The state of Open Source & Joomla! in Southern Africa

Further to my blog post earlier this month about the Open Source in ICT Conference [http://joomlajournal.blogspot.com/2008/05/joomla-day-south-africa-joomla-open.html]...

I have returned from the event, which was professionally organised by Business Zone, with mixed feelings about the state of open source software in the Southern African internet landscape.

The conference was attended by about 45 delegates from a variety of government departments [Defence, Education, Intelligence, Social Development] corporate banking [FNB], internet research specialists [Arthur Goldstuck], web related smme's [Slingshot], corporate consultants [VOX], open source developers [UWC] and NGO's [Joomla! Southern African Portal, FLOSS Portal, NetDay] amongst others. All in all a hetrogenous, almost eclectic mix of clients, service providers, producers and consultants.

Highlights of the event for me were the networking opportunities that happened on the fringes, in the form of business card exchanges, with the possibility of follow on business relationships, collaborative ideas that seemed right to both parties who had not previously heard of one another and exposure to a healthy range of ways that open source software is being used and employed in innovative, traditional and unconventional ways through a number of Case Studies delivered by experts in their respective professions.

Lowlights of the two day affair were the apparent lack of accredited / approved service providers, incidents of poor project management, failed implementations and impersonations by under-qualified and inexperienced consultants, coupled with a general lack of awareness of industry trends and conditions that surfaced during the stimulating and challenging debates and question and answer interactive times following some of the presentations.

The way forward is not necessarily clearer to me, however most of the delegates indicated that they had benefitted from the Open source in ICT conference, and we have undertaken to maintain communication by means of another wonderful tool in the Google Box, which I have setup and cordially invite anyone interested in developing, using, changing, deploying, migrating to or managing open source technologies in their industry / organisation / company / community.

You can find and join the Open Source in ICT user group here: http://groups.google.com/group/open-source-in-ict

Relating this to Joomla! is the next challenge, as the demand for Joomla! powered websites increases at an alarmingly exciting rate, with requests for training and project work coming through my inbox on a daily, sometimes hourly basis, sometimes with the unfortunate reason that the first service provider has under-performed or in some cases simply abandoned the project, leaving clients high and dry with incomplete websites, that should by now be fully functioning content management systems.

This paints an opportunistic picture for those who do deliver on time and over and above expectation (like the Joomla! developers whom we refer our project requests to), however for clients it may mean paying dearly for school fees before they find a development partner whom they can rely on and trust to produce the Joomla! powered goods they are willing to pay for.

I would be interested in comments from clients and developers alike, who may be able to shed more light on this rapidly expanding industry of website content management, not only using Joomla! but also Plone, Drupal, Mambo, Zope and a whole directory of smaller, less well known open source systems.

That's all folks.

Sean

All 4 Joomla!
& Joomla! 4 all

[Updated Invitation] Joomla Developers Training Course - Johannesburg, South A... @ Fri Jul 13 9am - 4pm (slingshotsean.joomlasouthernafrica@blogger.com)

Details for the following event have changed:

Joomla Developers Training Course - Johannesburg, South Africa

Fri Jul 13 9am - 4pm
(Harare)
Johannesburg, South Africa (map)
Calendar: slingshotsean.joomlasouthernafrica@blogger.com

Learn the basic principles needed to create your own Joomla! websites. By the end of the day you will have installed, created & extended your own Joomla website including extended features such as a newsletter, members directory, discussion forum, document downloads and more. (maximum 5 per class). The course will cover the following topics; * Setting up a stand alone server for offline Joomla development * How To: Install Joomla onto a server incl. an actual installation * How To: Find and customize templates incl. an actual customisation * How To: Select & install extensions (modules, components & mambots) * How To: Backup & Recover your Joomla website * How To: Handover a newly developed website to the end user * Tips: Securing your Joomla website against malicious hackers * Tips: Search Engine Strategies to ensure a first page ranking * Tips: Capitalising on custom joomla components * Q & A Session - come prepared to ask all your questions about Joomla Development and Management * An introduction to Google Applications. Suggest a topic that you would like to know more about... Cost R3,500.00 pp * Plus Travel Expenses 10% discount if more than one person attending the course 20% discount for registered charities For more information send an e-mail to training@joomla.org.za This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it Phone: (035) 7724-555 / (035) 7722-712 Fax: 0866157800 Visit www.joomla.org.za for more about Joomla Training South Africa
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Lets Learn Joomla!

JOOMLA! TRAINING

Now that Joomla! is becoming the content management system of choice world wide, there is a growing need for training courses and trainers.  In South Africa, an initiative is taking shape,called Learn Joomla!  Due to an overwhelming interest in Joomla! training, a webdesign company with roots in education noticed that a lot of designers prefer to outsource or subcontract training. The same could be said for support, however without anyone to refer clients to, they are normally left with no alternative but to train and support Joomla! users themselves.

In response to this opportunity, members of the Joomla! Southern African Portal set out to develop an introductory course that would help people who are new to Joomla! and/or content management in general.  It soon became clear that the Joomla! Users Manual is not ideally suited for training purposes. A great find was the Joomla! Admin Manual from Compass Designs, which is much easier to work through with a group of learners, however in a one day course, something much more focused is actually required.

The solution to these and other challenges is an online learning system called Moodle, which provides the space within which a crash course in Joomla! can be delivered, either at a distance, with regular moderation, or in person, referring to the resources provided in the Joomla End Users Course (J101) classroom.  These include the awesome Visual and Animated Tutorials developed by Brad Baker, the Joomla! Manuals, links to the best template repositories and a number of locally grown tutorials, notes, audio tracks and so on - all of which is in constant review and ongoing development.  The course is aimed to empower the end user of Joomla!, who would typically do most of their content management on the front end of their Joomla! website, with a few minor forays into the Administration Backend, to manage users, pages and contacts.

A Joomla! 301 course aimed to empower Developers is currently in, well.. development.  This course is geared towards tooling and recognising the ability to develop a website using the Joomla! CMS, by borrowing an idea from Full Code Press, the course developers, Slingshot, are piloting a way to train and equip would be Joomla! Users and Developers.  It works something like this...

Non-profit organisations who are in need of a professional website are invited to apply for an opportunity to have their website developed by one of the students in the Learn Joomla! course.  Given the NGO's specifications, preferences and materials, the student is required to build a website in one day, within the course framework, under supervision of a skilled trainer, who may be standing in front of them (one day crash course) or may be available in the discussion forum (online moderation).  Working with the NGO and the Trainer, the learner is able to focus on a specific website during the course, solve real problems and hopefully produce a Joomla! powered website that can be published, used and managed by the NGO.

The Joomla!'nGO pilot is currently running it's first learner through the course, and should produce a website for the NGO, HopeSA, within the month of July.  Please Contact Us should you want to undergo some Joomla!'nGO training.

For those wondering, the Joomla! 201 course will follow after the developers course is stable. This would be an administrator focused course for those users who need to do some work with extensions, such as running an electronic newsletter on their site, managing various menu systems and handling collaborative updates on larger sites. This is a bit of a gray area between users and developers, so the course developers are starting on the ends and working their way into the middle, like eating a hot dog, or a melting ice-cream.

Training options and details can be found at Joomla! Training.  Course formats are flexible and they can easily tailor make a training session for you, your staff and /or your clients which can be based on a couple of hours, the whole day or even a number of days if necessary.  The Joomla! trainers are highly mobile and are happy to arrange trips to various parts of South Africa as the need arises.  They usually advertise the proposed training ahead of time to enlist others, which helps to make the most of every trip.  Training events are often linked to the Joomla!Day events which are fast becoming a must-do in the Joomla! circles.

Their next scheduled training dates are as follows:

• 23 June 2007 Durban
• 30 June 2007 Johannesburg
• 7 July 2007 Cape Town
• 11-13/16-17 July 2007 Johannesburg

Contact Joomla.org.za who will be able to refer you to a suitably skilled and available Joomla! trainer if you are interested in doing a course, tailoring a training session or participating in the Joomla'nGo programme.  Check our Learn Joomla ! for a course outline, notes and other training resources (first time visitors should create an account or login as a guest)

Let's Learn Joomla!

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Regards

Sean Grant
Blog: www.seangrant.blogspot.com
Web : www.sling-shot.co.za | www.joomladay.co.za
Portals : www.joomla.org.za | www.moodler.co.za

Skype /G-Talk : slingshotsean
Tel:   +27 (0)35-902-6482
Fax:  +27 (0)866-345-901
Cell:   +27 (0)82-5777-340

[Reminder] Cape Town Joomla! Day @ Sat Jun 16 8am - 5pm (slingshotsean.joomlasouthernafrica@blogger.com)

slingshotsean.joomlasouthernafrica@blogger.com, this is a reminder for

Cape Town Joomla! Day

Sat Jun 16 8am - 5pm
(Harare)
Cape Town, South Africa (map)
Calendar: slingshotsean.joomlasouthernafrica@blogger.com

It is time for all Cape Town Joomla users, designers, developers, administrators, trainers, webhosts and other related service providers to meet and talk Joomla! Sponsors: You are welcome to contribute in the following areas; Venue with Hot Spot for 100 participants Refreshments / Cash Catering AV equipment for recording/podcasting Presenters: You are welcome to suggest a topic that you would like to share on the day More details to be announced via CLUG, SAJUG and www.JOOMLA.ORG.ZA in due course. Contact Sean|at|JOOMLA|dot|org|dot|za or +27(0)82-5777-340 for more information.
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