DevReach suggestion...

With DevReach around the corner in Bulgaria, I thought I'd toss in a suggestion for the Sitefinity Management team.

Surprise your support team.
This most have been an amazingly overwhelming year for them, well beyond anyone's expectations. Its probably a year or so since the actual beta has been released and they've relentlessly thrown themselves at the lions. I know you guys are famous for your support, but still they're the ones who took the bullets this year. And there have been plenty of bullets flying around.

Pamper Gabe Sumner.
I hope you guys set him up in the executive suite of the Grand Hotel and thrown in some french benefits, because he's constantly all over the place. Whether it's a half sentence on LinkedIn, a comment in the forums or a single tweet, he tries to instantly respond with a blog post or an email. Between this, his firehose and his actual job description I'm amazed he can turn his mind off and fall asleep at night.

Stay true to yourself.
It may have been a rough year and alot of negative comments have been posted (present company included) but just open the january release next to the current one and see how much has been accomplished by everyone in just this year. So just keep doing what you guys are doing best, delivering more than expected!

Your note was relayed internally Jochem.

On behalf of the team, thank you for your kind words.  Also, I'll rack up an obnoxious hotel bill, invite all the Sitefinity crew and then show this post to Martin & Vassil when they ask me about it.  ;)

I'm glad you're noticing the positive momentum externally.  It's easier to see this momentum internally.  I've seen the team mature a lot (in many ways) over the last year.  Today, I enjoy simply lurking on their internal distribution lists and watching them obsess and debate about unit tests, functional tests, implementations, performance metrics, etc, etc.  I barely even know what they're talking about most of the time, but I can recognize a strongly functioning team.  It makes me proud.

2011, for better or worse, was largely about maturing our product & team.  In 2012 we'll show you (and everyone) what we can do with this team.  Thanks to you (and everyone else) for your support.

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P.S.  I plan to take plenty of picture while in Bulgaria.  I'll also attempt some interviews if I can pry people away from their computers for a few minutes.  

Gabe Sumner
Telerik | Sitefinity CMS