History of the CM Pros Australia Community (CMPAC)
Chronology of the Content Management Professionals Australia Community.
Foundation of CMPAC
The idea of forming a network of Australian professionals working in the content management arena was formed at the cocktail function of the Open Publish conference in July 2005. David Warwick, James Robertson, Matthew Harris, Martin Bauer, Melanie Kendell and a few others in attendance felt that an Australian network of people active in content management should be formed.
On August 2005, following the fledgling group's communications with CM Pros (Laura Walker, Ann Rockley and Bob Doyle), the CM Pros organization launched their ‘Chapter Program’. The Australian group first met on Monday, August 22, 2005. Eight people attended the meeting and agreed (after some lengthy debate) to form as a Chapter (later known as Community) of the Content Management Professionals (CM Pros) organization.
The group sent a formation application to CM Pros on August 29, 2005 and on September 1, 2005, was ratified by the CM Pros Board as the second chapter of CM Pros (beaten by the West Canada Community who were ratified a day earlier). As a result, the official formation date of the Content Management Professionals Australia Community (CMPAC) is September 1, 2005.
CMPAC 2005
On September 5, 2005 the group publicly announced formation and on September 23, 2005, held its first official meeting in Melbourne, attended by eight people. On the same day an Australia Community web page was added to the CM Pros website and our mailing list was created by Bob Doyle. David Warwick and James Robertson were elected as Co-Chairs of CMPAC.
On September 20, 2005, the CMPAC Steering Committee produced a foundation document, which included the 28 foundation members who had expressed their desire to form CMPAC. The second CMPAC meeting was held on October 17, 2005 in Melbourne. Once again with eight members in attendance.
CMPAC found a permanent home for future Melbourne meetings on November 3, 2005 at the Centre for Innovation and Commercialization, part of Innovation Victoria, centrally located at Level 1, 257 Collins Street, Melbourne, and capable of housing around 100 attendees.
CMPAC had its third and final meeting for 2005 on November 28 and the first discussion session on the topic of ‘Business Perspectives on CMS’, attended by twelve members.
CMPAC 2006
In January 2006, Peter Meyer stood for a position on the CM Pros parent board and narrowly missed out on election. Peter, upon returning from the CM Pros event in the US, provided the impetus to get the Sydney meetings of CMPAC underway in 2006
On Monday, February 6, 2006 we had our fourth Melbourne meeting. Our first in our new central city venue and our first for 2006. The topic was a general discussion on Information Architecture. There were ten members in attendance and the tradition of post-meeting drinks around the corner was born.
Thursday, February 23, 2006, saw our inaugural Sydney meeting at the Mechanics' School of Arts, 280 Pitt Street. The inaugural keynote was a presentation by James Robertson on the Australian CMS Marketplace. There were twenty-three members in attendance, a great start for Sydney and our best representation to date. Meeting dates were set for the remainder of 2006.
Monday, April 3, 2006 was our fifth Melbourne meeting, the topic was 'Consumer Perspectives on Content' and we had twelve attending members. Warren Crosbie conducted some taped interviews for a research piece.
On Thursday, May 11, 2006 we had our second meeting in Sydney. The topic was ‘Getting the right content: workflow, authoring models, and more’ and it was run as a discussion session facilitated by James Robertson. There was also a recap on San Francisco and the decision was made to attempt to form panels for future meetings. There were fifteen attendees.
On Monday, June 5, 2006 we had our sixth Melbourne meeting. The topic was ‘Syndication of Content’ and we had nine members in attendance.
During July 2006, we had our first significant list traffic, following a seed from Marius Coomans related to engaging contributors. Ironic really that the topic ‘engaging contributors’ led to some engaging contributions on our list. At the time we had around 130 list members.
Wednesday, July 26, 2006 saw our third meeting in Sydney, held in conjunction with Open Publish 2006 (the birthplace of the CMPAC the year before). Appropriately it was our largest gathering with thirty-eight attendees. It was also our first panel session. The topic was ‘Workflow’ and the panelists were Brendan Quinn (BBC and guest speaker for Open Publish), James Robertson (Step Two Designs, Co-Chair CMPAC and Co-Chair of Open Publish), Matthew Moore (Oracle), Melanie Kendell (Emorphus and Open Publish Presenter), Marius Coomans (Active Web Communications and Open Publish Presenter), moderated by David Warwick (Komodo CMS, Co-Chair CMPAC and Open Publish Presenter). Nominations were taken for the 2006/2007 CMPAC Steering Committee, they were David Warwick, James Robertson, Matthew Harris, Peter Meyer and Melanie Kendell.
On Monday, August 7, 2006 we had our seventh Melbourne meeting and first Melbourne panel session on the topic of ‘Search’. Panelists were Howard Sachs (iFocus), Melanie Kendell (Emorphus), Martin Bauer (Design IT), Xavier Brower (Autonomy) and Simon Rawson (Microz), moderated by David Warwick. The meeting was also the informal second-half of our AGM and steering committee elections (following Sydney), and Simon Rawson and Chandi Perera also nominated for the steering committee. There were fourteen members in attendance.
First Year Highlights
Some notable items from 2005/2006 – our first year (and the second year of CM Pros internationally) ...
Members: During this period the paid Australian membership of CM Pros increased from 12 to 37 (308% increase) while the total CM Pros membership increased from 490 to 927 (190% increase).
CMPAC Mailing List: From a beginning of zero (0), CMPAC finished the first year with 146 email list participants.
Meetings: CMPAC held eleven meetings (1 foundation, 7 in Melbourne, and 3 in Sydney). The total attendance was 157 (largest 38 during Open Publish).
The CMPAC group was formed, was named as a supporter of Open Publish 2006 and generated reasonable industry awareness.
CMPAC Second Year of Operation
Given that the nominations were under the maximum number of 8, all nominated candidates were elected to the steering committee for 2006/2007. Once again David Warwick and James Robertson were elected to Co-Chair the organization. Other steering committee members were Matthew Harris, Peter Meyer, Simon Rawson, Chandi Perera and Melanie Kendell.
On Thursday, September 21, 2006 our fourth Sydney meeting was a discussion on ‘Content Creation’.
On Monday, October 2, 2006 our eighth Melbourne meeting was a panel on ‘Design and Content Management’, with Panelists David Warwick, Ben Loke and Chandi Perera.
