Thanks to the platinum sponsor Seblod, creator of a new CCK for Joomla!, we were able to host a dinner party on Friday night for 50 of our sponsors, speakers, volunteers, and international guests. The wonderful staff at House of Brews made our event quite memorable. It was exciting to have so much Joomla! talent in one room - core team, OSM board members, major component developers, hosting companies, and grateful end users mingled as the excitement level grew for the coming weekend events.
On Saturday, our generous benefactor Microsoft helped us invite all conference attendees to a party at the House of Brews. Seventy participants discussed the events of the day over beer, wings, and sliders.
After the planning and craziness is over, I can happily say that JoomlaDay2011 was a tremendous success.
Friday, the leadership team along with about 30 other attendees met to discuss where Joomla! should go in 2013. Unfortunately, I was unable to participate as I would have liked because I was setting up for the weekend. Regardless, I heard lots of great discussions occurred. It is exciting to see where Joomla! will be going to in just a few years!
Friday night we invited the sponsors, speakers, and volunteers to another party at the House of Brews. They really put on a great event! We had beer towers, appetizers, a great dinner, and, of course, dessert. They even presented a chance for me to mingle and meet with many of our international guests. What a way to start the weekend! The conversations ranged from politics, to Joomla!, and to current world events. I am proud to say we had guests from various countries including Western Australia, Israel, Columbia, Germany, France, Canada, and more.
Saturday morning started very early with a couple of headaches. Unfortunately, the coffee was not brewing as it should have been, but that did not slow down the presenters or workshops. Although, I must admit, people seemed a little fuzzy before they finally got their cup of Joe. With plenty of bagels, muffins, juice, and other accoutrement, the keynote began at 8:45. A special thanks to Ryan for creating a video for us that we were able to watch all together.
Each session on Saturday lasted for over an hour. We had sessions based on extensions and 3rd party developers, sessions based on what can be done with Joomla! from a developer perspective, and other sessions focused on the 'business end' of Joomla!. Each session was well attended, and there were definitely a variety of sessions to choose from. In fact, the number one complaint that I have received so far was that attendees had too many quality sessions to choose from. Well, we have a solution for that, too! We have posted the videos on the
www.JoomladayNYC.com website for attendees to check out sessions they were unable to attend.
Saturday ended again with another trip to the House of Brews. Thanks to a generous donation from Microsoft we were able to provide appetizers and beer for the attendees. I think everyone enjoyed another night out with the Joomla! folks! Some did ask why we were at the House of Brews again. To be honest, we could not find another bar/restaurant that would host our event because we had no idea how many would attend on Saturday night. It could have been anywhere from 10 to 70. So, instead of picking a place where we would have to wait in line, we decided to be better safe than sorry. A special shout out goes to Marian Konop of Gotham Informatics who planned all of these parties.
Sunday morning began with another near coffee catastrophe, but we persevered by having the coffee ready for our guests by 8:30. Thank goodness. With the amount of work to be done Sunday, we really needed the caffeine! Elin gave a great keynote about Joomla! and how to get involved, which is something we all need to do. We even added a 'bug squashing' session that day. Rob Schley gave the entire group a view into the Unified Content Model that he started creating at Ebay. We are looking forward to seeing what gets integrated and how all of this will work out. The sessions Sunday were developer-focused; we adjusted some tracks as needed to try to make as many participants as comfortable as possible.
We closed the day on Sunday with a stump-the-speaker one more time, and the questions and answers were as various as any JoomlaDay conference should be.
All in all, we, the organizers from this year are exhausted yet energized. I know personally that I am looking forward to attending other JoomlaDay to have the experience from a 'guest' perspective and 'learn a little more'.
Thanks again to the sponsors, speakers, and volunteers for following through with a great event!
Check out our facebook page with pictures at:
Signed,
Laura Gordon
Marian Konop
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