Come and meet Joomla User Group Wien! It has been active for almost a decade now and also looking for new Joomlers to come and visit. This time we found Florian available to answer our questions. I would’ve loved to do it in person, as I (Hans) liked Vienna when I was there for a half marathon. But enough about me, let’s go and start the interview.

Where is your User Group located?

Our user group is located in Vienna, Austria

For how long has this User Group been organizing events?

The JUG Wien was founded in 2014 by Sigrid Gramlinger, who is currently the Department Coordinator of Joomla’s Production Department. She and two other (female) Joomla enthusiasts organized the first meeting in January 2015. I joined the user group around 2018.

How many people are involved in organizing and how many visitors are joining your meetings?

The core team of the JUG Wien consists of Sigrid, Harald Leithner (Joomla 5.0 release manager) and me. Our meetings are very irregular at the moment, but when we organize a JUG meeting there are usually between 5 – 8 attendants.

Are your meetings in person, online or hybrid?

The JUG Wien meetings are all in person. We like the real life aspect of it very much. It was hard during the pandemic and especially the short notice cancellation of our already fully organized JoomlaDay Austria in March 2020. But despite we managed to find a good replacement with the Online JoomlaDay DACH using “WorkAdventure”, we felt that the JUG Wien meetings would not make much sense as an online event.

How did your JUG evolve during the years?

The JUG is pretty stagnating with more or less the same people coming to the meetings. That’s why we recently organized a special meetup with Austria-based agencies that are not active in the Joomla Community. Our goal was to present Joomla as a very practical tool for professionals and to show how participation in the communities could make a difference.

What topics are usually/mostly being presented at your meetings?

Usually we prepare some kind of presentation that could be a showcase of some interesting project, about some creative ways of using Joomla or about some common problems we face when working with it. Then there might be some specific questions by the attendants.

Which topics have been popular lately to get information about?

The popular topic recently was of course the migration from Joomla 3 to Joomla 4 and what lies ahead in the future. If the update to Joomla 5 will be as difficult as from Joomla 3 and so on. In our Agency Meeting we wanted to take away people’s fear of migrating to Joomla 4 and showed how to fix the most common issues during the migration.

What difficulties do you face organizing your JUG?

It is difficult to find new interested people who want to get involved in the Joomla community. There are some prejudices against Joomla as a professional tool in the agencies in Vienna and we are working on combating them to increase the standing of the CMS.

What is your most precious meeting?

I personally have not had the one precious meeting, but I always like to discuss my favorite CMS with other users and learn how they approach certain things or try to help them with problems they are facing. That’s why I like the JUG Meetings in general!

Do you need extra volunteers, or help?

Yes, we would love to have more people coming to the JUG and helping promote Joomla in Vienna and Austria!

Information on Joomla User Groups

•     The Joomla User Group Wien has a website.
•     Where to find Joomla User Groups near you: 
      https://community.joomla.org/user-groups.html
•     Add your Joomla User Group event on the Joomla community event list: 
      https://community.joomla.org/events/submit-event.html
•     How to start a Joomla User Group: 
      https://docs.joomla.org/Joomla_User_Group/FAQs_and_Rules_for_Submission
•     Register your Joomla User Group: 
      https://community.joomla.org/helpdesk/user-groups-support/registration.html