The state of Open Source & Joomla! in Southern Africa

Further to my blog post earlier this month about the Open Source in ICT Conference [http://joomlajournal.blogspot.com/2008/05/joomla-day-south-africa-joomla-open.html]...

I have returned from the event, which was professionally organised by Business Zone, with mixed feelings about the state of open source software in the Southern African internet landscape.

The conference was attended by about 45 delegates from a variety of government departments [Defence, Education, Intelligence, Social Development] corporate banking [FNB], internet research specialists [Arthur Goldstuck], web related smme's [Slingshot], corporate consultants [VOX], open source developers [UWC] and NGO's [Joomla! Southern African Portal, FLOSS Portal, NetDay] amongst others. All in all a hetrogenous, almost eclectic mix of clients, service providers, producers and consultants.

Highlights of the event for me were the networking opportunities that happened on the fringes, in the form of business card exchanges, with the possibility of follow on business relationships, collaborative ideas that seemed right to both parties who had not previously heard of one another and exposure to a healthy range of ways that open source software is being used and employed in innovative, traditional and unconventional ways through a number of Case Studies delivered by experts in their respective professions.

Lowlights of the two day affair were the apparent lack of accredited / approved service providers, incidents of poor project management, failed implementations and impersonations by under-qualified and inexperienced consultants, coupled with a general lack of awareness of industry trends and conditions that surfaced during the stimulating and challenging debates and question and answer interactive times following some of the presentations.

The way forward is not necessarily clearer to me, however most of the delegates indicated that they had benefitted from the Open source in ICT conference, and we have undertaken to maintain communication by means of another wonderful tool in the Google Box, which I have setup and cordially invite anyone interested in developing, using, changing, deploying, migrating to or managing open source technologies in their industry / organisation / company / community.

You can find and join the Open Source in ICT user group here: http://groups.google.com/group/open-source-in-ict

Relating this to Joomla! is the next challenge, as the demand for Joomla! powered websites increases at an alarmingly exciting rate, with requests for training and project work coming through my inbox on a daily, sometimes hourly basis, sometimes with the unfortunate reason that the first service provider has under-performed or in some cases simply abandoned the project, leaving clients high and dry with incomplete websites, that should by now be fully functioning content management systems.

This paints an opportunistic picture for those who do deliver on time and over and above expectation (like the Joomla! developers whom we refer our project requests to), however for clients it may mean paying dearly for school fees before they find a development partner whom they can rely on and trust to produce the Joomla! powered goods they are willing to pay for.

I would be interested in comments from clients and developers alike, who may be able to shed more light on this rapidly expanding industry of website content management, not only using Joomla! but also Plone, Drupal, Mambo, Zope and a whole directory of smaller, less well known open source systems.

That's all folks.

Sean

All 4 Joomla!
& Joomla! 4 all

Joomla! Day South Africa, Joomla! @ Open Source in ICT Conference, Learn Joomla! Club

I do not normally blog, being either too busy or too lazy to spend my limited time rambling on about my humble opinnion about things. It normally takes some doing for me to get up close and personal with a rather uninspiring blank editor window and pretend that this is actually a two way conversation.

However when notable events come along, it seems right and honourable to share them with all of you - whoever you happens to be - so here are just a few of the journalisticaly justified happenings that I feel to share with you.

This week sees the first Joomla! Day South Africa event to grace the beautiful shores of Durban, and we are trusting for a healthy interest and turnout for the event, which I am helping to organise in my capacity within the Joomla! Portal of South Africa, along with Mat of Raramuridesign and Brendon of Brilliant Web. We even managed to get a press release onto www.joomla.org here: Joomla! Day South Africa - Durban

So hurry along to www.joomla.co.za and get registered...because it is just a day away.


Next week sees me fly off to the Open Source in ICT Conference in Johannesburg - Jozi, as it is fondly called by all who have a twinkle of gold in their eyesight - where I am to present a talk entitled 'Joomla!: Building an Open Source Community in South Africa' which you can checkout on the previous link (unless you are going to be at the conference, in which case i would wait to avoid knowing exactly where I am going with the discussion.

I have also been asked to Chair the Conference, which I am looking forward to, although the open source crew are generally a rather loose bunch of cannons, so it will probably come with it's challenges. It does cause one to wonder, what is really pressing in ICT related to Open Source, I mean given the opportunity to steer a conference, what would really benefit the open source community at this point in time. I would love to hear your thoughts, so please feel free to post them as comments on this article.

For anyone interested in attending the conference, or at least seeing what all the fuss is about, I have posted the Conference Brochure here...

Well, just remember that I will be delivering another popular Learn Joomla! workshop in Midrand, JHB following the conference, so if you need to get your head around Joomla! fast, check out the event registration here: Learn Joomla! in Midrand, JHB [15-16 May ]

Lastly, I found a great pressentation that answers the question: What is Joomla! although I do not know who created it... It offers a super Overview of the Joomla! CMS for anyone who may have heard about Joomla! but does not really know what it can do, or even whether it is safe to deploy mission critical information that way.

Stay in touch, and remember that we now offer desktop sharing and skypecall support,

Support Resource

Get Support Now Sean

This is free for anyone who has attended one of our "great", "mind blowing", "amazing" workshops - Hey, I didn't say so, it came through Feedback from Trainees.

If you have not managed to get one of our workshops, but would like to benefit from our Site Enabler Guide, watch out for our forthcoming Learn Joomla! Club, which will enable you to subscribe to a suitable package including various other goodiess like the latest Joomla! 1.5 E-Book, and the Joomla! Junkie's templates, along with our dedicated training and support, which is also delivered online in manageable two hour sessions.

We really have been blessed to train some key clients lately, including Consumer Goods Council of South Africa, The Work Force Group, Ten 2 One Media & Design, Virtual Networks, Omega Red, Scraper Board Art, SitePro and Global Power Generators this past month or so.

Thank you too to our faithful clientelle amongst others Tasima, Walk Through the Bible, World Health Organisation, Department of Agriculture, Protea Hotels North Coast and many others...

May you Joomla! happily...


South Africa ~ courtesy of www.joomla.org.za ~

Joomla! Day South Africa - Durban

The South African Joomla! community is pleased to invite you to the first Joomla! Day South Africa - Durban, an event to be held May 9 and 10, 2008, at the Varsity College, Durban North. Durban is the third largest city in South Africa, a popular destination for tourists, and considered to be the busiest port in the African continent. It is an ideal location for those interested in Joomla! to gather. Joomla! Days offer an excellent opportunity to learn, network with other Joomla! users and developers, and discover ways to contribute to the Joomla! project. The South African Joomla! community has been hard at work to ensure that this year's Joomla! Day events are at least as informative and fun as the three successful South African events held during 2007. The Joomla! Day South Africa - Durban Agenda calls for two complete days of activities: Day 1: Business Community Friday, May 9, is designed around the needs of the business community. Those who have roles like Web master, business decision maker, and marketing manager, will find helpful, relevant topics. The Business Community Day is a non-technical event focused on helping make the business case for using Joomla. If you want to determine whether or not Joomla is suitable for your business site, this is the session for you. Day 2: User Community The agenda for Saturday, May 10, focuses on the Joomla! user community. This is a technical and business session, covering topics of interest for those who install and manage Web sites for themselves or for clients. Topics on this day will cover Web site security, migration, templating, extensions, hosting, and business strategies for Web site developers. Joomla! Day South Africa events are run by the Joomla! Southern African Portal , a non-profit organisation. If you are interested and able to attend, register online. Your registration includes refreshments, a Joomla! T-shirt and an information packet. Joomla! Days are well attended worldwide. A key benefit of attendance is the opportunity to connect with hundreds of members of the Joomla! community, including speakers, designers, site builders, and developers. We wish the very best to our South African community members and hope all who attend enjoy Joomla! Day South Africa - Durban.

~ courtesy of www.joomla.org ~