Showcasing the Best In the CMS World

Ask yourself whether today's young generation of web users and developers in the content management world is reading up on Vignette, Autonomy, Oracle or any so-called "ECM" on CMSWire's list.

Heck, ask any twenty-something web developer whether any of those brands ring a bell. You'll get a few nods with Oracle, but let's face it, today's developers don't have much reason to care about the big boys on that ECM list these days. Welcome to the Open Source Generation.

Why don't they care?

Three main reasons: The first one is easy: the enterprise players aren't hiring. Second, in case you hadn't noticed, twenty-somethings embrace change. Version change (like Vignette) once in every seven years just doesn't whet the young developer's appetite, let alone satisfy it. Third, today's generation has a choice of where to go to satisfy that appetite, and Open Source is where it's at.

Developing on one's own, or for an OS CMS is fast-moving; it's focused on solving problems n-o-w; it's about sharing, building communities, giving back, coopetition and so much more. The communities you'll find helping on OS software like Joomla!, Drupal, Plone, WordPress and others are vibrant, assertive, smart, changing daily (the way they like it), and focused on problem-solving.

Of course, the Open Source Generation isn't completely oblivious to the criticisms leveled by the big proprietary solutions out there. What's interesting and encouraging is how they've reacted.  Over the past couple years, when ECMs and analysts have pointed out the shortcomings of CMSes like Joomla, Drupal or WordPress, the communities reacted with a vengeance; but not with press releases and flame wars. They came back with patches, version upgrades and solutions - delivered in seven months or seven weeks, seven days or seven hours; and yes, sometimes seven minutes. Not seven years.

From what I've witnessed, today's Open Source Generation doesn't much care about exactly at what point a "CMS" becomes "enterprise" or not. They care about delivering solutions which their community is asking for. If it's enhanced versioning, security, multi-language, multi-site controls, multi-mapped categories, video content management or audit trails, OS developers do it. They're just there to keep making their system the best it can be for their users, period.  Now that's enterprising, don't you think?

I for one am really looking forward to what this "OS generation" of innovators can do.

Come join the Open Source Generation in action at the upcoming CMS Expo Learning and Business Conference, May 3rd - 5th, 2010 in Evanston, Illinois. John Coonen is Co-Host of the 2010 CMS Expo. Learn more at http://cmsx.us.