Best wishes to all of our customers for a prosperous 2016!
Hostway would like to wish all of our readers and customers a happy festive season.
Happy Thanksgiving! After the holiday, look out for our webinar, “Maximizing Availability of Mission Critical Apps in the Cloud.”
Join Hostway VP Tony Savoy and Veeam’s Tim Krause on December 2 at 1 p.m. CT to learn about the importance of maintaining high availability of mission-critical applications, and how to keep their availability optimal.
Cloud technology has opened up a variety of opportunities for your business to improve operational efficiency. No matter the size of your company, there’s a role that cloud computing can play in ensuring your employees can do their jobs as well as possible. Of utmost importance are the platform and services supporting the mission-critical applications a business moves into the cloud – the flexibility, resiliency and stability required can be difficult to secure.
We’ll discuss using Microsoft Azure-based Private Cloud solutions with Managed Backup to eliminate downtime, secure data integrity and keep your business running.
Join Hostway at the second annual Meet Magento NY, a community conference that will take place on September 21 and 22nd at the state-of-the-art Digital Conference Center in Downtown Manhattan.
This event, produced by interactiv4, will feature two learning tracks that will focus on the latest in technology and business.
The keynote presentation, "Weaponizing Retail: Building Great Companies and Brands in a Technology World," will come from Bob Schwartz, CEO of 47B.
Learn more at the event website.
Join Hostway and our partners Indaba, Clustrix, Avalara, and others on September 16 in San Jose, California, to learn how you can improve the online shopping experience and drive more sales this holiday season.
For online retailers, no time is like the holidays. Massive profits are there to be had, but the substantial increase in traffic can cripple an online presence. Can your site handle massive spikes in traffic? Can your customers use mobile devices on your site? Will their personal data is safe within our system?
Attend this free event on September 16 at 5:30 pm at The Garage at San Pedro Square Market in San Jose for tips on navigating and finding answers to these important questions and more. Register here.
This interactive panel brings together six e-commerce partners to cover everything from database preparation and site-side improvements to streamlined shopping carts and marketing optimizations.
Attending for Hostway is Strategic Partnership Manager Ken Carter. He has over 10 years of channel experience and is responsible for driving our Magento-focused e-commerce strategy.
Learn about:
Don't miss this valuable learning opportunity.
We've all heard one company or another trot out the old line that its employees are its most valuable resource. At Hostway, we're part team and part family. So when tragedy affects one, it resonates with us all.
For Chris Harl, a leading business development consultant at Hostway, the concern within his own family had been building for some time. His mother-in-law's health was deteriorating.
“Five years ago, I started noticing a change in my mother,” Harl's wife, Tarah, said. “I had an idea of what it might be, but since she was so young, I had to fight to get a diagnosis.”
Soon after celebrating her 61st birthday, Melanie Sullivan was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, the sixth leading cause of death in the United States. Nationwide, someone is diagnosed every 67 seconds.
Alzheimer's is a progressive brain disease that slowly destroys cognitive abilities, eventually making even the simplest tasks difficult. Melanie's case was unusually early in its onset; symptoms normally appear after age 65.
“The hardest part for me is that my mother is not beside me to enjoy her granddaughters and give me motherly advice,” Tarah said.
To stand by Melanie, Chris and Tarah have coordinated with the Alzheimer’s Association to set up a Walk to End Alzheimer’s to take place September 19 to benefit Melanie and countless others living with the disease. Hostway has committed $500 towards matching employee donations before the walk date.
You can support them with a donation, or join the team to see how you can help. You can also visit Alz.org to learn more and find a Walk near you.
The Alzheimer’s Association was founded with the intent of eliminating the disease through advancing research, to support and care for those affected, and to reduce the risk of dementia by promoting brain health.
“Our family is sincerely grateful that Hostway has decided to join us in our journey, supporting an effort that is so near and dear to our whole family,” Chris said.
Hostway's #MoreThan Mania, our E-Commerce Roadshow, is coming to a city near you!
Emphasizing flexibility, expertise and responsiveness, Hostway's Magento offerings provide more than you'll get from most hosting providers. Learn more at our roadshow, which is coming to South Florida, Denver, Boston and Philadelphia in the next five months. Our first stop is in Fort Lauderdale:
We have put together a collection of leading e-commerce experts from around the country to join us in South Florida at the Marriott North in Fort Lauderdale for the eCommerce Expo. Our partners at this event include:
We will talk about Magento Community Edition and Enterprise Edition, along with various extensions that can increase your efficiency. Join in the social conversation by using #EcommerceSFL! Sign up for this free event here, or learn more about Hostway’s e-commerce solutions at our website's Magento sub-section.
Hope to see you there!
For merchants, agencies and technology partners, the Imagine Conference is one of the most highly anticipated events in e-commerce. With the excitement of the “next big thing” in the air, attendees witness announcements about new technologies and learn about what agencies are the best of the best. The Imagine Conference is the place to be, and the theme this year was “Unbound”: the idea that change is no longer something to be afraid of. Embracing change, not stopping it, is essential for the movement and discovery that drive the industry forward. Merchants, agencies and technology partners alike need to be unbound in whatever they do in order to see the benefits that come from risking change.
Here are five key points to take away from the conference this year.
Beta is Good Enough – Even Perfect: We all are timid when releasing a beta version of whatever it is we are putting out there. That needs to stop. In order to speed up innovation and creativity, we need to put our beta versions out there without hesitation and embrace feedback; the answers we get to the questions we didn’t even know we should ask are crucial to improving our products.
Examine the Shopping Experience: Understand your customer even better. Understand how they shop when they are not online, and bring that experience to your website. Data-driven personalization from on-site optimization to digital strategy when the customer has left your website will build brand loyalty and result in more sales. Show your customer that you know who they are and understand what they want.
Buzzword of the Week: “Omnichannel” It was only a few years back when the buzzword was “responsive.” Everywhere you went, every keynote speaker used the word responsive and we all went back and sold it to our clients. This year it was “Omnichannel.” It means shrinking the distance between your customer and your product, and optimizing the buying journey. Make your product available in every marketplace and every channel possible so that your customer can connect with your products and brands wherever they may be.
eBay Enterprise is the #1 E-commerce Platform Provider in the IR Top 500: This was announced and celebrated – it’s a huge deal! Everyone at this conference has been a part of the e-commerce ecosystem that is now eBay Enterprise. We all have succeeded in making Magento the most scalable and supportive platform on the market, allowing merchants to process hundreds of millions of dollars in annual online sales. That’s something to be proud of!
What About the Party? It wouldn’t be Imagine without a good party! The Legendary event was held at XS and was a big hit. Live music, aerial performers pouring us champagne from the ceiling and an open bar let us all become unbound!
The marketplace was full of some familiar agencies and new technology partners. The biggest take away is that while there are many changes taking place, Magento and eBay are still growing, still innovative and still an exciting group to be a part of. Just Imagine what it will look like next year!
Hostway’s e-commerce offerings are evolving, and we’re taking our show on the road to spread the word about about the powerful potential of our Magento products.
Join us at Imagine Commerce 2015 from Monday, April 20 to Wednesday, April 22 at the Wynn Las Vegas. We’ll be at Booth 419.
Also find us at our pre-Imagine event, Sunday, April 19 from 2-5 pm on the Brahms Patio at the Wynn, next to the hotel pool. It will be a catered reception with drinks and light food.
In the meantime, read over our Imagine Survival Guide, or learn more about Hostway’s proficiency with Magento in our case studies with customers Databerry and Great Stuff.
Hope to see you there!
It’s spring again! That means warmer weather, flowers blooming, and the most wild and fun trade show in e-commerce, Magento Imagine! This will be my fourth year attending the Imagine show. Each year, the Imagine landscape has looked dramatically different from the year before. This year, the event will be held at the Wynn, the Pre-Imagine events look fun, and the conference agenda is published – these break-out sessions will be exciting.
It’s actually relatively easy to survive this conference. Here are a few rules to live by so you can make the best out of your Imagine experience:
Be Social: First rule at Imagine is: you talk at Imagine. Step outside of your comfort zone. There are all kinds of people that attend, from developers to CEOs of online stores, which brings many types of personalities. Talk to someone you normally wouldn’t talk to – you might find you have a lot in common.
Go to the other Events: Magento creates a great conference and atmosphere. The events and parties they throw are a lot of fun. However, if you are there for a specific reason – like to get a job or meet with potential new clients or SI’s – reach out to them and ask them what events they are going to. Or stalk people on Twitter and ask to be invited to parties that sound fun. I organized two pre-imagine events called Techies on the Strip, and we had more people attend then we ever imagined because we posted it all over Twitter. These are the events where you can have real conversations with the people you came to talk to. To find events, ask around during the marketplace grand opening reception.
Drink in moderation: Last year, my survival guide got a little bit of flack because I focused too much on the “how to drink” aspect. The only reason I harped on it was the first two years at the Imagine event I witnessed a man who will remain unnamed attempt to throw a well-dressed lady in the pool during the first cocktail event and saw a nice Magento employee on her last day working at Magento as she threw up on her party attendees. So, my point is, you can drink and have fun because you are in Vegas, but keep it classy as much as possible. Or if you decide not to keep it classy, take your name badge off and carry on.
Go to Breakout Sessions: The sessions are like any sessions at a conference – you might hear something great, or you might get an hour to sit down and relax while you scroll through your Facebook feed. Most of the sessions I’ve been to have been really interesting and small enough to interact and ask questions. Here are a few that look interesting to me this year:
You do you, then do business: This event is fast-paced and hectic. The last thing anyone wants is a sales pitch. You are here to have a good time, build relationships and introduce yourself to people in the industry so that you can go back home and send them your sales pitch. This is when deals are closed and contracts get signed.
What to Wear: Dress to impress. I had to teach our developers to comb their hair and wear t-shirts without holes in them when we had a client visit the office. Again, I’m going back to my favorite rule: keep it classy. Ladies, bring a sweater. We have had a few Legendary Events spent inside due to poor planning. Most people just wear jeans and a button-up shirt. Leave your suit coats and blazers at home and relax.
Imagine… The possibilities! This conference has really helped me throughout my career. I’m always able to catch up with familiar faces and meet new friends. I met the crew from Rovio and landed Angry Birds because of Imagine; I’ve sat in rooms with decision-makers, founders and creators and have watched their businesses flourish over the past five years.
Have fun! If you have any questions or want to play craps, find me @robyn25 or my contact page!