September 2009: Socialize Your Joomla! Site

11AM: CMS KickStart^TM -  Come Learn The Basics About Joomla!

Every month, the first learning session is the CMS KickStart program, designed to help learn the basics on Joomla! It's great for first-timers and intermediates to get up to speed on the ins and outs of Jooma! Presented in non-technical language, the CMS KickStart gives you insights on how to get up and running. This is a 4-part series, repeated three times over the course of the year.

11:45: Joomla! Site Showcase
Every month, we take a peek at Members' Joomla!-powered websites. Each Showcase is just 5 minutes in length, presented by the site's creator. Find out what challenges faced them and how Joomla! worked for them to achieve success!

NOON: Featured Presentation: Create An Authentic Community (With Joomla's Help)
At noon, you're invited to attend a dynamic session on how Joomla! CMS Software can help you successfully build an online community. We'll look at several successful online communities now in place, and learn a bit about their goals, objectives, challenges and solutions. We'll take a look at two of the most popular mega-extensions of Joomla!: Community Builder and JomSocial.
Led by: John & Linda Coonen, From the CMS Association

1PM: After Half Hour: Networking

Stick around if you like. The "After Half-Hour" is a great time to ask the presenters further questions, as well as make business and social connections.

The Professional Hour
If you make a connection with a web professional, and are ready to take the next step, consider spending an hour in an initial consultation right after the meeting, with no strings attached, the Professional Hour is a convenient time to sit down and get your specific answers right away. It's Just $75, and it's done either by appointment, or on-the-spot. Contact the Professional Hour Leader, Linda Coonen for details.

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JoomlaChicago Forum
Commented By: John Coonen, August 28, 2009

Justin, You're right - the forum IS a great community asset. We're working on bringing it back, actually, and haven't lost the data. We'll see what can be done.

We're volunteers. You know that gig well. I've asked for others to step up, and we've quickly put them to work on certain areas. Forum Moderation is something that's a rather time-intensive, and while we've had people say they'd do it, when we've actually put them in that role, they haven't actually made it a priority.

So, when we've got at least two people who are truly committed to help on the Forum-end, we'll address this. Door is wide-open and the invitation is now re-sent to all!

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Lesson Number 1: Don't throw away all of the good content in your old forum posts
Commented By: Justin Kerr, August 28, 2009

Hi Guys: Sounds like a great discussion is on-tap for September, and I will do my best to attend. However, I'd like to bring up one point about community building strategies and how it relates to joomlachicago.com: You killed all the old message board posts! I know that the old board technology has been replaced with newer, better software, but a decent number of users' posts simply disappeared, including some of my own. It's not like I submitted any Epic Content, but I did put a bit of effort into participating in the community, and it's now all blown away.

Talking about online community strategies, I'd say this move was a mistake: Even if the boards had to be dumped (for whatever technological reasons), it would have been great to see something saved from the old base of messages ... maybe a static version of the old boards or a digest or whatever. This is valuable community content that was basically thrown away. Also, I don't recall receiving advance heads-up about the community changes before they were implemented. (Apologies if this was sent out and I missed it.) I think you are paying a price for this change in terms of community participation: There doesn't seem to be much action on the forum anymore.

I hope this doesn't come off as too bitchy: I know this site is a lot of work, and the new technologies you're implementing are very cool. Just don't throw away that sweet, sweet community content in the future, doods!

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