Geekmoot 2016 review

Join us in Leicester, UK on October!
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paulbaker
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Geekmoot 2016 review

Post by paulbaker »

So, Geekmoot is over for another year. :( The discussions have been had, the presentations have been listened to and the beer has been drunk.

As I have done in the past (2012 and 2015) I present to you my review of Geekmoot. If you're a developer who has never been to one before, listen up and take note!

The 2016 Geekmoot was held in Leicester, UK in October 2016 over three days. The venue was the National Space Centre, an educational exhibition with loads of cool space exhibits and experiments, many aimed at kids but also of interest to adults. Geekmoot is a meeting of web development professionals who all have an interest in learning more about, discussing and exchanging ideas on CMS Made Simple. This time Geekmoot was expertly organised by UK dev team member John Scotcher.

We started on Wednesday 19th with a day of training from dev team member Robert Campbell. He detailed the method for creating modules. This was aimed at developers who are used to CMS Made Simple but who have never written their own modules and want to give it a try - such as myself. It was interesting hearing his tips and suggestions and I am definitely going to use this new knowledge to have a go at writing my first module - he assures me it's not too difficult!

On that evening we all met at The Corn Exchange bar for a drink and some food. Geekmoot attracts developers from all around the world and this year we had around 20 attendees from the UK, France, Holland, Norway and Canada amongst others - quite a mixed bag but we all got on remarkably well!

Day 2, Thursday 20th, consisted of a variety of presentations including a run through of SEO considerations in a CMSMS installation from dev team member Matt Hornsby, a demonstration of a LESS/SASS CSS module for CMSMS from dev team member Mathieu Muths and Robert Campbell's keynote speech including the future of CMSMS and the new features coming in verion 2.2. There were other presentations too, including one about template inheritance from dev team member Fernando Morgado (JoMorg) - all of them were interesting and well presented. There was even a presentation from me, my first, where I ran through my Website Live Launch Checklist for CMSMS websites. There was also a business panel where discussions focussed on web development business methods, including how people generate new business leads, how quotes are structured and how recurring revenue is generated. Discussions included contributions from the attendees.

Regular breaks were taken for refreshments and excellent lunches, provided by the catering team at the Space Centre. This was also an opportunity to get to know fellow forum members and CMSMS users - it's great to chat to other geeks and realise you share some of the same problems and can share solutions.

Thursday evening saw everyone visit local bar Brewdog where we put the world to rights and met some of the locals. But I can't go further into that - what happens at Geekmoot stays at Geekmoot! ;D

The final day included a presentation from Matt Hornsby on the Foundation framework - an alternative to Bootstrap. Also dev team member Greg Prosser detailed a fantastic application developed in CMSMS supporting a Canadian logging company which has detailed invoicing and reporting functions and really showed the in-depth power of our favourite content management system. Robert Campbell spoke again explaining in broad terms how CMSMS can host your interactive application and John Scotcher went through the process for turning a client idea (in this case an online rental property inventory system) into a functional specification that module programmers can use to begin to turn vision into reality. The final session was an open discussion on the way CMSMS is heading and what ideas people have for future features.

For me, once again Geekmoot was well worth the time, effort and money I invested in it. I met many talented developers and I began to realise the hidden power of CMSMS with its application capability.

If you haven't been to a Geekmoot yet, consider it next time!

Until then, thanks again to John Scotcher for organising and everyone else for coming and helping to make it such an enjoyable event. :D

Some photos:

Listening to a presentation:
https://twitter.com/maidbloke/status/789390458535358464

Jos myself and Velden: ;)
https://twitter.com/maidbloke/status/789189607745138688

Some exhibits from the National Space Centre:
https://twitter.com/maidbloke/status/788785628724985857
To copy System Information to the forum:
https://docs.cmsmadesimple.org/troubles ... nformation

CMS Made Simple Geekmoots attended:
Nottingham, UK 2012 | Ghent, Belgium 2015 | Leicester, UK 2016
Jos
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Re: Geekmoot 2016 review

Post by Jos »

Thank you for the great review Paul!
I feel sorry for everyone that could not attend. They have really missed something.

BTW Your Website Live Launch Checklist proved already very usefull for a CMS Made Simple website that I had put together very quickly to launch it last week. With your checklist and a little help from Velden I could make some big improvements during the breaks after your presentation.

It was very nice meeting you again and I look forward to meet you next year (or earlier)
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velden
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Re: Geekmoot 2016 review

Post by velden »

I had a wonderful time with all you guys ánd gals (let's not forget about the female participants from Austria, Canada and Holland!)

Again learned a lot from the given presentations, discussions and private chats during last Geekmoot.

Hope to meet you all again during next Geekmoot. Of course would recommend this event to everyone relying on CMS Made Simple in any way. Developers, website builders, agencies etc.

Thanks to everyone who made this edition of Geekmoot possible!
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