One of the great benefits to a conference such as this is to enable talented practitioners to share concrete lessons learned in an informal setting. Nevertheless, many experienced architects and developers may be reluctant to speak up in general sessions, and may need a more structured format for sharing their knowledge.

The purpose of this session is to encourage CMS practitioners who are completing or have completed an actual implementation to share their joys and woes.

This type of format is especially needed in the realm of CMS, where one hears a plethora of inchoate rumors about implementaiton "failures" and "horror stories," but where there are precious few opportunities to truly plumb the experience of those who spent months (or longer) actually doing the work. Moreover, most formal conference sessions tend to focus on product or service features, and less on the (often messy) nuts and bolts of completing a project.

Industry veteran Tony Byrne will recruit a small panel to stimulate discussion on actual CMS implementations, focusing in particular on the critical role of XML. But the emphasis on the meeting will be on drawing out actual practitioners to share their experiences in a way that the rest of the audience can glean useful lessons and knowledge.