Tagged with 'drupalcamp'

Nashville is joining the growing number of cities this year that will host a DrupalCamp. Saturday March 13th will see the first ever DrupalCamp Nashville. More and more camps are meeting the need to see solid presentations geared towards attendees new to Drupal. To suit that need, Nashville will have a beginner track in addition to the more advanced track. I’ll be presenting five beginner sessions.

Another common theme is to see DrupalCamps occur on a college campus. Vanderbilt University Owen School of Business will play host to DrupalCamp Nashville. Details at http://drupalcampnashville.com

I’m flying out Friday and having dinner with event organizer Jamie Meredith. Jamie heads up the local Drupal Users Group and runs a Drupal development firm named TMG Studio. Jamie has put together what will surely be an excellent first time out for all of the Tennessee Drupalers willing to make the trip to the Country Music Capital of the World!

DrupalCamp Orlando 2010 has come and gone and I’m on a plane leaving the land of 70+ degrees for the land of below freezing. I’m sending an email to Michael, Duo’s CEO making the case for having me head up the Orlando office of Duo Consulting. Wish me luck!

This DrupalCamp had 3 tracks; a beginners, an intermediate, and special topics. I presented an intro CCK (Content Construction Kit) session in the beginner track and an advanced VIEWS session in the intermediate track. The special session track had longer sessions that were rather advanced. The only one I made it to was a demonstration of GIT; a software version control system that gaining a lot of attention and momentum these days. It’s pretty much been decided that the CVS repository of Drupal Core and Contributed Modules is switching to GIT very soon.

For my advanced Views session I showed off the glorious yet complicated Views that Duo created for the Leonard.com law firm project. Michael Porter, and Rose Miller, and I had the task of creating content types with large numbers of related fields in them. After that, we had to create views that would take advantage of these relationships and show related data on very specific pages. We accomplished this through the heavy use of the ViewField module and very heavy use of Argument and Relationships in the Views settings. Going in, I knew the topic was very meaty and would be complicated to grasp. I stressed the point that the videos would be available soon, and they could re-re-re-watch the parts that didn’t make sense the 1^st time.

My basic CCK session was a hit! I’ve never done it in 30 minutes before, but still, I saw the “Aha!” on most faces as I went through it. For this session we created a Job Posting content type and added two fields to it; one for salary and the other to indicate to whom the applicant would be reporting.  One thing that is always fun to explain to the uninitiated is that you use CCK to create the content-type of Job, then once that’s done, users can use the content type to add content to the site. It’s an important distinction that needs to be understood.

Duo Consulting was among the sponsors of DrupalCamp Orlando – as well as sponsoring my trip.  Thanks to all the sponsors, each event attendee paid only $5 for the camp. And that ain’t all. They also received a free camp t-shirt, a swag bag, and super yummy lunch from Tijuana Flats which originated in Orlando. (Note: My home in Indianapolis is 4 miles from the only one in Indiana!)

Lastly, an old familiar friend showed up at the camp – the Drupal Song! Written by Lullabot cofounder Jeff Robbins in 2007, the Drupal Song is a simple jingle that has inspired many a musically inclined Drupaler to break out in song at various Drupal events. Watch  me ending vocals while Florida local Vernon plucks his ukulele only moments after I taught him the tune!

Last night was the presenter’s group’s final conference call to prepare for DrupalCamp Orlando 2010. We’re ready for 150 people to partake of one full day of Drupal training followed by a day of Code for a Cause. Out of the many nonprofit applicants, Junior Achievement of Orlando was selected. They will work with the DrupalCamp attendees on day2 as we build a fully functional site for them in one day!

Distinguished Presenters
There will be many fine Drupal experts presenting at this event. We’ll mention a few and here’s a list of all the presenters. Damien McKenna has launched a number of Drupal sites for various Bonnier Corporation’s publications. Ryan Price and Michael Anello, of DrupalEasy.com and the DrupalEasy Podcast are bringing their flare. Christopher Mitchell will be coming to work on his day off. Chris works for MindComet, who was gracious enough to share their facility for the DrupalCamp. Don VanDemark is a Delivery Executive for IBM who uses Drupal for personal projects such as open-stats.org.

Sold Out!
The 150 limit for attendees was reached pretty early. Yet another Drupal Camp growing out of control! Those who registered in time will walk away with more of the tools they need to develop their personal and company projects or land a job with a Drupal shop. Those who stick around to build the site for Junior Achievement of Orlando will get to put their new skills to work!

As usual, I’m pumped and privileged to be part of this DrupalCamp and Duo’s continued support as both a sponsor as well as sending me.

February 20 and 21 will see the largest professional Drupal event ever held in Florida. For two sunny days, Orlando (Altamonte Springs) will host the 2010 Florida DrupalCamp. Over 150 attendees are coming to network and learn more about their favorite content management system.  Multiple tracks on day-one, ensure that there’s something for everyone; from beginner to advanced. I will be presenting 2 sessions on Views.

This year day two of Florida DrupalCamp will feature Code for a Cause, a common element among DrupalCamps across North America. Code for a Cause is an opportunity for camp attendees to build a complete website while they attend the camp. A number of not for profit organizations have submitted requests to be considered for the one day, group-coding event. Drupal is a popular platform for nonprofits due to its zero cost entry and robust training environment.

Duo Consulting is among the many sponsors who are making the camp possible. The fee for attendees is a meager $5.00 for which attendees will receive the one-day multi-track instruction and the second-day Code for a Cause. Lunches and snacks are provided for both days.

A Word About DrupalCamps
Over the past few years the Drupal community is witnessing smaller Drupal camps return and occupy larger facilities. Such is the case in Orlando. At the same time cities that have never had a Camp embark upon their first. For example, Atlanta DrupalCamp 2009 was an excellent showing for an inaugural camp. Last year’s Chicago DrupalCamp saw packed rooms and some attendees missing out on their preferred session when the aisles and doors were crowded with attendees trying to catch the session (Adjustments have been made for 2010 Chicago DrupalCamp.) The Drupal community is growing and this is never more evident than at these events that draw people in from around the country. For now, we’re looking forward to the Florida DrupalCamp, which strikes me as a great place to spend a few days in February.

In making our plans for San Francisco DrupalCon this April, I mentioned to Michael Silverman, our CEO, that the upcoming conference had the feel of the early MacWorld’s he and I had attended at the Moscone Center in the early days of Macintosh.  Years ago I would have been hard pressed to imagine that there would be huge conferences of content management system groupies who paper their laptops with industry stickers and actually write songs about their software. Don’t smirk. It is no less geeky than doting over the aps on your iPhone.

As interesting as San Francisco DrupalCon promises to be, it is only one, albeit the main event, among a lot of Drupal conference activity in the U.S. and the rest of the world. Here’s a quick rundown of some of the regional activities in which Duo is directly involved:

Florida Drupal Camp is right around the corner, February 20 & 21 in Altamonte Springs, Florida. This second year conference features Coding for a Cause where volunteers among attendees will collaborate to develop a Drupal website for a not-for-profit organization.

Nashville Drupalers is planning their one-day Drupal Camp on March 13.

The roving big daddy of Drupal events, DrupalCon, is in San Francisco this year, April 19 – 21. We’re sending a team to participate. Both Doug Vann and Brandon Morrison have submitted proposals to do presentations. Additionally we’re an event sponsor so we’ll have an exhibit and, yeah, probably stickers!

Duo will be running its 4^th annual Web Content Conference June 7 & 8. This year’s new twist includes a pre-conference ½ day Drupal symposium. The focus of this event is not-for-profit and government organizations as well as small businesses.

The Southeast Linux Fest (SELF) takes place June 19 & 20. To the organizer’s credit (Duo is not the event organizer) the event is fully sponsored and being held for FREE.  Duo Consulting was invited to produce a Drupal Camp in concert with SELF.  We are beginning to fill the presenter roster.

CMSExpo returns to Evanston, IL May 3 – 5 and will have its Drupal track.

There’s a certain breathless aura to all the events being planned. This is fueled in part by the much anticipated release of Drupal version 7.x.  The excitement is well-placed as it reflects improved functionality that is being incorporated into progressive websites. We’re looking forward to being a part of it and we hope you are, too.

While its true that Duo Consulting uses a handful of Content Management Systems for its clients, only one of them has a thriving, active community where we can engage and be engaged through a variety of means. The Drupal Community is a vibrant, active group. Those who are desiring can collaborate on teams, teach, learn, or just socialize other Drupal users.

It is surprising to some newcomers to Drupal to find some rather famous names replying to their posts or chatting with them in Internet Relay Chat. Book authors, module developers, world traveling trainers, all make themselves available in a variety of ways. The community atmosphere is truly nurtured by the predominant willingness of the individuals to connect and keep connected to one another.

Duo Consulting is doing what so many other shops continue to do. I’m going to DrupalCamp Los Angeles and this past weekend to DrupalCamp Altanta to provide quality training. It’s rare that the attendees are ever charged for a DrupalCamp and many other Drupal events. On the occasion that a charge occurs it usually covers the event costs that sponsorships didn’t cover. With the presenters not being paid it is vital that the business that employ these presenters keep them out and active in the community where they can have an impact. Duo is doing just that.

Local Drupal meetup groups are smaller than large gatherings, but are no less in need of the support of local businesses. Duo is  hosting the October 15th gathering of the Chicago Drupal MeetUp Group, CDMUG. The group boasts a large membership which means meetings have an RSVP limit. We’re looking at about 50 attendees to enjoy our Bistro area in our office. Members of our team will do a case study on a large Drupal project.

Looking out two months Duo is getting more and more excited for DrupalCamp Chicago to arrive in December. Last year’s two day camp was attended by a couple of Duo developers who reported a very worthwhile and educational experience. Duo will be sponsoring the event this year as well as providing presenters.