Lessons Learned from the Community Frontline
How I managed to survive my first Drupalcon adventure
This week, I attended my first full-tilt Drupalcon conference in Boston, MA. I suppose I thought I was ready for this simply because I'd attended a 'Camp or two, but I wasn't prepared for the ensuing melee of the code-head throngs. I don't think there is any amount of reading material that can prepare you for the jolt of standing next to an idol who's coding skill, drive to succeed at their art no matter the compensation, and approachability are all without question, even as you realize the person to your idol's left is looking at you in the very same way. Sobering, to be sure, but still quite a shock. I suppose this experience is the very reason for planning such a large gathering of eight hundred inspired professionals in the first place, and if that's the case, may the Drupalcon Adventure never cease to exist.
I cannot prepare you for this level of excitement and learning, but I can teach you a few things that you'll need to know in advance. Here's what I picked up from Drupalcon_1.
Meet someone on purpose
Whether you're looking to expand your circle of friends, or trying to figure out what all your friends really look like in person, the one piece of advice you simply must take is to say hello to anyone who looks at you. Chances are, they're trying to figure out who you are, where you work, and what pieces of the Druppel-pie you're involved with. Taking the initiative to reach out is the way to go, because you'll eventually get stuck beside them in an uncomfortable situation, such as an escalator or a restaurant table, and you don't want to have to say, "Yes, I know we've stared at each other across a room six times already while silently trying to place the face, but now that we're forced to speak, umm, 'hello?'". Shyness at Drupalcon? There is no shy.
Push your company's focus
The Con is also a fantabulous spot for getting your company's momentum going. Since the advent of toilet paper and the potato launcher, people have been advertising their company's goals to other groups outside of their sphere of influence. But at a conference like this, advertising yourself to other companies who do exactly what you do is definitely more beneficial than selling your wares to an unsuspecting public, and here's why. Small companies struggle to get, spec, and fulfill bids while the large companies battle a simultaneous war against the lack of quality development talent and the need to keep their employees trained in the current trends. The crux of the dilemma is that smaller companies are often fearful of speaking in specific terms to larger companies because they don't think the "big boys" want to listen to whatever bids and ideas they have going on. The large development houses don't talk to the smaller groups because they don't think the discussions will really influence the daily dealings and the mindset of their bigass companies.
I propose that the little one and two and three person shops should actively seek out and tell the employees of bigger companies how to stay agile and meet the goals of the project by implementing crafty solutions that nobody's ever thought of before, and the workers in the huge dev houses should find someone in a smaller organization and expose the ways they do business with their clients from the bidding process to the contract's needs and all the way to the handling of timeline scheduling. By doing this at each yearly meetup, all the businesses who leverage this free software bundle would be able to simultaneously learn new ways of handling business goals or client needs while finding out what fresh talent might be on the market for temporary or even permanent hire. Talent that doesn't have to be trained in The Drupal Way. Sure, we all collaborate to make the core code better, but if we all purposed to share a little bit of business information with each other, the community would prosper because the money-making ventures were sharing their ideas and training with each other as well. That flow of information translates to a lower bottom line for all of us, so please, when you're at the next Gathering, ask one of the small companies what they're working on. You might be highly surprised. Ask the big companies how they do it. If they're smart, they'll tell you.
Sleep before you show up
The schedule of events at a Drupalcon is by no means exhaustive yet it is indeed exhausting. The sessions begin at 9am each morning, and last until 6pm that night. There might be a Birds Of a Feather gathering after that too, so by the time you've absorbed eight hours of training and then a BoF meeting, it's time to party. You can't say to yourself, "I'll go back to my hotel room and sleep for 9 hours instead of going out." Don't you dare. Those after hours events are the best place to get to know people, catch up on their life stories, and get a few black market photographs. Plus, if you weren't there last night, you will have absolutely no idea what everybody's laughing about as they file into the morning keynote meeting. Be there. You should have slept before you came. Don't say I didn't warn you.
Code for Beer
One of my friends publicly proposed a Coding For Beer program at this year's event. Now, I know this has been going on in the shadows for some time now, but it's time we bring it to the surface as a reward system for modules well done. I'm quoting Morten by memory here, but the way it was purported to work is this. You see a module that someone's built, and it looks cool. You download the module, install it on a site, configure it, and end up making money with that module's code. Sure, you got it for free, and you used it to cash in, but hey, that's Open Source for ya, right?
How might you reward these gifted individuals who wrote your website's functionality for you? Buy them some beer, of course! Not just any beer, mind you, but something that they both like and that comes from a place they can't easily reach. Live in the US, but have a favorite coder in Germany? Send them a once-a-year case of American microbrew from Colorado or Portland or Chicago. What about those of you living in places like Denmark who have access to batches of the finest goodness ever to be bottled? Send it towards the States, that's what! If our core and contrib module maintainers can't get a yearly 12 pack from you for helping you to sell more product, then we're all doomed. Dooooomed!
If doesn't have to be beer either. Heck, good root beer is as hard to find these days as a decent scotch, but if you wanna pick one person each year as your MOTY (that's Maintainer Of The Year for those of you who're guessin) and send them a case of something they might enjoy, it could get you even more karma points for your next IRC hot-seat question.
I hear some of you saying, "Let's start an awards show at the 'Con where coders can walk down the aisle and win 12 packs of imported nectary goodness!" Umm, ok, sounds fun, but how bout this instead. If each of you brings that 12 pack and 'awards' it to your favorite coders on Wednesday during the 'Con, we could all have quite the party, don't ya think? Sooo much beer, a DJ system, and some buckets of ice, combined with a warehouse rental, a fog machine, a Wii, a PS3, and a networked Xbox or two would make for a memorable worldwide tasting experience, albeit a somewhat painful early Thursday session. So be it. If there's good beer to share with friends both new and old, it simply must be done. Your price of admission is a twelver, cause you can't get in without it!
Plan your trip well in advance
As most of you know, travel scheduling is a headache on fire if you don't take care of it soon enough. The earlier you plan your trip, the more easily you can arrange to stay at the same place as at least one or two other people. Sharing rides in a taxi is far cheaper than going it alone. May I recommend this? Use the drupalcon.org forums to find someone to share housing with waaaay before you book a plane ticket. Make it someone you know, or someone you'd like to become friends with, but do not wait. Book that lodging even before you're sure you can get off work. Book it because you *know* you wanna go. Book it because you'll make a friend for life and reduce your costs too. It's a good incentive for spending the money on a plane ticket, since you've already got a bed, a conference pass, and a friend lined up which forces you to get your ass into an airplane seat. Take this advice. Book two months in advance. It gives you something to look forward to, and keeps you from having to spend so much money in the same month.
Oh, and if your boss isn't willing to commit in advance to your attendance at this once-a-year meeting about the free software he's making money with, thereby allowing you to save 1/3 of your travel costs, write me an email. I'll blog about them publicly, cause that's just wrong!
See you next year
Yes, I'll be back. Not because of the learning experiences I had, or the inroads I made with others from similar companies who now want to help me out even as I help them out, or because of the amazing code ideas we managed to generate. No, I will be back next year because these are my people, my community, my friends, and sharing five days worth of laughter and insight and camaraderie was vastly more important than any client's custom module or looming deadline.
We are a team. Each development house, every solo freelancer, and all the scores of end users are a team. A team of thousands who care about what happens to the future goals of 2009, even as we purpose to make as many cool things as possible for 2008. We rule.
I'll see you next year.
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Senpai
