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Cyril Reze

Marketing Meeting - January 7th, 2026

By Cyril Reze on 2026-01-08 15:09 in Marketing Team

Date: January 7th, 2026 - 18:00-19:30 UTC
Attendees: Cyril Rezé, Mike Kritzer, Nadja Lamisch, Richard Gosler (Outreach DC OSM), Sigrid Gramlinger (Production DC OSM), Tom Van der Laan

Topics & Highlights

Joomla.org Website Redesign Working Group

During the meeting, participants expressed concerns about the current appearance of the Joomla website, noting that it is negatively impacting efforts to secure sponsorship. Richard emphasized the urgency by stating, "Right now, it needs to be a priority between all departments, because if we're going to go out and look for sponsorship, Current site. It's embarrassing."

This highlights the need for an updated and more professional-looking site to improve communication and appeal to potential sponsors.

  • Need to establish dedicated working group with cross-departmental representation
    • Production, Operations, Marketing teams required
    • Mattermost private working group channel exists: “Joomla! Websites Restructuring”
    • Key participants already in private MM channel
  • Leadership discussion
    • Tom prefers external leader due to existing workload
    • Proposed candidates: Angie, Carlos
    • Decision: Outreach DC will ask Angie about leading the project
  • Content restructuring priorities
    • Harald/Sigrid created comprehensive content type inventory (Google Doc)
    • Main site cleanup essential before design implementation
    • Menu structure currently inconsistent across subdomains
    • Need webmaster list for all Joomla.org properties (Operations has this)
  • Current status blocking factors
    • Lack of clear ownership/responsibility assignments
    • Weeks-long delays getting basic information about site management
    • Embarrassing current site appearance affecting sponsorship efforts


Social Media Team Organization

During the meeting, it was mentioned that Nadja is working on preparing a document with ideas for the next meeting. This is in response to the need for more organized planning within the team. The aim is to discuss these ideas further and develop them in the upcoming social media team meeting, promoting a more structured approach to marketing strategies.

  • Monthly meeting cadence established
    • Outreach DC updating volunteer portal access for team lead announcement
    • Meeting scheduled 2 weeks after marketing meetings (alternating)
    • Wednesday timing preferred over Thursday or Tuesday
  • Access and coordination needs
    • Outreach DC lacks access to social media account on volunteers portal
    • Need treasurer cooperation for account transfers
    • Nadja preparing ideas document for next meeting
  • Content strategy expansion
    • Nadja's daughter suggested TikTok trends/challenges for youth engagement
    • Searching for Joomla influencers for video content
    • Need video content creation before launching TikTok presence
    • Community magazine collaboration potential for content


Joomla World Conference 2026

During the meeting, it was noted that the Joomla World Conference DACH team requested marketing support to help with promoting the event. The call for proposals to build or sponsor the website did not receive any interest or engagement from agencies or individuals. It was discussed the urgent need for a website to sell tickets and attract sponsors, with Sigrid noting: "This is why we need really urgent the website to announce the sponsors and to get sponsors and to sell the tickets".

  • Website development urgently needed
    • Call for website posted in December - no responses
    • Considering agency sponsorship model (agency builds site, gets credit)
    • Ticket sales, sponsor packages, call for speakers all depend on website
    • Conference.joomla.org currently just redirects to events page
  • Marketing support requested
    • D-A-CH organizing team (6 people) handling main organization
    • Need marketing team strategy for social media promotion
    • Next organizational meeting Wednesday for status update
  • Technical setup
    • Using site for ticket sales (German association accounting requirements)
    • Same system used for previous Joomla Days events


Merchandise Shop Strategy

During the meeting, participants discussed challenges with the current Spreadshirt shop. It was mentioned that "Spreadshirt" is viewed as "too much expensive." Furthermore, there was a comparison made to Fourthwall (20th Birthday shop), which uses Printful, noted for having "more affordable prices." An alternative shop system, Fourthwall, was highlighted for its multiple production hubs worldwide, meant to reduce shipping costs. However, there was a concern that when ordering, "you cannot choose where they send it from", which could lead to higher shipping costs for some customers.

  • Current Spreadshirt shop problems
    • Expensive pricing hurting revenue
    • Limited product selection
  • Fourth Wall evaluation from 20th anniversary
    • Mixed shipping experience (orders from US, Lithuania)
    • €6 shipping for t-shirts to Germany (reasonable)
    • Quality generally good but logistics transparency lacking
  • Procurement requirements
    • Need three vendor bids per OSM policy
    • Emmanuel leading proposal process
    • May proceed with single vendor if others don’t respond


Digital Independence Day Initiative (https://di.day/)

During the marketing meeting, the team discussed the "Digital Independence Day", an initiative encouraging the use of open source software solutions. It was mentioned that a well-known German author associated with the "Kangaroo" books is one of the key figures behind this initiative.
This initiative aims to promote alternatives like using "Firefox instead of Chrome" or "Signal instead of WhatsApp".

  • German-originated movement for open source adoption
    • First Saturday monthly events
    • Focus on Firefox over Chrome, Signal over WhatsApp transitions...
    • Author “Kangaroo” leading initiative
  • Marketing opportunity identified
    • Create assets for agencies/designers promoting Joomla as independent CMS alternative
    • Target migrations from Wix, Jimdo, Squarespace, Shopify... "Joomla instead of Wix"
    • Data sovereignty messaging potential
    • Current Digital Independence website uses WordPress (irony noted)


Next Steps

  • Outreach DC will ask Angie about leading website working group
  • Outreach DC updating volunteer portal for social media team lead announcement
  • Website working group formation priority #1 - all other marketing depends on this
  • Social media meeting in 2 weeks with Nadja’s prepared ideas document
  • Outreach team leader meeting: Next Wednesday or Thursday (pending Anja availability)