+Pluscamp 2025

The joy of seeing each other again was already great on Thursday evening: the first conversations began in the check-in area and the welcome dinner on the terrace provided the perfect setting for exchanging ideas. With warm temperatures and a view of the Main, we ended the day with relaxed conversations and a cool drink in our hands.

Friday began with an opening speech by our CEO Jens Krumm. In it, he looked back on ten years of +Pluswerk AG. A lot has changed since then: new +Pluswerk partners, new technologies, +Pluscamps at different locations and several rebrands. This change has been accompanied by a great openness to new things and a lasting courage to develop further.

At Pluscamp, we also say "thank you" internally: after his opening speech, Jens Krumm received a special award from the Supervisory Board of +Pluswerk AG for his five-year anniversary as a member of the Management Board. The gift basket was presented by Hans-Jörg Raphael on his behalf - as a token of appreciation for five years of commitment, development and cohesion in our special network.

Friday was our central working day, which was all about further education and training. Immediately after the opening presentation by Jens Krumm, Daniel Fau (CEO TYPO3 GmbH) spoke in his keynote Life, Death & Ressurrection - How to live a timeless masterpiece about the challenges and opportunities that lie in our digital present and near future. Among other things, he addressed VUCA worlds, business models and the role of technology as a tool for collaboration and impact. It was a powerful, surprising and deliberately imperfect keynote that stuck with the audience.

Our partner Semikolon Coaching once again provided particularly practical impulses for the rest of the day. Three sessions enriched the program:

• In his communication training for customer meetings,Jeury Tavares showed how to give convincing and effective presentations using structure, body language and storytelling. With the help of practical techniques, including the development of key messages, he provided us with an extremely practical set of tools.
• Steffen Wienberg spoke about workshop design with an experiential character. His contribution was not only about the basics such as agenda and time planning, but also about the fine art of dramaturgy: How do we create a suspenseful arc? And how do we manage to actively involve participants without overwhelming them at the same time?
• Kathrin Keßler brought with her a wide range of tools and methods for successful seminars: From LEGO® Serious Play® and eigenland® to interactive voting formats with Mentimeter. Her workshop made it clear that good tools can massively increase the quality of workshops - if they are used sensibly.
  

After a delicious lunch break, Luisa Faßbender and Myrna Gönnemann (both TYPO3) took us straight into the further development of the CMS in their keynote speech TYPO3 in transition. They covered everything from community work to a new UX focus and open source ethics. In their presentation, they showed impressively how the platform is being led into the future step by step with the participation of the TYPO3 community.

Marc Löffler was represented with two sessions this year. In the session Teamplayer instead of Code Monkey, he spoke about the role of developers in agile everyday life and emphasized how important it is to take responsibility beyond one's own code. In his second session, Leading through the blaze, he posed the question: "How does leadership succeed when everything is changing?" His answer: passion, structure and a clear inner compass. The task of drawing the team as a jazz band - with improvisation and harmony - was also impressive.

Last but not least, Jonas Kröger from platform.sh held a remote session on "How to Pimcore PaaS" on Friday afternoon. This concluded an intensive training day that provided us with numerous impulses for our daily work as well as new perspectives and practical know-how. Learning together on site with colleagues from various +Pluswerk locations, who contributed their own experiences and perspectives, was also particularly valuable.

Between the content blocks on Friday, there was another special moment: awards for long-standing partnerships within the +Pluswerk network. The following were honored for their five-year affiliation: mobilistics from Dortmund, davitec from Dresden, buff.rocks from Magdeburg and Die Lobby from Regensburg. Dortmund-based raphael GmbH has been part of +Pluswerk for ten years, and because it is important to look not only to the past but also to the future, the youngest location - Earlybird from Vienna - also received a symbolic award to mark the start of the collaboration.

The evening was the perfect end to an intensive day: there was a delicious BBQ buffet, great conversation on the sun terrace and music that drew more and more +Pluswerkers to the dance floor. The atmosphere was exuberant, open and warm - a mixture of "See you again at last!" and "We're ready for more!". The atmospheric party photo above gives a small impression of the energy of the evening. And here, at the latest, it became clear: the +Pluscamp is more than just a network - it is an experience that connects us.

Saturday morning was all about digital accessibility. In their workshop, Claudio Zeni and Stefan Barac informed and sensitized the +Pluswerkers about the challenges that people with sensory impairments face in the digital world. Both speakers also spoke about their personal experiences with digital barriers: Claudio Zeni is blind from birth and Stefan Barac is neurodiverse.

In the first part, the speakers analyzed a website with a screen reader. Typical stumbling blocks became apparent: missing alternative texts, incorrect heading hierarchies and unlabeled form fields. Many participants were surprised that even seemingly accessible pages are often not navigable. Only semantically correct structuring with meaningful headings and labeled fields creates real accessibility. Online editors also bear responsibility: alt texts, comprehensible language and conscious media selection are decisive for actual accessibility.

The second part dealt with dark patterns - user interfaces that manipulate or confuse people. Cookie banners, automatically filled shopping baskets or unclear opt-out options are not only manipulative, but also barrier-laden. The practical exercises were particularly impressive: Using special glasses, the +Pluswerkers simulated visual impairments and then tried to book train tickets. A tremor unit on a laptop showed us how difficult precise mouse movements can be. We learned that accessibility concerns design and technology and always has a social impact.