Matt's article today is a nice twist.  Turning the thoughts and advice of someone who is trying to help proprietary software companies compete with open source developers and using them as food for thought for businesses selling open source based solutions.

Definitely worth the read: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10307348-16.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

We chose Plone several years ago as our standard Content Management System for our association clients.  I can honestly say that we have never regretted that decision.

For us, Plone has been a virtual Swiss Army knife... capable of serving up small, content-only association sites or handling complex workflows and permissioning requirements often found within larger associations.

I put a presentation together that highlighted the versatility we have found within Plone.  Please contact me if you have any specific questions.

Click here to view the presentation on Slideshare.

One of the original developers of Plone, Martin Aspeli, has written great overview of Plone and the competitive marketplace it plays in.  Nice to hear that it can hold its own.  And I feel great that Plone is at the heart of our new OPENAssociations platform.

If you are at all interested in CMSs, go read this article: http://www.martinaspeli.net/articles/plone-and-its-competition

Cheers,

Brett

One of the challenges we face with the launch of OPENAssociations is how to integrate multiple applications into one solution. At the heart of this challenge is the need to make all of these applications look the same so that the end user (an association member) never knows that they are moving from one application to another.

Traditionally we do this by creating a design and then "skinning" each application to conform to the design. Usually we do a pretty good job of this and only the more observant folks can notice when they are moving from one app to another. 

But we have been looking for a better way to attack this problem.  A way that will provide a seamless user experience and less "skinning" effort.  While still early in its development, we like what we see in the new Deliverance project from the Plone community (and Nate Aune at Jazkarta).

To learn more, take a look at this presentation at a recent Plone conference:

This is my first blog post on our new TCAG website and I am proud to say that we are using several Plone add-on modules to run this blog.  It features Quills and Scrawl.

I point this out because I think it is important.  Since we run most of our client sites on Plone, it is important that we too try to use it whenever and wherever we can.  This way we can figure out what works, what doesn't and what needs improvement.  All of which can be used to improve our client's experience.

So here goes...

Brett