J and Beyond 2011 - an International Joomla! Conference
Written by Alex KempkensDate and venue confirmed
The 2010 J and Beyond conference was a great success for all of us in the Joomla community, both attendees and all the people that watched our videos and information online. With this success in mind we have a clear mandate to organize J and Beyond 2011.
We are happy to report that the two most important decisions for 2011, the date and location, have been made. J and Beyond will take place on the 6th to 8th of May 2011 at the Rolduc Conference and Hotel resort in Kerkrade, Netherlands.
With about 200 attendees on site, the 2010 conference had a very broad spectrum of web developers, designers, solution providers and website integrators who discussed the latest extensions, trends and developments.
According to our conference feedback, the top three criteria for attendance in 2010 were:
- networking opportunities (36%)
- quality of speakers (33%)
- conference program (24%)
In 2011 we aim to continue and build upon the success of last year but we can only do that with your help. The next stage is to open the "Call for Papers" to allow everyone the opportunity to shape the conference by proposing sessions/talks that they wish to make.
We will publish all of the proposals here on the J and Beyond web site and allow the community to discuss and vote those proposals. If you are interested in submitting a proposal we suggest you sign-up to our conference newsletter and follow us on twitter (jandbeyond or #jab11) as more information about the process will be published soon.
Yesterday evening we had our second team call for the J and Beyond 2011 conference. It is always great to discuss with people about the event and the feedback we got recently was quite impressive as well as positive.
The attendees survey has not been filled out by everyone (yet) but the first indications are that we met our target audience quite well. Most of the attendees qualified themselves as experts related the Joomla CMS solutions. The CCK sessions attracted most of the attention which might be related to the fact that these extensions are very modern these days.
Meanwhile all the videos from the conference are online and available. Some need some updates due to changes in the blip.tv players. We are working on that and if you come across some problems please do not hesitate to get in touch with us. Many of the videos have already been viewed more than 1.500 times which is also related to the fact that those speakers included the videos on their own websites. We think this is a great idea and we would like to encourage all our speakers to embed your videos on your own website and related channels.
What about J and Beyond 2011?
We are still undecided about the final date and location. Several options have been discussed and we are currently reviewing the quotes we have received. The options are quite different in their style. One is a monastery which moves on with the spirit JAB10 started the other one is a conference center in the country side which gives us a quite impressive ambience and good service overcoming some of the technical problems we had. As we expect more people to join the 2011 event we need to balance some more requirements to make it a great event again.
In order to keep you updated we have created a new email newsletter (using MailChimp) which is open for sign-up now. We are not going to automatically add anybody to this new mailing list so if you are interested please sign-up.
Last but not least I would like to stress the point that we are still creating this event as a community event and effort. We will move on with this spirit and open more collaborative features such as comments, ratings and others here on our site soon. As it is holiday season in Europe please give us a little (very little) break to prepare these things. In the meantime feel free to get in touch with the team using our contact form at any time.
Yes its true - we are going to organize J and Beyond 2011!
The overwhelming feedback and support after the event, your comments during the event and the support of the community are just some of the reasons why we are going to do it again. Last week we had our debrief team meeting and the team was really positive about a new conference.
As we take things seriously and want to make the organization the best that we can we decided not to rush. So currently we are looking for a suitable date somewhere in the range of March to May 2011. Of course we are taking other important events such as Joomla!Days in Europe into account which is why we are talking to the organizers about their plans at the moment. A second topic is to find a fitting venue. As we expect more people to attend the next J and Beyond, our really cool Wilhelm-Kempf-Haus will exceed its capacities. One decision was made. We will stay in the middle of Europe either Germany or near by. Also having an international airport near by is one of the requirements for the venue. If you have been to a really cool venue let us know, maybe it is an option for us as well.
So what is next?
End of July we will have our next team meeting to decide the date and if possible the venue as well. From there the preparations for J and Beyond 2011 will start. There are many new and exicting ideas flowing around and we will definitely discuss them with the community world wide. As soon as we have relaxed a bit we will setup the new areas, groups or such to give you a chance to bring in your ideas, wishes and suggestions.
For the moment I wish all of you a cool summer holidays (a warm winter holiday for the people below the equator) and see you hopefully next year.
Robert, Alex and Brian were up front and in your face at J&Beyond hosting each of the days but there were three unsung heroes at the event.
David Jardin, Christian Hent and Stefan Wendhausen worked tirelessly behind the scenes, driving the shuttle to the airport, counting the votes for the JOSCARs, staffing the reception and perhaps most importantly slaving over the hot bbq.
Successful events need good planning in advance but most importantly they need hard workers behind the scenes and there is no way that J&Beyond would have run as smoothly as it did without the "three amigos".
(Jeremy still has his work to do converting, editing and uploading over 70 hours of video so he can get his thanks when he finishes)