Day 1 

The power to build for measurable impact 

The kick-off presentation of Sitecore’s CEO is always something worth watching. The latest announcements, incoming changes, and roadmaps are the topics that you may expect will be covered. Even when a significant part of it will be probably about composable SaaS products – it is still worth understanding what ‘the plan’ is. Together with Dave O’Flanagan will be presenting also Sitecore’s CMO Kathie Johnson, and Sitecore’s CPO Roger Connolly. You cannot miss this.  

Accessibility and the impact on your business: How to do the right thing for users and the business 

Accessibility is a topic that many organizations fail to implement correctly – no matter what tool is used under the hood of the website. The larger is organization you work for, the more important the topic should be. If you have never paid enough attention to this – it may be a good session to start with it and to understand how it can leverage your business. The presentation will be given by Kim Baekgaard and Roland Villemoes.  

Roadmap to digital experience maturity: Sitecore DXMM Live! 

Have you seen the previous Digital Experience Maturity Model? If the answer is no, you must see this session to see how far you are behind and how you can plan every step of your journey to build a mature organization using all available on the market, digital marketing tools, and channels. It cannot be done by night or month, sometimes it takes years, but to get there you must start somewhere, and this session will be probably a good starting point. If you have seen DXMM before, and you have already followed its steps – then you have to see it too, to check update your knowledge, and follow the latest industry standards.  This presentation will be held by Rick Bauer (Global Director of Customer Transformation at Sitecore) and Jonathan Corley (Director of Experience Strategy at Sitecore). 

Sitecore XM/XP/MC R&D roadmap 

This session is a must-see for you. The title of it explains everything and you will not find details shared during this session anywhere else. Are you planning any strategic decisions – you have to see this presentation to have a full picture of what is coming. A session will be held by Peter Kapsopoulos (Senior Director Product Management at Sitecore).  

Next-gen frontend development with XM Cloud 

Yes, this is XM Cloud related session. You may ask “Why are you listing it here”. Currently, JSS is something supported by XM and XP products (headless development) and we observed multiple times how the changes added to XM Cloud were added also to the products that you use. I listed this presentation here as I believe that you should understand what is available for XM Cloud product as in the future it may be available also for XM and XP.  Session will be conducted by Liz Nelson (Senior Product Director at Sitecore) 

Driving engagement: From 0-60 in just 3 months to implement Sitecore Search and Personalize 

Again, this is a session related to the newer Sitecore products – Personalize and Search. These two are very often mentioned as the tools that can be a first step for moving into composable architecture while keeping your XM instance where it is. You can use advanced AI capabilities with Search and get rid of XP performance issues related to the processing of all your contacts data. It is an interesting alternative that everyone should be aware of. The presentation will be held by Uy Tran and Alexander Edwards.  

 

Day 2 

Thursday keynotes 

Keynotes are the kind of session that cannot be missed when you are interested in the strategy. If you are the one who makes the decisions – you must be there. Based on the description of this session we may expect some interesting announcements related to Sitecore and community.  The session will be held by Eric Stine (COO at Sitecore) and Kathie Johnson (CMO at Sitecore).  

The path to a successful composable future 

Even when you are not evaluating a migration to XM Cloud and composable architecture, you should have at least a basic understanding of “how it can be done”. This is why I think this session may be very helpful for you to understand what the steps are and after all if it is something doable inside your organization. If you change direction, you will have already some knowledge to start with.   

Modular content strategy and design with Sitecore 

Even though this probably will be again a session using some SaaS Sitecore products as examples, you can learn a lot in terms of content organization and modular content strategies that can be also applied within your XP or XM instances. If you better organize data structures, you will be able to manage content better, which also means that any migrations will be conducted quicker and more efficiently. The session will be conducted by Jacqueline Baxter (Content Design & Strategy Director at Sitecore).  

The future of Platform DXP: There is something for everyone 

This is again a self-explanatory session that is a must-see for someone like you. Future considerations, roadmaps, the latest changes, all that you need to know as someone who plans to stick to the XM and XP platforms for longer. The presentation will be given by Vignesh Vishwanath (Senior Product Manager at Sitecore) and Peter Kapsopoulos (Senior Director Product Management at Sitecore). 

 

Day 3 

5 myths of hybrid-headless CMS 

This will be a session full of different considerations and terms that you must know if you are a true leader. I am not sure how many direct answers you will get during that session but for sure you can expect that you will see and understand much more than before you listened to it. Session will be conducted by Chris Purcell (Senior Product Marketing Manager at Sitecore). 

The DXP platform is dead: Long live the DXP platform! 

Another session that will show you how to get even more from the platform that you already own. You do not need to re-platform, you do not need to move to composable products if you don’t need them. Take your time and take a look at another approach which is moving to the cloud with your well-known tools.  Topic will be presented by Matt Dinovo (Global Cloud Solution Architect at Sitecore) 

Between the sessions 

Remember that Sitecore Symposium is not only about the presentations. By attending Symposium you gain a unique opportunity to connect with other people who have the same challenges or already resolved all of them and are ready to share their experiences. If you are looking for real knowledge, this is the place to be.  Sitecore organizes Symposium in a way that you will have some time to spend with the other attendees – in the agenda, look for “Lunch” breaks, “Happy Hours” or “Symposium Party” where you will be able to meet the Sitecore Community.  

If you have not bought your ticket yet – you can do this with a special discount – $300 off the current price. The code/link should work until the end of September.  

Here is the link - If something is wrong with the link, you can also use the code: SYM24-SKOWRONSKI  

Feel free to share it with your friends.  

We hope to see you in Nashville!