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As we’ve recently welcomed Owain, our second Umbraco MVP to the team, we thought it would be a good opportunity to give him a grilling on the Umbraco community and why it seems to be the place to be!

You can read Owain’s suggestions on getting involved in the community below, or you can watch his video here (it’s also available via Instagram on our IGTV channel):

Firstly, what is the Umbraco community?

It’s basically a group of individuals who use the Umbraco CMS, whether that’s developers, content editors or anyone who’s interested really. All are welcome to be a part of it! We’re a super friendly bunch of people.

If you’d like to be a part of it, here are a few ways you can get involved:

1. Contribute to documentation and core CMS

Umbraco is open source, so you can go online and take a look at all the source code to see how the CMS works. You can actually go into the code and make changes, you can make requests or help fix bugs… you can even make improvements, it’s all there for you to take a look around in!

There’s also documentation, so you can hop over to the Umbraco website and update it yourself! If you see a spelling mistake or notice that something is missing, you can go in and add it. That’s actually how I started contributing to the community in the first place. I spotted a couple of spelling mistakes in the documentation, made a change and it was merged in!

2. Twitter

Another way to get involved is on Twitter, if you follow the hashtag #Umbraco, you’ll see loads of people chatting (in a virtual sense) all about Umbraco and the CMS, including things like new releases or any suggestions on how to improve the CMS itself, or even just questions about how to code something up.

3. Writing articles

Many of us also contribute by writing articles for websites such as Skrift and 24days, both of which are community-based online magazines which allow you to submit articles.

4. Attend meet-ups

Umbraco also hold meet-ups and this is a brilliant way to meet people and get involved. Prior to Covid, there would be meet-ups around the world, they’re organised by community members and it’s an amazing way to meet other developers, contributors and people who have an interest in the CMS. Just check out meetups.com and search for Umbraco.

5. Join us on slack

Another option is to join the virtual workspace of Slack, on there you can chat with other community members in real-time, it’s almost like an extended office for many of us, we’re on there most days and everyone always says good morning! It’s a really good space to chat and ask questions in a real-time environment.

6. Get blogging

A lot of us like to write blogs, it’s a good way of sharing your knowledge with everyone and it’s always appreciated!

7. Watch and listen to community videos & podcasts

You can watch YouTube videos which are held every Friday at 11:30 (UK time). Just head to www.youtube.com/umbracoffee and they round up what’s been happening in the community over the past week. There’s also a podcast called Candid Contributions and that comes out weekly or bi-weekly. They’re on season 2 at the moment so there’s plenty to catch up on, it discusses all things open source so it’s not just Umbraco either!

8. The community isn’t just for developers!

On top of all of this, being a part of the community really isn’t just for developers. We’re actively trying to invite non-developers such as project managers, content editors and people who use Umbraco as a tool. There’s a Twitter account called @Upractitioners that you can follow, we’re in the process of arranging virtual meet-ups for that so it’s really worthwhile following if you’re looking for a way to be involved.

9. Answer forum questions

Read and answer questions on our.umbraco.com. Hour is a forum with questions being posted and answered on a daily basis. If you’re interested in helping other people, pop over there and see if there’s anything you can answer. It’s a great way of not only bettering your knowledge of Umbraco but also, giving something back.

10. Attend festivals and events

When things have calmed down with Covid, Umbraco will continue with their usual festivals and events. There’s UkFest, which is a community-driven festival, there’s also DUUG, CodeCabin and Code Garden.

If you take all of these things together, it’s a really great way of getting to know like-minded people who are all really welcoming and really friendly. Being a part of the community will get you so much more out of the CMS. It’s not just a tool for many of us, it’s a family of developers, front-end, back-end, project managers and content editors all coming together to help make the product a much better solution for people to use.

Hopefully, I’ll be seeing you in the community soon and I look forward to giving you a very warm welcome!

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