HeronGrace was an attendee at Joomla Day Boston 2015 on March 14 and 15, held at the Microsoft New England Research & Development Center at M.I.T. It was a great conference celebrating ten years of Joomla as one of the world's most popular open-source content management systems.
On that historical note, the event's two keynote presentations were great history lessons for those not familiar with the origins of Joomla. About 80 people from various locations were on hand to take part in the sessions over the weekend.
To kick off the conference, Kenneth Crowder's morning keynote began with a bit of pre-history during the time of Joomla's predecessor: Mambo Site Server, which was created by Miro Construct, Pty, in Melbourne, Australia. He covered the contentious period during which disagreements between the core team of developers and Miro CEO Peter Lamont over the open-source structure and ownership of Mambo led to the exiting of the developers and the formation of Joomla in 2005, and guided by the Open Source Matters (OSM) non-profit organization, which provides organizational, legal, and financial support for the Joomla open-source project.
Mixed into that was a momentary pause to acknowledge the moment of "Pi" at 9:26 AM (on March 14, 2015). Significant up to seven decimal points of "Pi" whose full is: 3.14159265359. They even served baked pies — blueberry, apple, cherry — to stay on theme.
Kenneth then rapidly covered the beginning of Joomla!, the search for and approval of a logo mark and typeface — not designed by a big-shot branding firm as previously thought — explained the reasoning behind the exclamation point in the logotype (for balance), and the various generations of the software as it evolved to what it is today.
To close the first day, Ryan Ozimek — former OSM Board President and popular Joomla evangelist — gave the main keynote celebrating 10 years of Joomla and in so doing, emphasizing the point that Joomla is a true community focused on gracefully accepting those who would contribute and finding ways to utilize whatever the community members may have to contribute, no matter the type, shape, or form the contribution may be.
In the evening there was an informal gathering at a local bar and grill called Meadhall adjacent to the Boston Marriott Cambridge. We had a private space upstairs on the mezzanine and lots of free beer and wine was available to attendees and a tasty buffet dinner was served. Lot's of networking was happening amidst a relaxed, jovial atmosphere.
There were a number of great sessions over the two days whose descriptions can still be viewed in the schedule on the conference site (as of this writing) at JoomlaDayBoston.com.
A simple list of topics included:
• Patents, copyrights, trademarks
• Web project management
• Joomla 3.4 and forward
• Javascript
• Dynamic content
• Migrating Joomla
• SEBLOD CCK
• Peer review
• Tips and tricks
• Content management
• Security
• Microdata
• Overrides
• Running a successful business with Joomla
• Bug Squashing
• Template development
• Fabrik
A new session for 2015 called Joomla for Beginners was particularly popular and came about from 2014 attendees suggestions.
Please visit JoomlaDayBoston.com and visit the Schedule page for full session descriptions.
It's exciting to see Joomla flourishing as the CMS of choice for a wide range of businesses and organizations. HeronGrace remains a dedicated Joomla advocate and user. Joomla, along with the CiviCRM full-featured fundraising management component and its built-in toolset for managing everything from capital campaigns, and events to constituent contacts and reporting, makes for a strong solution which empowers nonprofit organizations to do their important work.
HeronGrace is a consultancy focused on providing fundraising and management solutions to nonprofit organizations (NPOs).
