International / DA / Clarification - a reply to Media Current in the PURPOSE thread

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kattekrab's picture

This is a reply to this comment.
http://groups.drupal.org/node/250853#comment-810868
Comments were closed on the thread, but I want to respond to defend what I wrote.

MediaCurrent wrote:

"The Branding and Marketing Committee exists to foster growth, promote, increase awareness, and advance the open-source software principles of the international Drupal community."

There is no North American bias here. There are people who are passionate about Drupal throughout the world. No one wants to prevent you to pursue your niche, and its wrong for you to insinuate that the DA has some kind of hidden agenda to pursue large projects or desires a less-diverse ecosystem.

There's no bias in the statement. Correct. There's bias in the organisation. 7 out of 10 directors of the Drupal Association are based in North America. The entire staff is based in the USA, and the org itself is a US 501(3).

I'm on the board and I'm telling you it does have a bias. I'm also telling
you that part of my very open agenda is to call it out. Regularly and loudly. And fellow board members Vesa and Dries have acknowledged we need to actively address the perception the DA is too North American focussed.

I'd just like to point to what I wrote, and clarify exactly what I meant.

The Drupal Association is dominated by North Americans, and increasingly the project seems to be driven by folks hell bent on pursuing large projects.

Note these words
"the project"
"seems"
"driven by folks"

The project is not the DA.
The DA has no control or oversight of the project itself. None.

Seems = appears to me, eg, personal opinion.

Driven by folks = individuals within the community working hard to drive Drupal in a particular direction. (and mostly that's a good thing, but it could well leave some of us in the dust)

So... Just to be clear:
I am not, and did not insinuate that the DA has any hidden agenda to pursue large projects or a less-diverse ecosystem. I wholeheartedly apologise for leaving anyone with that impression. As I already mentioned, the DA has no role in the project itself whatsoever.

But the DA does have a role in the marketing, branding and promotion of the Drupal software project, as part of its mission to foster and empower the community. Therefore I believe it is important that the DA chartered marketing and branding committee does not set out on a path that may exclude key sectors of the community.

And as for lack of international focus? It's not intentional, it's just not
on the radar, unless we blip, blip, blip put it there.

There's no intent, it's more like an oversight. Kinda "oh yeah, the rest of the world, oops, we forgot about you guys, let's fix that shall we."

Sorry I put this under "ideas" it probably doesn't really go there, but it doesn't really fit under any of the other compulsory sections either.

Although I guess this is an idea.

The idea is that Drupal is International. It speaks many languages to many peoples. It's made by people from many nations, and we all work together in the shared language of Drupal to create an incredible platform for powerful web based applications.

Comments

Drupal is International.

kattekrab's picture

Drupal is International. It speaks many languages to many peoples. It's made by people from many nations, and we all work together in the shared language of Drupal to create an incredible platform for powerful web based applications.

Our goal is to better communicate the depth, breadth and capacity of the Drupal community to develop and deliver a robust, open source platform for content online, on mobile, and maybe even on mars. (when we get that interplanetary network humming)

Donna Benjamin
Former Board Member Drupal Association (2012-2018)
@kattekrab

So, um, get involved maybe? ;)

Ben Finklea's picture

I know you are. :) I'm talking about everybody else who isn't.

Why is Drupal so N. America focused? (and I have to say this: I don't see a lot of Mexican involvement so maybe USA/Canada-focused is more appropriate.) I think that perhaps it's because the American's dive in and get involved. I think you're right that we're not intentionally leaving anyone out. But, I think you're wrong that we need to go out of our way to be more inclusive of uninvolved, not-doing peoples.

As far as I know - which isn't much, honestly - I've never seen anyone from any country be excluded by N. Americans from any Drupal conversation, event, session, chat, IRC channel, etc. All I've seen is people being welcomed with open arms. "Get involved! Hurrah! Thanks for coming!"

Here's what you're asking us to overcome:

  1. Drupal is a do-ocracy.
  2. In a do-ocracy, the ones who get sh*t done hold the positions of power.
  3. N. American's get sh*t done.

Therefore, N. American's will hold the positions of power.

Drupal didn't start out as a N. American project. It became one.

My advice, for what it's worth, is to work on getting more international involvement. To me, complaining about all the work I'm doing just makes me roll my eyes. "Here we go again..." Now, let me say that I know you some and you are a do-er, too. One of the unwritten rules about Drupal is that those who do will be complained about. haha.

And, let you think I'm close-minded, I would LOVE to have more international involvement. I personally believe that different perspectives bring huge value to any organization. I have lived in Europe and I've traveled to India, E. Europe, and I'm planning on visiting Brazil and Australia soon. :D

[edited out an incomplete thought here]

Y'know, now that I'm thinking about it, the international people that do show up are the ones that speak really great English. Perhaps the problem is a language barrier? Maybe not...I don't see nearly the proper proportions of UK, Australian, New Zealand, etc. folks involved. Oh, there are some, just not proportionate. Completely unofficial Ben's-eye view here.

Worldwide inclusion

stevepurkiss's picture

Drupal didn't start out as a N. American project. It became one

Whoa there! Whilst I think the majority of the dollars in marketing efforts have come out of NA, I find that view quite offensive, and that's why I'm currently emailing every person I've met throughout the European CXO days inviting them to this group to join in.

We are so behind in including the voices from abroad - and of course further than my little EU bit - we can't expect just to open up this group and everyone know that a) it's here b) they can join in, etc. Not everyone speaks / understands English enough for a start (why I think we should have an "emerging markets" position in the DA as well as "at large" but that's another story).

Drupal has opened my eyes up to a lot of other cultures, and whilst Drupal has indeed spread across NA, many Drupal people, the ones who make the product itself which many businesses rely on, are spread across the world.

Ben Finklea's picture

I'm basing that statement on @kattekrab's quote above:

...7 out of 10 directors of the Drupal Association are based in North America. The entire staff is based in the USA, and the org itself is a US 501(3).

Does our do-ocracy work?

If the Drupal do-ocracy works:

  1. Drupal is a do-ocracy.
  2. In a do-ocracy, the people who "do" the most get the leadership positions.
  3. N. Americans hold the majority of leadership positions in Drupal. (Source: @kattekrab).

Therefore, N. American's are the people who "do" the most in Drupal.

Don't shoot the messenger. I'm on your side in that I want more international involvement with the BAM committee (The little corner of the Drupal world where I spend my time.). Here is my point:

  1. There are not enough international leaders in Drupal.
  2. Drupal is a do-ocracy.
  3. If more international people "do" Drupally things, then they will elevate to leadership positions.

Therefore, we should work on getting more international people to do Drupally things.

Nobody's standing in your way. Make that happen.

I'm OK with offending you, @stevepurkiss, if it spurs you to email all your EU friends to get them involved. Oh. I see that you did. ;) #winfordrupal

Opening up

stevepurkiss's picture

I was emailing them before you threw today's offending comment out ;)

Given that the community

adshill's picture

Given that the community voted members of the Association are two of the three board members not from the US, I'm not sure if that really stands up. Also I think we have to think about the people who "do" a hell of a lot, but are not looking for positions of leadership or haven't had the encouragement or involvement to feel like they can be shouldn't be dismissed.

I think that this is where do-ocracy is a dangerous idea because it actually often falls on the type of character people have, not the amount they actually do. People who are active but silent should be encouraged and involved by the Community where possible and this takes a more complicated and wider perspective than the do-ocracy idea which actually often only benefits the loudest or most vocal, not particularly the most devoted or active.

But then maybe thats also a discussion for another place..?!

Operations Director at Consult and Design International
Co-ordinator of Drupal North East
Global Volunteer Co-ordinator for DrupalCon

Agree & Agree

stevepurkiss's picture

I completely agree with both points - we need to encourage more people to participate (something I've been doing behind the scenes here to get more involved, including those who don't normally speak out), and yes, this really needs to be discussed elsewhere. But we do have the opportunity now to start changing that, I think it would be hard to throw the baby out with the bath water.

As for this "do-ocracy" - that's ok but you have to help people find out easier what it is they are supposed to be "do"-ing. For me, it's become a lot easier now - if someone says X is wrong, it's probably X they should be getting involved in fixing.

Core & Contrib

stevepurkiss's picture

It's my belief the issue here is that we haven't separated out branding into core & contrib. Here's why:

  • core Drupal brand "This is Drupal"
  • contrib Drupal brand "This is what we're doing with Drupal"

I've worked for many software houses, including one back in the dotcom days with a similar product to Drupal but was proprietary. We went through the process of working out what our product was, and we were in the same quadrant in Gartner as Drupal is now. There is no way I would've let one of our integration partners go and sell our product without knowing what it is, in many ways I think this is what we need to be focusing on now, which is why it's good to have these conversations about what Drupal is. It is not an Enterprise product, that's one feature as another poster mentioned, and it's what some are doing with Drupal, but it is not Drupal - Drupal is far greater than any one company or group of companies, it's truly hit an amazing place in the industry and that's why it's different and you can't just say "it's X", because it's many things to many people.

I've set up an issue on the BAM Branding project with regards to this:

http://drupal.org/node/1762356

Remember the stats:

stevepurkiss's picture

904,990 people in 228 countries* speaking 181 languages power Drupal.

Whilst it's easy to see those who spend money on advertising (a lot why many think Drupal is "Enterprise" now because that's all the ads they've seen), a lot of the real work, the stuff that keeps it going, is done from a variety of places and by a variety of people.

But you all know this, so I won't harp on... ;)

Remember the stats:

stevepurkiss's picture

904,990 people in 228 countries* speaking 181 languages power Drupal.

Whilst it's easy to see those who spend money on advertising (a lot why many think Drupal is "Enterprise" now because that's all the ads they've seen), a lot of the real work, the stuff that keeps it going, is done from a variety of places and by a variety of people.

But you all know this, so I won't harp on... ;)

Drupal is a do-ocracy.In a

rachel_norfolk's picture

Drupal is a do-ocracy.
In a do-ocracy, the ones who get sh*t done hold the positions of power.
N. American's get sh*t done.

I absolutely get the first two points - and I tend to agree that it is the 'right' thing, too.

I do, however, struggle to understand what evidence you are basing your third point on, in specific relation to the Drupal project.

The Drupal people that influence me are rarely North America based - more often coming from around Northern Europe, as it happens...

Neither my personal-drupal-view or your personal personal-drupal-view are valid, though. They are simply too narrow.

How do you propose to better determine accurately where the Key Opinion Leaders for Drupal are located and structure the Association appropriately?

DA Structure

stevepurkiss's picture

Thanks for your reply Rachel!

One point:

How do you propose to better determine accurately where the Key Opinion Leaders for Drupal are located and structure the Association appropriately?

We're not discussing the structure of the DA here, that's a different discussion happening elsewhere ;)

What we're doing here is working on the core branding and marketing of Drupal, and for me, that's talking about how the community works as opposed to the product itself, which means a lot of different things to a lot of different people.

The more we talk about the community, the more interest we gain from those interested in joining, the more good people we have, the better the product is.

Again, just my 2p which is why I've been working on getting people to join in the conversation, thanks for doing that, please keep posting!!

Yes, sorry Steve, not quite

rachel_norfolk's picture

Yes, sorry Steve, not quite sure why I wrote 'Association' there!

What I was trying to question was why is it assumed that there is a particular bias of input, and therefore how the branding should be structured. Where is the evidence?

Rachel

We are creating the evidence

stevepurkiss's picture

Where is the evidence?

We are creating that now, that's why I wanted to open up the branding and marketing process. It's easy to see some companies have created a certain 'view' of Drupal in people's minds, the role of the DA is to support the community as a whole, hence why we set up the BAM Committee and this group.

It's only through conversations like this we see what the real story is and can do something about it - that's happened with the code for many years but the marketing side is lagging behind, which is why we get these quite frankly silly comments coming out of people sometimes.

We need to market the community as a whole, not just the resulting product, and not just in one region, Drupal is stateless ;)

Sorry for repeating myself...

Ben Finklea's picture

I'm basing it on the following deduction.

If the Drupal do-ocracy works:

  1. Drupal is a do-ocracy.
  2. In a do-ocracy, the people who "do" the most get the leadership positions.
  3. N. Americans hold the majority of leadership positions in Drupal. (Source: @kattekrab).

Therefore, N. American's are the people who "do" the most in Drupal.

See my complete ideas and comments on this topic here:
http://groups.drupal.org/node/251768#comment-811468

Neither my personal-drupal-view or your personal personal-drupal-view are valid, though. They are simply too narrow.

And this is where I get offended. My personal Drupal view is absolutely, 100% valid and so is yours. Narrow as you may think I am, I believe that all honest viewpoints are valid.

Extend your statement a bit and you see that it is just impossible to operate in the world if you believe that your own viewpoint is invalid. If your viewpoint isn't valid then any opinion you hold can simply be dismissed as irrelevantly narrow. I don't think that's a place you want to be. On the other hand, anything anyone else believes can also be dismissed as invalid. This allows the mind to close to outside ideas. Again, not where you are, I think, and certainly not where anybody wants to be.

I have found that phrases like "in my experience", "in my opinion", "the way I see it", etc. along with deductive reasoning are powerful tools to elevate my beliefs from biased proclamation to irrefutable experiential evidence. One must be careful that you're actually talking about experience, not just something that is in your head that was planted there by somebody else. (Not talking about voodoo, here, just ideas that we got from our parents, teachers, friends, etc., that are based on somebody else's experience rather than our own.)

If you are someone who meditates (and I highly recommend it) then spend some time meditating on where your ideas come from. I've found that almost all of the things that I know are at least partially based on someone else's experience. That's the real power of humanity. We are the first species that we know of that doesn't have to learn everything from experience. And, just in the last several thousand years, we are the first species that can store other people's experiences long after they are dead. (written language) And, just in the last few hundred years, anyone who wanted to could store their experiences long after they're dead. (paper, books, etc.) And, just in the last 60-70 years, we can communicate 1 to 1 with virtually anyone on the planet at any time. (telephone, mail) And, just in the last couple decades, we can communicate 1 to many with the whole world (www).

My point is that it is relatively easy to gather many viewpoints and even to make those viewpoints my own through learning. I believe that it is a good, valid things to seek many viewpoints.

Including those in the International Drupal community.

Flawed calculations

stevepurkiss's picture

Ben,

Your calculations are flawed: Yes, most the DA Board are NA-based, but 100% of the community-elected Directors are not. So yes, while NA did do something, it's obvious by the results of the election that we've moved on from that position now.

Having been in the DA for six months I have seen the effort that has been made to grow Drupal this far, and I'm humbled. The people in the DA work extremely hard and we have a lovely DrupalCon and a continual work-in-progress drupal.org & groups.drupal.org. We also have grants, bizconnect, etc. etc. but we need far more, and I don't think that can come from one place alone, growing the DA to do all the marketing would end up with the same results as any top-down company.

What we're doing here is opening up the process so those in the community who want to help from a non-code side can. For example, if a social media expert knows there's various Drupal events locally they could help spread the word. We should also be looking to invest internally to ensure those engineering the product have the tools and support they need. At the moment, the "sell sell sell" approach IMHO isn't working, we need to explain more about what Drupal is about in order to scale otherwise too much pressure is put on those who create and maintain the product itself, and those implementing the product don't fully appreciate what it is and sometimes do a bad job.

As for beliefs, the way Drupal works with code is you submit it, then someone smarter than you comes along and enhances it. That's all - we realise we're not necessarily the best people to know everything about everything, by putting it into the commons we can work together to come up with better solutions, which is what we're doing here.

Namaste

Personally I feel everything

adshill's picture

Personally I feel everything that Donna wrote is spot on - to people outside North America, the DA does seem like a North America dominated organisation (board members, events it can support, language the site is in etc.) and is therefore not representative of the community which is certainly NOT North America dominated.

I certainly don't like the idea that Americans are more active than Europeans (for example) or Australians or wherever else community members come from. I don't see any evidence of this.

One big reason for this perception I think is that if you look at many of the most influential Europeans involved in Drupal, they are now working in, or working for companies from the USA - because this is where the money is. In some ways I agree with the comment that it has become that way - it used to be a European organisation historically, but the point is that we should also get back to that. There should be representation in other parts of the world.

Also - while the Drupal community is do-ocracy I'm not convinced that by nature the Association is. Its an entity, an organisation that has to adhere to certain ways of working that do-ocracy is not compatible with. I would be a bit worried if the Association was being run as do-ocracy.

There is no doubt in my opinion that:

1) The Association need to better support the community ourside of North America.
2) The Board needs to be more representative of the entire world, where possible, in its members.

Maybe this is not marketing but if your structure doesn't inherently and directly encourage diversity, your marketing is only going to go a certain way to being able to be truly representative.

Operations Director at Consult and Design International
Co-ordinator of Drupal North East
Global Volunteer Co-ordinator for DrupalCon

OK... I see I missed the

adshill's picture

OK... I see I missed the point to some degree - this is about Drupal in general :)

In this case I think there are a lot of mixed messages here. For me anyway, the community as a whole doesn't come across as North American dominated. Infact being heavily involved in my local user group, the discussions around a national entity and going to European DrupalCons, I feel it has a truly international feel. So on this level I don't particularly think the Drupal Community needs to focus attention on this - but I do feel its a big issue with the Association. Which as you said Steve is probably for another place.

Apologies if I've misunderstood! :)

Operations Director at Consult and Design International
Co-ordinator of Drupal North East
Global Volunteer Co-ordinator for DrupalCon

Hitting on key points

stevepurkiss's picture

Thanks for your comments Adam!

I do see this as an issue, hence why I said I'm opening up the process. The Association certainly started out closed, but has been reconfigured and is slowly opening up. I think the initial closed-ness has caused some of the issues we see today in a kind of "blame the parents" way - I don't think you can effectively support a bottom-up community with a top-down organisation.

I do think that the DA is the right organisation to be supporting the community as a whole though, which is why I'm putting so much effort into this opening up of the marketing process.

It's going to take a while to change, but we have the opportunity to do so and we should grab it with both hands, realising the past is in the past and we should be looking to the future to create what we want in order to be represented fairly.

The community is global. The

kattekrab's picture

The community is global.

The DA is not.

Donna Benjamin
Former Board Member Drupal Association (2012-2018)
@kattekrab

Sure! Don't get me wrong -

adshill's picture

Sure! Don't get me wrong - I'm not criticising anyone's efforts or even the structure of the DA - I don't think its half as bad as many people give it credit for :) Its been fit for purpose for some time and having to change in so many ways, and in organisational stakes pretty quickly too its never going to please everyone.

I hope I was putting across ideas and how we can change things. If we are looking at the marketing of the Drupal Association, I think it needs to adapt to the need to now support the global community and then it will be possible to market this.

For sure I think that marketing the upcoming elections outside of the US would be good and it would be interesting based on many assumptions made above (by myself included!) to see where the votes actually come from, if that's possible? Since it will be promoted by the Association it could be a good indication of where the DA marketing is ACTUALLY being effective.

Operations Director at Consult and Design International
Co-ordinator of Drupal North East
Global Volunteer Co-ordinator for DrupalCon

HappyJiyoung's picture

I totally understand when more people, companies involved and doing things then naturally organization or big groups are coming from those dominent parts of the world.

I attended DrupalCon Munich and felt that things were going mainly with North America/European because major enterprise companies or organization seems from those area.

I did felt welcomed indivisually from people I met but when attending enterprise topic session or seeing on the main stage talk, I felt those panels were very much focused on North AmericA/Europe at least they didn't seem that interesting about Asia where I am from.

I understood that it's good enough to focus on where demands and needs were but there is untouched/locked potential or countries like Asia. (I live in Beijing China but from Korea)

Anyway...I also decided to be active and more involved my local area so I posted meetup, contributing sprint or sharing of my experience in Beijing English speaking drupalers.
Also I will present my experience at Korea's first Drupal Camp in a month.
My takeaway was being more active in Asia and do something about it. To share, grow together. :)
I am quite new to drupal community and I felt that drupal association is trying to help with Asian region when I saw session topic about China and Pakistan community.

I do hope DA will support more for untouched or not so drupal awared countries. Yes main barrir is the language but I believe personally sharing experiences and showing how to use drupal will help people know drupal and use it more! And grow from there...

It's very bias opinion of my own...about Asia. :)
I support all you are doing here and know your heart is in the right place. Thank you!!

I gotta go to bed now...husband yelling at me.

Thanks!

stevepurkiss's picture

Thank you so much for joining in the conversation - yes, the DA is trying its best to reach out, and with people like your good self on board I'm sure we'll get there.

Please do comment on this when you can, it's vitally important we hear things from other perspectives than just our own.

LOL.

Ben Finklea's picture

Apparently spouses are the same all over the world. :)

I love your comments. Thank you for joining in. I hope you'll spend a lot of time here in the Marketing space. We need your inputs in the other discussions as well. Please spend a few minutes here:

http://groups.drupal.org/taxonomy/term/78893

and here

http://groups.drupal.org/taxonomy/term/78888

I believe that what will happen is that the more you and others from China get involved, the more international Drupal will become. Please share this idea with the Drupal users in Beijing. We want them to join us online in the Marketing group to help spread Drupal to China.

Reaching out

stevepurkiss's picture

Absolutely agree, and I think it's one of our roles to reach out to more people from the community to encourage them to join in. This could be done through existing contacts, searching drupal.org, etc.

Membership development is something we should create as a project as it's an ongoing thing.

I enjoy reading all the discussion and learning. :)

HappyJiyoung's picture

I spend a lot of time catching up with the comments and discussions while being on the car with iphone or have a chance to open webpage of The Marketing of Drupal group.
I will also share the topics and this group to China(Beijing) and Korean User groups for more people to know here and join the conversation and spread/share/learn.

Thank you for the great effort!

Fab!

stevepurkiss's picture

That would be great, we need to include as many people from as many places as we can!

If you haven't seen it already the elections are on for the next round of "At Large" Directors of the Drupal Association - do give it some thought, it would be great to have leaders like yourself on the DA Board!

Best,

Steve

Yes I saw it...thank you Steve

HappyJiyoung's picture

Yes I saw that news today and thought/read about it.
I still am quite new to Drupal and wondered what the responsibilities would be...and if I could be the right one/good one to do it.
It's easy to discuss and contribute the thought and opinions but really going forward to the board... :) I will give a thought.
Thank you for the invitation!

eligiblity

stevepurkiss's picture

I believe as long as you've logged into drupal.org at some point in the year previous to the announcement then you can apply!

I'm 24 weeks old :)))

HappyJiyoung's picture

Thank you for the clear eligibility guideline!
I don't have to worry about the decision! :)

Already 6 months with Drupal!

But after getting involved with Drupal people(real people in real world at DrupalCon Munich), that made a huge difference to get connected and getting involved!

I wouldn't know this particular group and other groups...or getting new blog posts or interviews fast...and what's going on.
I didn't realize how active groups are till I come to groups.drupal.org and spend more time here and discover more grops and getting involved. As Korean Users group is quite quiet. :))

Anyway...again the key is meeting real people in the real world...even little comment or talk leads to a big difference. :)

Thank you HappyJiyoung

kattekrab's picture

I'm so pleased you came here to share your efforts about engaging with the local Drupal community and growing awareness in China and Korea.

DrupalCon Sydney is eager to embrace the region - perhaps you could submit a talk about growing the community in Asia?
http://sydney2013.drupal.org/propose-session

Perhaps you could encourage others to share their Drupal knowledge and passion too?

Another really useful thing to do is encourage people to submit case studies of great Drupal sites - http://drupal.org/case-studies

Donna Benjamin
Former Board Member Drupal Association (2012-2018)
@kattekrab

Thank you Donna

HappyJiyoung's picture

Thank you for the links and encouragement. :)
I saw submission deadline is mid of Oct.
I will experience my getting involved effort turning out and see if there's something valuable I could share.
Seems like Korea and China community members are quite shy so someone more active and passionate has to start something! :)

I watched your interview clip and some of the part moved me...and almost tears coming out...
Thank you for your effort and sharing!

Deadline for nominating yourself is 16th September!

stevepurkiss's picture

I saw submission deadline is mid of Oct.

  • actually it's in just over a week! 16th October so not long - go for it!

I watched your interview clip and some of the part moved me...and almost tears coming out...

Uh-oh, which one was that? ;)

I meant session submission at Sydney and...

HappyJiyoung's picture

Thank you for the encouragement Steve. :)
I meant Donna's suggestion on submitting the talk or session at Sydeny DrupalCon.

I watched Donna's interview today while hanging out at McDonald's for free wi-fi internet for searching info after landing in Korea by 26 hours of ferry ride from China.

When Donna talked about their civic culture about voting in Australia...
That really sounded so amazing...
This is the interview clip
http://drupalradar.com/drupalcon-interviews-donna-benjamin-da-board-member

Many young Korean didn't pay attention to politics or voted...I was one of them...till our current president got elected...(I won't say anything).
I didn't vote and realized I contributed to the reality of Korea...by doing nothing(it wasn't really doing nothing).

One of the reason I love drupal system is that people can communicate/share/learn from each other and can make some differences. Even if it's for hobby or passion.
I do hope I could spread out Drupal(how easy this can be if someone showed them and how democratic this can be, how open this can be to communicate) to many people in Korea and China and make some differences. :)
Many people can learn and awake...

So while listening to that voting culture...I envied and also felt a little sad and also moved...and felt we could do something positive by sharing/learning/educating ourselves. :)

HappyJiyoung - wow!

kattekrab's picture

wow. I just keep thinking wow.

Drupal is being used all over the world to help Governments engage more with their people. So Drupal does make a difference.

And yes I do very strongly believe that when we don't use our right to vote, we're wasting an important opportunity to play a part in the world we live in.

Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts here HappyJiyoung. It really means a lot to me.

cheers
Donna

Donna Benjamin
Former Board Member Drupal Association (2012-2018)
@kattekrab

HappyJiyoung saw potential to

DSquaredB's picture

HappyJiyoung saw potential to grow Drupal in her area of the world and made the effort to get involved. In a similar way, I did the same in my area of the world - which happens to be an area of the US that doesn't have a strong Drupal presence (no large Drupal shops, local DrupalCamps, etc.). I'm not a senior level developer and don't write code yet, but I can organize a meetup or Drupal event. However, HappyJiyoung and I, and others like us, all need the support of DA and the larger Drupal organizations for resources to put on quality events. For Drupal to grow world-wide, it is going to take a lot of people like HappyJiyoung getting involved.

DSquaredB
Danita Bowman

Absolutely!

stevepurkiss's picture

Sounds silly but I feel similar being in the UK - I am in awe about how the community works out in Europe, and the North East of England, and Scotland, and Ireland, but in the South of England where I am there was little going on.

I've run the Brighton Drupal club for the last four years and recently started running camps here which have resulted in a number of other local groups in England starting up. I'm simply trying to show people that Drupal is about the people - I spent five years working with it before I went to my first DrupalCon then it was like "wow!", and since then all I've been doing is teaching people how to simply ask.

Things are getting better in the South, the London DrupalCamp people finally sat down in a room all together to work things out, and having DrupalCon in mostly one hotel helped a lot. But, DrupalCon can only be in a certain amount of places and at certain times, we need to support the community in many other ways too. In order to do that we need to find out what the issues are first, and that's what I'm hoping we're beginning to discover now. We can't just guess what's needed, but we can support people's needs.

Thanks so much for your input here, much appreciated!

Discourse aside, Here's what I really think...

Ben Finklea's picture

@kattekrab, if you had said that you want to call out the lack of international involvement or focus then I'm 100% on your side. But, since your agenda is to call out N. American bias then I've got to call you on it. Since you bolded the word "perceived", let me address it quickly: A perceived value is in the head of the perceiver, not in the think perceived. So, if there is a perception problem, influence the perceiver. (With better messaging, communication, etc.)

I want to encourage you, as a more effective means to accomplish your goals, to call out the lack of international focus rather than call out this perceived N. American bias. It makes me feel like you don't like me because of where I was born. You're not saying that, are you?

I agree wholeheartedly with @adshill's comment:

For me anyway, the community as a whole doesn't come across as North American dominated. Infact being heavily involved in my local user group, the discussions around a national entity and going to European DrupalCons, I feel it has a truly international feel. So on this level I don't particularly think the Drupal Community needs to focus attention on this - but I do feel its a big issue with the Association.

and

Also - while the Drupal community is do-ocracy I'm not convinced that by nature the Association is. Its an entity, an organisation that has to adhere to certain ways of working that do-ocracy is not compatible with. I would be a bit worried if the Association was being run as do-ocracy.

There is no doubt in my opinion that:

1) The Association need to better support the community ourside of North America.
2) The Board needs to be more representative of the entire world, where possible, in its members.

I agree that the DA is NOT a do-ocracy. If you vote in board members then by definition it is not. This, of course, renders all my previous deductions invalid, to a point. Thanks for catching the flaw in my logic.

My final thoughts, just so everyone knows where I am:

I believe that the BAMc should be focused on marketing the drupal project and community as a whole, not just one part - no matter how big that part. I desire a lot of international involvement in the process. It doesn't matter to me if the DA is dominated by one group or another - I do not think BAMc is now nor will I allow it to become one. That said, I've got to work with those that show up. I hope a lot more international folks do show up but so far, not many have gotten heavily involved. (Huge exceptions to that, Steve. Huge.)

That's why I'm so glad to finally have this g.d.o home. (Thanks, Steve, tvn, et. al.!!!!!) I'm hoping that it will get more international marketing people involved.

Providing the opportunity to get involved

stevepurkiss's picture

For many years now Drupal itself has not been marketed. Companies have marketed Drupal, but this is the first concerted effort to provide marketing support Drupal has seen. Yes, plenty of people have worked on the marketing of Drupal, that's a given and not what I'm saying here.

Many people do not even know there's anything going on on drupal.org or groups.drupal.org. Some don't realise Drupal has modules.

When I first used Drupal 7 years ago, I didn't want to - I had the same view that many have today "it's too complicated" - that view hasn't changed and I think it needs to.

So by suggesting we focus on both core & contrib we can help all. By marketing Drupal as a project collaborated on by many people from around the world, we show people how it is made and hopefully communicate that if changes are wanted then they're free to do them, help or fund others to do them, etc.

By also helping contrib by providing them with the material they need to promote Drupal to their clients we help people understand what it is they can do with Drupal.

I feel the circles coming in, and off to my local Drupal meetup to organise our forthcoming BADCampUK so ttfn - great discussion!

Reaching out

stevepurkiss's picture

...so I forgot the main point - we physically need to reach out to people in communities not represented well to tell them we're doing this, what we're doing here is not easily discoverable - we are still in a very small echo chamber.

Clarification

stevepurkiss's picture

...so before I get lynched - yes Drupal has been marketed, the BAMc is the first overall/strategic/focused effort to do it as a whole from the DA. DrupalCons market Drupal, but they can only be in certain places at certain times, same with DrupalCamps, etc. etc.

Word words words... hope you know what I mean, right time to go!

Whoa...

friendlymachine's picture

First, the comment:

"But, I think you're wrong that we need to go out of our way to be more inclusive of uninvolved, not-doing peoples."

I disagree. There are a lot of people busy "doing" Drupal implementations, selling Drupal solutions, etc. and may not have time for a lot of engagement with community projects. In my view their opinions are still important and an attempt to reach out and get those opinions - basic surveys or whatever - should be made. Maybe you didn't mean it this way, but it kinda sounded like if people can't make the meeting, screw 'em.

"Drupal didn't start out as a N. American project. It became one."

This has the potential to really put a lot of people off and hurt this marketing project. I guess I wanted to throw my ten cents in because some of these statements really raised an eyebrow with me. Negative and unnecessarily divisive in tone.

John Hannah
Friendly Machine

I want to include everybody,

Ben Finklea's picture

I want to include everybody, anywhere, that is involved and implementing Drupal.

I want to put this to bed. It's getting us nowhere. Decisions are not made in threads like this. If you really really care, please follow the links below.

If I offended anyone, I apologize. If I put you off of marketing Drupal, I apologize. I thought I was stating the obvious but clearly it's not obvious and touched a sensitive nerve. I'm not sure how I projected tone (damn Siri) but I apologize for any perceived negative and devisive tone that you perceived. It was unintentional.

:) How about you put down your rock and I put down my sword and we try to kill each other like civilized people? :)

If you really want to help, please visit these threads and make your ideas known:

http://groups.drupal.org/taxonomy/term/78893

http://groups.drupal.org/taxonomy/term/78888

By the way, @friendlymachine,

Ben Finklea's picture

By the way, @friendlymachine, Happy 1-year Drupal birthday. :)

Wow, What a Thread

MatthewS's picture

Some of you may know me and know that my perspective is, how would I put this, "rounded." I think at the end of the day many Drupallers come from a non traditional software background, and I'm no exception but I may well be even further on the fringes than others.

I'm originally from Canada - but my parents are British and Danish resulting in my spending a great deal of time in Europe as a youngster. I moved to the United States in 1995 to pursue an MFA at Virginia Tech within the Theatre Department in non-profit organizational management and ended up with a focus on Internet technologies. I ended up running the Technology Department of an Arts nonprofit that focused on building custom MySQL/PHP applications for nonprofits, NGOs, State and Federal agencies. I also managing the grant program for the organization. I did this for a little over 8 years. This is what brought me to Drupal in 2006.

So, why the introduction? I think that the perspectives of people are (rightly) coloured by their cultural upbringing. When we're dealing with an International project like Drupal, it is very important to be sensitive to these cultural differences and try to find the best ways to leverage them in positive and productive ways.

The perspective that the Drupal Association is balanced more heavily to North America (and I would argue to the USA) is a valid observation. After all, the original Belgian organization was largely shed in favour of the new DA which was registered as a 501(c)3 (an educational non-profit designation within the American Tax Code) in the US. A relatively large percentage of the Board Members are Americans. The original founder of the Drupal project and of the DA moved to Boston.

The word do-ocracy is a curious thing and becomes increasingly blurred as a community gets larger and can lead to problems (see this post.) I think there is (and needs to be) more to our leadership than simply who gets $h1t done. This is fine when a project is small, but when there are a great number of people getting things done it becomes less clear where the leadership lies and there is a tendency to band into tribes. This is the reason I've made enormous efforts to attend Cons in Europe and America. It is also the reason I attend Drupalcamps outside my local community. It is the reason I was part of the Denver local team. I want to know, understand, and bridge our different communities.

I need to take pause at some of Ben's assumptions

I would contend that there are many many many people outside of the USA that "get sh*t done" but are culturally less bent on trumpeting these contributions. Americans are better suited for do-ocracies because they tend to make more noise about:

a) What they think needs to be done and
b) What they have done themselves.

This leads me to the Marketing piece of my remarks. Marketing our brand needs to serve two masters.

  1. Sell more products and services around Drupal to entities that needs these products and services
  2. Expand our eco-system to include a wide swath of kinds of talent across task types (developers, themers, marketers, project managers etc) to cultural inclusion and expansion in the markets that we want to be in from item 1

We must put a focus on helping internationalise the project (do-ocracy or not) in order to fuel sustainable growth across the globe. And we must understand and embrace the cultural differences of how different peoples approach contributions and participation in the project. This will allow us to nurture future leaders that would never have come to the surface in the current environment greatly enhancing and enriching who we are as a community. We must not simply say that we're a do-ocracy so those that do things will lead - if we don't make a conscious decision to move beyond this mind set, the squeakiest wheels will continue to be oiled and we will live in an unintended never intended circle of hegemony.

Just my $0.02 worth.

Directing the do-ocracy

stevepurkiss's picture

Matthew,

Thank you for your valuable insight - more then $0.02 I'd say!

I too have been caught up in the "excitement" of the last few days, for which I apologise and mean no disregard to anyone within or outside of the Drupal community. I realise I need to consider my answers more carefully before jumping in and I have no excuse other than my stupidity.

Whilst I understand the "do-ocracy" confusion, I do kind of get the fact that we can have these discussions about what we should be doing and where we should be going but nothing concrete is worked out and original plans follow through without much change.

How do you suggest we do what you say above? I think we're all over the heat of the moment now, do you have any suggestions or am I replying too soon without giving you chance to find your way around how we've re-arranged the group layout/categories over the last couple of weeks?

Sounds like you have a lot of experience in this area, would be good to get your help if you have the time.

Best,

Steve

I think I'll post additional

MatthewS's picture

I think I'll post additional thoughts outside this thread - lets let it fade quietly into the night. I'll take a peek at the group categories and see where it might make the most sense.

thank you.

kattekrab's picture

thank you.

Donna Benjamin
Former Board Member Drupal Association (2012-2018)
@kattekrab

Thank you!

gdemet's picture

Matthew, all your observations are fantastic, but I want to call out this one in particular:

We must put a focus on helping internationalise the project (do-ocracy or not) in order to fuel sustainable growth across the globe. And we must understand and embrace the cultural differences of how different peoples approach contributions and participation in the project. This will allow us to nurture future leaders that would never have come to the surface in the current environment greatly enhancing and enriching who we are as a community.

This is an enormous unrealized opportunity for Drupal and it is something that must be addressed if Drupal is to continue to grow over the coming years. Marketing Drupal is about a whole lot more than selling to the CTOs, CMOs, and other people who represent established business interests in North America and Western Europe; it's about helping people understand how Drupal (both as a software platform and as a community) can have a positive impact on the lives of people in all corners of the globe, regardless of their culture or background.

Marketing Drupal is about a

kattekrab's picture

Marketing Drupal is about a whole lot more than selling to the CTOs, CMOs, and other people who represent established business interests in North America and Western Europe; it's about helping people understand how Drupal (both as a software platform and as a community) can have a positive impact on the lives of people in all corners of the globe, regardless of their culture or background.

Sing it brother! Amen.

The growing adoption by governments to use Drupal for open data, and citizen engagement is testament to that.

http://data.gov.in/ the latest in a series...

I think it means it's even more important that we find ways to invite all users of Drupal, to be contributors to Drupal. It's the ultimate transparency, if you know how Drupal works, then you can have trust in the platform.

Donna Benjamin
Former Board Member Drupal Association (2012-2018)
@kattekrab

The Marketing of Drupal

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