John Eckman, Jay Batson, Marc Amos, and Tom Herer. Photo (c) Trev Stair

Unfortunately Jake Goldman was ill and couldn’t make it, so Christine Greene agreed to step in and moderate in my place, while I represented WordPress in Jake’s. (See also Trev’s iPhone sketches of myself, Jay and Marc – he was unable to get Tom).

It was a fun night – I’m not sure I represented WordPress as well as I might have with a bit more prep. (On the security question in particular, see Brad Williams’ presentation from WordCamp Boston.)

Here’s the video, broken into three parts. (I’ll replace these links with embed codes once Blip finishes transcoding to Flash)

Part One (20:03)

Part Two (26:57)

Part Three (27:59)

The audio quality on the video isn’t great, and the video itself is a bit off from a color perspective (the room wasn’t well set up or lit for recording, so we’re in low-light mode) but I think it’s watchable. (Thanks to Julian Rex for getting what we could get).

The event will be hosted by North Shore Web Geeks and sponsored (as in some free beer) by The Atom Group.

North Shore Web Geeks

(I still think of myself as a North Shore Web Geeks member despite no longer living in Newburyport – Salem, MA is still the North Shore, isn’t it?)

We’ll talk a bit about some popular content management systems, including (but not limited to) Expression Engine, Drupal, Kentico, and WordPress. Representing each of those platforms will be:

• Marc Amos, who will be talking about Expression Engine (a proprietary PHP/MySQL CMS with quite cheap licensing for small businesses and free-of-cost licensing for non-commercial, non-profit use).
• Jay Batson, who will represent Drupal (a free and open source PHP / MySQL CMS and web application framework)
• Tom Herer, who will speak about Kentico (a proprietary ASP.NET based platform with what I’d call low-end-of-market pricing for small to medium sized businesses)
• (Fellow WordCamp Boston organizer) Jake Goldman, who will represent WordPress (another free and open source PHP based platform, traditionally more focused on blogging but also increasingly used as a broad CMS)

I’ll be moderating, though I can’t (and won’t) claim to be impartial.

In truth, all of the folks on the panel have worked with a number of different platforms – they’re representing one just for the sake of the panel.

I’m hopeful we’ll get beyond “what CMS is the best” and on to a more nuanced “how do I select a platform that meets my needs, risk profile, budget, and skillset?” or even “how do I figure out what my needs are?” which is where most folks who ask me which CMS to use should be starting.

If not, at least there’s networking and beer.

Thesis: Open Source and Design are fundamentally philosophically incompatible. Antithesis: Open Source and Design are profoundly similar in core beliefs and approaches. This talk works to articulate a meaningful synthesis between these two positions.

The talk, unfortunately, wasn’t accepted for presentation at the conference, but they suggested that instead I do a shorter, podcast or video podcast version for the Extended Content program.

I did, and that content now has gone live on the SXSW site:

In our first installment of the Extended Content series, John Eckman tells you everything you need to know about open source and design. The differences and similarities, how they benefit each other and why they have trouble getting along.

Extended Content at SXSW Interactive

(Unfortunately they don’t allow embedding, so you’ll have to go there to watch it – and at least on two browsers I tried it on, you’ll have to wait for the whole thing to preload before it starts playing – so go get a cup of coffee or whatever while it loads).

It’s just shy of 20 minutes, and having been created back in February 2009 feels (to me) a bit outdated in spots – mostly the continued evolution of the work Mark Boulton and Leisa Reichelt have been doing with the Drupal community (not just on Drupal.org but also on Drupal 7 itself), which I encourage you to check out if you’re interested in the subject.

Although I think it’s important to draw a distinction between simple, relatively cheap licensing (the Expression Engine model) and Free and Open Source software, I generally agree that

Now, we have really powerful comparatively easy to understand, open source content management systems

And that this shift- from needing a large scale custom development project or an expensive proprietary CMS to now being able to leverage open source platforms – represents a key point in the maturity of web development.

It’s Thursday, December 4th, from 3:30-5:00pm. The panelists will be:

• Nate Aune of Jazkarta (Plone / Zope / Python)
• Elie Auvray of Jahia
• Michael Wechner of Wyona (Lenya, Yanel, Yulup)

Here’s the description from the official program:

There are many open source content management solutions available today, reflecting a wide variety of capabilities and costs, and organizations of all types are more willing than ever to consider them in place of, or along side commercial CMSs. This session will look at some of the pros and cons of deploying open source content management systems in terms of licensing, costs, maintenance, and functionality to help you determine if they are an appropriate option for your organization.

In addition to all of that, I also hope we’ll talk about how the adoption landscape is or isn’t changing for open source in the CMS space, innovation and standards compliance in open source CMS, and how open source projects can make user adoption easier or more effective.

What questions would you like to ask this group of speakers? How do you see the landscape changing for open source projects in the content management space?

I got in late yesterday due to some flight issues, but managed to catch three good presentations.

First was Michael Silverman of Duo Consulting (who co-manage the conference along with The Content Wrangler). He spoke on the “new rules of marketing”:

| View | Upload your own

Although this was, to be honest, a pretty well known story for me, Silverman’s presentation wraps it up nicely into some actionable rules. (It probably didn’t help that I’m reading Groundswell at the moment – review to come – and know most of the books and articles Silverman draws on pretty well).

Then I saw Darren Barefoot do “29 Web 2.0 Tools” session. No slides for this, just a highly interactive session. Barefoot put the names of 29 tools up on a clothesline, and basically let the audience drive the discussion, talking about each tool as it came up.

It’s actually a very effective format – might have been good to have someone working with him who had an internet connection and projected the sites on the screen as he discussed them – wouldn’t want it to detract from or compete with the discussion but it would help the audience visualize. I don’t know if it si a good sign or makes me a new media douchebag, but I was familiar with all 29 tools.

Finally, Seth Gottlieb presented on the Open Source, Java-based CMS market:

| View | Upload your own

Seth’s slides don’t really adequately cover the value in his talk – much of which is in the color commentary he offers live. If you haven’t already, you should check out his report as well.

I’m presenting later today – will post those slides here as well.

This is a benefit not only for the steady stream of students (undergrad and graduate) and recent graduates all those colleges and universities pump into the workforce regularly, but also because of the broader institutions they support.

My two favorite examples this year are the MIT Comparative Media Studies program and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at the Harvard Law School. (As an alumnus of neither Harvard nor MIT, I can recommend both impartially).

Somewhat less well-known in tech circles than the Media Lab, the Comparative Media Studies program practices “applied humanism”:

The . . . program is committed to the art of thinking across media forms, theoretical domains, cultural contexts, and historical periods. Both our graduate and undergraduate programs encourage the bridging of theory and practice, as much through course work as through participation in faculty and independent research projects.

Among the projects that the MIT CMS program currently sponsors / hosts:

• The Convergence Culture Consortium
• Learning Games to Go
• Metamedia
• Project New Media Literacies
• Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab
• MIT Center for Future Civic Media

In addition, check out their Faculty, Theses, Publications, and subscribe to their Events Calendar and News Feed, which often includes podcasts of various events.

This week (Nov. 16th and 17th, 2007), the Convergence Culture Consortium will be hosting the Futures of Entertainment II conference, which (true to their mission):

brings together key industry players who are shaping these new directions in our culture with academics exploring their implications. This year’s conference will consider developments in advertising, cult media, metrics, measurement, and accounting for audiences, cultural labor and audience relations, and mobile platform development.

Check out the full conference schedule for more detail on speakers and subjects. I will be attending and hopefully blogging about much of the conference – though those posts may not appear until the following week due to some vacation time which will take me offline.

Just up the Charles in Harvard Square, the Berkman center focuses on “Internet & Society” in the broad context of the Harvard Law School.

To get a sense of the breadth and depth of the center, just look at:

• The projects linked from their home page, including the Center for Citizen Media, the Citizen Media Law project, the Digital Natives project, and the Internet and Democracy Project, among others)
• Their faculty and fellows, including Yochai Benkler, John Palfrey, Jonathan Zittrain, danah boyd, Dan Gillmor, Doc Searls, Jimmy Wales, and David Weinberger, and that’s just grabbing the names that immediately jump out to me, not to suggest all the others aren’t equally prominent or doing equally fascinating and worthwhile work.

Also be sure to check out (and subscribe to) MediaBerkman, which podcasts / vodcasts many Berkman sponsored events for those not able to make it to Cambridge in person.