I’m currently flying back from London, where I attended the annual ExpressionEngine conference, EEConf, having reconnected with some of the smartest, most caring people I know.
Two weeks ago, I was at SVI Alberta at Métis Crossing, also filled with some of the smartest, most caring people I know.
“Contrast and compare,” my English teacher insisted. “Find commonalities, explore differences.” Well, here’s a perfect opportunity.
SVI Alberta
SVI is a business conference like no other. There’s singing. There’s tears. There’s intimate stories of intense struggle and of wild successes. The Northern Lights came out to celebrate us, and we had barely any Internet connectivity the whole time.
Northern Lights over the RV at Métis Crossing
People attending have huge visions of creating a world that’s better than today, that’s better than themselves, that’s better than it ever was. And the organizers—you can see the thought and care that they put in to curating a special experience for every single participant.
While I certainly feel like part of the SVI community, and that my company, Hop Studios, belongs, I feel in that world more like a moon than a planet, more like a roadie than a band member.
I always learn a lot, and decompress and think big picture thoughts at an SVI conference. It’s ... refreshing! It’s a chance for me to think about bigger picture and not the daily grind.
But one main reason I attend SVI: I’m there to help.
To help others who are doing important work to untangle their technology problems and their internet frustrations and the incomprehensible emails from hosting companies and SaaS firms they subscribe to . (Many attendees at SVI don’t know what SaaS stands for. Or SMTP, or CSS, SSO, CSP…)
This time, I helped Christina Owczarek, solve an issue with the menu on her mobile site. I helped Carrie Liu update her iPhone. I delivered food with Laurel Dault to an attendee who was hotel-room-bound. For Philip Lozano, I did troubleshooting on the One-on-One signup sheets, and hosted a late night owl discussion of how A.I. use can be done responsibly. For Ryan Lacanilao, I offered design and UI feedback about the living wage site before their annual press attention.
That’s what HOP Studios does—Helping Other People, Helping Our Planet.
Gathering on the patio at the beginning of the SVI Alberta conference
I’d truly like to be able to help every single attendee of SVI.
I think the most SVI folks don’t quite understand the depth of resources that Hop Studios has, and how strongly all the folks at Hop Studios are committed to supporting the values of the SVI community and all the worthwhile projects that need the internet to work better for them.
EEConf 2025
Meanwhile, at EEConf, it was a very different role and setting, and yet in key ways a very similar experience.
EEConf, the annual global gathering for the content management system, ExpressionEngine, *is* in fact a business conference exactly like every other.***
It was held at London’s Business Center; folks stay at a nearby business hotel; it has projectors and lapel mics and coffee breaks and T-shirt swag and people checking email constantly and sponsored networking events and people sharing ubers in busy downtown areas and all that jazz, and we had barely any Internet connectivity the whole time. 😉
*** OK, if you watch the promo videos for the conference, you’ll see the wonderful sense of humor shine through and that perhaps it’s not exactly a typical tech conference.
This year, EEConf was a good mix of operational insights and technical talks—I especially loved the one from Laravel expert Freek Van der Herten—and the open-mic at the end was as excellent as always.
In the EE community, Hop Studios is an established, multi-decade global leader. We have written more custom add-ons than my hands can count.
As Hop Studios, we regularly solve some of the biggest, most interesting web challenges, usually using ExpressionEngine. And we give back: we continuously improve the docs and contribute to the core. Indeed, this year we reported a fix for the oldest bug in ExpressionEngine ever found.
Hop Studios loves the whole EE community… and the EE community seems to really like Hop Studios too.
Attending EEConf this year as Hop’s owner, I felt a little like royalty.
Conference organizer Lydia Chu ‘forces’ me to eat a delicious pastry for my birthday.
(It may have contributed to the feeling that it was held in London. And also that it was my birthday. And extra also that they made me eat cake. 😊
I’m so grateful to the #EECMS community for helping Hop Studios flourish all these years, and the conference is one place I always try to share knowledge back as well. I’ve been using EE for a long time, and I still learned new tricks in every single presentation—Gavin, I love that layout list loop you demoed!
This year, I did a talk about Content Security Policy Headers and the add-on we wrote to make it (somewhat) less painful to implement CSP directives and protect your site against XSS attacks—still the single largest source of website compromises.
The conference was my annual reminder that the EE community is hands down the best online community—sharing code & solutions, tech support, online resources and just nice compliments.
That’s also why Hop Studios is a cornerstone sponsor of the conference. Not to “get our name out there,” but out of genuine gratitude for the people who give so much to each other all year long
I truly love the EE community. It’s always been the most generous, supportive tech community I’ve experienced—and I’ve spent a ton of time in a lot of Internet sub-groups. I’ve attended Wordpress Camps, Moveable Type meetups, Drupal Cons.
I went to Wikimania at Harvard. I’ve attended the biggies, too: Web Summit, Internet World, SXSW, E3, ComicCon San Diego.
From all those gatherings, I’ve found there are certainly supportive sub-groups within each. They all have their stellar, special humans.
But I loved the way that the EEConf treated newcomers as well as it did the old-timers. Folks were welcomed at every level of experience; the talks really did offer something for every level of participant.
In fact, the only other event I can think of that without fail captures that same overall and uncompromised spirit of generousity, the spirit that’s the hallmark of the ExpressionEngine community is… SVI.
