TYPO3CON - A Tech Conference Made For Business Decision Makers
Thanks to Jam from Open Strategy Partners for sharing!
At the T3CON18 TYPO3 conference in Berlin, I had the opportunity to speak with Tracey Peers, Chief Operating Officer of Texere Publishing Limited. We talked about how TYPO3 CMS helped her online publishing business thrive and why business people should attend events like this one
Tracey founded Texere Publishing Limited began as a start-up in 2012. They have since grown to more than 40 staff, with offices in the UK and New York producing six publications in print and digital for the science and healthcare industries. Tracey’s history with TYPO3 CMS goes back before Texere. She was part of a web project in her previous job; it was built on TYPO3 and ran content and an online store in 27 languages. Texere is now looking at hosting events and Tracey knows that TYPO3 has “the extensions and the modules to help us with that, too.”
She attended her first T3CON in Amsterdam in 2015. Tracey doesn’t have a developer background and admits that, working in the healthcare and scientific domains, she wouldn’t normally attend web tech events like this. But she came back for more because “As an end-user, I find it really interesting. As a company, Texere can learn quite a lot from these conferences.” To top it all off, Tracey says, “I've made contact with people today that I think we will probably end up doing business with.”
Register now and be a part of the 2019 TYPO3 Conference!
How do you navigate the CMS landscape with high-cost providers and feature-rich systems?
“If you go and buy an off-the-shelf system, you get everything that's within that box and you might not use a third of it. They do tend to be quite a lot of money as well. … And as a startup: every dollar, pound, euro counts.” - Tracey Peers, Texere Publishing
TYPO3 CMS met all of Tracey’s needs:
- Flexibility - and the ability to be future proof.
- Custom Tailored - to only use the features that Texere actually needed at that time.
- Open-source - the community are working on things for other companies that Texere can benefit from and vice versa.
How does open-source technology contribute to your success?
“As an end-user, you don't normally get to talk to the developers; they're kept away from you. So for me, open source is definitely the way to go because you can pick up the phone and talk to the developers. You can explain to them what you want and they can tell you if it can or can't be done. And from my experience, there is never a ‘no’, something can always be done. Especially in the TYPO3 community, because somebody is more often than not working on whatever it is you want. So it's been a fantastic experience for me.”
“It's extremely important as a company that when you're going down the open-source route, that you have the backing of your agencies. I felt extremely comfortable—knowing that I have to perform for my venture capital backers—that my agency would perform for me and in turn, make me look good and make Texere look good. And indeed that’s what we’ve done.”
How does TYPO3 CMS add value to Texere Publishing?
“Without good content delivered in a professional, quick manner, we haven't got anything. In the science and healthcare technology industries, people tend to assume that scientists don't care about design—and that's just not true. So it was important that our members got to read quality content in as few clicks as possible and weren't distracted by ads.
We do have revenue generation things within the site but they're done in a better way so as not to annoy the readers. That means that we retain our members because we provide good content. Without the members reading the content and engaging in their community, we haven't got anything—because we need the advertisers who want to sell their products to our readers.
So yeah, we're really happy with TYPO3. The way the community's working together to change things, moving over to 9, it certainly helped us retain our audience. I'm really excited for this new launch.”
What would you say to someone to convince them to come to a TYPO3 conference?
"If you want to meet some really nice people, don't be frightened. Don’t be frightened about asking questions—I've asked questions today and everybody is so helpful. You will definitely take good vibes away and you will absolutely learn something. So I would say sign up and come along.”
Come meet the TYPO3 Project in The Hague
The TYPO3 project community supports businesses built around TYPO3 CMS with a rich calendar of events and peer-recognition.
If you are looking for a CMS to build a business around or expertise and service providers to help take yours to new audiences and digital channels, join us in The Hague on 17-18 October 2019 for the 14th International TYPO3 Conference!
Register now for T3CON19 and join us there!
