'A friend of mine has just built a beautiful website, using Joomla,' my partner said. 'And if she can do this, you certainly can.' I had never heard of Joomla. Come to think of it, I had never even worked with a content management system. Even worse: I hadn't built a website in years. So everything had gotten a bit rusty. When I decided to give Joomla a go, I soon discovered the power of the community.

Understanding Joomla was kind of hard in the beginning, but I learned. I learned a lot. I got better. And found out there's always more to learn. So I joined a user group. The first couple of meetings I was kind of a sponge, soaking in all this knowledge everybody brought. I became coordinator of this group. And after a while I discovered I actually knew something somebody else didn't. After giving a few presentations (user group and Joomla Days) and workshops, translating Joomla Documentation and writing articles for the Dutch Joomla Magazine I now know for sure: giving back to the community makes you feel its power even more.

I've come a long way, from building my first hobby website to being a webdesigner by profession. Joomla has changed my life. It's not just a content management system, it's a community effort, carried out by people all over the world, working together to make the best of it. That's why I love to use Joomla.