News and announcements

We are happy to announce that registration is now open for DrupalCon Chicago, which will be held March 7-10, 2011 at the Drupal Tower in downtown Chicago! You can sign up and purchase your ticket today at http://chicago2011.drupal.org/

DrupalCon Chicago will feature dozens of curated sessions and panels from some of the most influential people and brightest minds within the Drupal community and beyond, as well as countless opportunities for networking, code sprints, conversations, and more.

The conference will be held at the Sheraton Chicago Hotel and Towers, located in downtown Chicago. During DrupalCon, the Sheraton will become the Drupal Tower, your one-stop location for all conference activities and accommodations.

When you register, you'll have the opportunity to purchase your event ticket, reserve your hotel room in the Drupal Tower, and sign up for pre-conference training sessions as well as the official March 8 after-party at Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History! If you already have a drupal.org user account, you can use it to automatically sign in to the DrupalCon website.

We're also pleased to announce our open invitation for speakers at DrupalCon Chicago. This is your opportunity to share your knowledge with DrupalCon attendees. Find out more at http://chicago2011.drupal.org/speaker-application

Sessions that have been confirmed so far include speakers on design and user experience, coding and development, implementation and configuration, theming, business and strategy, and the Drupal community.

In addition to the regular session programming, DrupalCon Chicago will also feature keynotes by Dries Buytaert, Clay Shirky, and Jared Spool. As some of the leading minds in today’s ever-expanding new media landscape, these speakers will inform, engage, and inspire DrupalCon attendees.

DrupalCon Chicago will also include a number of events new to DrupalCon, including a Day Stage, the Drupal Means Business track, and Core Conversations, in addition to the traditional after-conference sprints.

Those interested in helping sponsor DrupalCon Chicago can download a copy of our sponsor prospectus, but don't delay as sponsorship slots are limited and going fast!

You can keep up-to-date with the latest information about DrupalCon Chicago by going to http://chicago2011.drupal.org/ or following us on Twitter @drupalcon

By now you’ve noticed that Drupal.org looks a little different! To understand why these design changes were made it may be helpful to read the redesign user experience research lead Leisa Reichelt’s post Why is it so? Some insights into our design strategy. Here’s what’s new on Drupal.org:

Homepage

Last month Drupal.org had over 2 million unique visitors, many of them coming to the home page to learn about and evaluate Drupal. The home page was designed with these visitors in mind. Our UX research revealed that Drupal.org is primarily a searching site, so the home page features a large search box with optional search filters. The rest of the home page focuses on the needs of Drupal evaluators, including a section showcasing the newest and best Drupal sites.

The home page also shows stats and Drupal community activity. The world map indicates the worldwide breadth of the Drupal community’s recent code commits, updates to documentation and more. A post detailing the map implementation will be posted in the near future.

Dashboard