EngageU was a few short weeks ago in the stunning heart of Antwerp, Belgium, and I’m still feeling jazzed by it. The conference had nearly 250 people in attendance, from 27 countries! It’s truly The Place To Be for European developers (and their American fans, ahem).
Co-hosted by ClickWorks and Square Moon, EngageU has only been in existence for four years or so, but the team has quickly dialed it in. It is well-run, from the social media presence through the pre-conference Training Day, through two very full days of sessions and events. It felt like a mini-Engage.
Fellow Solianteer & pal Marcelo Piñeyro and I taught a Training Day on Claris Studio, and it was fun to dig further into that functionality and put it through its paces. Matt Navarre taught AI in a parallel Training Day session.
The conference itself was two full days of sessions and fikas (Swedish snack breaks). Of course, because we live in the world we live in, one track was basically all AI, but there were four tracks of sessions to attend, so there was plenty to choose from. Demos, client stories, new techniques, approaches to common problems: all the good stuff you’d hope for.
I had the opportunity to give a session expanding on Soliant’s effort to approach AI responsibly and also participated in the AI panel with Robert Holsey and Todd Geist. I always appreciate the chance to do this. The act of putting together a session forces you to slow down, gather more information, analyze it, and put it together in a way that makes sense. My day-to-day life doesn’t generally make space for deeper thinking and synthesis, so this was welcome.
Aside from AI, a few themes stood out to me.
Community
EngageU is first and foremost a gathering of developers, and the structure encouraged connection. It followed the old Engage model, which I’m hopeful Claris will be returning to in 2027:
- An optional pre-conference social event (at a very Belgian brewery, no less)
- An included dinner on the first night
- Plenty of time and space between sessions to connect
Claris
Having Claris’ endorsement means a lot. They were a sponsor of the event and sent a large group of the leadership team to the conference. We got to hear their keynote à la Engage, plus deeper dives into direction and upcoming features. And given the smaller conference size, if you had a question for someone from Claris, you were bound to find a time to chat. (Thanks to Lui de la Parra for the secondary SSL cert diagnosis for one of my clients, BTW!)
Calm
You may have noticed that there’s a bit of uncertainty in the world these days. Just in the narrow world of FileMaker development there’s uncertainty: what will AI do to our jobs? Are we moving fast enough? Is Claris moving fast enough?
I wasn’t looking for bombast and fireworks with Giuliano Iacobelli’s keynote. I was hoping for reassurance and a steady hand on the tiller, and that’s just what he delivered. The message I took home was “We’ve got you. Claris has always made advanced tech feel familiar to our developer community, and that’s exactly what we’re doing with AI. This isn’t a sea change.” When the hype machine is overwhelming, it’s a relief to hear from the adults in the room. That’s what Claris delivered at EngageU.
