Remember GeoCities? That’s where I started communicating online. In 2000, I built my first website using Microsoft FrontPage. If you were interested in vampires back then, you might have stumbled across my project. In 2008 I became a regular Wikipedia editor.
My professional career as a TYPO3 content creator and editor began in 2011 for the German Green Party. In 2012, I contributed to the relaunch of the State Portal of Baden-Württemberg on TYPO3 — and I’ve been working with it ever since. Yes, I experimented with other CMS, like WordPress for a personal project on electric cars starting 2012, but if you know, you know.
Over the years, I became a true TYPO3 evangelist. Working for the State Ministry of Baden-Württemberg until 2023, I advocated within the administration for Open Source Software and “public value for public money.” In 2023, I switched sides and joined ressourcenmangel GmbH as a consultant. My mission: to create better citizen experiences, champion digital sovereignty, and raise awareness for digital accessibility. All of these goals require the right CMS — and in my opinion, that’s TYPO3.
TYPO3 is the perfect toolset for managing complex public administration websites. Over the past decade, we have built kind of our own Government Site Builder for the state government of Baden-Württemberg. But in true Swabian understatement, we simply called it the “Ministerienbaukasten.”
Especially in times like these, when our pluralistic and democratic societies face multiple foreign and domestic threats, strengthening and securing our digital sovereignty is more important than ever. For Europe, the path forward must be FOSS.
As we must not become even more dependent on hyperscalers. This is particularly true when we see the CEOs of these multi-billion-dollar corporations aligning themselves with autocratic governments.
No, I’m not a developer, and my coding skills are limited — though I did learn the basics over four years in school. But that doesn’t make me any less of a TYPO3 power user. I navigate TYPO3 daily as a content creator, editor, concept designer, and information architect.
I strongly believe that TYPO3 needs this kind of expertise now more than ever. Not as a replacement, but as a crucial addition to the technical excellence that defines our community.
Right now, we have unprecedented momentum with the new Government Site Builder based on TYPO3, combined with recent marketing efforts and investments that have significantly increased TYPO3’s visibility. I have no doubt that the technical aspects are in exceptionally good hands within our community.
But soon, thousands of new editors will enter the TYPO3 backend. I want to give them — and all other editors — a voice within the TYPO3 Association. Many editors can find the backend outdated, complex, and unintuitive. With your support, I want to focus more on the people who use TYPO3 every day.
Because happy editors make the best advocates!
Germany
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