Hey Good Morning!
I’m SD and it’s my pleasure to welcome you to JoomlaDay Chicago
I’m typically not one to talk about myself, however, I thought you might want to know a bit more about the person who has been emailing you.
The obvious one is I’m this year’s event chair.
I’m the Joomla! User Group Chicago North, or JUGCN as I like call it, lead
I’m also president and chief bottle washer for Danico Enterprises Inc.
Danico is a web, marketing and sometimes event company. Basic, all the things I like to do all rolled up into one. I have over 20 years experience in technology and with that the privilege of knowing some remarkable technologists, including those here in the room today.
While I may not like talking about myself, I do like talking about Joomla!
Specifically, I like talking about how to grow the Joomla Community.
While my efforts pale in comparison to Joomla Evangelist and Treasurer Mike Demo who is here today teaching the Beginners Workshop, I’d like to think that I’ve had some impact in growing my/our Joomla! Community.
As Joomla implementers, developers and such, there is a battle so to speak in helping the greater population, understand the flexibility and stability of Joomla.
A few of the ways that I and Danico are working to grow the community are:
seeking out and extending an invitation to other user groups and speakers that have complementary topics to participate in our user group meetings, for example the Linux group that meets in our area
reaching out to local community colleges
And lastly participating in High School Internship Programs
It’s this last one, high school internships, that I’d like to spend just a few moments to talk about. For the last few years, Danico has hosted interns. We’ve been honored to participate in the Career Discovery program through District 214 in northwest suburban Chicago which covers 9 high schools, close to the Danico office in downtown Arlington Heights. I’d like to say I reached out to them and created this great partnership but the reality is they found me in a last ditch effort to find placement for students looking for technical internship opportunities. I was/am thrilled to help. To date, I’ve had to the privilege of hosting 6 students from district 214 and 2 outside of their program. This year Times Two Technology has decided to join me. The new session started this past Monday, and we’ve welcomed 3 new students 2 of whom are here with us today.
You’re probably thinking, “I don’t have time to teach them”. I get that. The students I’ve had are eager to learn and just need some direction. Using Treehouse videos to get him the basics of web development such as HTML and CSS will give them a foundation. Next adding Joomla training using JoomlaShack/OSTraining or having them attend a beginners workshop such as the one here today, gives the tools to get started working in Joomla.
My kids, as I affectionately refer to my interns, create end user training guides, answer help desk tickets, and in the the case of long term intern Eric, who you see in these images helping other interns, train end-users.
These students grow into proper Joomlers and have shared their experiences with friends, so much so, I’m running out of room for all of them.
My message to you today is to think about what you can do to help grow our Joomla Community. I appreciate your indulgence in allowing me to talk briefly about these wonderful students and Joomlers.
On to today’s activities.
We’ve had a few changes to the schedule due to a family emergency and speaker illness.
Thanks to Brian Mitchell, Team Leader for the Joomla Resource Directory for being a last minute substitution. He will be speaking at 1:15 pm on Why Open Source Matters. And thanks to the the speakers who will participate in the Q&A panel we will have in the last session of today.
I cannot thank our speakers enough for taken time out to share their knowledge and expertise with the group today.
The room we’re in now is the main hub for today. In a few moments, OSM President Robert Jacobi will kick things off with a Keynote Address.
Lunch will be in this room and this space can be used to hangout, catchup with each other outside.
We will have charging tables in each room as well as in this room.
Lastly, Thank you to all of you for joining us today.
Thank you to everyone who helped to make this day possible and special thanks to Kendall’s niece Sherry for helping us out today.
I have one small request…
Please give us your feedback. We are also looking for ideas to make this event helpful to you. Pop over to joomladaychicago.com/survey. A quick 5 minutes to a better JoomlaDay.
Any questions?
Please help me welcome OSM President Robert Jacobi to the front to kick things off with the State of Joomla.
