The Joomla Speak! In Conversation with Joe Sonne

Here is our first Interview in the The Joomla Speak series with Joe Sonne. Let’s get to know him a bit before we start. Joe had a successful career in the graphic arts and multimedia industry before moving into management with a national charitable organization.

He got involved with Joomla! in 2005, and in 2009 started his own marketing company. The web division of Joe’s company, JoeJoomla, uses Joomla exclusively, managing projects for clients. Joe is hands on with website strategies, site integration and design and not to miss he is one of the Board Members of Open Source Matters. ;)

Let’s see what Joe has to say!

What's your Joomla story? How did you get introduced?

This is the most interesting story of all. The beginnings of this story can be read at: http://joejoomla.com/aboutjoejoomla.html

Part 2 of that story is not posted yet but the short version is that for a couple of months my Joomla forum thread was the most popular thread in the entire forum in several categories including by number of posts and by number of participants. No one knew who I was but JoeJoomla became the most popular person in the Joomla community. Many of the core leadership team were requesting that I please stop my thread and go away. It was because the thread had little to do with Joomla and was just lots of people being really creative and having fun in the thread. The leadership finally convinced me to go away and so I started the JoeJoomla.com website and all the silliness that was occurring in the Joomla forum moved to the bulletin board on JoeJoomla.com and the Joomla.org leadership deleted all the posts in the official forum. I wasn't banned from the forum since after that I just posted questions and helped answer some. But for the first two years in the community I didn't reveal who I was.

There’s lots of businesses built around Joomla - Extensions, Templates, Consulting, Services. How would you like these businesses to give back to Joomla? What's the best way in your opinion?

I'd love to see the Joomla Extensions Directory become a Joomla App Store whereby a small percentage of the sales of extension subscriptions go towards funding Joomla infrastructure and operation.

Not everyone would like this idea but for those that do, we could celebrate and highlight them throughout our Joomla website properties to help foster their success. Too many great extension developers from the past Joomla versions were unable to sustain their small Joomla businesses and the Joomla Community lost out when they stopped maintaining their extensions.

Tell us 3 things that you love about Joomla!

• The people involved with Joomla are the most helpful people.

• Joomla is the easiest open source CMS to style.

• Joomla is very extendable.

What’s your take on the Joomla Community?

The Joomla Community has some of the best people in the world in it. They are generous, kind, and lots of fun.

There are also some of the smartest and most talented people in the Community that you could possibly find anywhere. I have deep admiration for the talent in the Joomla Community.

The Community also has some of the most narcissistic characters in the world too. There are also plenty of prima donnas and all kinds crazy personalities.

For this reason you don't need Cable TV. The Joomla Community provides plenty of drama and entertainment for any one person to experience.

But the good ones keep me in it. I've just learned to avoid the silliness as much as possible.

There's also major cultural differences in the Joomla Community which often collide with each other. None of these differences are wrong. When the Joomla Community matures and learns to embrace one an-others differences it will become a formidable force to be reckoned with.

What in your opinion is Joomla’s Niche? Is it one or are there Many? In other words, what’s Joomla‘s Market?

Joomla has many different stakeholders doing amazing things with it. It's not possible to pigeonhole any one niche.

For me Joomla represents the best value and return on investment for anyone that wants to publish a serious content management system for whatever enterprise they are involved with.

Where do you see Joomla going in the next 10 years? If it was up to you where would you take it?

Joomla is going to be where the action is regarding web based technology. There are those who are learning what Joomla is capable of and exploiting the opportunities that Joomla provides.

If it were up to me I would create a fully funded environment for bright and talented minds to collaborate, experiment and innovate. A real research and development incubator that could invent the next big thing. Not only would Joomla benefit from this but all open source projects would.

Your one line message to the Joomla Community on account of Joomla’s 10th Birthday this year

"Congratulations on your 10th orbit around the sun Joomla, may you have many more such voyages, live long and prosper!"

That was all! I personally liked the idea of turning Joomla extensions directory into a Joomla App Store, seems very interesting. Thank you Joe for your time! It was really nice talking to you.

Guys, we will be back next week with one more interview. And who is next?