The 2012 Imagine Conference, happening in Las Vegas, Nevada, is only a couple of weeks away (April 23-25, 2012). We are very excited to once again attend what is being called the "superbowl of eCommerce". The great thing about the Imagine Conference is that you get to meet a lot of people who are all doing different things with Magento - consultants (like us), store owners, developers, service providers, hosting companies, etc. The conference is already sold out which means it will be jam packed.

In the fall, StoreFront sent two of our developers to the Ebay / Magento Innovate conference to participate in the beta test of the Magento Developer certification program.  At the end of December the official results of the beta certification tests were announced, and I’m pleased to say that StoreFront now has two officially certified Magento developers.

We are very pleased that Magento now offers a developer certification program.  There is no doubt that Magento is very technically complex and requires expert hands.  We see the developer certification program as a way for individual developers and service providers to demonstrate their expertise with the platform.  Once the exam is officially released, all StoreFront developers will now be required to pursue certification.  I know we are all eagerly awaiting the challenge.

StoreFront Consulting is excited to be attending the upcoming x.commerce Innovate conference in San Francisco. We're looking forward to Blake Mycoskie of TOMS Shoes, The Shins and of course, finding out what crazy plans Magento and eBay have for the future. Contact us if you would like to setup a meeting while we're in the bay area.

I'm excited to be attending the upcoming Magento Imagine in LA this Febuary. This will be the inaugural Imagine conference and Magento has lofty goals for the event. They say: "the event will bring together eCommerce leaders for two days of discussion, learning, networking, inspiration... and of course – imagination!" Well I'm headed on the road to see what all the fuss is about.

Garth and I turned our road bikes into stationery attention getters and spun for 14 hours at the Fells Point Fun Festival in Baltimore, Maryland this past weekend.  We raised over $1600 for cancer research and education.  We gave out lots of LIVESTRONG bracelets, CDs with uplifting music, and a few t-shirts.  Our efforts were inspired and supported by GIVETOLIVE (http://www.givetolive.ca), an all-volunteer non-profit that organizes an annual bike ride (this year from Vancouver, British Columbia to Austin, Texas) to participate in the LIVESTRONG Challenge.  

One hundred percent of the donations we collected were given to LIVESTRONG Foundation.  LIVESTRONG has one of the highest rates of funds that actually go to research, and to helping those who struggle with the disease.