Acquia Engage 2021
What is Acquia Engage?
The annual Acquia Engage conference features two full days of marketers, developers, and industry experts gathering to work towards radical innovation through a variety of keynotes and sessions focused on digital business strategy, networking opportunities, and live booths for discussions with Acquia partners and sponsors. A central part of the conference is the Acquia Engage Awards event, with awards presented for the most innovative digital experiences built using Acquia products.
This year's conference included sessions across four tracks for Marketing, IT, Developer, and DXP leaders, which drew a diverse conference audience that encouraged new connections and collaborations. Several sessions focused on Acquia’s new acquisitions such as Widen, AgilOne (now called Acquia Customer Data Platform (CDP)), and Acquia Digital Experience (DX) Alliance Partners such as commercetools.
The acquisition of Widen expands Acquia Digital Experience Partners’ ability to manage rich media and product information. The new Acquia Customer Data Platform compiles customer data from multiple sources into a single customer profile to provide rich analytics, segmentation, orchestration, and identity resolution features. Finally, the commercetools platform is built on modern MACH (Microservice-based, API-first, Cloud-native, and Headless) principles, and offers comprehensive commerce functionality. Northern is excited about the possibilities these technologies can provide and currently evaluating how they can be utilized by our clients.
As an Acquia Certified Partner, attending Acquia Engage helps Northern stay on the cutting edge of Acquia’s products and services so that we continue to offer the most innovative and strategic solutions to our clients. Part of Northern’s commitment to our partners and the digital community includes the importance of sharing our expertise as a full-service eCommerce agency. This year, Northern’s Account Director Chris McInnis collaborated with our client WSIB and partner Acquia to deliver the Infinite Flux: Keeping up with Digital Compliance and Security session about the WSIB HSEP Portal project. The session focused on the importance for organizations to protect the content and data of their digital experiences, with an explanation of Acquia’s approach to compliance and security.
For WSIB, the partnership with Northern and Acquia allowed for rapid deployment of proof-of-concept and minimum viable product iterations of a new digital experience that helped them to modernize health and safety for Ontario organizations. WSIB’s resulting Health and Safety Excellence program’s portal launched in 80 days, allowing them to recruit almost 2,500 businesses representing 900,000 employees just prior to the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Acquia Engage Awards
With Acquia’s latest product innovations at its core, the conference celebrates the most ambitious Drupal digital experiences with the prestigious Acquia Engage Awards. The Acquia Engage Awards recognize high-impact digital experiences that organizations around the world are building with the Acquia Open Digital Experience Platform (DXP), including Acquia Drupal Cloud and Acquia Marketing Cloud.
Acquia declared Northern the winner of two Acquia Engage Awards. Northern and Albany Law School were recognized as the Engage Award winner in the Leader of the Pack in the Education category. In addition, Northern and London Hydro have been recognized as the Engage Award winner in the Leader of the Pack in the Energy/Utilities category.
About our winning projects
Northern built a new Drupal 8 digital experience for London Hydro which is a fully responsive, WCAG 2.0 AA compliant solution that delivers content and services to users quickly and with ease. By combining the corporate website with a digital self-service portal, London Hydro can deliver frequent, effective, timely, and multi-directional communications and digital interaction points to all their audiences.
Albany Law School partnered with Northern in 2020 to develop its new digital experience. The new solution is fully accessible, mobile-first, with improved navigation and search functionality, that integrated Albany’s seven Centers using subsite functionality. The integration of Acquia’s Site Studio ensures all departments use the most updated brand and allow Albany’s positioning and key differentiators to shine.
Acquia Practice Certification
During Engage, Acquia also announced the new Acquia Practice Certification program. Following a challenging qualification process, Acquia announced that Northern is one of nine Acquia Practice Certified Partners, with Drupal Cloud Certification. This certification is the highest level of achievement for Acquia partners, and shows our clients that Northern is certified as an agency that delivers transformative digital experiences on Drupal Cloud. Certification eligibility is based on project experience, operational excellence, business value expertise, understanding of Acquia’s processes, and continuous improvement in our practice.
Our team at Northern is always learning and innovating new digital experiences that drive measurable results for our clients. If your organization is ready for digital transformation, contact Northern today.