Plone Comes to Beantown

I’m excited to share the news that the 2016 Plone Conference will be right here in Boston! Save the dates October 17-23 for a solid week of excellent training, informative talks, inspiring keynotes, and productive sprints like we’ve come to expect from a Plone conference – all for one reasonable (not yet finalized) price. The Microsoft New England Research and Development center has graciously agreed to host us, and we’ll be spreading ourselves liberally around Kendall Square and the MIT campus. (Yes, that’s technically Cambridge, not Boston, but that’s a distinction most non-New Englanders don’t make.)

At this conference we plan to extend the Plone community’s greetings and space to the larger Python Web community which many of us are also involved in. This happened in San Francisco several years ago; in Boston we hope to integrate these threads rather than having separate tracks. We want to include talks, trainings, and sprints on a variety of Python web frameworks, but we especially want to encourage talks and activities that compare, contrast and encourage learning and sharing across systems. (Not to mention socializing.)

The week will start with 2 days of training for developers, designers, and integrators, which will be included in the conference registration fee. Attendees will be able to mix and match full day classes on theming and development in Plone and other Python web technologies, with shorter workshops on a wide variety of topics.

The next 3 days will start with a keynote where the whole community will come together, and then we’ll break into 3 simultaneous tracks of talks. (Choosing between them is always hard!) We will be inviting talks on specific topics to give clarity and shape to the conference’s agenda. The rest will come from an open call for talk proposals. We’ll be continuing the Bucharest tradition of encouraging new speakers to present – so start jotting down your ideas.

After the talks there will be 2 days of “sprints”, focused development sessions that everyone, regardless of skill level, can participate in. This can include everything from core Plone through documentation. We plan to include Pyramid and other Python Web sprint topics to make this an event that can be shared with members of the sizable Boston Python community.