Interview with Radek Suski (SobiPro developer and OSM member)

Ladies and gentlemen, our guest today is Radek Suski, a Joomla developer who is the author of the SobiPro extension and also an OSM member. Originally from Poland, Radek has found himself living in Germany already for 10 years. Since 2006, Radek has been providing high quality extensions for Joomla. I originally contacted him years ago so that we could have this interview, but due to various circumstances it is only now where the interview is possible! As it stands, it’s a hot topic of discussion in the Russian community concerning JoomlaDay, so I’m happy to be able to ask these questions and finally have an interview with Radek. Let’s get started!

- Hello Radek! Let’s start off with a rather traditional question! How did you get started in the Joomla (Mambo) world and why does the Joomla CMS have your particular attention?

Hallo everybody and thank you very much for inviting me. I feel really honoured.

How did I start with Joomla!? I think it is one of the common stories; sometime in 2005 we built our first website for our company. We kinda misused the known forum software phpBB as a content management system. Shortly after that, through one of my fellow student, we discovered the Mambo CMS and decided to rebuild our website with Mambo. The work was really a pleasure so we decided to build another website, this time for our village. We planned a local information portal and we needed a good companies directory for this website. At that time there were only two suitable extensions for it; the one was way too expensive and the other one wasn't very advanced. As the second one was licensed under GPL we decided to take this one and improved it. We found the idea of Open Source software very exciting, so we decided to give the improved extension back to the community. SOBI got popular very soon and therefore people started to ask for new features and we were implementing those features. With the time we found us spending more and more time on the development of SOBI and then Sobi2 and at the end we dropped the idea of creating the website we originally planned and concentrate more on the development for Joomla!.

-SobiPro is a well-known Joomla extension and has been under development for years. With its age, we jokingly say that “a child is gonna go to school”, but in all seriousness, it has been about 7 years of work for you and you may summarize your answer. What does the Sobi extension mean for you now? What did you experience during the development process?

We put in SobiPro seven years of our experience. With the time we learned to develop better and above all we listen to our users. It was the reason why we had to drop our entire code base twice already because our goals and presets were not quite right. It is important to realise that you may be wrong sometimes. For example: SOBI was an extension we created mainly for us and our needs. But it was not necessarily what other users needed. Therefore we decided to develop Sobi2 very soon. Sobi2 wasn't a fork of an other extension, it was an entirely new component. Sobi2 was good enough for many years but at some point more and more people were asking for a possibility to have more than one directory inside of Sobi2. It was not possible and also the database design was not suitable for it. Subsequently we decided to move along again and created SobiPro. As we had already a lot of experience and gained a lot of knowledge we created a new extension, which allows to create more than one directory. But we also created a very extensible design which allows us to easily extend the software in the future. That way we will most likely not need such a drastically switch anymore.

But beside the developer point of view, there is also the other one, as a community member. As such, I recommend all third party developers to stay connected with Joomla! and its community. I honestly have to wonder how many third party developers complains about some issues after a new Joomla! version has been released. I have to wonder because the PLT take really care about the test phase of new releases. You can always find any issues and incompatibilities between your extension and the upcoming Joomla! version long before the version is going to be released. You can either try to fix this incompatibility in your extension or try to help to fix it in Joomla!. So dear developers; please stay connected with Joomla!, join the developer list and read the announcements the project is making. Instead of complaining, help to solve problems. Please.

-Radek, you have been living in Germany for over 10 years, yet you do your best to reach out and communicate with other communities. What can you say about both the German and Polish Joomla communities? How would you estimate their growth? What would be your personal thoughts concerning both the German and Polish Joomla communities?

Surprisingly I don't see that many differences between the Polish and the German community. Our German community is formally organised for a long, long time already. Since the first MamboDay actually. In Poland we created a formal foundation in 2012. We initiated the foundation in Poland mainly to have a legal entity for organising the JoomlaDay™ in Poland. Aside from this, rather formal difference both communities are equally strong. In Germany it is very popular to organise local JUGs. There are about 10 local Joomla! user groups already. But I see it happening in Poland as well now. What I really like about the German community is that its members trying more and more to cooperate with other communities, like for example Drupal and Wordpress community. I don't like when people think that we have to compete with other Open Source CMSs. I would suggest anybody in the Joomla! community to take a look at the CMS Garden project and I wish we could extend this project worldwide.

-In your opinion, what is the most difficult aspect for communities in Eastern Europe to overcome in order to get in touch with other Joomla communities? Is it something as simple as a language barrier that gets in the way?

To be honest, I don't think that the language barrier is a problem. I think many community leaders in particular countries underestimates their own community members when it comes to the language. I saw it as we were organising the JoomlaDay™ in Poland. Some people from the organisation team were really concerned about English sessions. But it went pretty well. Most people were able to follow every aspect of the English presentations without any problems. I think the main problem, or rather the solution of it lies in the project hands. We in the leadership should try to communicate with our communities in other countries better than we are doing it right now. As the events team co-leader, it is one of the my main goals to reach people from other countries and help them to organise a JoomlaDay™. A JoomlaDay™ is often a good basis because in most cases there will be someone from the leadership team at such an event, and I think it is important to have personal contact with a real person from the leadership. To talk with him or her face to face and tell him or her about the problems you may have.

-The next few questions I’d like to ask are about Joomla day, and since you are an OSM member I’d also like to hear your take concerning some organizational details. First of all, the most exciting and ‘worrying’ aspect would be the business approach to event organization. JoomlaDay organizers can’t earn money with such events, but good organization needs investments. Investors require that their products are advertised, so on and so forth. How can we keep the balance between quality and investments and OSM policies?

I don’t think you have to worry much about OSM policies concerning a JoomlaDay™ organisation. These are very clear I think, and shouldn’t cause much of a problem for the organisation team. The problem is, so I believe, that many people are mistaking the rule, that you may not earn money with the event, as a golden rule prohibiting any case of commercial aspects. This is not the case, neither Joomla! nor particularly OSM is in any way reluctant to commercial aspects of the project. You want to give your potential sponsors an advertising space? Yes, please do it. You definitely should. The only advice from me personally, please try to avoid strict commercial advertising sessions.

-We’d like to invite a famous spokesperson or Production Leadership Team Member to speak at our next event. What steps do we need to take in order to send an invitation? Who should be responsible for traveling expenses?

The best step to invite anyone from the project leadership or an other Joomla! evangelist, just let me know and I will help you. That's what the event team is responsible for - to help events’ organisers as much as we can.

Usually the event organisers are covering the travel expenses of the invited person. But in many cases OSM would be able to help you in this matter as well. We are deciding then case-by-case if we can and should help financially to get some particular person to a particular event.

-What are the conditions in order to attract JoomlaDay sponsors? What are the limits on their advertisements?

Create a good offer for sponsors which clearly shows what do they get and how much it would cost them. Do not offer anything you are not sure you will be able to realise later. Create a website for this event as early as possible. The website is in my opinion the most valuable asset the organisation team has to attract sponsors. What are the limits: it’s up to you and your good taste. You don’t want to turn this event into a marketing session for sure. But you have to attract your sponsors too.

-Will it be possible to announce any Joomla start-ups, products, or extensions? For example, a local developer would like to start getting visitors to see their product, or there could be representatives of a start-up template, or an extension club, etc.

I don’t see why not. It is actually a very good idea. You can, for example offer a booth for developers or companies where they could present their product and talk with attendees. You can also create a joint session in which several developers could shortly introduce their product in 10 or 15 minutes.

-Should JoomlaDay organizers coordinate event programs with OSM?

No, you don’t have to coordinate the program with OSM. We are not able to evaluate it anyway as every event is different and may have different goals. It’s your freedom to organise this event as you think it would be the best for your local community.

-In order to use JoomlaDay, should organizers be connected to any kind of legal entity in order to communicate with OSM?

Well, when we were organising the JoomlaDay™ Poland I thought we should. It is certainly better for you to have a legal entity. But this may be different from country to country. So to give a short answer: from the OSM point of view you don’t have to. But it may be helpful to have a legal entity because it can be easier to talk to sponsors, or to organise a conference room.

-What are some of the differences between some of the Sponsor Packages and how do you go about preparing them? Would you be able to give some recommendations on how to create them?

As I said before, the most valuable asset for sponsors is the event website. In most cases, organisations are offering an advertising space on the event site. The higher the value of the package, the better respectively bigger is the advertising space. It’s good to have someone with good SEO knowledge involved in this process to find out which part of the website is more attractive. Good idea is also to offer some short description of the the sponsor's product or service.

Additionally can also offer advertising space on roll-up displays if you are going to have any, and a sponsored session or keynote.

-Is it possible to meet with a spokesperson via online video chat?

Yes it is possible. It has been done several times. For example Sarah Watz gave a great talk about the certification program at JoomlaDay Spain. But to be honest it is always better to meet a person face to face. However, you could for sure invite someone to offer a talk that way, in case he/she cannot go to the event.

-What are the minimal requirements of JoomlaDay? Specifically, the number of organizers, sponsors, days for the event, etc. Are there any limits? What would happen if the event achieved commercial success?

There are no minimal requirements. It depends very much on your team and its capabilities. It depends also on how much time each member of your team can spend for this project. We are all volunteers and we have also a personal life. For the JoomlaDay™ Poland we had a fairly big team for example. As far as I know, JoomlaDay™ Bulgaria is organised mainly by two people. The thing is, a big team is capable to achieve more, while each member do not have to invest too much time. But a big team is also hard to manage. In a smaller team, each person has to spend more time, but it is easier to cooperate with each other.

OSM is supporting each JoomlaDay™ financially. If there is a surplus from the event, this money should be repaid. Of course only the money you got from OSM. Here is a good example when it is better to have a legal entity, like a foundation or an association, while organising such an event. If for example after the event you still have some money left, you can keep this money as a reserve for organising a JoomlaDay™ next year.

-Radek, you are very experienced with taking part in JoomlaDay events both as a spokesperson and organizer, which event(s) were most memorable for you?

This is a very difficult question. Actually I enjoyed every JoomlaDay™ I participated in. Certainly one of the most memorable was the very first MamboDay because it was the first one. I definitely will remember Joomla! World Conference in Boston because it was the biggest one I ever attended. This year we were also at JoomlaDay Bulgaria which I really enjoyed, especially because it was a fully different style of JoomlaDay I attended before and it was a really awesome conference anyway.

-Organizing events is a very hard and responsible process. For your experience, what pieces of advice would you give to those who are organizing their country’s first Joomla Day? How can they avoid mistakes?

First at all, do not put too much pressure on you and your team in organising a huge event. If you think you can realistically have 200 attendees and you can manage it, it’s fine. If your event should have 50 attendees it’s prefect too. Nobody would say that it was a bad event because you had only a low number of attendees.

Try to inform people. And not only the community. You can try to reach out specialised press and try to ask them to write small announcements. There are for sure some people interested in Joomla! and not aware that there is a great local community. It is a perfect opportunity to get these people involved.

As I said before, start with an event’s website as soon as possible. Also social media channels are very important. Have a twitter account and a Facebook fan page for the event. You’ll see that you can reach many people that way. Not only potential attendees, but also sponsors.

A good idea, especially before the first event, is to create a survey and ask the community what do they expect from this kind of event. Ask them, for example if they prefer a one or two days conference, if they are willing to join a social event and pay for lunch. It would help you to avoid many mistakes.

-Great answers, thank you! Let’s change gears a little bit. Could you lift the curtains of secrecy and shed some light about your future plans in Joomla? Perhaps new features for SobiPro are in development? Writing a book? Taking part in new events? Anything happening? Radek, what do you like to do in your free time? What are your hobbies?

My plans for Joomla!? As for now I’m OSM member and co-leader of the events team. It is taking a lot of time and involvement already. So for now my plan is to continue this activity. I also love to travel to different Joomla! events and try to involve people more into the community.

We are working on new features for SobiPro of course too. We have a defined roadmap and try to pursuit it. The latest version was a great improvement in stability and speed, and I personally feel that SobiPro is now a very mature product. So we are going continuously making small improvements in the core component and create new apps for SobiPro to extend its functionality.

I don’t think I’m going to write a book, I barely have time to write for my own blog which I created rather to show that it’s easy to create a blog with SobiPro than really to have one. But I know that my wife and co-developer of SobiPro would like to do this some day.

I don’t really have much free time. Few weeks ago I bought a mountain bike and I try to ride it, if the weather is good, every morning. It is really relaxing.

Some day I would like to learn to fly a sports aircraft, but this is really expensive and as for the moment, it doesn’t look really realistic.

-Which countries would you most like to travel and what parts of the world would you most wish to see?

I don’t have any specific preferences. Every part of the world I visited is very special and very different. I would like to visit Russia some day for sure. We have very good friends, got to know them through our involvement in Joomla! by the way, living in Saint Martin and I wish we could visit them some day.

-Awesome answers, thank you! Finally, what advice can you offer 3rd-party Joomla developers/enthusiasts who are new to the world of Joomla?

Get involved in the project please. Try to participate in development process, in documentation. This is our all community. It’s our all project. We can use any help. People are sometimes not aware how much valuable they can be for the project. We are looking not only for developers. If you find a bug do not complain about it publicly, but report it please. This is already very much. If you can help to test Joomla! as a developer or, even better, as a Joomla! user, it’s just a great involvement.

Create a local Joomla! User Group, meet other Joomla! enthusiasts and talk with them. Exchange your experience with other people. You can’t imagine how much fun it can be. And how many great people you can meet that way.

Go to Joomla! events. JoomlaDay™, J and Beyond or Joomla! World Conference. By the way, we started a very successful scholarship program for the JWC 2013 which helped people to go to this event. We are planning to start one for J and Beyond as well. So if you are not able to cover your expenses by yourself, apply for this program please. We would be happy to try to help.

-As we finish our interview, I’d like to thank you Radek for making this interview possible and taking time out of your day to have a chat with me. Any last words to the Russian Joomla community are yours! Thanks again!

Thank you very much as well. I would like to thank you and the whole Russian Joomla! community for helping in this great project. I thank you for your involvement and your enthusiasm. It is really awesome. Thank you for being a community.