The cost of a license is a one-time fee of $299 for a commercial site. This is less for non commercial (non-profit) but most clients will fall into the commercial category. The cost may seem a hurdle at first but break it down into billable hours and it starts to make more sense in terms of profit margin. At a $100 per hour rate this accounts for 3 billable hours.

Let’s say you have a project that requires customization beyond what a free application offers. Further there is no plug-in or component that will do exactly what you need without some form of compromise in function or design. This is not an unusual situation to be in as it happens quite frequently. For example say you need a CRUD solution with a customized report to display search results and you are using joomla. Due to a lack of built in functionality you may find yourself using a third-party component to build the form and manage submissions. When it comes to presenting the data for search you may spend several hours figuring out how to customize the report to the project’s specifications. This hurdle then cost you in time to come up with a solution. While there is a support forum for the third party module you remain at the mercy of the developers or a community member to get an answer to your questions. Maybe there is a subscription service offered, but this is yet another expense, and it only covers the third-party product. If we were using expression engine creating the form, the search, and the report would have been a straightforward process and any further customization could have been handled without the need for a third-party plug-in/add-on/component. This in turn would have saved us hundreds of dollars in time spent on the project.

The example above is only one instance where a seemingly simple project escalates in cost due to the lack of flexibility of, in this case, joomla. Not only is there a cost associated with development there is also an unseen cost in maintenance. For instance: joomla has a security issue that warrants an upgrade. If you are not actively looking for this issue, days or weeks can pass before you are made aware of its existence. During that time sites are vulnerable to attack and should one fall victim the cost in fixing the issue and more importantly in client relationship escalates far beyond the initial cost of the project itself. There is more, with each update you not only have to worry about the core system, but also with the third-party components the site depends on for advanced functionality. We now have to keep track of these for vulnerabilities as well as the software they run on which in turn is an added cost. (note: wordpress offers an excellent update system and is my first choice for smaller projects)

Here lies the value of a paid product which contains the ability to extend itself beyond the typical free solution. When you purchase Expression Engine you not only receive the license to run the software, but also support from the developers and community so that problems are addressed in a personal manner as opposed to relying solely on a community to answer a question (or not as is often the case). Your product is also backed by an active development program that has a financial incentive to push the software forward in a responsible yet innovative manner. You will be made aware of security issues rather than discovering they exist allowing a proactive approach to fixing potential problems. This is in contrast to the reactive (damage control) mentioned earlier. Should there be a need for a third-party solution there is an active group of developers out there with a wide array of solutions, at the same time creating your own add-ons is an easy process that is supported with extensive documentation and support forums (just like the free solutions).

The bottom line is your bottom line, what seems to be a cost can be a savings when the total cost of each solution is examined. While there are times when a free solution is a wise choice, I believe this to be the exception and not the rule. It is important that you determine what tools you want to use and stick to them so that you can build a solid understanding of their abilities and limits. This will help you judge projects in terms of total cost. The end result will be a savings of time and money which in turn increases profit margin and good will associated with your brand.

Further reading:

• The Expression Engine Website
• Product Overview
• Product Features

The first session I attended was “Jumping into WordPress Plugin Programming” led by Dougal Campbell, one of the first to work on the wordpress platform. The room was packed, to the point there were folks sitting on the floor for lack of chairs, nevertheless, the cheerful group listened attentively to Dougal talk about the vast back end/plugin architecture offered to developers. I came to this session with a basic understanding of plugin/dev; I left the session feeling like I had SO much more to learn. WordPress didn’t just create a robust application, they created a platform that allows developers to make it even more so. Since we were limited on time, Dougal was only able to scratch the surface on the topic, but it was enough of a scratch to pique my interest and push me in the right direction. The next session I attended was Essential SEO and Analytics for WordPress, led by Jeremy Flint.

Flint’s session was divided in two parts, one for SEO tools/plugins to assist the developer in site optimization. The second part was about analytics tools/plugins that make tracing and measuring your site’s success a breeze. I came into the session thinking all I needed to do was add my Google tracking code to the bottom of the page, I mean it can’t get much better than that right? Wrong! Jeremy pointed us to a plugin called Google Analyticator.

Short Description:
Google Analyticator adds the necessary JavaScript code to enable Google Analytics logging on any WordPress blog. This eliminates the need to edit your template code to begin logging. Google Analyticator also includes several widgets for displaying Analytics data in the admin and on your blog.

As you can see this takes it one step further allowing you to compartmentalize information within the wp-admin. Jeremy also showed us several SEO tips and tricks that I had previously built into the template. It turns out there are tools/plugins out there to handle SEO for you so you can focus on great design. Now it was time for lunch and our first keynote led by, Matt Mullenweg, @photomatt.

Matt as some may know is the man behind wordpress as we know it. Rather than spending his keynote telling us about how wonderful his product is, he actually spent the time speaking to the audience, answering questions, and just being awesome. I was/am so impressed with the keynote approach. While Matt spoke we had Dreamland BBQ, thanks Andre @acnatta and the rest of the organizers, the food was wonderful, wait everything was wonderful, okay maybe not the wifi but that is another story. Now for the most informative session I attended, Mitch Canter / @studionashvegas ‘s session on “Beyond the Blog: Setting up a Full Dynamic site with WordPress”

Mitch opened my eyes to several tools that make wordpress so much better. One of my favorite tools we discussed was flutter. Mitch was introduced to flutter by @tammyhart another AMAZING theme developer. Flutter takes content creation to a new level by allowing you to enter different sections of content in custom fields. You can then create new page templates within your theme to display the content however you want. Prior you had a typical wysiwyg editor and you had to fit all the formatting in to that box. With flutter a new world of content creation and styling overtakes the placid seas of WP. Mitch also spoke of using wp-query in your page templates which enables you to push several different pages of content onto the same WP page template. This session alone was worth the price of admission.

The rest of the day, or until the final keynote, I spent time networking, meeting  tweeps, and just having some great conversations. I think my favorite part of wcbhm09 was the offline interaction. I am so encouraged by the people I got the chance to meet, the community spirit that made up the conference was phenomenal.

The last keynote was given by @mideastyouth there is no way I could possibly give her justice merely appending my thoughts to this post, therefore, I’m going to write about what an amazing session it was later on.

Saturday night a few of us went to dinner, where we continued in thought provoking conversation. If you don’t know John Garrett then you need to. follow him here: @garrett98, @reversechurch, and @microfit. I need to give a big sh0ut-out to @microfit for covering the cost of @mideastyouth’s travel, truly an awesome company with a heart of gold. After dinner I met up with some other attendees where to my surprise I got to meet and hangout with @photomatt, he is completely down to earth, extremely smart, and a pleasure to spend time with.

Well gotta get to work, more to come…

Check out the pictures here: Flickr Photo Pool

The wordcamp site here: http://wordcampbirmingham.org

Follow wordcamp here: http://twitter.com/wordcampbham

Facebook here: http://www.facebook.com/wordcampbham

Slideshare with presentations here: http://bit.ly/14vykJ

In closing, to everyone that made #wcbhm09 such a success, thanks, I can’t wait till next year.

Awesome plugin for rapid smooth content creation in Word Press, Flutter, create forms that allow you to add content while maintaining a strict form. Clients don’t have to know what class to use, where to add an image, etc. simply create a form for structured content, clients fill it in, beautiful content appears.

Developer’s Description:

Flutter is a feature rich WordPress CMS plugin that focuses on easy templating for the developer and simplifies content management for the admin by creating custom write panels that can be fully customized (radio buttons, file uploads, image uploads, checkboxes, etc).

Flutter also includes power image manipulation (automatic resizing, cropping, watermarking, etc), edit in place (works instantly!), and modulation of your themes.

If you enjoy using Flutter, please donate or contribute in some way.