On the train ride to the airport after Drupalcon D.C I met up with two Drupal themers from different parts of the country. We had a discussion regarding Drupalcon and the design and theming elements of it. He had a decent suggestion to encourage more growth. He suggested putting on a mini Themer-con that was designed only for Designers/Themers/UI folks.
We talked about it and then thought that maybe at Drupalcon Paris there could be an internal Themercon. Essentially we take one or two rooms and making them the theming presentation rooms.
I know that this is already done but the idea is to really do it up big.
Huge banners saying "Drupal-Themer-con" and a separate marketing campaign to make it clear that a themercon is happening within Drupalcon Paris. The idea is that themers and designers are reluctant to head to Drupalcon because its seen as an uber-geek fest and less on the design side.
Thoughts? Comments?
Comments
Bad name, good idea
"Drupal-Themer-con"... that sounds very bad. But the idea itself is sound.
To make it very clear: DrupalConParis will not be "the event for Drupal Developers", it will be "the event for everything Drupal", including (but not limited to): Website integrators, Developers of kick-ass features, Designers of great user experiences, Marketing people / community builders, Clients / Web site owners, End-users.
There will be a "Designer and user experience" track, that Morten Heide already agreed to lead. There will be a "Business / Marketing / Community building" track. Everyone is invited.
Damien Tournoud
http://drupalfr.org
Damien Tournoud
that's the point though.
Damien that's the point. Drupalcon Boston had a themer and Designer track, Szeged had one and D.C had one..
but they aren't having the impact that we as a community are looking for. We still haven't cracked the code of getting non-PHP knowing designers to attend.
-Jacob Redding
-Jacob Redding
You missed my point
Haven't you seen the big "DrupalCon is the event for Drupal developers" headline on the DrupalCon DC website? The first and foremost step is to stop selling the DrupalCon as an event for developers. We have other publics too, the most critical ones being Designers and End-users (in the sense "Owners of websites built using Drupal"). That's what we intend to do for Paris 2009.
Damien Tournoud
http://drupalfr.org
Damien Tournoud
theming con
I agree with Jacob and Cary, we've tried being the con for everything with a focus on design/usability for a couple of Drupalcons now, and it doesn't really work. The idea of having a parallel themingcon that is separately marketed could make a big difference. But it's up to the organizers to decide if they have the energy for this.
From the logistics point of view you wouldn't have to do anything extra, just reserve 1 of the rooms at the conference for a design track only. You could do a separate conference badge, but allow people that have a badge for one of the 2 to visit the "other" con.
I've seen a lot of activity though from the new design group, maybe there are some people that can do the footwork
-build a separate brand - call it the first Drupal design conference
-put together a separate website which is super eyecandy
-market this themingcon separately
-contact all big design shops in France/Europe
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design g.d.o.
the design g.d.o. is at http://groups.drupal.org/d4d
I'm crossposting there, to get some designer eyeballs.
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I get you..
Damien I understand your point but I've been in this conversation three times now. While the conferences have been getting better we, as a community, still haven't found that magic tweak that gets designers out en masse. I fully understand that Drupalcon Paris wants to be THE conference for everyone but it won't work. I can say this in the "been there done that" sense.
I'm not trying to be a drag or bring down someone's parade, I only want Drupalcon to be better and we do this be being honest and real.
The question at hand is how do we bring out the designers. What are we going to do specifically?
Drupalcon D.C was branded on the website as "THE conference for Drupal developers". While wildly successful it didn't get designers out perhaps this branding was a mistake. In Szeged the marketing wasn't designed this way and the conference did include a designer's showcase so that folks could highlight their design work. From what I saw it did bring out a few designers and it was mildly successful but it wasn't wildly successful.
So lets throw out some ideas that might help crack this code.
-Jacob Redding
-Jacob Redding
It can be as simple as asking
Who are we missing right now? Who are the Big Names that people would come to see speak because they are rabid fans of Speaker XYZ or Topic ABC. Brands are definitely important, but so are people. To attract new designers to the fold we have to show them that we speak the language and share the heroes designers have in their world.
Here's a short story to explain why this is so important:
Back in the 1970s my mum had a mail order catalogue. She had ten books available for sale. The language of the flyer was something to the effect of, "nine books you already have and one more you can't live without." By having the nine titles that were already on your shelf she demonstrated that she was qualified to pick that one other book that you didn't know about. The catalogue was successful and different people bought different titles. Not everyone was missing the same "and one more you can't live without."
We need to determine the Big Designer Names and get them as presenters so that designers see their heroes and their "titles" represented at DrupalCon. This will help to reinforce that Drupal knows me because I know that speaker and therefore I will trust Drupal to provide me with an amazing experience. At DrupalCon DC we really didn't have any "Big Name Designers" to motivate ticket sales to new designers. The tickets sold quickly to the people who recognized their topics in the top page of proposals. We need to get those Big Designer Names up on the roster sooner and we need to make sure that the designers are motivated to buytickets* sooner so that they aren't all sold to developers.
I don't think it's about banners and branding so much as it's about names and a sense of "these people are my people." We've got a short few months before Paris. Big Name Designers will be booked up tomorrow (if not yesterday). Find one to do a keynote now! Hey, if we can have philosophy and morality (which I really enjoyed) we can definitely have the Design of Everyday Things. ;)
/me steps down from her soapbox.
So the point is
to juice up the promotion of the theming track. Going in, reach out to the theming community, then onsite, dedicate signage to it.
I am not at all clear what we have to offer to designers who are not themers, and I don't think that you can teach theming in 30-60 minute unrelated chunks. Isn't any good design for the web good -- albeit not necessarily easy -- design for Drupal.
We might think about offering, perhaps through a training partner, a one day theming for designers bootcamp.
DC Paris should offer community outreach, possibly including a (free?) session targeted at advertising agencies and art houses in Paris. Perhaps all three of these -- the track, the preconference(s), and the community session can have a common brand.
Just throwing out ideas here...
reaching out
I think it's a great idea to reach out to design companies, we had a design exhibition in Szeged, but a Drupal theming brand would be a lot stronger to increase the visibility for Drupal with the design crowd.
However I have 2 reservations:
-Who will organize it? If this is something we want to do, we should start discussions with the Paris team, this will probably add workload for them so it's only fair to get them involved ASAP
-What if other groups (e.g. the Semantic web bunch) wants to do a Drupalcon sub-brand, would that be ok?
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We are developers!
So heres what we have talked about inside the d4d group:
We need to get the Frontend (theming, html snobs, js geeks & designers) people to be a part of the Drupal Family, else we will end up in 2 different camps -and the backend vs. frontend "war" will carry on forever.
The group is very dedicated to clean up the html that are coming out of drupal, and then making it so clean and nice to work with that the "html snobs" (im one of them) will be happy.
The problem that have been here up til DC/DC where we actually filled a room with around 50 Dedicated designers & frontend geeks that our numbers have been to small to actually make a difference inside of the community, that have been very developer orientated.
So the thing about that we have tried before and it wasnt a succes -well theres one good answer to that - the missing numbers of dedicated frontend geeks- We have them now.!
We need a place where we can find ourself and discuss and debate the things that we are loving - design, html, theme() etc
I wil Strongly oppose any take on removing the frontend people from the conference and putting us in seperate rooms!!! Actually ill go into a steelcage fight over this ;)...
We are developers goddaamit! - we just live out lives out in the frontend of this Webthingie - if were going on to seperate the two, well then how should we communicate?
Its so important that we communicate between the layers of webbuilding from the
* designer
* themer
* projekt manager
* DataBase geeks
* Php nerds
* users
if youre gonna seperate us from the rest of the confrence - then how in the hell are you gonna se any frontend geek ever gonna understand why .. hmmm let me take a quick example "its not a good thing to load every comment as a node" or how can i get a backend developer to understand that it actually matters what kind of html im getting to work with
Heres the rough plan:
Give us 1 or 2 rooms in paris at the drupalCon - where we can have a bunch of sesssion (http://groups.drupal.org/node/19836)
i have already stepd up to the plate
Lets have a couple of "cross over sessions" where we will try to find common ground
* php for dumb themers ;)
* design for developers without any sence of style ;)
We will get together to do Camps -(the first one in may copenhagen) but try to "seperate" us at a drupalcon....
Then i will find my sword and shield and fight to the death! and i got a bunch of nerdy geeks with me ;)
wow sorry for the shoutiing and ranting...
/morten.dk king of rock
morten.dk | geek Royale
/morten.dk king of rock
morten.dk | geek Royale
Bring Us Together
Here's my 2 cents....
I love the idea of more design and theming at a drupalcon. I would just like to be careful how we do this. First, we don't want to alienate anyone. Second, we want to educate php coders on theming and design. People like me. Third, we need to improve drupal overall and that requires interaction between the front end and back end people.
I agree with Morten that we need a dedicated track to theming/design. But, it should be in with the other tracks and not it's own conference. We need php for themers and style for coders. The most attended session as OSCON a couple years ago was a design for coders session by Steven Wittens.
Let's do this right and build up design in drupal.
On a side note, I believe Morten is in charge of the theme track at Drupalcon Paris :).
Matt Farina
www.innovatingtomorrow.net
www.geeksandgod.com
www.superaveragepodcast.com
www.mattfarina.com
a bit of clarification
The idea (and to be clear so I'm not stealing credit this is the idea of a Drupalcon attendee) is not to separate into two conferences its to brand the theming aspects differently.
Essentially its Themercon @ Drupalcon. So that themers now that there are sessions for them and emphasis on this aspect of Drupal instead of just kinda-sorta having stuff for them to do.
This is similar to going to Disneyland. if you're a roller-coaster rider then you can do that but if you like water rides they have that too but you're still at Disneyland.
-Jacob Redding
-Jacob Redding
There is separate, then there is separate
I think that it would be fine to have a conference in a conference, or parallel cons -- really a semantic difference. I don't think that we should have separate pricing, so while the ticket can carry the brand, it will cost the same and attendees can go to any session. Once we do that, we can look at widening the gap, if we think that its a good idea.
I still think that the theming for designers bootcamp strategy is worth pursuing. That can be branded and priced independently of everything else.
Same conference, different publics, different messages
Morten already pointed out that DrupalCons target several "publics":
Do we need separate branding for every public? Certainly not. Do we need to have a specific message for everyone: of course!
Damien Tournoud
http://drupalfr.org
Damien Tournoud
for everyone no.. for designers yes
There is a specific push in the Drupal community to bring more designers into the fold. So yes we are targeting this demographic specifically. If this means distinct branding to accomplish this goal then it shouldn't be ruled out.
This does not mean we're ignoring the others, most certainly not. Because although Morten mentioned those he forgot the other big ones like business owners, investors, recruiters, employers. All of these are pieces of the Drupal ecosystem and are welcome at Drupalcon.
What we are trying to do is increase one particular and specific aspect of the Drupal ecosystem.
so how do we best do that?
-Jacob Redding
-Jacob Redding
Good points
Interesting points on both sides.
To me it's not only a great theoretical question, it's also an interesting and concrete branding challenge ;)
As a designer (in the post-Bauhaus sense, not just "Photoshop guy") my only fear with a separately branded ThemerCon, is would it be good if more ThemerCons are held in the future as standalone events? I would hate them to feel like disconnected events, disconnected from the largest part of the community.
It may also look like designers would come for a fraction of what DrupalCon can offer, for the same entry price.
On the other hand, "themer" is such a fuzzy word. Theming != design. Some themers are absolutely not designers but rather "technical themers" or perhaps "frontend developers", a few are fluent in both visual design and technical stuff and UI, and lots of designers wouldn't touch an html tag with a 10 feet pole.
to be clear..
This part is being misconstrued. We are talking about a themercon with Drupalcon and it doesn't have to be called Themercon. The idea that is thrown out is to heavily market and possibly brand a separate section/area/track that is designed specifically from designers/themers so that they (the themers/designers) feel that (a) the sessions will be about design, U.I, etc. (b) the sessions will not be about RDF, Database schemas, future of Drupal core, etc.
-Jacob Redding
-Jacob Redding
We don't need a separate brand, we just need to multi-mobilize
Let’s take Drupalcon DC as an example. I saw a gap in the schedule as far as Design/Usability and organized 6 presentations for a D+U BOF track. Everyone I asked to join said yes.
And the only method I had available to get the word out (with Bonnie of DevSeed’s help) was a single blog post on the Sunday before the conference about it and a bunch of tweets. And yet, there were still 30-50 people in that BOF room all day Friday.
And there was an impromptu Design BOF on Thursday evening which prompted Morten to organize an all-day Saturday Design BOF where we all talked about our issues and webchick came and talked to us about D7 theming issues. And then there was a Themer’s Dinner on Thursday evening. It was all so wonderful!
Imagine what we can do to get the word out with some actual planning. I’m sure the Drupalcon Paris organizers will allow us to regularly blog about the Design part of the con. And if we all pitch in to help spread the word and to help organize what we’re going to do in Paris, it will be even more amazing than DC. And DC was mind blowing for me!
So, do we need a separate brand? I understand the desire to have one. We’re designers after all! :-D But we definitely don’t need an official brand that is promoted by the Drupalcon Paris organizers. That would just make things more difficult for them and it really won’t be needed.
Paris will \m/
- John (JohnAlbin)
- John (JohnAlbin)
OK.. point taken.
very good feedback.
so then what are our next steps? Just name a track as we have done before but put more emphasis on the marketing of it?
-Jacob Redding
-Jacob Redding
My battle plan: * collect
My battle plan:
* collect feedback now in the d4d group
* make a quick session overview & goals
* get people behind it (some of the session ideas are pretty big)
* have some camps around the world
* hype hype hype
* march to paris with the big color banner
* succes ;)
/morten.dk king of rock
morten.dk | geek Royale
/morten.dk king of rock
morten.dk | geek Royale
oooh.. so there is a banner
I like banners especially big flamboyant ones ;)
-Jacob Redding
-Jacob Redding
worked
funny to see that in 2011 this has become reality :-)
--
bert boerland
FWIW
Getting other sponsors that have been already associated with the design community in the past may not be a bad idea also.
for example /
adobe
lynda.com
wacom
google sketchup
rackspace
electronic arts
(was just looking at the web 2.0 conference in S.F. for ideas)
I'll help promote it
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