4 minutes reading time (838 words)

If you want to build a ship...

July

Tuesday, 01 June 2010

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Welcome to the new Joomla! Community Magazine! All of us on the JCM team want you to know how delighted we are that you are here. There’s quite a variety of content here and you will find lots of great stories to hold your interest. When you read something that makes an impression, please be sure to leave a comment.

We are here to tell stories about websites and stories about software, but most of all we are here to tell stories about people. People who create and innovate with Joomla!. People who use Joomla! to share with others, help others, and connect with others. People who extend it and design for it. And people who volunteer their time to build it, improve it, test it, support it, document it, administer it, secure it, answer questions about it, translate for it, and lead it.

But in addition to all of that, we also want to tell your story. We have put a lot of effort into building a team of friendly and helpful editors who want to help you with your Joomla! story. So as you read these stories, reflect a bit about what you would like to share with the rest of this amazing global community. And then when you’re ready, we invite you to register to become a JCM author, submit an article, and add your Joomla! story to the others here.

Acknowledgements

I want to thank Amy Stephen for inviting me in October 2009 to join some preliminary discussions about what would eventually become the JCM, and for her unwavering devotion to this project. I want to thank Fotis Evangelou along with his partner Chris Marinou for donating their time and the services of their Komrade development company which has created a dynamic K2 based JCM design that is perfectly suited to our multi-author magazine format website.

I want to thank Brad Baker and Ole Bang Ottosen from the Community Leadership Team who were both instrumental in shepherding this project, and Ron Severdia who has been a steadfast supporter on the Production Leadership Team. From OSM, I want to thank Elin Waring for her guidance and support, Ryan Ozimek for his encouragement, and Steve Burge for his proactive help to get the word out about the JCM in his role as OSM Community Liason. I would also like to thank Production Leadership Team members Andrew Eddie for his time and attention in conducting a thorough security audit of K2, and Louis Landry for his work on a forthcoming custom extension which will enhance our Author License Agreement acceptance process.

Most of all, I want to thank all of the members of the JCM team who have volunteered so much of their time and intelligence and skill and attention and energy and passion in order to make the JCM something special which will strengthen the Joomla! project and the community. I am so proud to be a member of this team, and so thankful to have the privelege to work with and get to know so many great people through this project.

Antione de Saint-Exupery once said: “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the sea.” That thought sums up very well the level of dedication and passion which the members of the JCM team have for the Joomla! project and the community. The only part of that thought which doesn't apply to the members of the JCM team is that none of them had to be taught to "long for the sea". That is what is so special about this team-they each already had that spirit when they joined this project.