Drupal Business Days 2011

The first European open event concentrating on the business side of Drupal is held from 26th to 27th of May 2011. On 25th of May we organize an additional day, which is by-invitation-only. The event is intended for managers, shop owners, customers, project managers, sales people, freelancers and generally everybody interested in non-technical elements in Drupal ecosystem. The event is also interesting for people doing business in open source and software business in general. Even though we focus on Drupal almost all topics are suitable for much wider audience as well.

The event has three different tracks: Customers, Project Management and Selling Drupal.

Customer track is all about purchasing Drupal services, sharing experiences on running a site, how to compare service providers and so on. This is the perfect opportunity for customers to meet their peers and discuss any topic ranging from how to do contracts to quality assurance and attracting talent. The chairs of Customer track are Vesa Palmu and Joonas Kiminki from Mearra.

Project Management track covers all non-technical aspects of designing and building Drupal services. Starting from how to develop business concepts taking in to account existing Drupal functionality and ending into what kind of service level agreements should you offer after the project has been completed. We have a strong focus on agile development and most sessions are likely to discuss how to succeed in your projects, do pricing or build lasting customer relationships.The chair of Project Management track is Jakob Persson from NodeOne.

Selling Drupal track has two major focus areas: How to compete against other products and companies is the first and how to make money out of Drupal is the second. Competing includes different pricing models for offered services, what kind of sales pitch to do against product X and lessons learned on what works and what doesn't. Making money takes a broader view on Drupal business considering value added resellers, hosting, software as service, training, consulting and any other imaginable business models.The chairs of Selling Drupal track are Robert Douglass and Jim Shaw from Acquia.

More information at the Drupal Business Days web site.