Impressions from Drupalcon

drupalcon

Drupalers, Drups?

I’ve been back from D.C. a couple weeks and I am still trying to distill everything I experienced at Drupalcon. With three days of intense sessions, Birds of a Feather gatherings, discussions and keynote speeches I have yet to find a way synthesize everything. In fact, I was so excited by some of the things I learned, I am frustrated by not bing able to implement them. OK, it’s only been 2 weeks, so I should be patient.

Most of the sites we’re working on only use a small fraction of the power that Drupal has to offer. I’ve realized I need to do a better job helping clients expand their vision of what their sites could be. And do so without appearing to try and sell them features. Tricky balance. But I also really want to find more clients that already  have that larger vision and want to leverage the Drupal platform to build a communications center, not just a web site delivering content. In the meantime I’m planning a couple of my own sites that will offer some of these features. It was one of my new year resolutions after all.

Three other general impressions I came away with that I hope to write more about later:

  • The Drupal community is truly something special
  • Drupal development continues to lead the way in opening its framework
  • Drupal 7 will have an ever increasing focus on usability and lovely themes

If you’re interested, all the main sessions and the keynotes were videotaped and can be accessed here. I’m watching sessions I couldn’t attend in person, and rewatching others.

At Drupalcon

My hotel is only 5 blocks from the Verizon  Convention Center in Washington, D.C. So it’s an easy walk in the cold morning sun. But today, day 2 of Drupalcon, as I got to the Convention Center door I realized I forgot my pass to Drupalcon. So I hiked back to the hotel, and the back to the center. 15 blocks already today.

So far this morning I’ve been to a session on the Semantic web (geeky but really inspiring to see what’s possible and whats coming) and a great talk by an Internet philosopher, David Wineberger: Is Drupal moral? Uh, yes. Happed to sit next to Dries (originator of Drupal). Thought he looked relieved by the conclusion by Mr. Wineberger. Kidding. I think he was already convinced.

I am waiting for the next session to start, so I have a few moments, but not enough to offer any details. However, in 2 days, I have learned a great deal about Drupal that and its possibilities both as a technology platform and a social platform, that I will really need to find some time to synthaize some of this while I am here, and not wait until I get back. I also know I am missing some good sessions as I can only go to one out for 4 each hour. But I discovered where they are storing the videos of all the sessions.

First Annual Tech Conference in Eureka

The Redwood Technology Conference will hold its first annual North Coast Technology Conference on March 14 at the Humboldt Bay Aquatic Center in Eureka. RTC board member Daria Topousis has a Tech Beat article in the Times-Standard today that covers the Conference pretty well.

I’m doing a presentation on open source content management systems and tools like Joomla, WordPress and Drupal. I will focus mostly on Drupal as I will have just returned for Drupalcon in Washingtion, D.C. and my head will be filled with all the possibilities this system holds.

The RTC web site has more information and registration for the Tech Conference.

Obama Embraces Drupal

What a strange sounding title to a post. But this is just to point out that the new site Recovery.gov released to track the recovery plan is built with Drupal, a content management system and framework that we have been using more and more. In fact, we’re in the process of making our own site over in Drupal, and we’ve just become a partner with Acquia which proivdes professional support services for Drupal users and developers.

Anyway, this use by the Obama administration of Drupal is a big deal. It’s a big deal for Drupal itself, but it’s also a big deal as a stamp of approval for the open source movement in general. This article points out some of the roots of the cross pollination of the open source, Drupal and  Deomcratic party politics.

Tech for Obama

My wife has been an Obama supporter from early on in the primaries. I stayed neutral during that period, but since each party has settled on their candidates the choice has become easy. The McCain campaign was shaky to begin with and now appears almost pathetic.

But if you still need convincing and you’re in to tech (and who isn’t these days?) there is a web site specifically to help along your convictions. Here is a video of tech endorsements from the site. Oh, and by the way, the site was built using Drupal, a system we use more and more.