DrupalCON Europe, call for suggestions
As you might know, we try to organize at least two big Drupal events a year: one in North America and one in Europe. The latest Drupal conference took place in Vancouver and attracted more than 150 people! That is almost 6 months ago so a couple months ago we started scouting venues for this year's European Drupal conference. We are pleased to announce that this year's DrupalCON Europe which will take place in Brussels (Belgium), the second half of September (two months from now!). We'll communicate the exact dates and location as soon we have confirmation from the venue -- hopefully by the end of next week.
As it stands, we'll have several rooms with projectors so I'm thinking we should allocate one or two rooms for scheduled presentations, and use two or more rooms for self-organizing activities like bug hunts, code sprints, brainstorm sessions, meetings and ad-hoc presentations. That said, we're open for all kinds of suggestions. The purpose of this topic is to ask you some questions and to get early feedback to help us organize the schedule.
This conference is organized by the Drupal community for the Drupal community so we'd appreciate your suggestions! Here are some questions to get you started:
- What talks or demos would you be interested in?
- What do you hope to get out of DrupalCON Europe?
- Would you be willing to present, and if so, about what?
- What was your personal highlight at past Drupal conferences?
Thanks!
Interests
I personally would be very interested in:
Regards,
George
Drupal training
Theme and module development.
Do you mean training sessions that start from scratch and that help you create your first Drupal theme or module? We'd need a minimum of two hours per session (I think). Sounds like a built-in DrupalCamp or a Drupal 101 to get people up to speed on Drupal and Drupal development ... I'd be happy to reserve venue space to Drupal training, as long there are some people who want to take a lead in this. Some key contributors have experience with this so let's see what they think about it and whether they want to organize such sessions. It would be really valuable, IMO!
Willing to lear theme training sessions
I am very short in time, so no big plans and stuff from me.
However, I am very willing to facilitate/lead a themeing session, possibly together with a theme Guru.
I can prepare the session, create learning material and off course be there to do the stuff. I think organising and preparing this session, if agreed upon, could best be handled on themes.drupal.org.
Are any other people interested in leading such a themeing session?
Are there people who would like to attend a themeing session?
Bèr
---
Professional | Personal
| Sympal: Development and Hosting
Theme workshops, few options, like some feeback.
Hello,
I have a few workshops in mind or available. Please give some feedback on what is most wanted, if theme workshops are wanted at all.
I am also interested in hearing from other designers/themers/developers who might want to co-host these workshops. ber curlythingy webschuur dot com for direct contact.
Bèr
---
Professional | Personal
| Sympal: Development and Hosting
New theme from scratch
This is what would interest me most.
Actually I'd be interested
Actually I'd be interested in all 3 of them.
Being a professional designer I feel comfortable in the design world. I'd like to know how to theme drupal from the ground on.
So it would be great to have the courses building upon each other.
globo
I agree, bring it together.
I agree, bring it together. Also an internal overview of how themebility works within Drupal core/modules/APIs would be very interesting.
Themes feedback
Personally, I'd be interested in the first but I think a workshop preceding this on how to take apart an existing theme would make a nice warm up.
Experience reports
Showcases of famous Drupal sites and the customizations they use.
I guess this means we could invite some Drupal companies/consultants/developers to showcase and talk openly about some of their best work? Is that what you are looking for? It might be somewhat commercial but that could be interesting on its own. ;) Do you have any "famous Drupal sites" in mind? Anyone who wants to talk openly about a particular project (with sufficient visibility)?
I could give the run through
I could give the run through for TWiT.tv (I built the entire site) and the new MTV.co.uk site (going live beginning of Aug).
I'd also like to focus on theming too, I've got a bag of tricks and a list of rants to make Drupal easier to theme :-)
I got a BIG site I can
I got a BIG site I can showcase that I did all the module dev / drupal dev on it. This one is HUGE with TONS of Flash XMLRPC stuff going on.
Steven really likes this site :P
Custom themes
We're quite happy to present and give a demonstration of how we approach themes form scratch if this is what interests people.
As we're part of a design agency we pretty much deliver custom sites only. Examples, amongst others, are www.ontwerpwerk.nl, www.vka.nl, www.blikopwerk.nl, www.idazaal.nl, www.denhaagsculptuur.nl, www.vbmbusinessclub.nl, www.vernieuwingsimpuls.nl, www.forumdemocratie.nl and www.foundercontact.com.
2 years ago we selected Drupal, pretty much along the same lines as IBM recently followed (see http://drupal.org/node/73159). Main reasons are Drupal's architecture, its modularity and extensibility and the fact that Drupal sites don't necessarily look like Drupal sites.
Emil Heijkants
Ontwerpwerk, Den Haag
making noise hu?
good for you! :-)
And I would like to see people presenting a howto build a custome theme and will attend for sure.
--
groets
bertb
I believe i may be able to give one
of these perhaps - as long as its not on working hours - and people are interested in what weve been doing with drupal for peace and stabilzation ops, nato institutions, pfp etc...
Ivan Labra
Coincidence?
Is this just a coincident that the European Drupal Conf is again more or less at the same time and in the same place as the EuroOSCON? ;)
lightning twice?
yes, pure coincidence. what are the chances? :-)
--
groets
bertb
I'd be willing to present...
On the concepts of Common Taxonomy and Clouds as a way of enhancing the community plumbing aspects of Drupal by enabling enhanced networking BETWEEN Drupal sites, (but without sacrificing their autonomy).
Maybe inspire some of the coders.
I'd also be happy to throw in some stuff on the three types of Karma concepts which I outlined in an earlier post and generated some interest.
Lets make the C in CMS stand for Community as well as Content.
Will supply more detail privately if interested.
Ian Dickson - community specialist.
Excellent
Excellent. If you could write up a title and a description for each of the proposed presentations, that would be great. I'll add it to the list. :)
Common Taxonomy and Clouds
Description - At present each Drupal Site is an Island. Why? Because they all define their own taxonomies locally. As a result, they can't talk to each other.
The Drupal Universe is a balkanised Tower of Bable.
If sites cannot talk to each other, they can't build effective links and cross membership.
Clouds is a concept that shows WHY it's important to enable this next level of site linking.
Imagine a world in which Drupal Sites ARE connected, where they choose to be. These loose groups of sites are called Clouds. Each site stays autonomous though.
Example - London Schools Cloud
30 London Schools agree that members of ANY London School will have OG access in ALL London School Sites. On it's own each School has stuff for parents and pupils, but active Groups will be limited to those subjects where the school has enough interested people to warrant it. So chances are that most London schools do not have a Brass Society, or Farsi Literature Group, or even a Surf Club.
But roll 30 schools together, a population of around 100,000 teachers, parents and children and anyone with an interest can set up a group (in their school) and attract people from all across London. Suddenly there is not only a Farsi Literature Group, but it has 140 members and gets special guest speakers....
Imagine Clouds for any and all special interest or community groups.
Clouds is also a classic Network Effects Driver for Drupal - if you are planning a site and you know a suitable Cloud exists, then why would you use anything other than Drupal? Why isolate yourself? If you were building a new London School site, and you knew about LSC, would you deny your people the chance to benefit from the riches provided by the LSC?
But for Clouds to exist effectively there needs to be a common language. That means a Common Taxonomy.
In each site the terms must be indexed with the same numbers - 54=UK=Angleterre=Blighty
In practice this means a Taxonomy Server site where the CT is developed and stored.
Once started, it will help developers because they will simply be able to Select the bits they want, instead of having to keep creating afresh. E.g for a Global Music Site - grab Countries, grab Music Genres, grab Musical Instruments, grab Popular Artists. (Much faster than creating all rom scratch). (Note that this means that sites don't store the whole thing, just the useful parts).
Given technical help to create the Server DB, and the mod I am sure I can do the taxonomy build legwork. (I have the right background).
Also note that Clouds is but one possible outcome of a CT. There will be many others, for example if a CT exists then sites can be defined in terms of the terms they use, which could be the basis of a Drupal Universe Serach Engine focussed on finding SITES rather than PAGES. (You want PAGES if you are expert, but when learning or exploring, you really want a good SITE. Google finds PAGES, not SITES).
So - help me build a CT and create a key element in the next stage of Drupal.
In the talk I'll go into more detail, esp re the structure of the CT to make it lanaguage independent etc.
Ian Dickson - community specialist.
www.emint.org - Association of Online Community Professionals
Very cool idea
The perfect universal taxonomy is, of course, an unreachable goal (somehow the whole idea reminds me of the unfortunate Mr. Casaubon in Middlemarch) but I think an imperfect universal taxonomy would be hugely useful to developers and for communities spread across multiple sites. Not to derail, but for SEO purposews it would be good if the naming of the term could vary by site, and of course by language, so long as it was held together by a common unique identifier.
Language flexibility is key
I say Cancer Doctor, you say Oncologist, a Frenchman says.... The point being that if they are all 54, they can be tied together
Ian Dickson - community specialist.
www.emint.org - Association of Online Community Professionals
www.egglistings.com - Events with sound and video
This is doable today with
This is doable today with the Publish - Subscribe module combination. It actually is focused on syncing taxonomy around nodes, but extending it to handle taxonomy is certainly possible.
Experiment with those two (they work today) and leave suggestions in the issue tracker for updates.
Karma Komments
Karma Komments
There are three types of Karma - Public, Private and Small World.
Public Karma - you score points, you get stuff (access, power, promotion to front page, whatever). Most commonly understood type. BIG ISSUE - to work well it needs to proofed against gaming. This is hard. Other big issue - has implicit assumption that community members have a common view re how you get respect. This is very rarely a correct assumption.
Private - people assign Karma points to those they respect. Only effect is that you get told when people with X karma have posted ( bit like tracking) or that people totalling X karma points have taken part in a thread in the past Y days. (I.e. chances are, you want to read it).
K recipients do not know you have given them K.
Small World. As private but recipients get told they have K, possibly how much and who by. Purpose - helps like minded people find each other. (If I give you K, we probably have enough in common for you to at least check me out, and maybe you find you like my stuff as well. Out of such chances are friendships born).
Private and Small World is game proof as there is no benefit in gaming it. (Except inside corporate communities. Workaround there is to ration the K so that it gets spent wisely).
In the talk I'd look at the underlying behaviourial aspects of Karma and connecting people as well.
Ian Dickson - community specialist.
Love it!
I love this idea... looking forward to future developments ;)
multiple sessions
I think Drupal has become big enough to have multiple tracks. In Amsterdam there were about 80 developers, in Vancouver 150. Even if we go conservative, Brussels will likely get 100 people. With such a big group, discussion tend to be difficult and interaction minimal. So I think it is best to have multiple tracks
In the morning we can have general talks about Drupal or PHP, about communities, the future developments, how to overcome the growing pains etc. While in the afternoon we could split up in say coding sessions, development sessions, and for example business sessions. The coders can get together and hack on the spot together or do some bughunting. Developers can talk about the architecture of the database, UI improvements, localization etc. While the business sessions might attract interested people or discuss how to overcome infrastructure problems.
By having multiple sessions we can make sure everybody gets to say /do what (s)he wants and we can attract even more people.
What are your thoughts on this?
--
groets
bertb
Parallel sessions
As outlined in my original post, we'll have several rooms with projectors. So given enough speakers, discussion leaders, hack masters, brainstorm moderaters and attendees, we'll have two or more parallel sessions. We'll worry about the schedule later. Right now, I want to know what you're all interested in, and what presentations you can help with.
+1 on tracks
I like tracks!
wiki in drupal
is there much interest out there for "wiki in drupal" session? i would be happy to lead that one if there is demand. we need to unify existing efforts and deliver one solution that doesn't suck.
I'm interested in following
I'm interested in following your wiki session!
Yes
Let's make a drupal-wiki workgroup!
I have a simple wiki interface to demo.
Gunnar Langemark
http://www.langemark.com
Security Security Security
I would like to see topics on Drupal security.
How to use OWASP tools or other tools for that matter to find holes.
Securing ajax etc.......
Security
Security looks an important topic to me. It would be great if we could get some people from the Drupal security team together for (i) some brainstorming work and (ii) a presentation with best practices on Drupal security.
If you are familiar with OWASP (I'm not), feel free to give us a presentation about it and/or to demo some of their tools on a Drupal website. Sounds really interesting to me.
security
I don't consider myself an expert in PHP security or the OWASP framework. But, I would not mind putting something together. At least some of the basics. As you mentioned previously, it would be good to get some people from the Drupal security team to provide information such as best practices etc.
I would be willing to
I would be willing to present and talk about any of the projects I work on, namely Views, Node Access stuff and Administration/Presentation stuff.
-- Merlin
[Point the finger: Assign Blame!]
[Read my writing: ehalseymiles.com]
[Read my Coding blog: Angry Donuts]
No escape route for you
Merlin, not having a presentation on views would be a crime. The node access stuff and the administration stuff are important too, so it looks like there is no escape route for you! ;) Can I tentatively write you down for at least 2 presentations?
Sure, why not. --
Sure, why not.
-- Merlin
[Point the finger: Assign Blame!]
[Read my writing: ehalseymiles.com]
[Read my Coding blog: Angry Donuts]
only 2????? COMMON!!!
only 2????? COMMON!!!
We should (could) have a
We should (could) have a profile page (DrupalCON Europe 2006) with a list of selectable interesting subjects/sessions. Views, Node Access stuff and Administration/Presentation stuff sure are interesting!
Edit: superseded now by: http://drupalcon.org/
An interactive session on
An interactive session on Views (in combination with CCK or other modules) is a must-have.
I would be very interessed in a functional explaination of the features of Views.
Specially:
* Arguments
* Argument Handling Code
the focus?
well, what kind of presentation on Views?
"Introduction to Views"
"Plan for integrating Views into core"
"Architeching the next enhancements to Views"
"Expanding Views to other listings like Users"
"Integrating Views into your modules"
"Improving Views documentation"
"Theming and Views"
....
Two approachs in parallel: Networking Sessions and Workshops
Networking Sessions aim to originate new, lasting and productive links between developers to help build a better Drupal environment.
Objective:
* A workshop provides a forum for exchange of knowledge on technical subjects and for learning, is oriented toward the state-of-the-art and aims at consolidation.
* A networking session aims at bringing together new constituencies, Drupal groups that are preferably not already working together routinely, in view of submitting contributions or taking other actions.
Various scenarios can be imagined:
o Cross modules.
o Downstream-upstream modules
o Inter-modules networking.
o Inter-developer networking (developers - translators - industry - users).
o Networking across 'islands' with common module interest.
Outputs
* A workshop has a fragmented output in that each participant gets out of it what he/she wants and applies it for his/her own purpose.
* A networking session has an output which is shared by the participants and has, at least in part, concrete and action-oriented implications. The session should aim to give shape to one or several concrete initiatives for the participants to do something together that is Drupal-related.
Some examples:
o Joint actions towards a proposal for a module or project.
o Critiquing sessions, for instance on "what Drupal should develop".
o Guru sessions, for instance on "how to make a module really work".
o Consultation sessions on results to a wider community.
o Exploratory sessions towards common works.
o Joint actions towards commercial and/or social impact of an existing project or group of projects
o Joint actions towards public involvement.
Format and Methodology
* A workshop will typically consist of a number of presentations and some discussion about results that are brought to the meeting.
* A networking session will be very different in its methodological approach and concrete documentation of the results that are achieved at the meeting. The session should leave a lasting imprint on the participants, based on enthusiastic, original, promising and stimulating person-to-person contacts. It is less for learning from each other, more for learning about each other.
A wide range of methodological directions should be considered:
o Careful orchestration of interaction (e.g., rotational, free-flow, casino model).
o Role games.
o Speaker's corner or 1-minute pitch models.
o Graphical documentation (post-its, white-board walls).
o Digital media and digital capture of results (for further use).
o Personal support (note, trace, index,...) material.
o Use of professional animators and facilitators.
o Scripted sessions toward concrete results.
Finally, the duration of a networking session is 90 min; the duration of a workshop may be either 120-180min.
Interest:
Networking Sessions: Groups [marketplace, community, video, business, others] to prepare a join on-net (cooperative, integrative, business) brochure to be presented in IST-2006 21-23Nov in Helsinki
Workshop: Video-blogs (tools, effect, production, edition, integartion, sound, compresion, standards, tips and tutorials, etc.)
en Ferran Cabrer i Vilagut
http://IST-2006.consen.info
CONSEN.org - WEKOMS.com - EUwork.net
European Research projects
Get together
First, 4. -- the lunches and dinners together or sitting on the floor and talking. If you think we can talk on IRC just wait before you do it IRL. And yes, getting together to code is great as well. This is also the answer to 2.
I am more than willing to present. On what? Surely we can find something :)
I would be very interested in a talk about how to tame two systems together, say phpBB or ZenCart in a Drupal 'frame' and this without HTTP requests. At the end of day, though, I may be the one who needs to give this talk :D
--
The news is Now Public | Drupal development: making the world better, one patch at a time.
I sure will travel to
I sure will travel to Brussels to attend the meeting. I don't have any concrete plans for a talk to gice right now, so feel free to make suggestions.
--
Drupal services
My Drupal services
Performance
I'd love to see some performance related stuff happening. Maybe you'd be willing to co-organize that? Just bring slow query logs, graphs and ideas and let things flow ... ? Anyone else interested in performance related sessions? Suggestions?
Hope I will be there
I hope I will be there, but I won't be able to tell until I know the exact dates of the event.
If so, I would be willing to prepare a presentation about multilingual features in Drupal and implementing them in Drupal core, if there's some interest about it.
- I'm planning to work on that in August so hope I will be able to show also some development....
i18n
I'd love to talk more about i18n.module as it is one of those things I'd really like to get into Drupal core. It would be great if you could present about it, and if we could break out your presentation into a brainstorm session. Keep up posted. We'll try to communicate the exact dates as soon as possible.
i8n core
It would be very interesting hearing about i18n developments and plans about core integration!
Unit Testing!
There is a great module called simpletest that makes writing unit tests for Drupal easy. I think everyone attending could benefit from a rundown on unit testing and how to use simpletest to write tests in Drupal. Then, during the hacking sessions we can write tests for core modules and sleep easier at night.
Summer of Code report
I think it would also be interesting to get a status report on the SoC projects. What better way to get the word out on these new modules?
Would be willing
To report 10-15 minutes about "Social Network Analysis", if CHX or Aron don't want to do.
Thomas Narres
Keep the sunny side up
In answer to you qeustions
1. What talks or demos would you be interested in?
- Personally I like the more technical discussions/presentations.
2. What do you hope to get out of DrupalCON Europe?
- Better connection with the community as well as practical technical knowledge.
3. Would you be willing to present, and if so, about what?
- We'll have a couple people at the conference most likely. Programmmers, BizDev, and possibly project managers. We would be happy to help build out the agenda in whatever way makes sense. Some possible topics might be:
* Website Case Studies
- hightowerlowdown.org
- CreativeCommons (a CiviCRM application for CC license porting)
- shiftinaction.com
- newprogressivecoalition.com
- others
* Marketing Drupal
- Experiences with Greenpeace Int'l and Greenpeace UK
- Client expectations
- Challenges that Drupal represents
* Drupal and the Arts
- ArtistsLink
- LINC NINA (a framework for Drupal based RDF/Faceted searching)
But like I said - we can bend around your agenda.
4. What was your personal highlight at past Drupal conferences?
The people, understanding the community better, learning how it all works.
Agenda
But like I said - we can bend around your agenda.
The agenda is defined by the participants. DrupalCON Europe is what we make of it. Distributed responsibility.
If you want more technical tracks, get people to do technical presentations by proposing technical subjects you'd like to learn more about. :) (I'd be happy to talk about something higly technical -- I'm just waiting for people to propose some highly technical topics.)
If you want to get most out of DrupalCON, this would be the time to speak up. Simply invite people to talk about a certain topic. The purpose of this forum topic is to get some feel about what each of you want, and to have some people rally around certain ideas and topics. It's an important excercise as it will define the face of DrupalCON.
Attracting a wider audience
I have no experience attending DrupalCON's (so this will probably be my first). As I see it now the presentations will be mostly for advanced Drupal developers/administrators. If there would be a introductory session highlight all the strong aspects of Drupal (and follow-up sessions delfing deeper into selected areas, like database structure overview, Drupal's optimization schemes, important modules and their usage, theming, [the new] installation [system], Drupal's future developments, and other topics beginning Drupal administators are coping with), the conference would be attractive to a wider audience. That way it would make sense to draw more attention to the DrupalCON. That is, if that's desirable and if there's room.
Drupal Con
What talks or demos would you be interested in?
A couple ideas:
* Anatomy of a site: Drupal experts spend 15 minutes taking a very complex site they designed and explaining in detail how they built the majority of it. Emphasis on hacks, tweaks, and tips.
* Install profile 101: The anatomy of the new install system and a walk through on how to create your own install profile.
What do you hope to get out of DrupalCON Europe?
A healthy amount of comradarie, knowledge, and accomplished work.
Would you be willing to present, and if so, about what?
Yes. 'Selling Drupal': drupal marketing jujitsu that results in large scale Drupal adoption.
What was your personal highlight at past Drupal conferences?
* 15 drupal hackers simultaneously rolling patches for .install files
* Dries's Drupal roadmap speech
* Hallway scheming
Volunteer for new user, FAQ, core walk through
Although it took a LONG time, I really enjoyed doing an interactive walk through of all of the Drupal core modules at the DrupalCamp Seattle event. Questions asked and sidetracking into some of the concepts, as well as pointing to other, related modules proved to be pretty interesting.
I'll volunteer to run/maintain/hang out in the new user/evaluator/want more info room. If we can get an "Intro to Theming" and a few other sessions together, there should be an interesting selection of presentations for people who want to check Drupal out (or take their Drupal dabbling to the next level).
How about a coding track
A room with white boards, wifi, maybe some monitors (for laptop extensions) and coffee so we can do some coding.
Would the conference be of use to 'Normal' users?
Hi Guys,
I'm one of the people who posts messages to the forum, and adds issues and feature requests, rather than rolling patches to clear those issues and meet those feature requests.
I would like to attend, but not sure what I could contribute. Would that be an problem?
Is the conference aimed at developers alone?
I would consider myself a 'power user'. I know/understand HTML & CSS, and can read PHP and SQL enough to know whats going on.
Having looked at comments so far, I would say 'yes', I reckon I would personally get some value out of the confererence [and I must owe some contributors drinks by now!]
But for the 'Rest of us', who is the conference aimed at?
Are regular users welcome/needed?
Regards
Alan
it's what you make of it
this conference is by us for us. and you can define the"us" part yourself. organize a track / session, make some noise and you will find out that the conference is for you as well.
i think conferences -given the size of dupal's community- are for
* developers
* advanced users
* drupal companies
* prospects who would like to switch to drupal
and maybe more (hosting parties etc). but as long as you plan to do something, it is for you!
--
groets
bertb
Drupal in Education / University
I would very much be interested in any discussion on dealing with one of the following topics:
1. Use of Drupal in the university context (such as to run a complete web site and intranet of a department)
2. Use of Drupal in Education in general (both for to present schools and to deliver courses - as an alternative to things like Blackboard or even Moodle)
In both of these topics, I can contribute a lot on the needs of users and necessary workflows in both these settings but little on actual Drupal implementation (yet: http://blog.care.uea.ac.uk).
As a relative newcomer to Drupal and only a passive speaker of PHP, I would very much appreciate any tutorials on the PHP Theme Engine, CCK+Views and perhaps also in general on managing complicated sites with many users who have fairly high access rights.
Live Module Hack
I would love to see a screencast of the birth of a simple Drupal module. From "hello world" to what's cool about the forms API, commented by a savvy module developer.
As a matter of fact, I would love to see videos of all events on DrupalCON (though I will be there in person). There is not much about it: A camcorder, a microphone, XViD the stuff, put the torrents up for download and have the community spread it via BitTorrent.
That sounds like it could be fun...
If there's a track along building your first drupal X - I wouldn't mind leading a module one...
James Walker :: Bryght Guy
That would be so cool! Like
That would be so cool! Like all coders I am used to learning from code examples and documentation but I learn a lot faster from explanations from experts. And it that is way more fun, too. :-)
Business Development and Consultants get together
I'd like to hear if there's any interest in subj.
I suspect that there'll be a few business and consulting oriented people going to DrupalCon too. I'd like us to get together to talk about how we further the Drupal platform in developing our businesses - and how we make better use of each other - worldwide and europewide.
Any interest?
Gunnar Langemark
http://www.langemark.com
Sounds cool
I'm game on this one. Both to connect and to interact in what the "common" customer "specific" needs are. To share knowledge, talk about what Drupal might be lacking and what customers want out of a product like Drupal.
If needed I can present as well though I think it is better to have an interactive round table.
--
groets
bertb
I support the interactive
I support the interactive round table idea.
I'm game
Interactive roundtable for me too!
:-)
I think some of us may prepare some 10 minutes cases - just to let the discussion have some practical and concrete common starting points.
best
Gunnar Langemark
http://www.langemark.com
Neil Drumm talk
I should talk about something, but not sure what quite yet. Here are some ideas:
- What is usability, why do we care, and how is it done?
- Drupal [development version] and how fun it is to be the guy committing patches.
- Doing good core development.
- Giant themeability discussion.
One more
- CCK and the future of nodes.
Bring it on!
Bring it on!
Video-Captures
I love the Idea of going to this conference. However my schedule is already packed and chances are geting lower with my family demanding every second of free time I have.
A lot of talent and wisdom will be there and I'd love to see what you are coming up with in Brussels.
Can you video-tape the conference? At least the workshops?
Someone did the last time. But with so many changes in drupal I'd love to see stuff related to the current release.
globo
SEO
If anybody is interested I could take or contribute to a session on how to optimise a Drupal site for Google. Hint: taxonomy doesn't quite do it, Categories does.
Definately
I'd be up for that! :-)
Me too
I would love to hear that.
jQuery
I'd be willing to do a short talk about jQuery in Drupal...
--
If you have a problem, please search before posting a question.
Benefits and end user functionality, not features?
Understandably, the folks who make Drupal happen seem very focused on the feature sets and how things work under the hood. I'm more interested in what Drupal can do in terms of delivering benefits and functionality.
As Drupal matures, I think being able to talk on both sides of this divide is increasingly important. There are relatively few people capable of understanding how Drupal does what it does; there are a lot of people very interested in the kinds of things Drupal can do. Some of the folks, such as me, who can't program and contribute directly can still fund development by others if they understand how Drupal can help them and their projects. It's worth remembering, I think, that the whole point of any content management system is to empower non-technical people to run sophisticated websites, and attention to the non-technical end user base will be important if Drupal is to fully achieve its potential to change things. Drupalcon might not be the place to do that, but if it isn't, I'm not sure what the venue would be.
As I look at moving more sites to Drupal and creating new sites in Drupal, here are some of the issues I would like to understand better:
I also thought the proposal for effective SEO with Drupal was a great idea.
In terms of contributing, I can talk all day in non-Drupal-specific ways about how to monetize websites. I can also talk a bit about how large communities get developed (the last site I was with did about 30 million page views a month, all community driven, but I was more an observer than creator of that accomplishment).
+1 from here
I'll second that. I'm not a programmer and the closest I come to programming is application design, interaction design, information design and information architecture.
I say we should work to form some kind of working group to take on some of these issues regarding how Drupal can be of use to the clients, the end users, the admins etc.
I'd really like to take part in that, and I believe that DrupalCon will be an excellent place to make it happen.
There are a lot of good initiatives out there regarding these issues. Maybe we can see if we can get together and make them one.
It's time to make Drupal stand out to more stakeholders than developers and designers, even if those two groups are the foundation of the Drupal succes.
best
Gunnar Langemark
http://www.langemark.com
Crossing the line
Ray is so right. Drupal hasn't yet crossed the line from being techie friendly to user friendly. Partly this is a result of offering so much but it's more than that:
I don't think I've added one module that has clear and reliable instructions on how to set up and use. Everything has been trial and error. Most modules barely explain what they do.
To become what it can be, Drupal has to cross this line. The overall package has to presented in a way that non-techies can set up. Menus and configuration need to be more intuitive. Step-by-step manuals with examples and screen grabs are needed for all.
We can start a group talking about these issues and that's good. But what's really needed is for everyone to think about it. Until then, Drupal wont go beyond the techie world and a few clients lucky enough to get the time of the few professionals available.
But after then, if these issues are take onboard by us all and the line is crossed, Drupal could come to mean CMS like Google means search. Now, there's a thought.
Agreed
I agree - however, quite often when you make something idiot proof you lose the power behind it (compare linux and Windows. Windows is idiot proof but cant do half the stuff as easily as Linux can with a little knowledge - imho!).
form API workshop
http://www.drupal4hu.com/node/20 comment there.
--
The news is Now Public | Drupal development: making the world better, one patch at a time.
Looks like I will be able to make it so...
I'm happy to talk about lots of stuff:
* File handling
* Drupal for Multimedia
* Identity / Dist Auth
* Richer user profiles & profile functionality
* How to have a successful IRC backchannel
Probably lots of other stuff....
Can't wait to head back to .be!
--
James Walker :: Bryght Guy
Call for presentations now open
Please read the call and submit your proposals.
Looking forward to seeing everyone in Brussels!
Drupal for Various Purposes
Drupal should be flexible for any type of websites
* Fashion site
* Personal website
* Professional Website
* Health Organisation
* corporate Website
* Non-Profit Organisation website
* Designers website
* automobile website
* Community website
* Scientific research website
* University Website
and many more...
balachandar muruganantham
associate software engineer
spikesource software pvt Ltd, India
API stabilization
I'd like to see someone talk about and give some good arguments for API stabilization -- in general. This talk could be given by anyone expert enough in open source software development; they would not even need to know Drupal's internals per se.
Validation, Accessibility & Usability within Core & phpTemplate
I would be willing to present some technical hints to improve Drupal's core and realize theme templates according to:
- Validation (XHTML, CSS, HTML)
- Accessibility (WCAG, Section 508)
- Usability
A common goal ist to realize well usable sites, which is not possible without well validated & accessibility tested sites. Validation & Accessibility can be easily measured with some tools, usability is more difficult to proof.
This will not be a "How do I realize a 3-column layout?"-session.
Thomas Narres
Keep the sunny side up
i'll be there -- what should i talk about?
i just got the word i can attend! woo hoo!!
i'd be happy to talk about some of the things i'm doing these days.
a few options:
i'll submit proposals for the 1st two, but let me know if there's anything else i should consider.
i'm *REALLY* looking forward to finally meeting you all in person!
thanks,
-derek
I would like to hear or discuss
... something about: New system for releasing Drupal contributions
Espacially cause of http://groups.drupal.org/classifying-and-presenting-the-contributed-modu...
Thomas Narres
Keep the sunny side up
Custom, Business, and Proprietary Modules
I hope some people get to see this comment because i know it's a bit late before the submission dead line.
However, I would like to see a presentation on Drupal in the work place and custom/proprietary modules. Basically just examples of how some company workflows and tasks have been "drupalized". I know personally that my company uses 3 modules in-house that have not and probabley will not be released to Drupal, and I know that there are others. So I just wanted to see if anyone else was as interested in this as I was.
This talk could probabley be coupled with a talk on how to best approach a task/problem issue a how to "Drupalize" it, IF it actually something that should be "drupalized".
Participate
I should also note that I would not mind participating in this presentation either.
Send us any contribution or Expression of Interest, in 5 slides
we also are doing some Back-Office Drupal adaptation (three departments Office, Administration and Editorial) to help us in the daily CONSEN Grouping Network, in particular coordination, publication and administrative tasks.
CONSEN has presented two proposals for Friday and Saturday to organize Network Sessions (short presentation to build netwok) related to Drupal 2.0 TASK-FORCE (invitation to IST-2006 join Drupal exhibition Nov-HEL) and Network 2.0 to discuss how is adapted Drupal to the web2.0, work 2.0 and MeshUp 2.0 (Seminar Apr-BCN)
Now we are awaiting the final schedule of the sessions. However we encourage you and anybody with an idea or interest in participate/contribute, to send us any potential contribution, comment, position or Expression of Interest in five pdf slides.
The 5 points for proposing an idea, action or project for a research, technological development, innovation or business to be presented by CONSEN grouping in our DrupalCon sessions are the following:
IDEAS, Where everything starts.
1) State of Art [SoA]:
1- What is the current situation and problematic? The situation is ...
2) What we want to do?:
2- What is and how we want to fix, solve, change or/and improve?
Which quantitative/qualitative objectives we have?
3) What are our plans?:
3- How to reach our aims? What are the key points/dates of the project execution? Main activities, duration
4) What and who we need?:
4- What and who we need? (inputs, consortium, competences and budget)
5) What are the results expected?:
5- Which are the main outputs, deliverables, milestones, quantified objectives we want to reach?
Please send your contribution/EoI via email to consen(@)consen.org (please make sure that you indicate in your message the S.O. of interest to you and your full contact data) For any further information please contact us or the organizators.
Ah!!! thanks in advance for your contribution
looking forward to collaborate with you in this and next events.
en Ferran
i want also to attend to
i want also to attend to DrupalCON in brussels. It is free?
regards,
koko
Yes
There is a suggested donation of 20EU at the door, and we have room for a max of 130 people. Please find all details at http://drupalcon.org
Breaks
I think it would be a good idea to make the presentations one hour long each so that we would have a 15 minute break between presentations to get to know each other. Sometimes the best part of conferences is the time between presentations... It also seems like it would be suicidal to have all the presentations and workshops immediately after each other. What do others think?