Introductions

Permalink Reply by depika k. on April 21, 2010 at 11:07am

I am Despoina from Athens Greece but since my name is difficult I use my nickname depika.

I am an industrial engineer with an MBA in finance. What does this has to do with joomla? Well I believe that a strong business background in conjunction with technical skills can help customers earn money. I am not interested in re-inventing the wheel or coding 100% of my time. I have created custom components and modules for joomla only after I realized that the client wouldn't be happy otherwise.

My main goal is to create plain forward websites not only for the front-end user but also for the back-end user. Most of clients face problems adding new products in virtuemart and then translating content with joomfish. And this brings out the question... What is the point of creating a technically excellent joomla website with virtuemart, joomfish and all the rest related goodies when the customer keeps coming back to me to add content? I wish to have more clients and create more sites than having the same customer over and over again sending me updates and asking me to add them.

This is the main reason I joined this site. Are there any other members facing this issue? I wonder...

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Permalink Reply by Jim Fuller on April 21, 2010 at 12:17pm

Good Point D.
I find that most of my clients have me do the updates as well.
Most are too busy/distracted with their day to day business/lives to update their sites.
Business owners need to be educated (sold?) on the concept that a website is not an end in itself, but is simply a piece in the marketing puzzle that drives people to their website.
A few years back, CMS solutions began filling the need for easy updates for some of our customers. But that was a few years ago, light years in "net time".
The evolution of web design and did not end with the concept of a CMS. The desirability of a CMS site is still high and valid but usability and efficiency of a CMS inside marketing plan is key to success of a business.
Social media is the new flavour of the month. Arguably the same age as CMS, it has matured much more quickly.
When implemented properly, can have as much or more impact than a website. And it is easier to implement once you understand the concept.
A refrigerator repairman new might only have a nice crisp static 3 page brocure website and be active with the 20 to 1 Rule on facebook and he should have some good success.
The 20 to 1 Rule, conceived by Michael Hyatt, describes that you don't use social media as simply a broadcast tool to sell your wares, but as a tool to share and help. If 19 of your posts are helpful, people will be more open to your twentieth that promotes you or your biz.
If that refrigerator guy is active on facebook, has lots of friends, his FB network will likely get him plenty of business.
A nice CMS website on it's own won't do that.
Together, they can be a powerful machine.
Using a mod to post to your site and to FB at the same time is handy and will be effective if done properly.
I'm guessing there is a mod out there that does just that.
If you get your client to post using the mod from the site, you've bridged the fear/ignorance factor and shortly they will be more likely move forward with the Joomla interface.
Just as you don't want business, business, business on a personal FB account, you don't really want any personal on your business site. Make sure you filter accordingly.
If your company has it's own FB account, just follow the 20 to 1 Rule. Lots of helpful posts, then toss in the odd sales pitch.
I've been sold on Joomla for a few years, but between Michael's 20 to 1 rule and the thoughts your post triggered, I realize I have been selling myself and my clients short by not buying into social media.
Looks like the old dog can learn a new trick.
Cheers,
Jim
mobettawebco.com
Aldergrove, British Columbia

depika k. said:

I am Despoina from Athens Greece but since my name is difficult I use my nickname depika.
I am an industrial engineer with an MBA in finance. What does this has to do with joomla? Well I believe that a strong business background in conjunction with technical skills can help customers earn money. I am not interested in re-inventing the wheel or coding 100% of my time. I have created custom components and modules for joomla only after I realized that the client wouldn't be happy otherwise.
My main goal is to create plain forward websites not only for the front-end user but also for the back-end user. Most of clients face problems adding new products in virtuemart and then translating content with joomfish. And this brings out the question... What is the point of creating a technically excellent joomla website with virtuemart, joomfish and all the rest related goodies when the customer keeps coming back to me to add content? I wish to have more clients and create more sites than having the same customer over and over again sending me updates and asking me to add them.

This is the main reason I joined this site. Are there any other members facing this issue? I wonder...

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Permalink Reply by Heather Claus on April 22, 2010 at 5:24am

Hello! I'm from Wilmington, NC, and I freelance primarily in Joomla, although I have experience in Dolphin, WP, vBulletin and osCommerce. I just like Joomla.

I found out about the existence of this site through Robert Vining in the Third Tribe forums.

I created my first website in 1995. I have been working online exclusively since 1996. I spent ten years teaching classes over the internet and building my own business, while helping others with websites and marketing in my spare time. I have worked in corporate as a web marketing manager, and I am now primarily freelance and building my next business venture from the ground up.

I found Joomla in 2006, and thus began my love affair. *smiles*

These days, I don't even have a website of my own, but instead a network of people that "pimp me out" to their clients. My work either comes from that or WOM these days - I am very lucky.

My own project is set to go live on May 1. It is a Joomla site core with JomSocial and JMS Multisites installed to create many satellite entry sites focusing on specific niche markets, like style, gardening, business, social media, pirates, fatloss and more.

It's a site to feed your passions, or at least it will be when we have our many sites in place. At the beginning, we have plans to roll out just one per month.

I'm excited to find this group, and looking forward to seeing where I fit in.

*smiles*

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Permalink Reply by Robert Vining on April 22, 2010 at 8:24am

Glad you made it over here Heather! There's a ton of great folks here, you'll fit right in!

Heather Claus said:

I found out about the existence of this site through Robert Vining in the Third Tribe forums.

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Permalink Reply by Heather Claus on April 22, 2010 at 8:27am

I'm sure I will - it's just a matter of discovering the resources available and fitting them into my day, LOL!

Thanks for the warm welcome. It's much appreciated!

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Permalink Reply by Andrew J Holden on July 21, 2010 at 1:52pm

Hello Everybody in the ATAAW Community!

*I Love working with Joomla!*

My name is Andrew J. Holden, and I learned how to code HTML and CSS in the early releases (!) of Mambo CMS. I was proud of the way that Joomla! and Open-Source-Matters evolved and I now contribute to the Joomla! Forums and documentation whenever possible.

I work with CartaNova Web Design & Marketing, which I believe to be among the best web development companies in the world.

About CartaNova: We're a small eco-focused team providing web design, marketing and direct Wind-Power Web Hosting to 'Green Business' - Renewable Energy clients, Environmental Not-for-Profits, and more.

Here's a screenshot of our Joomla! web site. We're Quite Proud.

More Personally, I started working in web design as part of my job as a human-rights campaigner in the U.S. I'm very proud (and grateful) to have the experience of working with the fantastically helpful, supportive Joomla! community throughout my (5-7) Years of Professional Web Design.

In the long-term, our hope is to volunteer more with the Joomla! Code Group(s). We're currently working on a big proof-of-concept project that involves Joomla! and other CMS systems, and if it works out, we'll be introducing the software in a way that's favourable to the growth of Joomla!.

Great to be here
- Andrew H.

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Permalink Reply by Arunas Mazeika on July 30, 2010 at 4:43am

Amy, I didn't get the invite :(, but no hard feelings :), here you go:

Hello guys,

Where are you from?

I was born in Venezuela on 1979. I'm currently living in France though, in Nantes (west coast) to be more precise.

Family?

I've been married to a beautiful woman for 6 years and my first kid arrives on November !.

Do you use Joomla! Professionally?

Yes. It all started as a personal project, back then when the first release of Joomla 1.5 came out. It was at this time that I discovered Joomla!. At that time, I was just looking to learn how to build websites and stuff, nothing at a professional level yet.

I'm an Electrical Engineer with minor on Electronics & Telecoms
Systems. I have a MD on Electronic Systems & Signal Processing. During the last 8 years I've developed on Python, C, C++ and Java. I also dictated some Java courses in the engineering school where I was preparing my PhD (dissertation pending).

I developed my first Joomla! extension like a year and a half ago, sort of a personal project, which I now commercialize and customize for my clients.

Today in trying to make my self through the world of Joomla!, which btw I LOVE, as an independent professional in the field. I have some other development projects going on right now while trying to expand my business, which is still relatively small and young.

What area do you consider to be a strength?

I'm a perfectionist with only one premise in his mind: do it well or don't do it at all !. Strength or weakness ?, yup could be both !.

Where would you like to see your skills grow?

Code speaking, definitely JS and all his friends, i.e. mootools, JQuery, etc. I'm all about PHP (HTML/CSS included) and MySQL, but I must say that, even if I've built some AJAX apps and done some client side scripting with JS, I do not consider myself as JS expert at all !.

I'm right now studying patterns, so "in depth JS" will have to wait a little :).

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Permalink Reply by Lennex Jonathan Zinyando on August 5, 2010 at 5:25am

My name is Lennex Zinyando
From Harare, Zimbabwe 24 years old and single.
I came across joomla in January 2009 but didnt actualy get to use it until october 2009. I have been playing with it for all this while and I have now decided to start making joomla website for clients. I am not doing it full time as I am in the rat race.lol Parttime is working great for me and I am working on my first joomla website for a client.

I am still learning joomla development, php and how to make joomla templates. I am not a good programmer but I hope with the use of joomla I will be good soon. I will be launching my joomla based web development company soon targeting Africa and the rest of the world so if you have small jobs pass them on to me.lol Its an honor to be part of great people such as you.

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Permalink Reply by Steven Zeegers on October 22, 2010 at 8:19am

I'm from Belgium, the country of great beer, food and... Drupal. I'm single w/o children which makes me free as a bird!

I got involved with Joomla about 3 years ago. My first work assignment was "build a website using Joomla!". I was given a Joomla! book which wasn't very helpfull, so it looked like an impossible task... until I googled "Joomla". A whole new world was opened for me ;-)

I use Joomla! professionaly. I build and manage the websites of my employer, Analys4IT, using Joomla! with the help of a great designer. I also build Joomla! websites for customers. I also blog about Joomla! on Joomla-and-more.com; sometimes during work with permission of my employer who's very Joomla! minded.

My strenght would be... to know what I need to get the job done. I'm neither a developer nor a designer. I know the basics of PHP and CSS but you can best define me as a "site builder". My greatest strenght is probably being able to write good content in both English and Dutch (but that's not really Joomla! related, I guess).

If possible, I'd like all my skills to grow. I feel that I'm lacking in different areas, but I find it hard to find the time to develop the skills I'd like to have.

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Permalink Reply by Jim Fuller on October 22, 2010 at 8:44am

Hey Steven,
Welcome aboard. I can relate to how you described your role as a "site builder". I've struggled for the perfect job title for myself. Site Builder.
This is quite a unique gathering you have found here at ataaw. Some of the real movers and shakers of the world of Joomla visit this neighbourhood.
Enjoy your visit.

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Permalink Reply by Trent Perez on May 10, 2011 at 12:28pm

I have been working with computers since the age of six. My dad bought our first PC before most people had ever heard of them. It was a Tandy TRS-80 model 1 with 4K of memory. I learned to program BASIC with it and have been fascinated ever since.I started using the internet even before anyone started calling it the world wide web. I remember using a 1200 BAUD modem to dial into the nearest University mainframe so I could connect to their internet backbone and surf to the mainframes of other schools they were connected to. That was a long time ago. Anyway I have been doing this kind of thing my whole life and look forward to using Joomla to build websites the way I think they should be designed. (Lord knows I have seen enough badly designed websites out there!) I still have a lot to learn about joomla but am looking forward to bringing insight into many aspects of what everyione here seems to be trying to accomplish. I look forward to spending a great deal of time exchanging information with everyone here.

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Permalink Reply by Scott Lavelle on May 10, 2011 at 7:04pm

Hello all. I am new here and wanted to take a moment to introduce myself. My name is Scott Lavelle and I own and operate a small business in Canton, Ga doing IT support, Computer training, and Website design. The third of these is primary pupose in being here, I suppose.

I create sites using html/css/php manually (using MS Expression Web as my "editor"), Xara Designer Pro to mock up sites and to create graphiocs, slice and dice, etc, and of course Joomla.

But, in order to offer it as a professional service, I felt I needed to learn how to create templates according to what I design (of course designing a bit to what I know I will be able to create ;) ) and not to have to rely on bought templates or template clubs. First, it would be expensive to belong to more than one of them, but to really learn how any of these companies puts their templates together you need to get some of them and play around with them. So I did that. I made a few personal sites, friend and family type sites, and one "budget" site with the understanding that she was getting a template, which she is quite happy with, incidentally.

Anyway - I found the Joomlart T3 framework and something made me pay attention, get it, and dig into it. I have created a number of sites using it to build templates from scratch and I'm getting quite proficient with the styling of the framework and the basic operations of it.

Finally, I am a long-time forum participant, regardless of the topic. I like to teach people things, do screencasts about programs, tips and tricks, etc, so if this place is active, I will hope to be active in it.

If anyone needs assistance understanding some of the esoteric-ness (?) of the T# Framework, please let me know.

Glad to be in here.

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