Community Magazine

In just three short years JoomlaDay Florida has become the premier Joomla event in the United States and has grown from a single day to the current three-day event that includes workshops and certification. To be honest, it wasn't as hard as expected; the USA has far less JoomlaDay's than Europe and some of the largest have been dormant for the past few years. Still, we are honored and feel blessed to have the support of the Joomla community. As we lead up to our 2018 event, I would like to share with you how we created JoomlaDay Florida!

Tampa, Florida is well known for invasions, from snowbirds to pirates, Tampa has been a winter getaway and vacation spot for countless years. Over the past two years, Tampa has also become known as the largest JoomlaDay in North America. The combination of easy access from the Islands, South America, and Europe and a break from the winter cold for our friends in the North has made JoomlaDay Florida a premier Joomla event.

Our first real official Joomla Day NYC was in 2008 in Google. In 2009, I coordinated the first JoomlaDayNYC in a 'paid space'. This event was in a small space that most of us called the 'chachkie' space. If you were there you will know what I mean! In the front entrance, you saw little trinkets, etc. At the same time, almost 200 people met and worked on Joomla. It was an exciting weekend for all involved. We met people from other countries, focused on Joomla, and had a ton of fun!

Jab17 was an opportunity for several of our newly-elected members of OSM's leadership to meet with the Joomlers who were attending the conference in Krakow, Poland, for a drink a chat and brainstorming. 

CMS Summit will bring together developers, integrators, designers, experts, and users with other Merge attendees ranging from start-ups, hosting companies, funding, digital media and legal experts to domain owners looking for advice and help with launching their site.  The conference will offer much more than sessions and training by creating a unique networking situation to drive business and commerce.

In the past two years, Joomla's outreach has grown beyond the usual JWC, JAB and JoomlaDay's by working with several hosting conferences. Joomla's first experience at HostingCon Global 2016 gave us great insight into the current perception of the project, fantastic advice from media and hosting experts, and opened the door to new sponsorship for the project. This one event showed us how important our visibility outside the core community could be.

I had a conversation about JWC with Hugh Douglas-Smith, a contributor for the JED Team, en-GB Team and is in charge of the JWC 2017 marketing. He shared with me an interesting testimonial and I would like to share with the readers of the magazine. 

JoomlaDay Chicago 2017 was held on Saturday, September 23rd on an unseasonably warm 90+ degree Chicago day. The event included three tracks one for beginners, one for seasoned users and one for those seeking certification.

JoomlaDay's are an excellent way to unite our community on a local level and this year's JoomlaDay Florida went far beyond Florida.  Joomlers from across the United States, South American, Canada, Europe, and Jamaica took part in the two-day Joomla showcase. 

Joomla! is making its first appearance at the Davinci Faire and BarCamp in Sarasota, Florida.  The event draws more than 600 people from across the gulf coast gathered at the Manatee Technical College to talk tech and show off their latest creations.