Web Content Management System (CMS) Smackdown

I wanted to give you advance warning that we’ll be having our annual Web CMS Smackdown at SBTUG on Wednesday 29 September. Yes, September – roughly 6 weeks away.

This was one of our most popular events at the Sydney Business & Technology User Group last year. If you’re already sold on the event and don’t need to know anything more, then just pop over and RSVP now on our Facebook Event.

For those of you who might be a little lost as to what a smackdown is I’ll give a quick overview of the night and what we are aiming to achieve…

Aim

The aim of the night is to introduce attendees (usually developers, managers and business owners) to a range of web content management systems. We’ll aim to cover at least 6 of the most popular CMS available – highlighting their main features and target users/customers.

Format

Due to time constraints each of the presentations is very short – 10 minutes of content, plus 5 minutes to answer questions (while the next speaker gets ready to present). This rapid fire delivery is probably where the (silly) smackdown name comes from. I also think that smackdowns have an aim of finding the one best winner (‘one CMS to rule them all’) but that’s where we’ll be a little different – instead we’re trying to find the best CMS for your business (or scenario). You won’t hear speakers criticising other CMS, instead they’ll just be highlighting where their CMS is best fit. If you hear anyone saying their CMS is a one-size-fits-all solution you’ll know they’re talking porkies!

So, for basic web site needs we’ll be covering WordPress, moving to middle-size business solutions such as Drupal and Kentico, and then also briefly covering larger offerings such as Elcom and SharePoint. 

Too many CMS options

There’s hundreds (probably thousands) of Web CMS out there – so we can only cover a few of the more popular ones. Here’s the list of CMS I’m thinking of choosing from:

• WordPress
• Kentico
• Joomla
• Sitefinity
• Drupal
• Elcom
• DotNetNuke
• Umbraco
• SharePoint

Even this list is too many so I’ll have to prune it down. I’d love your thoughts on which ones you’d like covered – please leave a comment. Or, if there’s an obvious one that I’ve missed, please let me know that too.

Once the list is finalised, I’ll then be looking to find great presenters for each – again your suggestions in the comments would be valuable.

Why you should attend

I think there’s two main reasons to attend:

1. You are a business looking to find the best web CMS for your current situation – this night will be way to get a high level look at the popular options – plus meet people who can help you implement one.
2. You are a developer using a CMS now, but looking for guidance on other CMS offerings. For example, most of the web work I do is with WordPress but it doesn’t meet the needs of more complex sites. Every week or so I knock back work simply because WordPress is a bad fit for the requirements – instead I recommend they find a Drupal developer or SharePoint company. So, if you’re like me – then this night is going to be really useful – for example, I’m really keen to learn a little more about Kentico – I’ve heard great things about it…

You can help

I’d love your input to make this a really useful night. If you are keen could you please:

• RSVP here to say you are coming
• Help spread the word (via Twitter or Facebook, etc)
• Leave a comment with your suggestions and recommendations

Thanks again for your interest – last year this was a huge night. We’re hoping to make this year even bigger.

Image credit: WWE