Joomla!dagen Netherlands 2013: Short review

The Joomla!dagen Netherlands 2013 was a great experience of sorts. I can say it couldn't get any better in the organisation of this great event. Of course, this event was not the first time Sander Potjer (of ACL Manager) and his team running the show as it was the 8th time to be held in this land of beautiful tulips and historic windmills.

We only had 3 days to spend -- one in Amsterdam and 2 days were for the actual Joomla!dagen event. And in both days, the talks were a good mix of technical and non-technical topics that were mostly in Dutch language. The organisers were very thoughtful as they didn't leave out the English speaking attendees where each hour slot had an English speaker in it. Naturally, we went to most of the English sessions except for one that requires prior technical and programming knowledge to understand (I'm in marketing and Chang is our frontend developer).

Attendees also get to meet with the experts in one-to-one sessions via the Doctor Joomla where these 'doctors' will be stationed at a large desk to answer and guide these curious attendees.

Topics covered ranged from the future versions of Joomla 3 to the right selection of font type to attract visitors to stay in your site and it was all truly insightful and enlightening. The highlight of the event goes to speaker Paul Delbar and his 2-piece band singing the Joomla Blues song and the Story of Brian (Teeman??) where he shared about the trials and tribulations of maintaining a website.

We stayed at the Wouschoten Hotel and the distance between the room and the event was just a few steps away. I must commend again the thoughtfulness of the organisers for this awesome planning. Double thumbs up!

The relationships with people that we've contacted via email and Skype were renewed as I personally met the Joomla 'big guys' like Brian Teeman, Peter van Westen (NoNumber.nl), David-Andrew de Boer, Theo van der Zee of ThemePartner, Sander Potjer, Dianne Henning, Robert Deutz, Jisse Rietsma, Denis Dulici, and the SiteGround team.

I can sum up and say that all the years of running the Joomla!dagen had indirectly produced a whopping 15 Joomla! User Groups (JUGs) in the Netherlands! This reality was shown in the over 300 attendees who turned up at this event. I think Joomla is a common tool that many Dutch web developers are comfortable with. We were also proud to know quite a substantial attendees we've spoken to are familiar or have used EasyBlog, EasyDiscuss and Komento!

We want to thank the organizers for the opportunity to sponsor the Joomla!dagen Netherlands 2013! You could also view more pictures here.