Umbraco had a presence at Gilbane SF that many folks thought
was 'surprising' - in the best possible way. It was a
pleasure to be featured alongside commercial CMS vendors and other
open-source vendors alike. Nik Wahlberg from Scandia
Consulting (and Certified Umbraco Professional) joined me in
representing Umbraco.
One of the themes present in many sessions at Gilbane SF was the
importance of open-source CMS in the market - it is not a minor
consideration by any stretch. Most commercial
vendors are beginning to mimic the
best parts of open-source systems - principally the community
aspects of user forums and exchanges. Meanwhile, the
distinction between open-source and commercial offerings is
narrowing as open-source systems mature and accrue proven track
records. For open-source systems such as Umbraco, this is an
exciting time.
As with any contemporary conference program there was much
attention on social media relative to marketing, analytics, search,
and user experience considerations. I wish I'd had more time
to attend some of these sessions as well.
Both Nik and I spoke to many people interested in Umbraco, and
in our business model. The interest in user centric,
developer friendly, easily extensible CMS systems is quite
high. Umbraco is an easy CMS to describe and discuss since
its flexibility allows it to fit many different scenarios.
All in all we spoke to hundreds of people and had some interesting
discussions with other vendors, commercial and open-source
alike.
An unrelated, but exciting development, is that Nik is assuming
the lead author role for the Umbraco User's Guide from Wrox press due out in 2011.
With Nik in the lead this work will take shape more quickly than it
has in the past with, ahem, a different lead author.