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Help Wanted for the Joomla! Events Team

07.07.11

Since the start of the Joomla! Project we have had an Events Team.  This team created the Joomla!Day Charter and helped create the first of many Joomla!Days. Over time, the Joomla!Day organizers became more professional and the help of the Events Team was not as necessary.

Without a clear description of responsibilities or concept as to what this team should or can do, activities have reached a very low level: near zero, if we try to paraphrase it a little bit.

On the other hand, we have a lot of things in terms of events to do and to optimise. With this request for help I’ll try to fill the gaps.

There are lots of email marketing services: iContact, Mailchimp, Aweber etc etc.

But I don't think there has been a scientific test and review of how well they deliver, all of them give their deliverability rates, but how can we compare them?

I need your help to do this very test and compare these services, here's how...

The test is a simple one, gather a test group of volunteers (that's you) and then get a subscription to each service. We'll then send out an identic[...]

There are a few people whose every word I follow and try to incorporate into my business, and Brian Clark of CopyBlogger.com and Teaching Sells is one of them.

In 2008, Brian launched his Teaching Sells course. A complete guide to setting up and running and online paid membership websites. It was insanely popular, I joined up right when his doors opened, and so did people like Aaron Wall (of SEO Book).

After 2 rounds of students, Brian closed his doors and has been busy im[...]

If you haven't seen it yet, Joomlashack has a March basketball inspired 15% off everything sale this Wednesday through Friday.

The magic code is "mad15" - use it to grab their new templates or their great new Picnik Editor for Joomla that lets you edit images right in Joomla's backend.

If you've been following the developments lists (or even if you haven't), you've noticed a flurry of activity around Joomla 1.6 in recent months. While we haven't been very good about keeping our milestones, there are a few very good reasons for that.

The first and biggest reason is we've been trying to shoot at a moving target. The scope for Joomla 1.6 was pretty basic—adding ACL and nested categories. Had we stopped there, we could have theoretically had Joomla 1.6 out by now. But while working on it, we and others in the community have been constantly saying to ourselves "wouldn't it be really friggin' cool if Joomla had...?" This kind of scope creep happens all the time in the real world, and there's a propensity to go overboard when our hands aren't forced on a specific deadline. There's always that "one last thing" we can squeeze in.

Secondly, it's the fallacy that "this will only take a few minutes to implement." Many developers (and not just developers) often fall victim to the notion that a task will be short, only to discover that it's more complex under the surface than initially thought. Minutes quickly turn into days or even weeks. It's human nature.

Third of all, there's a feeling that if something doesn't go in now, it won't go into the Joomla core for years to come. We have a pretty progressive roadmap for the next versions of Joomla and we'll try to keep a regular pace of development. Since Joomla progress is primarily determined by its contributors, the pace will be commensurate with such. So while this isn't true, some have the feeling it is.

In the past, we've had some false starts and sometimes been unclear about direction or needs, but we hope to be better at it. The Joomla Project has taken a lot of criticism during it's relatively short existence, which, deserved or not, comes with the territory. But, all in all, we're all working towards a common goal of making the next version of Joomla as powerful, extensible, and compatible as it can be.

If you work with Joomla, you know full well that the community is pretty vocal about the things they like and don't like. Joomla events are prime occasions where we receive feedback on what's working for people and what isn't. There may not always be an answer to every issue, but we do listen.

Essentially, the process of working on Joomla 1.6 is where all of this activity comes together—all those emails, forum discussions, Joomla Days, and other random "ingredients" of information go into a giant bubbling cauldron and soon becomes (hopefully) the tastiest soup you've ever eaten. Decisions are made based on what ingredients we can combine and recommending against others that won't taste good (or even spoil the stew). All is done with a keen eye on the quality of the end-product—it has to look good and taste good.

At this time, the bubbling cauldron of Joomla 1.6 is getting near time for us all to get our first good taste. We've added the ACL, nested categories work, a new Article Manager is written, new core libraries like JForm have been added, and we're working on fresh new templates for both the front-end and the back-end. We're also working on a way to make upgrading from Joomla 1.5 as painless as possible. So, in order to get a round of solid feedback from the community, we're looking to release a second Alpha very soon and follow up with a quick Beta after that.

So please be patient.

I'm pleased to announce that the OSM Board has new leaders filling critical roles in our organization.

During the past few months, I've spearheaded a project inside Open Source Matters (OSM) to delineate clear roles and responsibilities for a few important positions within our organization.  The goal of this project was to enable our team to more effectively match board members' talents with positions that set them up for success and provided clear objectives and responsibilities.  By putting this project into action, Board members are able to clearly understand what is expected of them within each position, as well as measure their success more objectively with metrics developed by them and their fellow teammates.

This project also provides the Board an opportunity to have a written understanding of the scope these positions.  In the professionalizing of our Board, I strongly believe that actually writing down these positions roles and responsibilities are key to us achieving our goals, and keeping our sanity.  I've even gone as far as to tell candidates for Board positions that one of their key goals should be to find ways to make themselves "obsolete", or in other words, ensure that when it's time for them to hand over their leadership position to another colleague, the new leader can focus on innovation rather than needing to rebuild systems from scratch.

So I have been updating my Joomla book website, I discovered a problem with my RSS. Ironically, I discuss exactly NOT doing what I did in the book, but do as I say, not what I do (or something).I wanted to redesign my home page. Right now its a category blog - an obvious choice for book news - and then fixed content in the category description. I wanted to change because it's difficult to manage the meta description in Joomla in this layout, so I wanted to change it to a uncategorized article, and then load { loadposition } to show news links.

If your are looking for a different editor for your Joomla 1.5 based website, you should really check out the best free editor JoomlaFCK, read here more about this great Plugin.

Post from: Joomla SEO Blog by Pathos-Seo.com

After just having a chat with my brother about the growth of Joomla usage, and overall size/scope of Joomla's user-base I came across the following screenshot which Johan posted on flickr :

Joomla has just released the new 1.5 stable version, please check it out and try a sample install on your own local pc and see how the SEF options also work in your windows based machine!

Post from: Joomla SEO Blog by Pathos-Seo.com

The following draft text has been drawn up in order to clarify and further define the nomination and election process to OSM board positions. We invite you to submit your feedback via the Joomla! People site link at the bottom. Thank you! 

Elections: Two calendar periods are generally planned for elections each year: April and October. Exceptions can be made if the board vitally needs specific skills (for example, if the Treasurer leaves).

Number of Board members: The recommended number of board members to carry out the responsibilities of OSM is 13. This number may fluctuate up to 15 or down to 11.

Term Limits: All future board appointments will be for one 2-year period with exceptions possible if the board vitally needs specific skills (Treasurer, Legal Council).

Selection Criteria:

• Community: nominees should have a strong track record of successfully collaborating with, enabling others, and earning the respect of the Joomla! community.
• Character: nominees should have demonstrated integrity, with a history of acting honestly, fairly and openly when in leadership roles.
• Experience and Expertise: nominees being proposed for specific roles should have strong experience and expertise in those areas.
• Success: nominees should be able to point to a history of success and leaving previous roles in a better state than when they arrived.
• Diversity: our goal is to work toward, and honor gender and cultural diversity. We are committed to seeking nominations from all talented and dedicated members of our international Joomla! community.

Election Procedure:

• Public nominations open on the 1st of the month and close on the 14th. Nominations must be made with the agreement of the nominee.
• The OSM board examines the candidates and suggests names to the Community Oversight Committee (COC) before the end of the month.
• The COC approval takes 10 business days to approve or reject the names.
• OSM contacts the successful and unsuccessful nominees. 

Click here for discussion and feedback on the Joomla! People site.

Joint Summit Attendees:

CLT: Peter Martin, Paul Orwig, Wendy Robinson, Sandra Warren
OSM: Robert Deutz, Alice Grevet, Dianne Henning, Sandy Ordonez, Paul Orwig, Ryan Ozimek, Jacques Rentzke, Marijke Stuivenberg, Akarawuth Tamrareang, Altansukh Tumenjargal
PLT: Chris Davenport, Mark Dexter, Louis Landry, Sam Moffatt, Omar Ramos, Ron Severdia, Jean-Marie Simmonet, Andrea Tarr

Where we came from:

Topics Covered and Action Items (where applicable) Created

The following is a brief summary of the topics discussed. Detailed reports will be published as they are produced.

1. Removal of the AGPL license from the Joomla Contributor Agreement (JCA)
   
   It was unanimously voted to discontinue the AGPL license. This lessens restrictions and will open up the project to more contributors.
2. Restructuring
   
   The Joomla Leadership, including the Open Source Matters board, Community Leadership Team, and Production Leadership team, recognize that our current leadership structure could be more effective.  Communication between our teams and the community needs improvement, and oversight needs rethinking.  As a team, we strive to be more effective leaders for the community. To achieve this, we have begun extensive discussions about the project’s leadership structure. This discussion is early and on-going.  As we consider important changes to continue on a path towards more effectiveness, we intend to request community input and feedback to help us in this important effort.
3. Communications - External
   
   The communications breakout discussion was one of the most lengthy. Audiences and current communications channels were identified - there are many! A review was made of the document produced by the current communications team this past spring, defining what is communications. Roles and responsibilities for the communications team moving forward were listed. Action items include: condensing the 12 newly defined roles into a more manageable list and begin identifying potential owners for these roles. Candidates must have a passion for communications and experience in the specific area (marketing, branding, graphics, etc).
4. Communications Internal
   
   A working group will be started to bridge the gap when communication needs a boost between the community and the JUGs, the JED, events, merchandise and trademark. A comprehensive leadership directory wiki will be created for a better flow of leadership communication and troubleshooting. The communications team volunteers to disburse intra team communications, and facilitate intra team conflict resolution, including the creation of a FAQ list within the wiki for that purpose.
5. Internationalization
   
   While English is the common language in the software world, the majority of the world population does not speak English. To increase Joomla’s presence in a proactive way and recruit more non-English-speaking volunteers, the following action items will be implemented: concentrating our efforts in the different regions of the world by identifying one or two community coordinators / contact persons in each region; compiling a list of currently active local communities and JUGs and see if there are any groups which have not yet been accounted for; identifying their needs, the nature of their communities, and recruiting translation help to update the Joomla info pages.
6. Roadmap and Goals
   
   This discussion first explored the benefits of creating a public unified roadmap that encompasses the entire scope of the Joomla! project. After that, the discussion continued to define a process for creating a public unified roadmap that also includes periodic public progress updates from leadership.
   
   The process for creating a public unified roadmap involves: Leadership defines and publishes an overall mission statement for the project. This is high level and conceptual.
   
   Each leadership team defines and publishes their team’s mission statement, which should support the project’s overall mission. Each leadership team’s mission statement may need to be revised to insure that they all tie in well with the overall project mission statement. Each leadership team defines and publishes their annual goals which support their team’s mission statement. For each leadership team’s goals, the following supporting details will be added and published: milestones (achievement and target completion date); action items (each task required to progress toward achieving the milestone; resource(s): volunteer or paid workers, financial (specify the purpose and budget line item); features (if applicable), action items (if applicable), resources (if applicable). Each leadership team publishes periodic updates during the course of the year regarding their progress on each of their goals.
7. Volunteer Recruitment and Rentention
   
   The PLT discussed forming a Joomla Outreach Project (JOP), where a "bucket" of tasks is created by teams, using the wiki. Community members would be invited to join these teams, and they would work in alignment with development goals, under the guidance of the PLT. Incentives (such as T-shirts) would be awarded upon the completion of each set of tasks.
   
   Volunteer Now is a plan for recruiting new team members, because teams should be created to manage recurring, long-term tasks that require deeper knowledge. A volunteer engagement page will be created on the wiki, and a Volunteer Now button will link to it from the joomla.org home page. In the wiki a future volunteer will find documentation on how and why we build teams, and contacts for the projects major teams and assets.
   
   A concept will be drafted listing outreach ideas for engaging university students.
   
8. Process Improvement
   
   Regarding processes and messages in correspondence (for example, in areas of trademark, the JED and events), we often need more differentiation and adapted responses to specific situations.
   
   Action items include: reviewing our texts to verify if we are using a friendly approach aimed at optimizing communication; listing and identifying situations and creating responses adapted to them; simplifying language.
9. Review Developer Sponsorship Program
   
   We talked about the state of the Developer Sponsorship Program and how we handle the involvement of sponsored development time from companies and guide this process more effectively in the future. One Idea was to move from pre to post recognition and use a to-do list and let people pick from the “cookie jar” list to sponsor development time.
   
   Action items include: speaking with the existing sponsors about their experience and writing a report; deciding if a money only approach or money and development time approach is best, finding a volunteer to manage the cookie jar.
10. Certification
    
    A 1 - 2 plan of certification ideas and how to approach them will be drafted. Feedback from each leadership team will be gathered. The plan will include creating levels for web masters, designers and instructors of joomla, creating a curriculum and courses template for trainers, financial and licensing fees to create more revenue, a test database infrastructure.
11. Improving Recruitment of New Developers
    
    A story we want to help tell is that Joomla can provide students with CS degrees experience on a global team that goes far beyond just a curriculum. Action items include creating a spreadsheet where we can determine which events developers are attending, and writing a one page messaging document outlining persuasive reasons why the Joomla Platform and CMS are useful for developers, and target university students.
12. Long Term Roadmap
    
    We talked about the process for establishing goals and milestones for the Joomla project long term releases. Once every 6 months the PLT and developers will meet just before or after an existing event such as a Joomla Day or JandBeyond. We are hoping to do the first one this fall where milestones and goals for the July 2013 long term release will be discussed.

The entire leadership would like to thank eBay for the use of its offices for our summit, and Louis and Ron for coordinating with them. Thanks to Rochen we had tasty lunches, ordered with care by Wendy. And Gunner, our Summit Facilitator Extraordinaire kept us on target and on time!

For comments and feedback click here

Do you have questions about Joomla? We know you do. Whether it's a question about how to do something, what the Joomla roadmap is, what the project has planned, how to contribute to the project, or anything else, we'd like to hear from you. Jen and Barrie will pick answers to address in the newsletter. Post your question in the comment thread below, and we'll work on getting some answers to you!

I have previously blogged about online reputational management, but a more recent event came my way today, and I thought it was interesting to see the effects over a longer term, and the dismal response from the company involved.

Last year United Airlines hit the press about breaking somebody's guitar.

Not such huge news probably, United has lots of passengers, and probably damages lots of bags, but this guitar belonged to a singer who made a song and video about his trials.

The result was a MASSIVE fallout for United, with the video on YouTube getting millions of hits, and the story even making CNN.

What truly amazes me is when I search for "United Breaks Guitars" on Google, there are hundreds of results about this story, but nothing I can see from United.

Heck, there is even a Facebook and Wiki page about it now!

Over the last week weeks I have be preparing for my graduate class (starts Saturday!) on Web 2.0 Marketing with Joomla. I was on the lookout for a simple plugin that could provide a Tweet this link to twitter and show it in blog posts and articles.

I was surprised that I couldn't find one, apart from the Javascript "tweetmeme" script. This works well, but inserts *their* twitter name into the tweet.

So, I pinged Fotis at Joomlaworks and we collaborated on an easy sol [...]

You probably didn't notice, but recently we have republished the "Support Joomla!" page. We also have a new "Support Joomla!" module for anyone to use. This is exciting because for the past several years we have not been able to ask the Joomla! Community for financial support. What happened?

As I mentioned back in February, at the advice of our attorneys, and with a lot of reflection, the board of Open Source Matters (OSM)  had been exploring the possibility of "correcting" its corporate charter. Those corrections have now been made, and this post will explain what that means. The specific changes could not be discussed previously because they were legal advice, but now we can do so. There are complicated legal and financial reasons for making these changes which I am going to try to explain in this post.   It will be a little heavy going, so before I start let me stress the two main points:

• OSM will always remain a not for profit organization.
• This change will allow OSM to ask for money for support of the Joomla! Project.

  
  

  
  
  
  
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