Wednesday, November 6th – DAY 2
If you haven’t read about the Day 1 Women of Sitecore sessions, start there!
Sitecore Symposium 2019 is next week and I did some hand counting and speaker profile research; 80%* of the Symposium 2019 speakers are male. The tech industry is famously male-dominated so I’m actually impressed that women speakers are represented at 20%. In 2018, Bloomberg found that only 30% of speakers at any type of conference were women. Women in tech have a ways to go to be represented equally. At Symposium, be on the lookout for my 50/50 pins that can apply to conference speakers, equal pay, or any other scenario where women aren’t yet represented equally. It’s meant to be an awareness tool for both men and women.

Nonetheless, this post is about our wonderful Day 2 Women of Sitecore speakers who WERE chosen to speak!
Day 2 Women of Sitecore speakers include Una Verhoeven, Deepthi Katta, Amanda Shiga, Ishraq Al Fataftah, Alison Sainsbury, and Rachael Ormiston.
*percentage is approximate
Marketers’ guide to getting started with Sitecore Cortex personalization suggestions
When: Wednesday, 10:30 – 11:15am
Una Verhoeven
Managing Partner, AmpleEdge
Are you curious what powers Sitecore Cortex holds straight out of the box? What will keep your visitor on your site? The answers lie in the “Marketer’s guide to getting started with Sitecore Cortex personalization suggestions.” Sitecore MVP Una Verhoeven will meld together your business value and customer site-browsing expectations.
In this culture of instant gratification, users visiting your site expect nothing less. Visitors “are very well informed and they want everything fast and they expect to know everything up front … There are tricks to accommodate that; how to slow them down; how to grab their attention,” says Verhoeven and she will be sharing these techniques in her session.
Who should attend? Cortex newbies, Marketers … AND Developers: “I don’t think there is such a difference as we think that there is between the marketers and developers, because in the end, the only way that you can get a positive outcome is if we work together … and understand marketers and their language,” adds Verhoeven.
More details about the session
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What makes you trust me? Perspectives on trust in an age of privacy and digital caution
When: Wednesday, 1:30 – 2:15pm
Ishraq Al Fataftah
CTO, Applez Tech
Rachael Ormiston
Director, Privacy Counsel, Sitecore
Alison Sainsbury
Senior Marketing Consultant, Sitecore
Amanda Shiga
Product Strategy, Sitecore
Luke Williams
Assoc. Director, Digital, Australian Catholic University
How can one trust what’s on the Internet? When shopping around, what gives a customer the ‘warm and fuzzies’ when it comes to choosing one brand, product, service, or company over another?
That’s the focus of this panel, which includes several Women of Sitecore. They will discuss diverse ways of building trust. “It’s becoming an increasingly competitive factor for organizations and certainly something that consumers are much more aware of than they used to be in terms of their data and privacy and how much they trust the organizations that they interact with,” says Amanda Shiga of Sitecore.
Joined by customer Luke Williams of Australian Catholic University, the panel is made up of a diverse set of background and disciplines that include perspectives from implementer and Sitecore MVP, Ishraq Al Fataftah CTO of Applez Tech, Sitecore SBOS team member, Alison Sainsbury, Amanda Shiga, Sitecore Product Strategy and Rachael Ormiston of Sitecore’s legal team.
Privacy and trust “has become such a topic of conversation. … and not just, finding checkboxes to meet baseline requirements and compliance. It’s about really building up that relationship of trust within your data governance and trying to find ways that make people want to partner with you,” says Ormiston.
Who should attend? If customer retention as it relates to privacy and trust is one of your customer’s concern, this is a must-attend session.
More details about the session
Netflix Next with Sitecore Cortex
When: Wednesday, 1:30 – 2:15pm
Deepthi Katta
Technical Architect, Verndale
Richard Leiva
Senior Engineer, Verndale
Hunker down in your seat with your favorite movie treat and tune in! Both Sitecore MVPs, Richard Leiva and Women of Sitecore advocate, Deepthi Katta, are using Netflix recommendations to show the powers of Sitecore in a less intimidating light. They will encourage you developers and architects to look at problems from another angle and give reasons to consider using Sitecore Cortex out of the box.
“Sitecore Cortex is a hook which allows you to connect to any machine learning platform that you would hypothetically want to, but you don’t have to get all the ducks in the row before you start,” says Sitecore MVP, Deepthi Katta. After this session you will “gain that confidence and walk away that yes, if these guys can do it, so can I.”
Who should attend?
Here’s another one for Cortex newbies. Architects and developers looking to weave in some Cortex in their design and implementation repertoire.
More details about the session
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Related:
Sitecore Symposium 2019 – Women of Sitecore Speak! – Day 1
Sitecore Symposium 2019 – Women of Sitecore Speak! – Day 3