I just got back from the CMS EXPO Joomla conference in Denver that ended Friday, and I still can't get over what a great experience it was!

I could go on and on about all my favorite parts -- especially talks by Joomla core team members and tremendous presentations by Joomla experts -- but I'll single out my absolute favorite: meeting people who have just been getting their feet wet with Joomla

If you are going to Denver, have you booked your flight yet?  Thanks to Nick M, I learned about cheap flights on Southwest.com.  They have flights on Wed out and Sat return for $79 / one-way.  On Sunday, they return would be $89 / one-way.  That's still cheap to get a weekend in Denver!

 If you'd prefer something other than Southwest, another cheap flight is Frontier Airlines out of Midway

I'm excited, and I know some great things are going to happen at the CMS Expo in Denver.  This morning I started to think, "It would be worthwhile to try to put into words - what is it that makes the CMS Expo so worthwhile?" I came up with my top three reasons and I begin today by sharing Reason #3: Discover Joomla Trends Nationwide.

Even though Chicago is the center of the known world (ahem!)

I've previewed numerous sessions at the upcoming Denver CMS Expo in December (see links below), but now it's confession time: I've been holding off on talking about Barrie North's Black Belt Joomla! session until I made sure that I had my seat reserved!

This session is about the ultimate success of your site: can your site succeed in conversions?

I think of this as the "seeing the forest for

The web is all about interaction, and the next monthly meeting of Joomla Chicago is all about how to put social networking and Web 2.0 together with Joomla.

Will you do something to help make that discussion as valuable as possible? Please respond to this blog post with comments about what works best for you. What types of social networking do you engage in? And also -- and this is the hard part

There will be three full sessions on Joomla security at the Denver CMS Expo in December, and judging by the enthusiasm for the topic at the Chicago Expo in May and at Phil DeKoker's presentation to Joomla Chicago just two days ago, these should be some of the best sessions at the event.

Tom Canavan will be leading all three sessions. I attended Tom's session in Chicago in May, and when my

Website structure and usability will be a major subject at the CMS Expo in Denver.

Jen McKibben kicks off the day Thursday morning, December 4, with Website Planning 101. She'll cover Jesse James Garrett's 5 S's of Website Planning and how to get a basic site map planned. Then, after lunch the same day, Jen will lead a more advanced session on website planning, which will reach into

One of the top interests of the Joomla user community is templates. And there will be plenty of material about templates at the CMS Expo in Denver.

According to Jen McKibben, "There are a number of ways to customize the standard features that come with any Joomla site without having to have extensive designer experience. " On Friday, December 5, Jen will conduct a session on "Joomla Graphics for

In a previous blog post, I talked about how the vast array of available extensions -- and the seamless way they plug in to the Joomla core -- is one of the three most important features of Joomla. At the CMS Expo in Denver there will be a wealth of instruction about the best extensions for Joomla and how to use them.

The action starts on the morning of the first day, when Bill Tomczak will be

The CMS Expo in Denver is just around the corner, so I think it's a good time to look at what's in store for us. I'll start out with a topic that's on the top of everyone's list: search engine optimization (SEO).

Steve Burge will be presenting a session on "Advanced SEO Techniques" on Thursday, Dec. 4. He'll follow up the next day with a session entitled "How to Make Google Love You."

Also