One of the ideas thrown around at the discussions on the night after the Melbourne JoomlaDay 2007 was the group ideal that a conference, developed by local people in the Joomla! community in Melbourne, for the Melbourne market was a good idea.

Considering the Melbourne community is going to be running some 'lightning' style (Less than 5 minutes) talks on Joomla! over the next few months, what does this mean?
Well, for one, it will grow and mature the local Melbourne community to help present and educate their users, their clients and the wider community to benefits of Joomla!. It means people don't have to rely primarily on the official 'support' channels as localised support remains available.

The only risk we've identified thus far in the SWOT analysis for a Melbourne Joomla! conference later this year or early in 2008 is that Open Source Matters has actually provided ongoing conflicting information regarding the use of the word: "Joomla! conference".

The official statement from Alex Kempens, representing the official Joomla! events team, is that:

Joomla! conference is a reserved word and we would not allow this name to be used. Other names are of course possible

This response was given to the Berlin and Cologne Joomla! user groups when they sought to provide a much more international flavour to their regular local Joomla! support. However, the paper trail doesn't end there.

Seemingly contradicting the official policy is the NYC/Manhattan Joomla Conference discussion on the Official forums and the existence of this site. Furthermore, I can find no reference to "Joomla conference" being a registered or reserved word mark for Joomla! on the IP Australia databases.

Apart from this risk, and the associated contradictory evidence found with it, a Melbourne Joomla! conference looks to be on the books.