Sydney Sitecore meetup

Sometimes life shows you a path to follow that you never think of before. The story starts when I was looking for my new Sitecore adventure. Some how Seek website has lost all of my filtering and I accidentally applied for the role that it wasn't in my search criteria.  I wrote done the name and suburb of the company and I decided if they liked my CV and called me I just tell them the truth and apologize for the inconvenience.
I was at noodle market with my husband Harry when my phone ranged and someone over the phone wanted to interview me and chat about my experience. The market was too loud and it made it impossible for me to have a phone conversation. I apologized and explained the situation and asked if we can continue our chat next day. Next day, I had phone call and very interesting phone interview was going on. I really liked the type of questions and liked the attitude of the interviewer.  the conversation continues and I realized Sitecore junkie is interviewing me! I double check the name of company and you guessed it right. It was the company I applied accidentally!
@Mike_i_reynolds has mentioned he recently moved to Sydney. Mike said he is thinking to start sitecore meetups here and he needs some sponsors for the meet up. If you work on sitecore projects you know how important it is to continuously learn and hear others experience. Also, every one knows the benefits of meetups.  I go religiously to girls geek meet up and women who code and learnt a lot and found very great friends there.

I couldn't be any happier about the meet up idea and I said to Mike, I'll check with my ex-boss Eric at lendlease and see if they like to sponsor the meetup. Lendlease kindly accepted and hosted the meet up in their new building at barangaroo.

@mike_i_reynolds and @RichardHauer and Eric presented in the first meetup. Everyone liked the talks.

I was looking  forward to attend Thomas talk for the next meet up in Jan. I heard from Rich and Mike that unfortunately, he cannot make it and they are looking for someone to present.

I don't have much public speaking experience but what I really wanted was to see this meetup is continuing. After chatting with Zhen, we decided to do a dual presentation. It helped us to prepare better in short notice. Also, It's great to know you have someone else on stage beside you that knows your lines and if somehow you passed out, she can carry on and deliver presentation.

Our presentation was about, our recent project for Sydney Olympic Park. We used Web forms for marketers(WFFM) and Email experience manager (EXM) to automate all of their news letter subscription process. We wanted to share our knowledge and share how we extended WFFM and EXM to fulfill all of the requirements.

We split the presentation in two sections. First, introduction about theses two Sitecore modules to bring the developers who might have not used these two modules on board and  understand the concepts. Second, showing code and how we extended them.

you can see our presentation slides here
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1NFhT4Ou6x5yQwfH_A4be56O_hkGYLVIlCyvU4O-V6uM




Our fears were
1- forgetting the lines
2- not being able to deliver what we intended to
3- not being clear and no one understand our accents

luckily none of above happened and we could present without any issues. All of Sitecore attendees were friendly and the feed backs we got were positive. Mike and Rich were very encouraging and tried their best to share their expedience before our presentation to calm our nerves down.


The second Sydney Sitecore meetup ticked another box. All, the three presenters were females developers.





 from right to left: Kelly, Azadeh, Zhen


I encourage all of the sitecore developers in Sydney participate and attend in sitecore meetup. Also, We all like to hear about your experiences and learn from you.
It's free event and you can register here to learn more https://www.meetup.com/Sydney-Sitecore-User-Group/

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