Clint Patterson's Blog

rss

Read the thoughts and musings of a cultured redneck here


Next Steps
Specify Alternate Text

I first bumped into DNN around 2005 while working at a local university in the Charlotte area. At that time, I had no idea what DNN or open source was or the impact it would play in the next decade and beyond of my life. Since then I’ve met awesome and generous people, ended up in places I never expected to go, made a lot of friends, and have learned a lot along the way. The DNN platform and community have definitely impacted my life.

Around 2 years ago I was contacted with the challenge of re-engaging with, empowering, and reinvigorating the DNN Community. This happened as the acquisition occurred. Of course, these were all things I wanted to see happen and to get to be a part of it was even better. And while there may have been some bumps in the road, we have come a long way since then.

We’ve Made Great Progress and We’re Just Getting Started
Since re-joining DNN Corp 19 months ago as Ecosystem Manager, the DNN Community has made great strides. DNN Corp leadership followed through on the promise to empower the community and we’ve seen the community undergo an exercise in self-organization and take complete ownership of the source code. We’ve joined the .NET Foundation which ensures the code base will always remain open source and the community now drives the roadmap for the platform. Further reinforcing the progress and contrasting from years past, DNN TAG leadership now has “owner” rights to the DNN platform GitHub repo and can build releases at will.

Outside of the code, the MVP Program was turned over to, and MVPs were elected by, the community. Community members are also running the annual DNN Website Awards Competition. And as of this past week’s DNN-Connect conference in Switzerland, the community has launched its own site, DnnCommunity.org. And last but not least, the documentation center was turned over to the community and DNNDocs.com is now live and in preview mode.

We have indeed come a long way and made great progress since the acquisition. I’ve tried my best to meet the challenge of re-engaging with and empowering the community. Hopefully I’ve played a small role in bringing on some of the positive change in the community. It’s been great to watch the community respond, take initiative, and step up. We still have a way to go and I look forward to continuing to be a part of the journey with the community.

Transitioning Back to DNN Community
I will now return to full time community member as I recently accepted a new role and will be transitioning out of DNN Corp. Moving forward, although I’ll no longer be at DNN Corp, I’ll still be active in the DNN Community. That is, I’ll still be involved with DNN Association, DNN Summit, the DNN Docs team, the Charlotte-based Southern Fried DNN User Group, .NET Foundation activities, and you’ll see me online as well!

Next Steps
I’m excited to have accepted a role as Senior Solutions Consultant at Simpplr. Simpplr is a SaaS based intranet solution with a lot of similarities to DNN. If you are looking for a modern intranet, that is indeed simple to use, feel free to reach out!

Oddly enough, the US-based Simpplr office is located in San Francisco not too far from the old DNN Corp offices. So, I’ll be riding down El Camino Real again soon and for any old DNN’ers let’s connect when I’m in town.


Clint Patterson

I also blog on other sites...

And contribute to OSS Documentation...

See my pics on UnSplash