Joomla Day - San Francisco Bay Area Roundup

I had the pleasure of attending the most recent Joomla Day San Francisco Bay Area last weekend. Like every other Joomla Day I have attended, this event did not disappoint.

These events are always my favorite to attend and really tend to exemplify what the Joomla community is all about. There are always interesting people to meet, great debates and conversations to have, and new friends to make. The event was facilitated by the talented Allen "Gunner" Gunn, Executive Director of Aspiration. Gunner is the master of the unconference and his events are always beneficial for everyone who participates.

The event was planned and organized by the people of the Bay Area Joomla User Group and graciously hosted by Google via the Google Open Source Programs Office. A special thanks and "Love Bomb" goes out to Leslie Hawthorn, program manager at the Google Open Source Programs Office (who also runs Google Summer of Code and the Google Highly Open Participation Contest) for being ever-helpful and making everyone feel so welcome.

I facilitated a session in the morning about developing on the Joomla Framework and building extensions for Joomla 1.5. It was a great chat with about 10 people and we talked about everything from a drill down into the ideas and concepts behind the framework to some best practices and some of the "secret sauce" things I use when putting together extensions. We talked about enterprise development and how Joomla can be used in that space, got specific about a couple of the individual packages in the Joomla Framework as well as discussed development in general. I think everyone got a lot out of the session and I can certainly say that I enjoyed it.

Other sessions include great conversations with Ron Severdia about Joomla templating. Participants talked about design as well as template building for Joomla 1.5 with a master. Still other people had enlightening talks with Joomla Security Strike Team leader and Development Working Group Coordinator Anthony Ferrara about security as well as performance. People new to Joomla were guided by OSM Board Member Ryan Ozimek through a couple of sessions he called Joomla 101 and Joomla 102.

A good time was had by all and I had a great time talking with everyone there. If there is a Joomla Day happening in your area you should really consider going. It is a great opportunity to learn new things, meet new people and network with people doing really cool things with Joomla!