DRUPAL MEETING Notes – WED APR 27, 2011

Presenters: All Attendees
Topic: MiamiDrupal.org Site Design and Development

Below are thoughts and ideas as presented by each person attending:

Adam
• Expressed concern that Drupal core downloads have dropped and interest is tapering off and if this continues then Drupal may stop development of new modules etc… currently developers are more interested in Jquery, Ajax, Javascript and Python CMS than learning how to work with Drupal.
• Would like to see all our members actively involved in the Drupal.org site and making full use of Drupal, and keeping the Drupal community moving forward.
• Drupal Gardens https://www.drupalgardens.com/pricing
provides a free and subscription version solution to hit the ground running for designers who are not that saavy with code and modules. This is hosted by Drupal and Dries, father of Drupal http://buytaert.net/.
• Has WYSYWIG, Wordpress-like tools
• We can communicate through message boards on the new site.

Hector
• We should begin with the template for the site and sections
• Assign presenters until our site is up and presenters can self-register
• Future venues for meetups – miamishare.com with $5 parking; Miami Downtown area
• We need sponsors! Focus should also be on identifying and locating mutually beneficial sponsors for events and services.

Robbie:
• Offered to approach the Knight Foundation caterers to barter food for a Drupal site
• Also suggested we work on a non-profit “Green Mobility” site for John (member)
• Module Idea – create a module that makes the Drupal CMS look and behave more like a Wordpress interface
• Volunteered to approach the following: Miami Dade College, Miami Foundation and the Maypr’s Office for sponsorship and/or mutually beneficial collaboration.

José Tavares
• Offered to present at our next meeting – his new Drupal design
• We should integrate with LinkedIn

José Torres
• Has written over 20 Drupal modules.
• Participated in a “Hackathon” in San Francisco where he presented his “Open Tok” API video chat for Drupal. He also wrote a Jquery plugin for Drupal 7.

Site Goals
• Our Mission - help people to know and use Drupal
• Our Domain – MiamiDrupal.org (hosting donated by José Torres)
• To better organize the content for a specific user and/or the community, our new Home page should divide site visitors into 2 groups: Designers and Developers
--Designers – Themers and frontend coding
--Developers – Modules and backend coding
• Directory of South Florida Drupal, Wordpress and Joomla sites with comparisons to explain what makes Drupal better and why.
• Employers – Could search a directory of group member bio’s with portfolio links and technical specialties, plus authorship credits for our site contributors (see Site Contributors below)
• Meetups – can register for future presentation topics and technologies used
• Teachers – could search the same section for Drupal “evangelists” to speak at their school and spread the Drupal love
• Consultants – could find and register to speak at future meetings
• Self-Promotion – we can offer Drupal sites for a product or service (future sponsored catering or non-profit work etc.) and advertise this on the site as well as future group events
• We can sell ad space for Drupal related services
• Mobile Apps – a section dedicated to how this works and how Drupal plays a part
• Tutorials – provide new and existing with links to Drupal.org
• Content – keyworded for SEO value and to be easily found by users, also keyworded blogs
• Newbie Corner – an area for terminology and concepts with links to existing content on Drupal.org
• Schedules – for Meetups topics; when members are available and for what

Site Contributors
• Robbie: Content writing, Design, Sales and Sponsorship
• José Tavares: Content writing, Design, frontend development
• José Torres: Backend Development, Hosting and custom Modules
• Gigi: Content writing and Design
• Adam: Frontend Development and content writing
• Hector: Backend development and a future Mobile App
• Steve: Content writing
• Ron: Photography and agreed to be the subject of a future human interest article

(Vacant positions: Proofreader)

Next meeting: Wed May 25, 2011
Location: Miami Herald Building
Time: 6:00pm