DrupalCon Seattle Recap

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Mike and Matt gather a random group of Drupalers in Seattle, drag them back to a hotel room, and record a podcast. 

Episode Guests

Jordana Fung

Jordana Fung

Jordana is a Drupal developer at Kevelle, is a member of the Drupal Community Working Group, and lives in Suriname in South America.

Mark Dorison

Mark Dorison

Mark is a partner and technical director of Chromatic, and lives in Florida.

Kevin Thull

Kevin Thull

Kevin is a freelance Drupal architect, recorder of DrupalCamp sessions (organizer of the Drupal Recording Initiative), and former winner of the Aaron Winborn Award.

Matt Robison

Matt Robison wearing a dark gray button down shirt in front a gray background.

Matt has been working with Drupal since 2008. He loves spending his time reading, writing, playing with his three kids, and eating lots of ice cream.

More about Matt

Mentioned in this Episode

Transcript

Transcript

Mike Herchel:
For April 18, 2019, it's the Lullabot Podcast!
Matt Kleve:
Hey, everybody. It's the Lullabot Podcast episode 235. I'm Matt Kleve a senior developer with Lullabot, with me it's always cohost and show senior front end developer Mike Herchel! Hey, Mike.
Mike Herchel:
Hey, Matt. How are you doing?
Matt Kleve:
I'm looking into your deep blue eyes because we're here together.
Mike Herchel:
I don't have blue eyes, so like this is obviously the horrible lie.
Matt Kleve:
Oh, yeah. Well, the lie is not that we're together, though, because we're at DrupalCon Seattle just wrapping up, and you walked over to the convention center, and co-opted ... Like strong-armed, I suppose.
Mike Herchel:
Yeah. I literally like pulled their arms behind their back, and like held it up into the middle of their backs, and just forced them over to the hotel where we're recording a podcast.
Matt Kleve:
Yeah. We're going to talk about DrupalCon like how things were. How things went. What do you think?
Mike Herchel:
A lot of changes to DrupalCon this year, and so there's a lot to talk about.
Matt Kleve:
Cool. Yeah, so who's here with us?
Mike Herchel:
First up, we have a member of the community working group for Drupal, Jordana Fung. And, Jordana, tell us where you're from and what you do.
Jordana Fung:
I'm Jordana Fung. I'm a member of the Drupal community working group. It's a volunteer group. For those who don't know that, I deal with with community health, so we're there to uphold a good Drupal code of conduct.
Mike Herchel:
Did you just say community hell?
Jordana Fung:
Community health.
Mike Herchel:
Health. Got it. Got it. Okay. That's good.
Jordana Fung:
Health. English is my second language.
Matt Kleve:
Just making sure.
Mike Herchel:
[inaudible 00:01:34]
Jordana Fung:
Alright, because I'm from Suriname, a country in South America, where we speak Dutch.
Mike Herchel:
Wow, cool.
Matt Kleve:
Also with us today we have Mark Dorison, partner and technical director at Chromatic, a Drupal dev shop. Hey, Mark.
Mark Dorison:
Hey.
Mike Herchel:
Mark, you're from Florida, right?
Mark Dorison:
I am from Florida. I live in St Petersburg Florida.
Matt Kleve:
I'm glad you're here.
Mark Dorison:
Glad to be here.
Mike Herchel:
And, we also have a former recipient of the Aaron Winborn award, and organizer of MidCamp, and the person who runs the Drupal recording initiative, Kevin Thull. How are you doing, Kevin?
Kevin Thull:
Doing well. Long time listener. First time caller.
Mike Herchel:
Yeah, yeah.
Kevin Thull:
It's cool who you just picked up, you know. Mike, you're a shockingly ... I don't remember the word I was going to say, so I'll just keep-
Jordana Fung:
Adept.
Kevin Thull:
Adept. You're shockingly adept at collecting people outside DrupalCon.
Mike Herchel:
I have one more to collect. Sitting behind us, we have a Lullabot who is a senior developer here at Lullabot. We have Matt Robinson.How are-
Matt Robison:
Louisville, Kentucky.
Matt Kleve:
Yeah.
Matt Robison:
Hello. I'm sitting between Mike and the other Matt here.
Matt Kleve:
That's right.
Matt Robison:
It's pretty awkward.
Matt Kleve:
We're cozy.
Mike Herchel:
So, there's a lot of changes to DrupalCon this year. The first thing to talk about is, in previous years, sessions were 45 minutes, and those were trimmed. Most sessions, now, are 30 minutes, and a couple were 90 minutes. Who here attended sessions, and do you have any thoughts on that?
Matt Kleve:
Yeah. I did. I did.
Mike Herchel:
Okay, well-
Matt Kleve:
I want to hear what our guests have to say first, though.
Mike Herchel:
Good idea.
Matt Kleve:
Yeah.
Mike Herchel:
Jordana?
Jordana Fung:
So, to be fair, I didn't attend as many sessions as I wanted to.
Matt Kleve:
Moving on. Next. Oh, no. Okay.
Jordana Fung:
Thank you.
Matt Kleve:
Yeah. No. That's a very Drupal answer, though, because a lot of people are like, "Wow. You actually went to a session?"
Jordana Fung:
Yeah.
Matt Kleve:
No. I think sessions were good, so you went to some though, right?
Jordana Fung:
I went to a few which were good. I was kinda disappointed at many sessions or many workshoppy ones weren't recorded, and I had hoped to see some of them.
Matt Kleve:
Those are the ones that were longer, right?
Jordana Fung:
Yeah.
Matt Kleve:
The not-30-minutes ... Like, Mike here.
Jordana Fung:
Mikes? Yeah.
Matt Kleve:
Maybe gave an hour and a half or something, and it was not recorded.
Mike Herchel:
It was not recorded. Correct.
Jordana Fung:
So, that's disappointing because that's what I hopped to ... I hoped to see some of them.
Mike Herchel:
If only there was someone in the community that did recording and had some type of initiative.
Kevin Thull:
I do have a story I could talk about.
Mike Herchel:
Oh? Well, here we are.
Kevin Thull:
Ironically, during MidCamp, Midcamp was just two weeks ago, and I'm one of the lead organizers, so while I'm running MidCamp, I see an email come in from the Drupal association subject line something like, "regarding recording room 617," and the subject or the body was like you know, "just want to confirm on this conversation we had." And, I'm like new recorder? Who dis? Because I'm like don't you have a staff? Do you not?
Matt Kleve:
You should usually hire it out to somebody else, right?
Kevin Thull:
Yeah, yeah, so for a lot of people, actually came out to me asking me for dongles and asked me how tired I am. I'm like, "This is what I meant." I don't-
Matt Kleve:
Oh because they thought it was your thing, and it's not, right?
Kevin Thull:
Yeah. DrupalCon is the one Drupal event that I can just attend.
Matt Kleve:
That's pretty nice.
Kevin Thull:
If you see me at a camp, I'm recording it or running it, so yeah. It was very weird because that ... When I looked, I'm like, "well," I looked at my schedule I'm like, "Sure. I could cover room 617." And, then all of sudden, they're like, "Actually, we're not doing any of those." I'm like, "Oh, okay. Weird."
Matt Kleve:
Oh, okay. Well, okay.
Kevin Thull:
Yeah.
Matt Kleve:
Well, I guess that was a decision that was a decision that was made. What'd you think of the shorter sessions and ...
Kevin Thull:
I did go to a couple sessions. I felt they were too short.
Mike Herchel:
Fight you for it. Mark, what do you think?
Mark Dorison:
I thought that, in a lot of cases, the shorter sessions were great. I like the idea of even if it was a little bit hard for ... sometimes for people to fit all their content in, I like the idea of leaving people wanting more rather than presenters maybe trying to stretch out a session that wouldn't naturally fill the time available. I certainly was in a couple sessions where I felt like it was too compact, but it's going to be different for every session.
Mark Dorison:
I don't know that there's a single right answer. I was a little ... I was a little apprehensive to attend 90 minute sessions. There were a couple sessions that I saw of interest on the agenda, and then when I realized they were 90 minute sessions, I was like, "Do I really want to commit to 90 minutes?" I'm interested to hear feedback from people that attended those if they were super valuable and interesting, but I would say that with the 30 minute sessions, it also lowers the risk if you happen to be in ... you know. Not every session is a runaway hit, so if you're-
Matt Kleve:
It's also not always something you really care about.
Mark Dorison:
Sure, so if it ... You're in a session, and it's only 30 minutes, and you're 10 minutes in, and you realize that it's not the runaway hit for you, it's okay. It's not going to be too long until it's over, so I like the concept from that perspective. I don't know if there's a single right answer, but I like the idea of playing with different session lengths.
Matt Kleve:
Matt?
Matt Robison:
I went to a few sessions. I enjoyed some of them. I felt some of them were not labeled properly with the beginning ... beginner, intermediate, advanced, so a lot of them I went to-
Matt Kleve:
But, that's been kind of hard, though, forever, right?
Matt Robison:
It's hard to do. It's hard to really pinpoint exactly what that means, but the ones, the advanced ones I went to, didn't really feel like I belong there.
Matt Kleve:
That's because you were too advanced?
Matt Robison:
Not necessarily that but what exactly what they were covering, I didn't expect them to be covering that specific topic that I happened to know about either because the titles were more clever than informative or whatnot.
Matt Kleve:
Well, that's sometimes a challenge, too, to get your sessions selected. It needs to be clever.
Mike Herchel:
The trick is you can edit the node after you submit your session, and you can change everything including the title of the session and the contents, so hey.
Matt Kleve:
Well, yeah, but that's probably not encouraged.
Mike Herchel:
I know.
Matt Kleve:
I was actually a fan. I've probably been to more DrupalCon sessions this year than I had in my previous three Drupal cons.
Mike Herchel:
Really?
Matt Kleve:
I kind of made the commitment to sit through a bunch of sessions, and I like Mark had to say. I really appreciated the 30 minute session because I was like, "I don't know that I'm really going to love this, but it's something that's going to be good for me if I sit through it, and it's 30 minutes. You can do anything for 30 minutes." If they were compact or if they felt rushed, I think that's kinda on the speaker. That's a challenge because a lot of people take these sessions out on the road to all the different camps, and kinda practice, and refine their message, and a lot of times at camp we'll give you a 45 minute or an hour slot. Right, Mike? You've done this many times.
Mike Herchel:
Totally. Yeah. I didn't go to that many sessions. I was just basically kinda acting as a cheerleader for a number of different coworkers, and but one of the best pieces of advices I've ever had for sessions came from Joe Schindler who said, "What do you want your audience to have three takeaways for because you can't do more than three, and it could only be two takeaways or one takeaway? But, get those takeaways, and make sure they're taken care of. Then, just don't diddle dottle over anything else."
Matt Kleve:
Yeah, and I think you really have to work out the timing like as a speaker that ... some effort has to be put in. Somebody ... I've been fairly vocal with the folks that I know about how much I really love the short sessions, but people are like, "Yeah, but it's so much harder to make a 30 minute session useful."
Jordana Fung:
I heard a lot of feedback from speakers that had issues trimming down their content.
Matt Kleve:
Yeah.
Mike Herchel:
Yeah.
Matt Kleve:
I would have written you a shorter letter, but I didn't have the time or something is the-
Mark Dorison:
One of my favorite quotes. I'm curious, for the camp organizers at the table, if you're thinking about playing with session-length given the fact that DrupalCon has adjusted theirs.
Kevin Thull:
For MidCamp, we've always had 30 minute slots, but only as a means ... We stole it from [inaudible 00:09:29] It was basically sort of an entry point for new speakers, so a 30 minute time slot is way less scary. It's half as scary as an hour long time slot because math.
Matt Kleve:
It's like double or something. Right? Yeah.
Kevin Thull:
But, we also then, for this MidCamp, we kinda used it as a marketing ploy. It's like, "Oh, test out the new format at MidCamp." So, we had about ... Well, normally, there's maybe like eight to ten short sessions per the two days. We had about half and half between 30 minute and hour long, and I think for the speakers who were using it to practice, they found it valuable because they're like, "Oh, yeah. Close, but I need to work a little but."
Matt Kleve:
Mike, you also gave a 90 minute session.
Mike Herchel:
I did give a 90 minute-
Matt Kleve:
IS that intimidating, or did you sign up for that? How did that work?
Mike Herchel:
I totally signed up for that. I submitted my session twice. One for 30 minutes, and one for 90 minutes, and then in the notes, I put, "I have two versions of this. Please accept the 90 minute." My particular session has just like a crap load of content in it, and I was very happy to do 90 minutes because every time I do a 45 minute session, I end up kinda having to rush.
Matt Kleve:
I went to watch you, and I've seen you give similar talks before.
Mike Herchel:
And, you left.
Matt Kleve:
I didn't stay because it was a 90 minute session, and every seat was filled. Every spot on the exterior wall was filled. I sat on the floor in the hallway waiting for the fire marshal to kick me out. I mean it's cool that you had a session that full, but that just wasn't something I was going to do for 90 minutes.
Mike Herchel:
I'm kinda disappointed.
Matt Kleve:
Yeah. I would be, too.
Jordana Fung:
I think it's interesting that a lot of the ... quite a few of the 90 minute sessions actually had this where people were sitting over everywhere on the floors. It spilled out in the hallways. I'm not sure if it's because they weren't recorded, or because they had so much value, or if it's a combination of both.
Mike Herchel:
That's a good point. I'm kind of bumped that they were not recorded, but hey, whatever.
Mark Dorison:
Was that common knowledge that they weren't recorded?
Mike Herchel:
I don't think so.
Matt Robison:
I thought they would be recorded. I assumed they would be.
Matt Kleve:
Yeah. I talked to a few people who were like, "Oh, expletive. These are not recorded?"
Mike Herchel:
The only reason that I know it was not recorded is because at some point, my session node, there appeared some text in italics above the body text saying, "This session will not be recorded." That's the only way I knew.
Matt Kleve:
I guess, you know, you can't win them all. Right, and it would be nice if it were there, but you could have sat in the hall, you know, in the aisle-way like me, right?
Mike Herchel:
Yeah, so let's ... There's a lot of ... There's some other changes to talk about, so another major change this year is that we used to have three days of sessions of major sessions, and now we only have-
Matt Kleve:
Two!
Kevin Thull:
Holy cow! That was kind ... DrupalCon flew.
Mike Herchel:
But, there were two days of summits prior to that. Quick ... Well, not show of hands, but who here has attended any summits?
Kevin Thull:
I did.
Matt Kleve:
Alright, Kevin.
Jordana Fung:
I helped facilitate a training this time, so-
Mike Herchel:
Alright training. What about you, Mark?
Mark Dorison:
I've attended summits in the past, but I did not this year.
Mike Herchel:
Okay. Matt.
Matt Robison:
No summits for me.
Matt Kleve:
I, actually, was in a summit. Mike, you presented in that summit.
Mike Herchel:
Yeah. I was in the performance and scalability summit, and I honestly thought it was pretty cool, but that was just me.
Matt Kleve:
Yeah. It was different. I mean it was another 200 bucks, or 250 bucks, or something. It added onto the ticket to join for the extra day. It was nice to get kind of the curated list of people talking about something that I cared about.
Mike Herchel:
Yeah. Yeah. Totally.
Matt Kleve:
I don't know. What were the summits that other folks have been involved in, or heard about, or training. That kind of thing.
Kevin Thull:
I went to the community summit. First time I was able to attend that at DrupalCon, and I thought it was very helpful.
Mike Herchel:
Did you learn anything?
Kevin Thull:
I don't know. It wasn't so much about learning things. Well, I did. We talked about some new ideas of ... around the community, but also it was just very informative. Very useful to some of the things I'm working on.
Mike Herchel:
Jordana, you facilitated a training.
Jordana Fung:
Yeah, and I think it's interesting that you had two days of summit, so a lot of people that do trainings can't visit the summit usually, but this time because you had two days of summit, a lot of them could.
Matt Kleve:
Chances are if you're training, you might want to care to see a summit.
Jordana Fung:
Yeah. Exactly, so it's interesting.
Mike Herchel:
That is interesting. I didn't even think about that. Matt Robinson, you did not go?
Matt Robison:
I did not, but my roommate did.
Mike Herchel:
What do you think of ... Who's your roommate?
Matt Kleve:
Yeah. Zequi
Matt Robison:
Yeah. Zequi
Mike Herchel:
Ezekiel Vasquez who's Lullabot senior dev. Yep.
Matt Kleve:
And, he was with us in the performance seminar.
Mike Herchel:
Oh, that's right. Yep, so Matt, what did you think of two days of DrupalCon? I mean that's really what it comes down to, right?
Matt Robison:
Yeah. It did go fast, and I was here since Sunday, and honestly, it still flew by. I don't know really what happened or what I've actually done, but it was nice not to be pressured to keep attending things.
Matt Kleve:
Was there a keynote on the last Thursday morning?
Mike Herchel:
Yeah. There was a Marcy Sutton keynote, and I ...
Matt Kleve:
She did? She ... Marcy talked?
Mike Herchel:
Yeah. Marcy did. Yeah. She did.
Matt Kleve:
She's been on the podcast. If you back to our archives, we talked about accessibility, and Marcy Sutton, and she was an amazing speaker. She lives up this direction, I think, right?
Mike Herchel:
Yeah. Yeah. She lives up here, and she now works for Gatsby. She used to work for Deque, but she now works for Gatsby, and I'm not quite sure of her topic, but I'm guessing it had something to do ... I think it had something to do with maybe like civil rights and accessibility or something.
Matt Kleve:
Well, knowing how great she was on the podcast, I'm sure it was good.
Mike Herchel:
Yeah. Let's just assume that.
Matt Kleve:
Nobody else saw it?
Jordana Fung:
I think it's ... No. I'm so sorry, but I think it's so very interesting that most people because it's twos days. A lot of people say it's flew by, but also a lot of people said the same thing like, "I liked it that I wasn't so pressured for like ... " And, they're feeling less tired, but also ...
Mike Herchel:
I have more of a negative thought on that than everybody's positive thoughts. I like three days because it seems like, especially yesterday, on Wednesday, it was ... Sessions went really, really long.
Kevin Thull:
That was a long day.
Mike Herchel:
I would rather shorter-
Kevin Thull:
The day went through 5:30 or almost six o' clock.
Matt Kleve:
6:00 pm. 8:30 to 6:00 pm.
Mike Herchel:
I would rather like shorter sessions spread out over multiple days, so I can take breaks in between, and I don't know. I just like that better.
Mark Dorison:
I think one thing that people aren't talking about the number of days, two versus three, and we're talking about the length of the sessions. But, one thing that I think gets left to the side which should be pointed out is that there're ... And, this has always been the case, there're a lot of sessions going on at the same time. Yeah, so and this doesn't have to be the case, so you know there are many times when there's a very interesting session that's going on at the same time as another session that you really want to go to, so while we have the ability to play with session length and number of days, we could also have not so many sessions going on at the same time to give people the ability to get a better sampling of the content that's being produced at the conference.
Jordana Fung:
I thought it's interesting because normally, you don't really ... You want to do multiple sessions. There's always the thing of it, "I want to see this sessions, and this session, and this session, and they're all going at the same time." But, normally, you didn't have an issue with it because they were all recorded.
Mark Dorison:
Yep. I think that makes ... It exacerbates the problem for sure.
Jordana Fung:
Yes. I agree.
Matt Kleve:
We're talking about DrupalCon Seattle on the Thursday of DrupalCon. We're overlooking the city of Seattle. We got a bunch of people that Mike grabbed their arm on the Thursday afternoon here at DrupalCon and said, "Hey, come up here with us and let's record a podcast." We promised beer and pizza. We haven't yet ordered the pizza, but we should do that soon.
Mike Herchel:
They didn't realize the beer was just Bud light.
Matt Kleve:
We've been talking about the changes that have happened to DrupalCon. We're talking about kind of our reactions to DrupalCon. Let's get into a little bit like our takeaways. What did we learn? What are the great things that happened?
Mike Herchel:
Yeah. What experiences? I want to know what the experiences are. How you spend your day? How did the exhibition ... how'd it feel to you?
Matt Kleve:
We'll Get into that coming up right after this. Hey, it's Nick from Drupal Camp, Colorado. What's happening with this year's camp, Nick?
Nick:
We'll be at the King Center at on the Auraria campus in downtown Denver August 2nd through 4th. On Friday, we'll have trainings and summits. Saturday, we'll have keynotes, sessions, and then a party to cap the day off. Then, we'll have mentored sprints on Sunday. As always, registration will be free, but a personal donation of 25 bucks or more gets you this year's custom design camp t-shirt and good Drupal karma. Keep an eye on our website for registration and session announcements at DrupalCampColorado.org.
Mike Herchel:
Hey. Welcome back to the Lullabot podcast. We are at DrupalCon, Seattle, in the Sheraton hotel, and we were talking with a bunch of really odd people.
Matt Kleve:
We're 26 floors above the city of Seattle looking at the downtown skyline covered in rain or something .
Mike Herchel:
Are they a sponsor?
Matt Kleve:
The city? Sure.
Kevin Thull:
The hotel?
Mike Herchel:
Sure. I don't know. Yeah. Whatever.
Jordana Fung:
[inaudible 00:18:31]
Matt Kleve:
Note to self.
Mike Herchel:
We're big enough for that to happen, so I want to hear ... I want to hear from each of you about how your DrupalCon felt, and specifically ... First, I want to talk to Jordana who is a member of the community working group, and you work like when there's bad stuff in Drupal community, it comes to you. Your team resolves that. How do you spend a DrupalCon, and I know you can't give the specifics, but like ... Are you stressed out the whole time? Did you get to do anything cool? Were you having to just ... Tell me about it.
Jordana Fung:
So, what we also spend a lot of the DrupalCon doing is getting ... Trying to get rid of that perception that the TWG means badness, right? That bad things are happening because we are also trying to do some positive things, so-
Mike Herchel:
Like what?
Jordana Fung:
Well, we had a leadership workshop in DrupalCon, Nashville, and this year we had a communications workshop which is really awesome. We kinda did it where we had some people because we tested it out because everything was so last minute, a lot of people had other obligations, but we want to try and work, and make it better next DrupalCon. We are charted onto the DA now, so we have some funding that hopefully they can give and give us some money to do these workshops because I think it's-
Mike Herchel:
Cool, so you had like a communication workshop where you had selected people? Is that like anyone can join in there, or were there specific people that went to that?
Jordana Fung:
We ... It was invite only this time because we wanted to have it as a small group, and because we knew it was going to be hectic because so many people had so many different things to do.
Mike Herchel:
Cool, so how besides that, how do you spend you con because you ... going round avoiding each other hoping that you don't bring up problems, how does that work?
Jordana Fung:
Now, so actually, we are mingling a lot because we encourage people to come talk to us as well, so some people think it's really scary to file an issue report, but when they talk to us, they are willing to kind of talk to us about things that they're struggling with, and sometimes-
Mike Herchel:
Gotcha.
Jordana Fung:
It's not just vague like an issue where the person's just like, "Oh, I would love some tools for helping me out with some communication, and that kind of stuff." That is also things we provide.
Mike Herchel:
Gotcha.
Jordana Fung:
And, what I also do is I'm a mentor for Friday Sprints, and I would encourage most companies to have more people stick around on Friday because there's so much more to do because it's about Contribution Day, and it's about welcoming new members and creating more opportunities for code.
Mike Herchel:
And, it's ... What are they not calling it a code sprint anymore, right?
Jordana Fung:
It's Contribution Day.
Matt Kleve:
Contribution Day because anybody can contribute.
Jordana Fung:
Exactly. We need people testing. We need people doing documentation.
Matt Kleve:
How can I write documentation if I don't know what you're talking about in the first place?
Jordana Fung:
Well, that's the whole fun part about it. We'll hook you up with people to figure it out.
Mike Herchel:
Cool. Kevin, you are a community organizer. You do other stuff.
Kevin Thull:
Yeah.
Mike Herchel:
How do you spend your time? Do you go to sessions? Do you do the hallway track? Do you hang out in the exhibition hall? Tell me about it.
Kevin Thull:
Yeah. It's primarily hallway track, but this was a really good con for me because I've kinda formalized a plan around the recording ... the recording initiative, and so I had a lot of good conversations about that and got some good ideas from folks on how to handle some of the issues I'm dealing with which was wonderful. Also, there was a event organizer's round table with [inaudible 00:22:02] It was a invite-only two hour session [inaudible 00:22:07] actually wasn't able to show up because well, he'll still get all the notes and stuff, but there are a lot of good outcomes from that event.
Mike Herchel:
Cool, so Mark, you are a partner for Chromatic, so you're doing ... I would assume you're doing back-handed like-
Matt Kleve:
Smokey room deals.
Mike Herchel:
Yeah, yeah. You're doing cigars. You're buying people wine. Taking them out wining and dining them.
Mark Dorison:
There was some wine. There were no cigars, but
Matt Kleve:
clients, right, it's not like a smokey room deal.
Mark Dorison:
No. Totally.
Matt Kleve:
You're talking with your clients.
Mark Dorison:
Absolutely, and I think that, for Chromatic, there's ... DrupalCon really is ... serves three main purposes for us. One is clients. Existing clients. New clients. Like that's huge piece. Number two is recruitment. Finding amazing people that we can hopefully make part of our team in the future.
Mike Herchel:
If you're hiring, you can plug it.
Mark Dorison:
We are absolutely hiring, so please check out our site at ChromaticHQ.com, and lastly-
Matt Kleve:
Chromatic is kind of a friendpetitor to Lullabot, right?
Mark Dorison:
Coopitition.
Matt Kleve:
Cooptition.
Jordana Fung:
Yeah.
Matt Kleve:
We both kinda do the same kinda work, but we respect each other as companies, and, you know-
Mark Dorison:
1000%.
Matt Kleve:
Yep. We've sent contractors over the fence a couple of times.
Mark Dorison:
Both ways. Yes.
Matt Kleve:
Yes.
Mark Dorison:
And, lastly, and possibly most importantly for Chromatic being a completely distributed team, being able ... Any chance we get to be able to be in person with our team members is just amazingly valuable as a team but also just it's a personal favorite of mine. Those are really the three huge benefits that we get from DrupalCon, so my time, personally, at DrupalCon is spent between doing all of those things and some session in between.
Jordana Fung:
I love DrupalCon for seeing everybody again.
Matt Kleve:
Yes.
Mike Herchel:
Yes.
Jordana Fung:
Reunification.
Mike Herchel:
Reunited and it feels so good?
Jordana Fung:
What do you say this? It's reuniting of like almost family members because it's people you haven't seen for a while or you've only seen them as their Drupal.org username, so it's really-
Mike Herchel:
I've always had a good analogy. It's like a high school reunion of people that you actually want to see. Matt Robinson, did you do booth duty, or what did you do all of the time?
Matt Robison:
I did. I helped set up the booth, and after the mad rush after [inaudible 00:24:31] note, I was also doing some booth duty which was fun. I had a lot of people .. I met the first person ever who I didn't know who followed me on Twitter which was a very strange experience. He was a nice guy.
Matt Kleve:
He's a nice guy.
Mike Herchel:
He's famous.
Matt Robison:
I'm not. I'm not at all, but it was fun. Booth duty was fun this year. I met a lot of people, and mainly get to hang out with fellow coworkers.
Mike Herchel:
Yeah. Totally. What about you, Matt Kleve?
Matt Kleve:
What do you mean? Like booth duty? I was there.
Mike Herchel:
How did you enjoy your DrupalCon? What all did you ... Did you go do sessions? Did you do BOFs?
Matt Kleve:
Like I mentioned, I didn't. No. BOFs, I'm sure, happened, but I actually didn't go there. Did anybody else go there?
Kevin Thull:
I was ... I led one BOF, and co-led another.
Matt Kleve:
Okay, so you were definitely involved with the BOFs.
Kevin Thull:
Yes.
Matt Kleve:
This year, I didn't even look. Like it's ... Could you write down your own, or was it all prescheduled? How did it work?
Kevin Thull:
A little bit of both. They were prescheduled, but it looks like they was definitely room to write down your BOFs after the fact, so yeah.
Matt Kleve:
Cool.
Matt Robison:
So, it seems like this year and also last year a DrupalCon National, the BOFs have sort have been relegated to more of a second class.
Jordana Fung:
Yeah. I don't like this. Yeah.
Kevin Thull:
I don't like the setup at all.
Matt Robison:
It used to be that I always enjoyed at least one or two BOFs, but now I just really forget.
Jordana Fung:
And, it's so hard to find them as well. They were kind of like in this back corner of the hallway, so yeah. I didn't ... I would prefer to have the BOFs be a more engaging thing.
Matt Kleve:
And, the curtained off little areas ... It's not a welcoming environment.
Mark Dorison:
I think with the ... You mentioned, especially at MidCamp, having different supporting news speakers with specific session lengths and things like that. I think the BOFs are potentially a missed opportunity to really reimagine what the BOFs could be and use that scenario to nurture potential new speakers, and as we talked earlier about how the actual sessions could change or be imagined differently as well, I think it's important to keep the BOFs in mind as another venue for sharing content.
Mike Herchel:
Yes.
Jordana Fung:
I agree.
Mike Herchel:
Totally.
Matt Kleve:
It sounds like we've been really negative.
Jordana Fung:
No. It's a [inaudible 00:26:48]
Mike Herchel:
I have a positive view.
Matt Kleve:
So, why are we like so bitching about short sessions, and no BOFs, and ... It's hard.
Kevin Thull:
You what it is? Nobody likes changes.
Mike Herchel:
Yeah, but like-
Kevin Thull:
I don't think I'm really negative about DrupalCon, Seattle, though. Looking back over the last few days, I think things went really well.
Mark Dorison:
I don't feel negative.
Mike Herchel:
It was one of my best cons.
Jordana Fung:
Neither do I. I loved it.
Matt Kleve:
I just wanted to reinforce that because I don't think any of us feel negative about it.
Jordana Fung:
No. I loved it.
Matt Kleve:
It sounds like we're kind of bitching about it.
Mike Herchel:
What was the ... Does anybody know the final attendance?
Matt Kleve:
I don't know.
Jordana Fung:
This was the most ... There were more people at this con than any other one, right?
Kevin Thull:
They always say that though.
Mike Herchel:
I heard that, and actually, it's kind of surprising because they raised the regular price.
Kevin Thull:
But, they opened it up to new groups like the content folks, the marketers ...
Matt Kleve:
Yeah. That was smart.
Kevin Thull:
They brought new people in.
Mark Dorison:
From what I understand, the content marketing track was extremely popular.
Kevin Thull:
That was the one that was like down the street. If you were at the [inaudible 00:27:49], you barely knew it happened, right?
Mike Herchel:
It was down the street wasn't it?
Mark Dorison:
It was in the convention center, but it was, as far as I know, it was spirited away, and I think that-
Mike Herchel:
Down the hallway.
Mark Dorison:
I shared this with some people at the conference that I'm very happy that it's the highest attended DrupalCon ever, and I think the success of that new track and success of the changes in the builder tracks is great, but that doesn't mean that ... And, I think this plays in what we're talking about here. I had a great conference, but I think that doesn't mean that there aren't numerous opportunities for us to keep re-imagining things, to keep improving as years go on, and I think that just shows how much the people involved care about DrupalCon to make sure that it's a success and continues to be.
Jordana Fung:
I agree. I think we're builders, right, so we like to build upon things that are already successful. How can we make them better? It's not necessarily negativity, but it's also kind of things like, "Oh, I would love to see this go this way, or that we could build upon this more."
Matt Kleve:
Yeah, and I was in the ask [inaudible 00:28:54] session, and this was a question related to ... the changes came up and [inaudible 00:28:59] made a good point. It's like it's not my opinion on whether or not these changes were successful, it's your opinion that counts, so do fill out the surveys. Do let us know because it's ... We're not doing these changes for us. We're trying to make a better experience for you. On that note, I have some surveys to figure out how to fill out.
Jordana Fung:
Yeah.
Mike Herchel:
I remember we did a podcast several months ago with Amanda Ganzar.
Matt Kleve:
Yeah. With Drupal association.
Mike Herchel:
Who has now left the Drupal association, sadly, but I asked her, "Well, are these ... If these changes don't work out, are they reversible?" And, she was like, "Absolutely." You know, if for whatever reason, these don't work out, they're completely willing to go back and make things work.
Matt Kleve:
And, this is Drupal. I mean your voice matters, right?
Mike Herchel:
Maybe not yours.
Matt Kleve:
Hopefully, people feel that way though.
Jordana Fung:
No. Definitely take the surveys because they do look at them, right? It does make a big difference, and also you mentioned the higher prices. I kinda wanna elaborate on that a little bit because if you look at the amounts of grants, scholarships, and speaker inclusion funds they gave last year compared to this year, they almost doubled it.
Mike Herchel:
I'm going to-
Matt Kleve:
So, that's pretty cool.
Mike Herchel:
I'm going to jump in there because I think it's BS.
Matt Kleve:
We're going through you out, Jordana.
Jordana Fung:
Nope.
Mike Herchel:
So, like, I look at this. I was having a Twitter conversation, and so like I don't know like in Baltimore-
Matt Kleve:
Twitter conversations are always the most rational things.
Mike Herchel:
Oh, yeah, yeah. Totally. There was ... I don't know. It might have been like somewhere around 17, and then this year, there was maybe like 10 more, so there were 10 more. Then, compared to Nashville, there's only six more, so there were six more grants issued than compared to Nashville, but yet the price was raised by several hundred dollars.
Jordana Fung:
I'm going to call you out because right now, on the website, you can take a look, and Nashville, compared to this year, there were quite a bit more.
Mike Herchel:
I looked at the website.
Jordana Fung:
I'm going to be honest. The amount of money it takes to get me here, for example, because I'm from South America ... I feel bad taking that amount of money, right, from other people.
Mike Herchel:
I did it.
Jordana Fung:
But, this kind of stuff where they do tell me like, "No, no, no. We're trying to ... We figure it out." Well, the higher prices are what got me here, right?
Mike Herchel:
No. Like I totally get that, but-
Jordana Fung:
Are you telling me you don't like me being here, Mike?
Mike Herchel:
Totally.
Matt Kleve:
Oh. I'm pretty sure that's not the case.
Jordana Fung:
Jordana and I know each other pretty well.
Mike Herchel:
[inaudible 00:31:21] But, what I'm saying is you raise the price for it 300 dollars, but then you have what, six or seven more than ...
Matt Kleve:
You're trying to do math, Mike. You're saying 300 times, what, 3000 is different than the number of additional scholarships given over the last-
Mike Herchel:
It's not even quite that because it's 300 for the people that are not, you know, DrupalCon partners or Drupal association partners.
Jordana Fung:
They did get ... Okay, so they gave out more grants and scholarships, and the speaker inclusion fund, I want to highlight as well.
Mike Herchel:
Tell me about that. I'm not as familiar with that.
Matt Kleve:
So, if you are the ... Somebody from a underrepresented group, you can ... And, you need some funding to get there, and you're a speaker, you click a box, and they will give you some money to help you get here.
Mike Herchel:
That is very valuable. I did not realize that,
Jordana Fung:
and these are the things we kinda wanna highlight to people because there are a lot of people that didn't know they could get here. I didn't know it. I accidentally found out about it because I got an email from the DA about this. Like oh they're friends, and that's how I got to my first DrupalCon. A grant.
Mike Herchel:
This is your first DrupalCon?
Jordana Fung:
No. That's how I got to my first one that time.
Mike Herchel:
Oh, okay. Okay.
Jordana Fung:
But, that's how I get here because I can't afford any of this.
Mark Dorison:
I think no one likes the, you know, the prices being raised from the perspective of, "Well, I paid this much last year." Who's going to be happy about the price going up, right, but I do believe I look at what conferences cost across the industry, and DrupalCon is still, I believe, on the low end of that scale. I think that if we can still accommodate people who, in any way that need assistance to get here, but make the conference better materially by raising prices somewhat. Not to a degree. I don't want DrupalCon to be the most expensive conference in the industry. I would like it to be affordable for as many people as possible, but if raising the price makes a difference for including people that otherwise wouldn't and making the conference better, I'm all for it.
Jordana Fung:
I agree because I think this is how you get more diversity and inclusion because I'm from a developing country, right, and that's exactly what he's talking about.
Mike Herchel:
I mean that's obviously very important. I don't think anyone's arguing that. My concern is that Drupal is built, I believe, on hobbyists. I think most people around in this-
Matt Kleve:
Is it currently, though?
Kevin Thull:
No. It's changed. A show of hands here. How many people started as hobbyists?
Mike Herchel:
Oh, that's not longer ... I think that's no longer relevant now.
Matt Kleve:
No [inaudible 00:33:54] no. But, how many people are doing it as hobbyists now?
Mike Herchel:
No, but I'm not talking about that, but we're pricing out the hobbyists. The professionals are going for cheaper than the hobbyists can. If I'm a hobbyist, and I'm paying my own way, I pay $850. If I'm a professional working for Chromatic or Lullabot, I'm paying 300 dollars cheaper or $250 or whatever cheaper.
Kevin Thull:
I think, ultimately, the message is if you're a hobbyist maybe Drupal is no longer the tool.
Jordana Fung:
Well, no. Then, you have Drupal camps and meetups, and everything. Then, the cons might be you ... We can figure out a way to get to the con, but there are still other tools. You still can get here. Maybe just not in the same way.
Kevin Thull:
I think, you know, I want the conference and Drupal as a community to have an influx of new talent. Young talent. I want, as we walk around the conference center, to see people of all different ages, people that are juts coming into the community, so it's definitely something that I think the DA and also as a community we should be thinking about, but I don't think that raising the standard ticket price completely eliminates any other options that would potentially help those people get here.
Juampy NR:
Besides, there are many Drupal camps here in the U.S.
Mike Herchel:
Who are you?
Juampy NR:
Hi, everyone. This is Juampy from Lullabot. I live in Spain.
Matt Kleve:
Juampy walked in the room and expects to talk now because he's here.
Juampy NR:
Yeah.
Matt Kleve:
Hi, Juampy.
Juampy NR:
I was welcome, though, when I joined here, and you all started.
Matt Kleve:
Let's get you brat beer.
Juampy NR:
Am I drinking this beer? I didn't know. Okay. I was saying ... I was talking about this with someone this week, and then I asked like, "Hey, what's the camp situation here?" There are many, right? It's not like back in Spain. We just have one Drupal camp per year, and one Drupal day which is like a smaller version one day. Here, every state has a Drupal camp, at least, right?
Jordana Fung:
No. Not every state.
Mike Herchel:
I would say every region.
Matt Kleve:
Probably divisible by 50, though. I mean just based on there are multiple in California. There's multiple-
Mark Dorison:
I would say 20 or so.
Matt Kleve:
Okay. Looks fair.
Mark Dorison:
Since I recorded 15 of them.
Juampy NR:
[inaudible 00:35:58] for a Drupal camp.
Jordana Fung:
Very low.
Matt Kleve:
The Drupal camp is very low. Yeah. I think if you pay 20 bucks, you're probably on the high end.
Mike Herchel:
No, no, no. Florida charged $50.
Matt Kleve:
Yeah, but then there are those that are still free, right?
Mark Dorison:
Yes.
Mike Herchel:
There's like two [inaudible 00:36:13]
Jordana Fung:
But, also besides the camps, the meetup groups ... The groups. The user groups are very under-used because a lot of the groups have where you can dial in through Zoom or Skype, so if like me you don't have any local communities around you, you could dial into those.
Matt Kleve:
That's cool. I didn't know that, actually, so you do that on a regular?
Mike Herchel:
Florida is starting to do it. We started to do it after our previous camp which was in February, and we're kind of trying experimenting with it right now.
Jordana Fung:
So, Florida is doing this really great initiative where the whole of Florida is going to kind of like dial. They're going to choose one location.
Matt Kleve:
It's a big ass state, so that's probably affordable choice.
Jordana Fung:
Yeah. To do the local meetup, but they are going to kind of like dial into each other's meetups.
Matt Kleve:
Yeah. Totally.
Jordana Fung:
One city will dial up into the other one, so they're going to try.
Matt Kleve:
How come you didn't do that for me when I lived in Florida, Mike?
Mike Herchel:
I'd actively tried to avoid you.
Matt Kleve:
Usually. Alright. Makes sense.
Mike Herchel:
Let's switch gears. Let's see the temperature of the DrupalCon, so I have had very ... I have been doing DrupalCon since San Francisco, and I think that was your-
Matt Kleve:
How many have you been to?
Mike Herchel:
I counted up 12 because I went to Bogota, and also Dublin.
Matt Kleve:
Yeah. San Francisco was my first, but I've only been to seven. I just did the U.S. ones, and I missed a couple of years even then, so ...
Mike Herchel:
Yeah, but like every year, it kind of feels different. How did it feel to you? Overall, I think I ... You know, it was nice for me, so personally, it was coming back into seeing DrupalCon after a couple of years off. My last one was New Orleans, so I guess I missed a couple, and it's nice getting back in touch with the community. I thought everything was really positive ... Kicked off really strong with a pre note. I went to some good sessions, and I saw everybody I wanted to see, so-
Mike Herchel:
No pre note this year.
Matt Kleve:
I said pre note, but I meant the [inaudible 00:38:13] note.
Mike Herchel:
I gotcha.
Matt Kleve:
I don't miss the pre note, but [inaudible 00:38:17] political thing.
Mike Herchel:
Yeah. I kinda ... That's another thing. I mean a lot of people might not like the pre note, but I like the weirdness of it. I think-
Matt Kleve:
That's the reason why I don't wanna go.
Mike Herchel:
I like it.
Matt Kleve:
You slept. You would have slept through it either way.
Kevin Thull:
It's also early.
Mike Herchel:
Yeah. That's why I don't like [inaudible 00:38:36] early.
Mark Dorison:
It's early. It's the very first, you know, impression of the conference.
Mike Herchel:
It could be fresh.
Matt Kleve:
It could be someone's impression of Drupal for the first time.
Mark Dorison:
And, you know, and it abuts up to [inaudible 00:38:45] keynote which is-
Matt Kleve:
Is very serious.
Mark Dorison:
Very serious and it's supposed to reach the widest range of people, so I think it's a, to me, it's always little bit of a mismatch.
Jordana Fung:
What's interesting with how they did it this year ... They had some stuff before the [inaudible 00:39:01] note, so they did the Aaron [inaudible 00:39:03] award before the [inaudible 00:39:04] note.
Matt Kleve:
That's a really good spot for that.
Jordana Fung:
Exactly, so more people get to see it.
Mike Herchel:
Yeah. Versus, "You did a great thing. Bye everybody."
Matt Kleve:
Which is it was in the closing session, right, the closing plenary, or what is the right word?
Kevin Thull:
Plenary. Yeah.
Matt Kleve:
Plenary? Oh, there we go.
Kevin Thull:
I used to run conferences.
Matt Kleve:
I just read the book of the conference, and I say, "I don't know how to say that word."
Jordana Fung:
This is the things about highlighting the positive as well. I think it's a change. Like we said, we don't always like change, but it is something where you're highlighting this positive impact of somebody in the community, and it's great to have it done like at the start where everybody's watching, and yeah.
Matt Kleve:
Yes. That's a cool-
Mark Dorison:
I agree. I thought that was fantastic.
Matt Kleve:
Who was the winner this year?
Mike Herchel:
Leslie Glenn. Yeah. Leslie Glenn, and she is an organizer of design for Drupal Boston, so let's just give them a plug right here.
Matt Kleve:
Yeah. You bet.
Jordana Fung:
Well, Leslie actually does a lot of North American camps, so she's ... If you've been in a North American camp, you may have seen Leslie.
Matt Kleve:
Does she really? I didn't know that.
Jordana Fung:
She does a lot.
Kevin Thull:
[inaudible 00:40:05], and she volunteers at just about every event that she goes to. Yeah.
Mike Herchel:
She needs to come to Florida.
Kevin Thull:
Yeah. I think she's been to Florida.
Mike Herchel:
She's been to Florida.
Kevin Thull:
Oh, yeah, yeah. She's totally been there.
Matt Kleve:
You're acting surprised, Mike. I figured you know everything.
Mike Herchel:
Design for Drupal is June 26 through 28th, and that's up at MIT in Cambridge which is right new Boston.
Matt Kleve:
Those were the 2019 dates anyway, right?
Mike Herchel:
We are in 2019?
Matt Kleve:
Yeah. This hasn't happened yet.
Mike Herchel:
So, we're totally cool. I went up there several years ago, and it was honestly fantastic. The MIT status center or status center, however you pronounce it, is so cool. It's the building where Richard Stallman, you know who Richard Stallman is? Has his office at Tim Bernards Lee, I think, has an office there.
Matt Kleve:
The other internet creator guy.
Mike Herchel:
Yeah. They literally have offices in the same building where you're doing the conference.
Matt Kleve:
That is pretty cool, and they advertised on our podcast.
Mike Herchel:
Did they?
Matt Kleve:
Yeah.
Mike Herchel:
Okay. Cool.
Matt Kleve:
And, if you want to ... If you're the organizer event, we'd be okay to plug you, too.
Mike Herchel:
Yeah, totally.
Matt Kleve:
Final thoughts if anybody wants to ... Let's just go around the room and just kinda wrap it up here. Highlight something you thought was awesome this year. Something that was awful. I don't care. I'm not going to censor you. I'm not your mom. Mark, what do you like? What happened great this year? Any final thoughts?
Mark Dorison:
The people are always the best part. Connecting with everyone.
Matt Kleve:
Come for the code. Stay for the community.
Mark Dorison:
That's right, so that is always the highlight for me. I'm excited that the ... It was exciting to see the changes, and some of them I thought were great. Some can still be improved, but it's exciting to me to see the community and the DA looking at an event that has been going on for a long time and still tweaking things still trying to make improvements and evolve it with the time, so I hope that is continued.
Kevin Thull:
I have a questions, so from the sponsors in the room, do you feel you got as much value out of your sponsorship with a shorter time in the exhibit hall?
Matt Kleve:
Mark is the partner, so I'll lean on you.
Mark Dorison:
I don't know how to answer that. I don't know.
Matt Kleve:
This was also Chromatic's first year with a booth.
Mark Dorison:
That's true. I think that it's very ... I think it's a little hard to, if you look at Drupal con's Sponsorships and booths asa subset of that as is it worth it? Is there a return on investment that makes the case? We look at it as one more way that we can support the Drupal association and the Drupal community. It's a way that we can do that, and we get to have an additional level of participation with the DrupalCon community and crew, so it's kind of a investment in Drupal in that way, but yeah. I don't know. I think it'll take a little bit of time to reflect after the conference on that.
Jordana Fung:
So, it's kind of your way of contributing. That nice word.
Mark Dorison:
One more way.
Matt Kleve:
Warm fuzzies.
Jordana Fung:
Warm fuzzies. This is why I love Drupal.
Matt Kleve:
Jordana, any final thoughts? What was good for you?
Jordana Fung:
I always love like all of the community stuff we do. We get to learn like about more stuff we can do better, how we can work on things, and actually, we're working with a communications workshop. We had some interesting thoughts and ideas we're working on, and I'm going to grab some of your bots that I've talked to about these things because ...
Matt Kleve:
You're pointing because there are other employees of Lullabot who just keep walking in the room.
Jordana Fung:
More people came in. Yeah, but-
Matt Kleve:
Dave Reeve, now. Yeah.
Jordana Fung:
We were talking about things like, "How do you make the community better?" And, where we talk about how do you reaches burnout, and we're talking about how do you do this where you have lik cohorts. And, we're talking about like how do you do this where you have like cohorts, so we're gonna work and brainstorm on ideas on how to help. We're always looking for volunteers, and people to help, and contribute.
Mike Herchel:
So, if someone wants to get involved with that, how-
Jordana Fung:
They can contact the CWG because we're not just about bad stuff.
Mike Herchel:
Contact community working group, and we will put links in the little gray box south of-
Matt Kleve:
South of?
Mike Herchel:
South of the border on the podcast node.
Kevin Thull:
Underneath the thing on the web thing.
Mike Herchel:
Yeah. Internet. I was ... This is maybe an odd one, but so DrupalCon New Orleans was my last con. The lunch was atrocious. The lunch this year-
Matt Kleve:
You're talking about New Orleans?
Mike Herchel:
I honestly don't remember.
Matt Kleve:
Oh. New Orleans was fantastic. The provided lunch was terrible. The lunch for Seattle con was amazing. The food was really good.
Mike Herchel:
Feed developers well, then things will get done.
Matt Kleve:
Yeah, and all day coffee.
Jordana Fung:
All day coffee was ... They were ... these were all sponsored by partners. The lunches, the coffee, and everything, so that's also their way of contributing, so thank you.
Mike Herchel:
The lunch was good. The food was good.
Jordana Fung:
Thank you, sponsors.
Matt Kleve:
Yeah. Matt, any final thoughts? Any positives? Negatives?
Matt Robison:
I don't have any specific takeaways just I was happy to be here.
Mike Herchel:
Yeah. I enjoyed it, you know? It's the funnest part for me is just like walking around and roping people into podcasts, so thanks.
Kevin Thull:
You know you're really good at it. All of a sudden, we have a room full of people.
Matt Kleve:
Yeah. Mike?
Juampy NR:
I felt like one of those first events I ever went because suddenly I chained four sessions in a row where I was feeling, "Oh. This one is really nice. Yes! Then, I go to this one. I might as well go quickly to this one because it's going to be packed."
Matt Kleve:
Because it's quick.
Juampy NR:
I don't know, but the thing is that the sessions were interesting, and I was inspired, and I really enjoyed it. It's been a while that I wasn't getting that feeling from Drupal cons. Drupal like took a while to ship, and it started becoming repetitive. Now, I'm feeling again the vibe and the excitement in everybody's sessions, so I had a lot of fun this con.
Matt Kleve:
Salva.
Mike Herchel:
Who?
Matt Kleve:
Salva? Salva?
Salva Molina: I mean I don't have any specific takeaways either. I'm happy to be here. It's my first North American DrupalCon.
Matt Kleve:
How fun is that. You've been to the other side of the ocean though, right?
Salva Molina: Yeah. I've been the European ones and most of them, so yeah. Nothing, nothing special to say from me. I would say that I've been in the screen room a little bit and maybe a negative thing that I've heard from some people there is that there wasn't any coffee there, so they had to go to the lunch area and get their coffee from there. It's not a complaint from me because I don't drink much, but-
Matt Kleve:
You didn't have to ... They had to get up from their computer and walk across the building to go find coffee.
Salva Molina: So, yeah. That's it. Thank you.
Matt Kleve:
Zequi.
Mike Herchel:
Who?
Matt Kleve:
Ezekiel Vasquez.
Mike Herchel:
Hey, Zequi.
Zequi Vasquez:
That's me. Hello, so for me, I know that this has been mentioned already, but for me the best takeaway from this DrupalCon it's people. I have been lucky because I have met a lot of new people. I mean I have had really interesting conversations.
Mike Herchel:
Your session was pretty amazing by the way.
Zequi Vasquez:
Yeah. Thank you.
Jordana Fung:
Was it recorded?
Zequi Vasquez:
Oh, it was.
Mike Herchel:
Yay.
Matt Kleve:
Tell us about your session just really quick. Just like 10 seconds.
Zequi Vasquez:
10 seconds? What? I have been demonstrating life-hacking demos about the two biggest vulnerability that affected Drupal core.
Matt Kleve:
He was hacking people's Drupal sites is what he was doing.
Zequi Vasquez:
Yeah. Exactly.
Matt Kleve:
But, he wears a white hat, so it's okay.
Zequi Vasquez:
Yeah. Today, I wear a white hat.
Matt Kleve:
Today?
Zequi Vasquez:
It's been amazing.
Matt Kleve:
Matthew Tift.
Matt Tift:
Doctor.
Matt Kleve:
Dr. Tift.
Matt Tift:
Hello. Well, I had a lot of good takeaways this year. I was especially excited to see [inaudible 00:47:59] lead off talking about diversity.
Matt Kleve:
That was pretty damn awesome.
Jordana Fung:
That was amazing.
Mike Herchel:
Yeah. That was great.
Matt Kleve:
How did we get like an hour into this before anybody noticed?
Jordana Fung:
I know.
Mike Herchel:
Good job, Matt. Matt, I think you're my roommate. I think it would have been helped if we were actually at the [inaudible 00:48:14] note. We watched it on the internet. We did do that in the hotel room while waking up. Anyway, go ahead, Matt.
Matt Tift:
Yeah, and there were just a lot of positive things that happened. I really enjoyed the community working group workshop, and another session that I probably could mention that I bet nobody else has mentioned because nobody else here was there ... was a session where a representative from the Debian community and the Gnome community were talking with Drupal as well about their migrations to GitLab and how well that went. Also, I was really encouraged that the Debian community as well as the Gnome community representatives were hoping that we can do even more collaboration and working with these other communities, I think, would be a real boon to Drupal.
Mike Herchel:
I didn't know such a session happened.
Matt Tift:
Yeah. It was called something like open-source sharing our tools or something like that. Different groups.
Mike Herchel:
Cool. Neat.
Jordana Fung:
I think this is a great highlight as well because were you to have somebody from the word press community that's doing ... going to do speaker training for the Drupal diversity and inclusion groups, so we are having these things where there's no-
Mike Herchel:
Yep.
Jordana Fung:
We're trying to do open borders and open source, and I love it as that thing.
Matt Kleve:
Those were my two favorite sessions, actually. I went to a handful this year which is way better than I did in years passed when I got stuck in the hallway track, but there was a session with a type ... like one of the lead typo3 devs which is another CMS, and it was really an okay session. It was co given by a Drupal person who was writing a typo3 book.
Jordana Fung:
Yeah. She's a mentor. Allie.
Matt Tift:
Yeah. Yeah, and she was giving the session with the typo3 dev who had looked into Drupal, and essentially, we learned that we both suck in our own special way. You know?
Jordana Fung:
Yeah. We all have troubles.
Matt Tift:
Both communities had something to learn from each other. Yeah, and I thought that was really good. Then, actually, I saw a session from someone from Oracle who came to talk about the latest version of MySQL, and it's something that I've always kind of wanted to learn more about because it's something that's so important in our Drupal stack, and it's just kind of a black box to most people. It was really great to hear about the latest version and the latest things that are ... that can happen. MySQL, dealing with essentially a no out-go sequel database, and it's pretty cool.
Mike Herchel:
MySQL, no sequel, so it's just My all of the above?
Matt Tift:
Touche, sir, touche. Hey. I don't know. Thanks for coming.
Matt Kleve:
Yeah. Thanks, everybody.
Jordana Fung:
Hey, do you mind if I just talk about this speaker training?
Matt Kleve:
No.
Mike Herchel:
Yeah, yeah.
Matt Kleve:
Have a knife fight with Mike again.
Jordana Fung:
The Drupal diversity and inclusion group is doing like ... if you feel like you're part of an underrepresented group, you can contact them, and you can get to do the speaker training where they kind of teach you how to do your first talk and sessions to try to get over that hurdle, so that's a great thing.
Matt Kleve:
Hey, thanks for joining us today. We appreciate it.
Jordana Fung:
Thank you.
Matt Kleve:
Thank you. Bye, everybody.
Mike Herchel:
Bye.

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