The conference's two keynote presentations were great history lessons for those folks not familiar with Joomla's origins.
Kenneth Crowder, author of Using Joomla: Building Powerful and Efficient Web Sites gave the morning keynote. It was a bit of pre-history during the time describing Joomla's predecessor: Mambo Site Server, created by Miro Construct, Pty, in Melbourne, Australia. Crowder covered the contentious period during Mambo's rise in popularity during which disagreements between the core team of developers and Miro CEO Peter Lamont over the open-source structure and ownership of Mambo resulted in the exiting of the core developers and resulting formation of Joomla in 2005. Open Source Matters (OSM) a non-profit organization which provides organizational, legal, and financial support for the Joomla open-source project was formed during that time.
Humorously, a momentary pause to acknowledge the moment of "Pi" at 9:26 AM (on March 14, 2015) was worked into the keynote. "9:26" is significant because those numbers are the fifth, sixth, and seventh decimal place numbers in Pi., whose full number sequence is: 3.14159265359. Blueberry, Apple and Cherry pies were served later.
Crowder then covered the origins of Joomla!, including the search for and approval of a logo mark and typeface — actually not designed by a big-shot branding firm as previously thought — and explained the appearance of an exclamation point in the logotype (for balance).
Ryan Ozimek — former OSM Board President and popular Joomla evangelist — closed the first day with the main keynote celebrating 10 years of Joomla with an entertaining mix of slides and commentary. But his central message emphasized that Joomla is a community focused on ways to utilize whatever the community members may have to contribute, no matter the type, shape, or form the contribution may be in.
Later that evening there was a gathering at a local bar and grill called Meadhall adjacent to the Boston Marriott Cambridge in a private space on the mezzanine with lots of free beer & wine as well as a buffet dinner. We had a fun time networking and sharing stories.
There were a number of very informative sessions over the two days and the session descriptions can still be viewed in the schedule at the conference site: JoomlaDayBoston.com.
The general topics of the conference sessions included:
• Web site project management
• Patents, copyrights, trademarks
• Joomla 3.4 and forward
• Dynamic content
• Migrating Joomla 2.5 to 3.4
• Javascript
• SEBLOD CCK
• Peer review and management
• Content management
• Security overview
• Tips and tricks
• Microdata
• Running a successful business with Joomla
• Bug Squashing
• Overrides
• Joomla Template development
• Fabrik workshop
A popular new session called Joomla for Beginners came from 2014 attendee suggestions.
Please see the full session descriptions at JoomlaDayBoston.com on the Schedule page.
It's exciting to see Joomla furthering its place as the CMS of choice for a wide range of businesses and organizations and to see Joomla Day Boston growing as well. We are looking forward to next year's Joomla Day Boston!
