TYPO3 Surf & Code – A Recap

What do coding, beaches, surf lessons and around 30 TYPO3 enthusiasts have in common? At first glance not too much, right? At second glance however, these factors, when thrown together, create a surprisingly perfect, future-proof synergy. Sounds weird? It’s not.?

Let me tell you about the first ever #TYPO3 Surf Camp.?

A bold statement upfront: We have a significant problem with attracting new young professionals into the TYPO3 Community. That’s a fact and I’m pretty sure you will all agree with me on that. Coding nights with pizza and cold beers just don’t seem to cut it anymore when it comes to sparking the TYPO3 flame in young professionals.?

That’s why the TYPO3 Association tried something completely different and never been done before: A surf camp in Fuerteventura solely for people between the ages of 18 and 35 with the purpose of bringing together young TYPO3 enthusiasts to build up the next generation of our beloved TYPO3 Community. And let me tell you: It worked.?

From 7 to 14 April 2024, thirty young professionals from diverse backgrounds (backend and frontend development, marketing, project management and design) made their way to beautiful sunny (and windy) Fuerteventura to embark on this adventure. Finding new peers within their age group and actively creating input on the upcoming TYPO3 v13.4 LTS – releasing on 15 October 2024.?

The Journey to Fuerteventura

From TYPO3 GmbH’s side Joeline Bersch , Andreas, our videographer Sebastian and myself started our journey to the Canary Island on Saturday, 6 April 2024 from Düsseldorf. One almost 5 hour flight later we arrived in 25 degrees and glaring sunshine – could be worse! Our impromptu last minute Business Class upgrade surely added to our lovely experience flying with Condor (who btw also use TYPO3 for their intranet).

After collecting our luggage we met almost all of the other participants in our designated meeting spot in the airports’ entrance hall. A weird, but already really comforting feeling seeing most of the so far unfamiliar faces in person for the first time. From my perspective: An instant feeling of community and belonging. We then split into groups, picked up our rental cars and were on our way to our hotel in La Pared. Just about an hour (and quite a bit of stress sweat due to the driving conditions on Fuerteventura) later, we arrived, checked in and got settled. The first night during dinner and – of course – drinks at the hotel bar, our mission became increasingly clear. Grow our community and build meaningful connections. Personally, my heart was already full and content within the first couple of hours. And this feeling didn’t stop as the week went by.?

Welcome to Surf & Code

The actual surf camp started on Sunday, 7 April, with an official welcome from our group of mentors in the big “yoga”room – the main hall we would meet regularly during the week. The introduction included not only a warm welcome, but also the announcement of some organizational topics, the separation into the project teams for the week as well as a first basic introduction into the “surfing” part of the event from our surfing instructors Seppi and Frida from Nalusurf.?

The six cross functional teams were going to be working on the first six official TYPO3 presets, which will be included in the release of TYPO3 v13.4 LTS in mid October.?

Presets? What’s a preset?

I’m glad you’re asking :-) Let me tell you!?

TYPO3 Presets were formerly known as themes – standardized frontend output for TYPO3 installations – comparable to what quite a few other content management systems offer. You might know this from Wordpress for example. But that’s not all – because TYPO3 presets are more than just frontend output. Presets are predefined packages, available as extensions in the extension repository, offering frontend output, predefined pages and content, settings, as well as backend users and user groups. In conclusion: by installing a preset, you receive a pretty much out of the box and ready-to-use TYPO3 installation. Just customize the colors, content and add your logo – and you’re good to go!?

The first six presets were created for the following topics and use cases:

1. Public Sector Intranet
2. Sports Club Website
3. Restaurant Website
4. Marketing Landing pages
5. Portfolio Website
6. Corporate Website

But in the long run, the thought behind the presets is that agencies can create their own, agency-specific project preset to reuse again and again. To eliminate recurring tasks and efforts. Going perfectly hand in hand with one of the two main goals of version 13 LTS.?

… and that’s exactly what we were working on during TYPO3 Surfcamp.?

After a live-merge of the new site sets feature by Benjamin Franzke, the stage was set for the next generation to take over with one goal in mind: Finish the preset by the end of the week.?

From progress to perfection?

Spoiler: While that didn’t work out for all groups (mine included), seeing everyone’s daily progress in the evening presentations was astounding. Different people from different agencies and professional backgrounds surely require a whole lot more communication and collaboration as initially expected – definitely one of the core takeaways from this experience for most of us. And especially interesting for me – as I’m the one with the most agency contact out of the participants – standards and processes vary immensely and I’m really thankful to have been made aware of this for the future. The standards I acquired during my eight years as a project manager at my previous TYPO3 agency job are – surprisingly, I know – not the same ones as other participants' ones. Once that was solved via in-depth communication within our team, things improved and we were able to almost finish our preset on time.

Two out of the teams were successful in their mission and you can already test their presets in your TYPO3 v13 based installations:

• Portfolio Preset: https://extensions.typo3.org/extension/theme_portfolio

From progress to perfection? (Surfing edition)

Remember that I wrote? something about surfboards and beaches in the beginning? Now it’s time to talk about the “fun” part of surf camp – the “surfing”. Or in my case: elegant stomach paddling with the occasional washing machines – as our surf instructor lovingly called it, when a wave entirely swallowed you and left you looking and feeling like a wet dog in the shower.?

After a really successful first morning of surf lessons covering the literal basics of surfing (the correct placement of your body on the board, paddling and keeping your balance as you lift your upper body from the board) – I was enchanted and highly motivated for the remaining surfing days. We had almost perfect beginner circumstances with only a light current, light wind and easy going white-water baby waves.?

.. let’s just say day 2 was humbling. The ocean welcomed us with a strong current, strong wind and bigger waves. Safe to say I did not manage to stand up on day two – or three to be completely honest. Some of us however were thankfully more talented than I am and actually managed to make some strong improvements after just a couple of days. I just made it my job to film the others during their success – success management, you know? ;-)?

I’d like to thank Ralf, Seppi and Frida from the surfing school Nalusurf personally once more here. Thank you for your patience with us and your heartfelt support during the week – It was an honor and a pleasure to get to know you and we’re all looking forward to keeping in touch! I’ll be coming back for more surfing lessons once all of my acquired bruises have faded.?

Community, bar nights, late night beach trips & Amicab

What else did we do? If I told you about every single thing happening this week, this would probably require an entirely separate landing page. So let’s keep it nice and short for readability sake.

As if the regular program consisting of surfing in the morning, teamwork in the afternoon and the evening presentations weren’t already enough for a single week, we got to experience even more! And yes, you might assume correctly: Sleep was the only thing slightly missing during this entire adventure.?

We:

• … got to experience beautiful sunsets at La Pared beach – with the relaxing sound of the waves hitting the shore in the background. I could have stayed there forever honestly.
• … spent a beautiful evening at the animal sanctuary Amicab – with loads of cute animals, drinks and Dj Chris Becks.?
• … tested our knowledge in some really weird categories during our TYPO3 Surf camp Jeopardy session (Thank you again, Susanne Moog !).?
• … spent another equally beautiful evening with a relaxing deep house set and delicious Aperol Spritzes at Café Cervato.
• … sat together until 3 or 4 in the morning at the already closed hotel bar bonding over the funniest stories and topics.?
• … took yoga sessions, enjoyed the pool and jacuzzi or went hiking and mountain biking to get a feeling of the slowed down island way of life.?

Final thoughts

I honestly just want to thank all mentors, organizers and participants for this once in a lifetime experience and I’m really thankful to have been able to be part of the first ever edition of TYPO3 Surf camp.?

The most pressing question I got so far: Is there going to be another Surf camp in 2025? The answer is: I don’t know. Maybe. I certainly hope so. And I’ll let you know, I promise.?

Thanks again to my team – Team Jacuzzi: Oliver Bartsch from b13 GmbH , Kirk Kleinau from KM2 >> GmbH , Fjora Hodo from contenance GmbH , Filippos Karpouchtsis from GMK and of course our mentor Susi Moog from team neusta Unternehmensgruppe . It was a pleasure to work with you!?

If you read all the way until here: Thank you, too. And thank you, dear TYPO3 Association for enabling the next generation. This was exactly what we needed to kick off a bright future for TYPO3.