Today, Nov. 7th, 2008, is World Plone Day. No, it's not some obscure holiday you've never heard of, but instead an opportunity for the community of developers and users of the Plone content management system to try and get the word out.Plone's profile has certainly been increased by its recent win of Packt Publishing's 2008 Best Other Open-Source CMS" Award, and while it doesn't quite have the name recognition of some of the better known CMS platforms such as Drupal or Joomla, it's built up an impressive community that hopes to change that.

The open source, Python-based Plone is built on top of the Zope application server, but don't be intimidated by the barrage of unfamiliar technology; getting Plone up and running is straightforward, and requires little or no knowledge of the Zope itself.

Plone has been building a solid set of functionality since its first version was released in 2001. Like most mature content management systems, its core features cover many of the basics most organizations need, and hundreds of add-on modules are available that extend the capabilities even further. Plone's road map promises to add even more functionality over the next few releases into next year.

I was frankly surprised at the number of well-known sites using Plone as their CMS of choice, and while that shouldn't automatically sway your organization, it should give you good reason to add Plone to your evaluation list. Plone has received accolades and built a strong following for good reason -- its ease of use, extensibility, strong documentation, and a supportive user community make it a solid choice.