Round Two: Richard Gosler on Joomla’s Next Chapter

Richard, congratulations on your re-election as Outreach Department Coordinator!

You’ve now completed your first term in the role and described it as a considerable learning curve, sometimes stressful but also very fulfilling.

You’ve also said that you now feel you’ve "found your feet". Congratulations on being elected for a second term.

We’d like to look back at what you’ve learned over the past year, what has already changed within Outreach, and perhaps most importantly, what you hope the Joomla community can achieve together during the next twelve months.

First of all, for Joomlers who may not know you yet, could you tell us a little about yourself and your journey into Joomla?

I’ve been designing and building websites since the late 90s having come from a background in catalogue and advertising photography (if you’ve ever picked up an Argos catalogue in the UK then you’ve probably seen some of my work). Fair to say I was relatively late to Joomla as I was introduced to it by a freelancer who was doing some work for me back in 2015. At that time I'd worked with most of the common CMS platforms but knew I'd found my ‘forever home’ with Joomla. And you get a whole community thrown in too!

I have to admit, I didn’t know about Richard’s background in advertising photography before this interview. As someone who grew up and lives in the UK, there is every possibility I’ve already seen some of his work in an Argos catalogue without ever knowing it!

Congratulations on your re-election. After completing your first term, what made you want to stand for Outreach Department Coordinator again? 

In a word (or two words), unfinished business. With various projects on the go across several teams I want to see them through to a point where they are self-sustaining while also setting up some educational projects to ensure that future generations of web designers and developers will think of Joomla first.

You’ve described your first year as a massive learning curve and said that you now feel you’ve "found your feet". What has the role taught you that you didn’t fully appreciate when you first took it on? 

Whatever software platform you use, you’re used to seeing those update notifications without giving them a second thought. When you’re on the inside you get to see the mechanism and the 100s of volunteers who freely give their time to make it all happen.

Looking back over your first term, what are you most pleased to have achieved, and is there anything you hoped would be further ahead by now? 

I’m really pleased how the marketing and social media teams have performed over the past year but I think the Outreach sprint which kickstarted the Joomla.org rebuild project is possibly the one event that will have the most long term impact.

One of your original goals was to rebuild trust and collaboration across Outreach, and you’ve said that good progress has been made. What does that improvement look like in practice? 

Larger teams, especially in SM and marketing which means more fallback so activities do not get missed.

The Outreach Sprint in Paris seems to have been an important moment during your first term. What came out of those two days that has already made a difference, and what work is still continuing? 

As I said earlier, we were able to kickstart the joomla.org rebuild project and now we have several smaller teams working on different aspects of it. It’s a multifaceted project that needs as much design and aesthetic input as it does technical so the more people that can give their time the better.

The joomla.org redesign and rebuild has gained fresh momentum during your first term. Why is this project so important to Joomla’s wider outreach strategy, rather than simply being a website redesign? 

First impressions count whether you’re going on a date, buying a house or looking for platform to build websites! We have to compete with not just other open source projects but proprietary platforms that have eye-wateringly large marketing budgets. We have to appeal not just to our existing user base but nascent designers, developers and crucially, sponsors.

Reaching new and emerging markets is a major theme in your second-term manifesto. Where do you see the greatest opportunities for Joomla, and what will reaching those communities require us to do differently? 

With so much community activity happening in Europe and the USA it’s easy to forget that the world is a much bigger place. There are large chunks of the planet that have an aversion to subscription based platforms and look to Open Source as the way forward. It’s our job to ensure that when they do look to Open Source, that Joomla is as much an option as any other platform.

You’ve also talked about introducing Joomla to the next generation of developers, designers and businesses through education, mentoring, content and different social platforms. What would success in that area look like twelve months from now? 

I’m working with a number of schools local to me to co-develop educational materials for fledgling designers and developers to learn web design. The most important aspect of which is, they’ll be learning to create assets with Joomla. Ultimately if this is successful we could translate the material to every language on the planet.

I think this is a particularly exciting project. Introducing Joomla while people are actually learning how to design and build for the web gives them practical experience of the platform from the outset, rather than asking them to discover it later. And if those resources can eventually be translated and shared, the potential reach becomes much greater.

The Outreach Sprint identified six Joomla user personas, and your manifesto proposes persona-driven campaigns. How do you see those personas influencing Joomla’s marketing and communications in practice? 

When we talk about personas we identified a number of broad stereotypes of the kind of people who rely on Joomla day-to-day. From hosting companies, to small agencies to employees of non-profits we have to effectively communicate that we’re still here, still relevant and still the best choice to work with.

Volunteer experience is another major priority for your second term. What needs to change about the way Joomla welcomes, supports and ultimately says goodbye to volunteers? 

Onboarding volunteers at every level within the organisation has been quite patchy in the past so we want to develop a unified ‘playbook’ for how new volunteers and onboarded and just as importantly how we say goodbye, ensuring their contributions are fully recognised.

Running Outreach means coordinating a large number of teams, projects and volunteers. What do you see as the biggest challenge facing the department during your second term? 

As you said in your opening sentence, coordinating large numbers of teams across different disciplines is the challenge. One thing that has happened in the past twelve months which is proving to be beneficial is the introduction of realtime on-screen translation (with Zoom) that has allowed community members who may not be as confident with their English speech to fully engage in meetings.

This feels like one of those relatively small changes that can have an enormous effect. A global community only really works if people feel able to take part in the conversation, and real-time translation removes one more barrier to doing exactly that. 

There are ambitious plans across Outreach, but ultimately the Department Coordinator and team leads cannot deliver them alone. What can members of the wider Joomla community do, right now, to help turn those plans into reality? 

We need more volunteers, it’s as simple as that. But more than this we need volunteers from outside the usual circle of countries, from within Africa and Asia for example. Thanks to Zoom we can meet and talk in realtime and help spread the message to territories that are keen to get involved.

Are there particular skills, connections or areas of experience you need most? For example, people who can help with content, education, emerging markets, outreach partnerships, social media or volunteer mentoring? 

Yes to all of the above.

That might be the shortest answer in the interview, but possibly one of the clearest! 

Sometimes people want to contribute but don't know where to start. If somebody reads this interview and thinks, "I can help with that", what should they do next? 

Everybody has a unique skillset and can contribute in whatever way they can. It can be as simple as sharing posts on social media or just monitoring activity relating to Joomla.

That is perhaps an important point for anyone reading this who assumes volunteering requires a particular technical skill. Joomla needs developers, of course, but a global open source project also needs communicators, designers, organisers, educators, translators, community builders and people willing simply to lend a hand. 

Looking beyond Outreach, what do you think is the biggest challenge Joomla needs to address over the next couple of years? 

I think the biggest challenge we face in the age of AI is ensuring that we (Joomla and other OS projects) stay relevant and desirable.

That may be a much bigger conversation for another article, but “relevant and desirable” feels like an important distinction. The challenge isn’t simply keeping Joomla technically capable; it is ensuring that people continue to actively choose it. 

If we interview you again at the end of this term, what would you most like to be able to tell us has changed? 

I’d like for the joomla.org rebuild project to be completed and for there to be a buzz again in the OS community about Joomla.

And finally, is there anything else you’d like to share with the Joomla community? 

I’ll be at the JWC and look forward to meeting old friends and making future friends.

Thank you to Richard for taking the time to answer all of our questions, and congratulations again on your second term as Outreach Department Coordinator.

There is clearly plenty happening across Outreach over the coming year, from the joomla.org rebuild and educational initiatives to volunteer onboarding, marketing, social media and expanding Joomla’s reach into new communities around the world.

And one message from Richard comes through particularly clearly: none of this happens without volunteers.

If something you’ve read here sparks an idea, matches a skill you already have, or simply makes you think “I could help with that”, please get involved. You don’t need to be a developer and you don’t need to commit huge amounts of time. Every contribution helps move the project forward.

There is room for you in the Joomla community.

And if you’re heading to Joomla World Conference in October, Richard will be there too, catching up with old friends and, as he puts it, making future ones.