Back in January, the ImpressCMS Management Team was introduced. A group of 3 people were chosen to focus on the 3 priorities of the project - Development, Community, and Promotions. During the past 6 months, Marc-André Lanciault, Timothy Bowers and Steve Kenow stepped into those roles and sought to get the right resources applied in the right places at the right times to keep us moving in the right direction. They also identified 3 other people to assist them in their roles and prepare them for the next stage of ImpressCMS. Sina Asghari, Rene Sato and Niels joined Marc-André, Timothy and Steve and assisted them in the many tasks of running an open source project.

To keep things moving along in the right direction, to broaden our perspectives, to widen our resources and to lessen the burden on any individual, Marc-André, Timothy and Steve are moving out of their current roles to enable others to add their skills and abilities to ImpressCMS. This will also allow Marc-André, Timothy and Steve to focus on other aspects of the project and attend to personal lives, too.

So, who will be stepping up?

As mentioned in the beginning paragraph, Sina, Rene and Niels have been collaborating with Marc-André, Timothy and Steve and are the natural choices for these roles. And, they have indicated they are ready to step up to the challenge.

Development: Sina (pesianstranger) will be leading the team through the final release of ImpressCMS 1.2. Sina has played a very active role in our development in between his heavy academic schedule. He will be working closely with 2 other active developers - Rodrigo (therplima) and Gus (nekro), allowing them to step quickly into this role as he finishes his schooling.

Community: Niels (underdog) is a constant figure in the community forums and an advocate for the community. Niels has already been working with fellow Low Countryman, David J (fiammybe) on wrapping up some of the final pieces for the 1.2 release and together they will be the community liaisons.

Promotions: Rene (sato-san) has produced some very successful campaigns promoting ImpressCMS, along with being the webmaster for the German ImpressCMS site and a demo site. He's joined by Seth (seth_sd) and Simon (Madfish), both who have been involved in other efforts to promote ImpressCMS

What will become of those stepping aside?

By no means will they be disappearing from ImpressCMS. Their skills, experience and insights will still help shape the future of ImpressCMS as they become advisors to the new crew. When asked what he would be doing in the near future,

Marc-André stated:

"As you may know, for the last year, INBOX International has been in continuous expansion. In addition to this, my family now needs me more than ever. But one thing is for sure: INBOX business model relies on open source CMS, with a strong emphasis on ImpressCMS! So we will continue developing modules, customizing and improving the core, etc..."

Steve will be spearheading the conversion of wiki.impresscms.org from MediaWiki to an ImpressCMS-driven site using SimplyWiki. Along with that will come many additions to the wiki site, including integrating the API documentation from api.impresscms.org, making it a more well-rounded resource for users and developers. He also will be responsible as a liaison with our vendors (for hosting, svn, trac, advertising, etc), a responsiblity once handled by Marc-André along with his lead developer role, and as a project manager and advisor.

Timothy will be taking a break from most web based work to concentrate on other parts of his life which are currently taking priority, he hopes to return in some capacity in the near future.

We're all excited about what these new leaders will bring to the future of ImpressCMS.