Last night I attended a user group meeting with the cool folks from the Cleveland C#/VB.Net Special Interest Group. They meet every 4th Tuesday, meetings open to the public, all together with food and swag provided! Many thanks to Sam Nasr for setting up the meeting and coordinating efforts to get people there.
Patrick Santry, DotNetNuke Sales Engineer, was there to present version 6 to the group. It’s always fun to meet a DNN celebrity. They’re all down to earth guys, just regular dudes, who happen to be great at code and have a heart for the web community. Patrick was just as I imagined he might be – easy to talk to, friendly, knowledgeable, and fun. Even though he’s written 8 books and won the Microsoft MVP award at least 4 times, he was still talking
In the midst of the meeting, I found myself thinking about all my experience with DotNetNuke. As Patrick was really introducing the product to people who, for the most part, had very little experience with it, I didn’t really learn anything new, per se. But the experience was not lost on me, as I realized that there is TON of great stuff about DotNetNuke, and the world needs to know! So, without further ado:
- DotNetNuke is far more than a Content Management System (CMS). While you can easily manage loads of content, you can go well beyond that with DNN. You can extend the framework to build your own modules and skins. You can connect to 3rd party programs and API’s to integrate existing applications. You can assign permissions by role or individual account for editing pages, modules, or entire sites. You can… ok, you get my point.
- In spite of its popularity among some groups, there are still LOTS of people out there who don’t know much about it, yet could benefit in huge ways for themselves and their organizations.
- The community is incredibly strong, friendly, and global in scope. Never have I seen such a generous, fun-loving group of technical people than I have with DotNetNuke online. The atmosphere amongst DNN regulars on Twitter and in the forums is second to none. I’ve tried to get help for WordPress on Twitter, and I can just say, in contrast to my experience with DNN peeps, “Fat Chance” when it comes to getting help from the WordPress community on Twitter.
- DotNetNuke has come a long way over the years, and will only get better. It is amazing to think back on the things that have improved. The simplest things impress me the most, like Page Management, Snowcovered integration, UI enhancements, Performance improvements… Funny, I say “simple” about these things, which I’m sure are anything but simple. With version 6 DNN Corp. did away with the clunky interface of old, and I said last night at the meeting, “All other CMS platforms have truly begun to fade into the distance with the advent of version 6.” Yet, there is more to come, as the roadmap for DNN indicates. Can’t wait!
- I’m a big fan. Really, sitting there listening to Patrick’s presentation, it struck me just how big a fan I am. I’ve built a *small* side-business around DotNetNuke. I’ve used it in the enterprise. I’ve constructed Intranet sites, Extranet sites, and made life better and easier for myself and others with DotNetNuke. While I don’t have the kind of time to invest in DotNetNuke that I’d like to, I just sat there and realized that I’m a fan.
What things have you pondered about DotNetNuke, and what stands out for you about the product that has inspired you to share it with someone else or use it for your site or business? Let me know in the comments!
– Chad
This is, quite frankly, a fantastic blog post about DotNetNuke.
Glad you like this post, Will. And thanks for the email response, too. Wish I had more time to spread the word about DotNetNuke. I’ll be putting more of a focus on it here on this blog, even though it’s a WordPress blog! The majority of customer sites that we do are DotNetNuke sites, because, quite frankly, everything else pretty much pales in comparison.
Agreed, great post. The other thing I would add is their stewardship of the platform. DNN has been around for a long time (in Internet time) and managed to steadily evolve the platform and their business model. It’s impressive that they’ve managed these transitions without completely abandoning their base. This takes a lot of discipline and I admire it.
Great meeting you last night. It was a good time, and too bad you missed going out for beers afterwards.
Great blog post!
It’s all very true what you write, and sometimes when at the coal face, we don’t step back and see what has been achieved.
I just re-introduced a friend to DNN who hadn’t seen it since version 2. He just couldn’t say ‘wow’ enough, and I could see his mind was exploding with the possibilities. Having spent about 5 years of my life working with the platform, it’s easy to skim over the incremental improvements when you’re just trying to bust the system all the time to find faults. But to go back and look at early versions, and look where it is now, well, WOW is the only correct response.
Hey I just now found your blog because I looked for it even though I had heard you were blogging I was too busy to look before but came out of my shell today and it’s a really fun and interesting thing to see so thank you NEF for creating this fine piece of art for us to enjoy.
UNKL