ELCA Web and Multimedia Development Blog

I want to thank you all who bore with me the extemporaneous posts that were really just notes from the workshops. I hope that these will be more of a reference to you in the future as you dive in to create your own Web sites.

Toward the end of the Expo, the workshops became more of a hands-on type, which made it hard to blog about. But please know that this expo was everything that it was advertised as being.

If you are at any level of competency, in any area from developer to administrator, there is something at the CMS expo for you.

So here are my main points I came away with.

1. Static Web sites are dead. The days of using Web editing software to update static Web pages are gone. If your content is not in a database, being managed by a Content Management System, you are not serving your visitors like they should be served. Interactivity is lacking. Up-to-date content is missing. And you may be losing page views.
2. Web Developers need to know CMS Development. If you are a developer or are responsible for the Web site for your church or synod, it would behoove you to know how to put some sort of CMS base Web site together. Now is the time to learn CMS development because the time is soon coming, if not here now, that your skill set may not be enough.
3. Open Source is the future. Joomla! and other Open Source Content Management Systems are more stable and robust than ever. There is a huge userbase for many of these OS CMSes that ensure their longevity. Many “logo” companies our opening keynote speaker Matt Asay said, are lookng to Open Source. And this downturn in economy has only boostered that switch. Come for the price, stay for the features!
4. I choose Joomla! as my OpenSource CMS. I say that because I know you want me to make a choice! But I must say that if you have a small site and don’t need something so “enterprisey” WordPress is a fine solution. (I know it is a blog application, but it can be so much more! Look for my posts from the upcoming WordPress Camp in Chicago.) Joomla! has a huge user base. There are over 4,500 extensions that users have created to extend the features of Joomla! The forums and support groups are numerous.

“So what do I do now?”

This year, the churchwide office will be working on an ELCA template that you can easily import into your Joomla! site. If you do not have a site yet, or are not familiar with Joomla!, I recommend finding a class or user group in your area. If you are the “online learner” type, I would highly recommend the courses at Lynda.com. Joomla! 1.5 Essential Training is a great one. If you like to learn from a book, the CMS expo recommended Joomla! A User’s Guide: Building a Successful Joomla! Powered Website.

One last thing. If you are able, I would highly recommend seeing you at the next CMS Expo, wherever it may be. Bookmark the Expo’s site, and plan to attend the next one, whatever your job description or level of expertise may be.

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Establish a site purpose statement and goals.
Organize content correctly first.
Create a good site map.
Planning the Joomla structure.

Creating a dynamic site relies on content. In the old days of static sites, you could build out the site and menu, and just have the menu link to nothing and come back and link it later.

But that doesn’t work with dynamic sites. You canbuild the structure of the site and what the menus might look like graphically, but the content must be there to generate the menu.

The rest of this workshop is hands on and handouts.

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