On 17-19 November 2017, I attended the 6th annual Joomla! World Conference (#JWC17), in Rome, Italy.
This was my second JWC – in 2016 I travelled to Vancouver, Canada to attend #JWC16.
In 2016 I didn’t know anybody, which didn’t matter because (a) the Joomla community are fantastic and very welcoming and (b) I’m not really the type to be daunted by walking into a room knowing nobody.
Over the last 12 months, I’ve had the opportunity to join the Joomla community as a volunteer, and connect with a variety of people from all over the world, so turning up this year was quite a different experience to a year ago.
I arrived several days early for some sightseeing and to try to get the jetlag sorted, caught up with some friends I’d met last year, and met some friends face-to-face that I’ve chatted to online throughout the year. It’s always great to match that avatar to a real face!
I also had the opportunity to attend some meetings prior to the conference, as part of the teams I volunteer on. It was really interesting to get a look at the “inside workings” of Joomla.
The conference itself had several different streams – Developer, Integrator/Administrator, UX/Designer and Agency/Business, as well as a dedicated Italian stream. There were a few excellent keynotes from Vitaly Friedman of Smashing Magazine, Kevinjohn Gallagher and Bruce Lawson, which can all be viewed here. In all, I thought it was a nicely balanced conference, with something for everybody.
This year I was the only Aussie in attendance, and I arrived armed with a selection of Australiana which was well received. At one point somebody came up and asked “Are you the kangaroo lady?”, which was slightly hilarious!
Volunteering in the Joomla community has been a wonderful experience for me. Working as a sole trader definitely has its benefits (I’m the boss!), but one of the downsides is not having other people to bounce ideas off. In the last 12 months I’ve met a great bunch of Joomla users locally and internationally, and it’s really helped expand both my knowledge and my network, as well as opening up some new opportunities. When I got home, I was invited onto the Joomla Beat Podcast to chat about the experience – well worth a listen if you want to know more.
