T3CON09 Dallas - Spark for a US Community

Categories: Community Created by Robert Lemke
Probably the most important outcome of the T3CON09 in Dallas was the spark igniting the new building of a US TYPO3 community.
Although there has always been bunch of long term TYPO3 users in North America, the distance to the old world made it difficult to transport the spirit of the european TYPO3 community. For that reason we joked every now and then that we should "just organize" a conference somewhere in the US - Jürgen Egeling's favourite location being San Francisco (which he states at every opening of our european T3CONs). We were somewhat surprised that our friends from overseas really managed to make our vision reality. Without big ambitions we calculated that about 60 attendees might come - and were more than happy to welcome more than 80 enthusiasts at the Irving Bible Church.
Speaking of the IBC, to say it with the words of Nicole Johnson:
"The Irving Bible Church was an amazing establishment, setup with Wifi, a café, impressive children’s area and great conference rooms. This is unlike any church I’ve ever visited."
And Zachary Davis wrote to the revived US mailing list:
"Big thanks from all of us at CIC to Mark, Ron and Jeff and anyone else I'm forgetting here for all the work on T3CON09-Dallas. I thought it was a tremendous success, and I'm really happy to have been able to meet so many people on this project. Let's keep our small but growing US T3 community alive and do our best to keep the conversation going here.
Whether or not you're at the conference, please chime in and let us know you're on this list - I think it would be good to get a sense of who's currently active in the North American TYPO3 community.
Looking forward to meeting more of you in the future - I couldn't be happier to see that the TYPO3 community is alive and well in the US"
I can only second that. For me too it was an amazing event, mainly because of the great atmosphere which instantly made me feel at home. Our main goal was definitely reached: bringing the TYPO3 individuals in the US closer together.
And what's planned for the future? Jürgen says: "There will definitely be a T3CON10 in the US. I hope that the local team is up for organizing the event again."

Related Links

  • Report on T3CON09-Dallas (Ron Hall)
  • Photos on flickr