Showcasing the Best In the CMS World

Warning, Will Robinson! When you come to CMS Expo, you may think you're coming to attend skills training on one of the featured CMSes like Drupal, Joomla, WordPress or Plone, but I gotta tell you, once you get here, that may not be the case.

You may end up in the CMS Business Track, and like others, never want to leave. It's that good. Seriously. No, seriously. :)

Response from past attendees was extremely positive on the incredible business training available at CMS Expo. In fact, that may be our best kept secret (until now). If you're a business owner, entrepreneur or manager, you are in for a real treat this year at CMS Expo. We've got three full days of fantastic business learning sessions and interactive panels, created BY web business owners FOR web business owners and leaders.

Last week, we were having a chat with a colleague who was confused as to whether CMS Expo is a "learning conference" or a "business conference."  He's a marketing guy, so naturally, he wanted to put the conference into a neat little market segment box.  While we answered him immediately, it made me wonder, "If he had to ask, then maybe others are wondering."

So which is it? Learning or Business? When we sat down three years ago for a strategic meeting to answer this very question, Linda (my co-host) blurted out the first thing that came to her mind:

"Nobody wants to do business with an uneducated person."

Boom. Genius!  Not only did Linda hit the nail on the head, it made for a very short meeting, and I love short meetings. CMS Expo is both a learning and business conference, which puts learning first and foremost. CMS Expo is for professional businesspeople who want to learn that which is relevant, timely and actionable. That may be for small, medium or enterprise-level businesses, non-profits, education or government application. Think of it like this: At CMS Expo, learning is "what" people come for; business success is "why" they come back, year after year.

Does that answer the question? As always, your comments are welcome.

A writer on our LinkedIn Discussion Board at CMS User Group asked that common question:

"I've been working with Joomla for years now, under the impression that it was indisputeably the best open source CMS. Now however, I find that many people suggest Drupal is actually superior. I've never worked with Drupal at all. What do you think about this, and why?" - Tosin O.

I thought I'd share my response here too:

Without knowing your requirements, it's impossible for anyone to make a legitimate recommendation on which is better for your particular needs.

Breathe deeply.

Whichever you choose, you're in a very good place. You will NOT have made a mistake, so RELAX. I say this with 100% confidence. You won't make a bad decision you'll regret later, no matter which one you choose, trust me.

"Stop Right Now!" Jump back for a few minutes with me, to the fall of 2007. Think back, before the US Presidential election, before July, 2008 when our oh-so-wise Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke proclaimed "Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae aren't in danger." Tap into those memory banks, before we knew the name Bernie Madoff and before we had first doubts about the future of Merrill Lynch.

Did you know before the crash, there were only 20 million US users were on FaceBook? Twitter was just getting out of the gate after a launch down at South By Southwest; Dries Buytaert had just attracted about $7 million US, back when a dollar was you know - a dollar (and not 65 cents) to ramp up Acquia.

I want to personally thank a longtime friend acquaintance of mine and tech rock star technically borderline whackjob, Mith Pirtle for the testimonial smackdown he offered up on my LinkedIn profile today. It brought a tear to my eye, really. It was so thoughtful less of him. I know he put a lot of effort anger and time into this piece of work work before submitting it hitting send without thinking:

"Working with John Coonen has always been a pleasure. His positive approach and expert guidance has been invaluable to us. So much so that we turned a blind eye when he started sneaking our office furniture to the local pawn shop for heroin money. Even then John was more of an asset to us than a liability. In fact, if it wasn't for the handgun/kidnapping incident with the chicken suit and cooking oil, he would be working with us today. We can heartily recommend John to your organization and can guarantee he will help you keep your office furnishings current."

How's that?

-- Mitch, holding pinkie to corner of mouth

About a year ago, a number of us who were involved in putting on the two 2008 CMS Expo Learning Conferences were noodling out a way to build on a great thing. We started planning the spring 2009 CMS Expo as a conference which would engage the communities from multiple Content Management Systems.

While we had success at training one specific CMS (Joomla!), we figured out rather quickly that much of what needs to be taught about how to plan, create and manage effective websites, while relevant to the CMS used, is actually CMS-agnostic.

While online forums, social networking sites and IMs are smart communication tools, it's important for us all to take a break from time to time to do things the "old fashioned" way: meet people face-to-face. Sure FaceBook and Twitter are fantastic to touch base, but they still doesn't replace the face-to-face value of a building stronger relationships, shaking hands or sharing a laugh over cocktails. While skin-deep gateway measures like Twitter, Skype and forums might be great to attract new clientele, remember that it is face-to-face contact which will go the extra mile to retain them.

Content Management Systems of today are giving unprecedented power to web designers and developers to create, maintain and supercharge websites. A three-part twist of fate within the last year has braided an uncanny win-win-win for designers and in-house managers to put them in the driver's seat, and give them a real source for hope:

1. Open Source Proliferation: The past twelve months has witnessed an unprecedented explosion of innovation in the open source space. Drupal, Joomla, Alfresco, Plone, Typo3 and other highly sophisticated OS CMSs have been percolating for years; however, the past two years have proven particularly eventful and beneficial for the marketplace.

That leads us to point number two...

2. Elections Breed Innovation: Every four years, there's a "reveal" that takes place, as Presidential campaigns dump hundreds of millions of dollars (if not billions) in the attempt to activate the electorate and garner votes.