2012 Planning

You guys are doing some awesome things, but one improvement I'd like to see is better marketing. Acquia is doing great stuff at DrupalShowcase.com, but the DA should be doing this- not Acquia.

• We should also have a 'Showcase' tab on the main navigation similar to Wordpress.org.
• The DA should fund some professionally produced Drupal videos. For example, videos that show the power of our community, videos that show the power of the software, etc. These should be professionally done (and put money into them), and then they should be GPL'd and source files made available for customization.

I'm glad to see that documentation and "making drupal.org awesome for site builders" is mentioned here (#6 in the summary list, #2 in the expanded list below -- which is a bit confusing)... But it would be good if this had some more meat to it. The Documentation Team has all kinds of ideas for how to improve the documentation/site for Drupal users and site builders, but right now we are not being supported in getting our ideas realized and deployed, so they are going nowhere.

For instance, we (the Documentation Team) have been trying for weeks to get one very important change to the documentation infrastructure deployed on drupal.org. We first worked for several weeks, with many many participants, to define a large-impact redesign of the Docs pages, and narrowed it down to a first step that was high-impact (on site visitors) but low impact (on the d.o code base) (planning issue with 190 comments: http://drupal.org/node/1278256). We submitted the patches for deployment on November 2nd (issue: http://drupal.org/node/1289072), and are still waiting for deployment to happen, more than 6 weeks later, with pretty much no action from the drupal.org infrastructure team (either due to it being low priority for them, or due to a lack of people -- I'm really not sure which, but I am beginning to suspect that changes to docs infrastructure are lower priority than other proposed drupal.org site updates, which is terribly wrong).

And this was just the first step in one improvement the Documentation Team was thinking about -- we had other great ideas as well. But because this first, rather easy deployment has languished, all the momentum and energy we had in the late summer and early fall to improve the infrastructure for documentation is totally gone. The Documentation Team will probably not be trying to make any wholesale improvements to the Documentation infrastructure any time soon -- in the current climate, there isn't any point in pouring time and energy into thinking these things through carefully and proposing the code changes, if they don't go anywhere.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that if the Association truly wants to make drupal.org awesome for site builders, it could start by making sure that the Documentation Team's infrastructure update requests are one of the highest priorities for the infrastructure team, and/or making sure that there are adequate numbers of people in the infrastructure team to commit and deploy such changes. But until this happens, I think that this particular bullet point is just a pie-in-the-sky, wouldn't-it-be-great idea with no real plans or chance of succeeding. Sorry if this is overly negative... I'm pretty bitter right now about this. Hopefully I'm also wrong about the chances of success, and the Association can take this as a constructive suggestion of how to make this bullet point a reality. :)

I would also mention that the plan in the wiki above on how to make d.o awesome for site builders hardly mentions the Documentation Team. We have/had some great ideas and plans, including the idea of building a new documentation site with tightly-controlled "curated" documentation, including a well-written, topic-based "how to build a site" guide that could be the "on-ramp" you are talking about... but only if it can be built.

This is a solid list of goals for going into next year, with the exception of #5:

Regional events targeted at developers organized by DA staff.

This is really head-scratching – IMO, we need to be doing the exact opposite, and having the DA sponsor events that are targeted towards everyone but developers (i.e. marketers, content admins, C/V IT personnel, entrepreneurs, etc.). The existing Drupal events are already completely catered to developers (look at any Drupalcamp/con session line-up). The real void is in trying to attract “everyone else” into Drupal.

For example, take our recently held Atlanta events. The Business Summit was free, well promoted, the website was up 2+ months in advance, and the local community is very active. In the end, we had 110+- live attendees. Conversely, the camp (more dev focused) had 225 attendees (sold-out, 80+ on waiting list), cost $35, and had no targeted marketing efforts. This is just one use case, but I would hypothesize that this is consistent with other regions. It’s obvious that more help is needed with launching Business Summits (or other non "technical" audiences) that attract those that are not already in the existing fish-bowl. In short, we do not need the DA funding more developer-centric conferences and events.

Cheers,
Dave
Mediacurrent

Excellent work on these initiatives DA team! I too would echo Dave Terry's comments and would like to see Drupal evangelism become more of a priority for the DA too. We have Drupal business summits scheduled for San Diego, Vancouver, Atlanta and potentially in Dallas, LA and Toronto and we'd love the DA's assistance in helping us with the implementation & marketing of those events and to see them spring up in cities worldwide.

Glenn Hilton

+1 - extremely well said and I give you props for having the courage to mention the "C" word (certification) - it is certainly a lightning rod of an issue in the community.

Do you know where the results of Isovera's survey can be found?

What makes one Drupal shop different from another? You are spot on, it really comes down to reputation and track record. As someone on the front-lines of selling Drupal services, I try to be very transparent and tell organizations that what we are ultimately selling is predictability. Of course, the frustrating part is that the marketing executive you mention usually gravitates towards the low cost alternative v. who can provide the greatest overall value. The reality is very few even bother to check references. I cannot tell you how many "janitor" jobs we have ended up doing because of this line of decision-making.

I actually wrote a similarly related blog post about this a few years ago -
http://www.mediacurrent.com/blog/mediacurrent-releases-free-best-practic...

Cheers,
Dave
Mediacurrent

I would like to comment to only one of the 6 topics, especially because I have contributed most to this. I share jhodgdon's concern, in that we are having trouble getting actual things done. I really like that we are asked for feedback, I have been split how to give feedback on the DA other than blog posts.

Sorry if this post exercises a bit much criticism, but a lot of this has been on my mind for a while.

a) To help Drupal.org progress significantly, we need to have more clear leadership. I thought this was going to be drumm, but it seems he is being swamped with loads of other priorities.

I feel we are dreaming, that just hiring a project manager will solve this. We need a process in which we recognize one person to lead up, drupal.org not just from a technical perspective but also as a service - evaluation priorities and clearly communicating when certain resources allocations happen and need to be finished.

From the suggestions that are made, from voting to forming a committee it seems like we are trying to add additional levels of bureaucracy for the few who dispute certain priorities. Though that might be justified from a community perspective, its absolutely demotivating people who want to get things done.

b) The ideas suggested seem a bit all over the place, why is prairie amongst formalizing a dev team. Can we break these ideas up in changes for resources, leadership and defined projects (I am sure, there are more - important ones)?

c) I am still a bit baffled that Angie, has to raise money seperetly through T-Shirt sales for drupal.org iniatives. This is something the DA, should be funding - and the fact that its not, still looks like a breakdown in internal allocation.

d) Transperancy should be a top-level topic. Its clear in 2010, there where major concerns around transparency, and I do not feel we are adressing it. The fact that Isabell was let go - understandably or not, and this is not clearly mentioned in https://association.drupal.org/node/14143 is to me, a detail you cannot get wrong - if you want to be transparent. There have been other cases where, this kind of detail was left out - so this might be a bigger cultural change, hence why I am suggesting it be a top-level topic.

We can try grassroots organizing of students, but it is really professors and instructors who drive what is taught. Our efforts need to focus on the professors. Here are four thoughts from a guy who was once a full-time Academic Initiative rep for IBM:

A. Don’t just look at CIS departments ... also focus on MIS programs in the business schools. CIS is all about C/C++, algorithms, data structures, etc. Drupal is also attractive to the needs of the MIS programs.

B. We get traction in the schools by focusing on the needs of the professors and inviting them into the Drupal business world. We can’t compete with the big tech companies with money or recruiting, but we can provide research opportunities. Professors need to publish and to publish they need primary research data. To get this, they want the Drupal community to provide access to projects so they can study how Drupal is being used in real life settings. If a high profile prof gets this then Drupal will wind up in the curriculum, in the published articles and in the textbooks. The faculty also want guest speakers to make their classes more relevant and interesting. But my impression is that they really don’t want courseware and curriculum materials unless they’ve already adopted Drupal into their research.

C. There is an opportunity by positioning Drupal as an alternative to the project manager career path offered by Microsoft, IBM, SAP and Oracle. Drupal is far more dynamic and attractive to entrepreneurial types. We compete for attention with these big tech companies who have “Academic Initiative Programs” but who wants to be a small fish in a huge pond? Drupal scales down in a way that Java, .net and Oracle can't.

D. In the US, there is a tremendous need to attract women into STEM. Drupal, as a CMS/Framework (or however one wishes to describe it), is especially attractive to creative types and content providers (which seems to be more attractive to women). I suspect that highlighting some of Drupal’s high profile installations will go far in attracting faculty and students. Microsoft discovered a few years ago how attractive gaming development was to prospective students. They were very successful in winning over entire CIS schools to their technology because so many students (especially lots of guys) wanted to develop for the XBox. We can do the same for women with Drupal.

So … what is the best IRC channel to carry on this conversation?

I am very excited to see that drupal.org improvement is a top priority for an Association for the next year. It feels like it's long overdue.

Even more excited to see Prairie Initiative being mentioned among ideas. After a great start the initiative is a bit stalled now. The main reason for this I think is same as with Documentation team troubles - difficulties of the process of developing/improving d.o, shortage of people able and villing to code and bring to live the results of Prairie findings. I do not think that this initiative will be able to move forward without DA support.

However the way objectives of d.o improvement are presented right now is a bit confusing.
Improving collaboration tools for developers - why developers only? And not all the other types of people involved in work on modules, themes and Drupal core - such as project managers, UX people, people writing documentation, reporting bugs etc.

I understand that goal was to separate improvements aimed towards contributors to Drupal from improvements aimed towards users of Drupal (site builders), but all the ideas mentioned for 1st objective can be used for 2nd as well. For example, Prairie affects both since Improving modules pages for site builders is in its scope and it is same time - improving module pages for module maintainers. It is hard to separate. Maybe these two objectives can be merged? Into something sort of:

Making drupal.org awesome

Target audience:
- Drupal contributors. We want drupal.org to be the place where Drupal contributors come to collaborate. There is a concern that projects that use external sites such as github may fragment and separate the community. Drupal.org should be the home for all drupal.org contributors and a place that they can be proud of.
- Drupal site builders. Site builders are not developers they are architects and masterminds behind the Drupal websites. This group of individuals wants to find the best or newest modules fast. They also want access to great documentation with easy to understand instructions.

Programs

Among other ideas for d.o. improvement that could be considered are:
- Content strategy : lisarex started work over here: http://drupal.org/node/1113574
- Support infrastructure for d.o : http://groups.drupal.org/node/133494
- Improving landing pages : http://drupal.org/node/1289748

Happy Holidays Everyone!

First, I think that the initiative layout in tvn's post is the clearest and most well defined track I have seen. Kudos on that.

As an alternative to establishing University programs which in its daunting infrastructure may prove an inefficient use of time, the Drupal community would have more control and thereby better quality assurance following an archetypal 'Guild' approach. It is always mentioned that 'there so much Drupal work and not enough qualified people'. If this is reality then would we not benefit by creating groups and forums that address this directly? I am completely aware of the job postings and training links but there is no fundamental recruitment portal which could possibly support mentoring, internships, and legitimate job opportunities (with realistic reqs.). After having worked with Drupal for over 3 years, I continue to struggle finding work as most of the shops command a 'Rock Star' or 'Guru'. I do not think the typical recent university graduate meets these qualifications. Furthermore, while I am not a programming genius, it was through Drupal that I have become proficient in all of the languages involved - for Drupal sake (sic. I'd hate to be a DB admin all day every day).

Real World Learning Initiative:
1) define the components of a well rounded Drupal team
2) create curriculum guidelines for each team component track
3) provide feedback for measuring success
4) pair candidates with established shops or independent contract opportunities
5) create Drupalistas

I was just going to say make sure to build upon all the research and designs already created within the Prairie initiative. I'm not too comfortable with the developer/builder split, maybe a distinction between contributors and users ("consumers"?) would have been just as useful. Docs, ux, translation people have to work with the same tools as developers. In that regard, 'contributors' seems more fitting, equally focussed yet encompassing more roles.

Either way, hire tvn. She's been involved with Prairie from the start, is a great designer and as you can see knows how to plan and structure large efforts.

As mentioned above, I had proposed creating a standardized Drupal role and skill requirement reference list which would clarify career opportunities for new talent as well as help hiring agents vet prospective talent. I think that such a list will benefit all of the Objectives 2,3,&4.

I have begun this document starting with the proposed role list. I am not sure where the best place to post it for collaboration would be.

Anyone interested? Where should I post?

Dan

A general sense I'm getting from the feedback: strong support for improving d.o. for devs and builders, less so on the current framing of solving talent issues. I would suggest to fold curriculum development etc. into 'Improve d.o.' and use it to drive content strategy and info-architecture. Your Drupal education starts on d.o, so lets start improving there. Seems we need more better ideas for other, off-site training/education plans.