Acquia is back at the InterContinental Hotel, and Engage 2017 is in full swing. This year has been especially important as Acquia celebrates our 10th anniversary as a company. The theme of this year’s conference is transformation; more specifically, transforming the customer journey. Our open source and cloud foundation has taken us and our customers far, but the landscape is changing.
This change isn’t internal. The change is driven by external forces, the culmination of 10 years of pioneering open source website management from the cloud. The forces of change are happening on many levels. From proprietary to open. From hosted to cloud. From static to dynamic. From websites to experiences. From experiences to journeys.
Lynne Capozzi, Acquia’s CMO, kicked it off, setting the tone for this year’s conference. For Lynne, this was personal as a fellow marketer; the decisions she makes and the challenges she faces daily as the head of Acquia’s marketing team are the same decisions and challenges our customers wrestle with.
From Content Management to Customer Journeys
Next on stage was Acquia’s founder, CTO and Drupal project lead Dries Buytaert. Dries doubled down on the need to transform the customer journey. Acquia was started in 2008 to be the “Red Hat of Drupal.” Initially the business model was focused on providing commercial level support to Drupal, a level of 24/7 professional services that would make Drupal a viable choice for organizations who needed support and services they could depend on.
Fast-forward to today, where what is categorized as “digital experiences” has grown far beyond a traditional website. Customer journeys include mobile, social, even digital signage.