Let's start brainstorming ideas for tracks, sessions, and speakers for Philly DrupalCamp. As a reminder, here's what we came up with last year.
Thoughts on tracks? Last year we did beginner and advanced. We could do design vs. development/programming. Or coding vs. business. I don't expect we'll have enough content/people for three, so I think we should stick with two. Thoughts?
We didn't have a lot of showcase action last year. If you look at the agenda, note that the 5-6 hour, which included showcases, was canceled due to mental exhaustion on everyone's part. I would definitely say we should stop at 5pm at the latest this time.
Also, last year, the BOF sessions stumbled a little, probably due to attendees' inexperience with the format, and probably due to lack of clear expectations setting. I expect we could improve on the latter, and I think time has improved the former, so I'd be game to try as many, or more, BOF sessions this year.
So lets hear what you (1) want to learn, (2) think other people want to learn, and/or (3) want to teach people!
Nate.
Comments
I would be very interested
I would be very interested in design and development topics, such as themeing, module development, the Drupal API, etc. Not sure how Drupal Camps work, never having been to one :), but these topics would definitely be engaging to me as an intermediate Drupal user.
http://codingpad.maryspad.com
http://codingpad.maryspad.com
Phila Drupal Conf/Camp
Hi,
I am the type of person that wants to know everything about anything but if I have to narrow it down then I want to be comfortable altering modules and adding new ones to my existing site. I just want to feel comfortable manipulating the site.
Wow! I want it all! That
Wow! I want it all! That being said, maybe it would be good to have a poll with the various track offerings, see what most people are interested?
From your choices, my personal preference would be Design/Theming and Development/Programming. But I'm biased like that. I think it's important to remember that a lot of people who come to the camps (as opposed to DrupalCon) are people new to Drupal, or looking at it with the thought of 'Should I hire someone to build my site with this?', in which case they wouldn't be particularly interested in either. So maybe the Beginner/Advanced makes more sense.
Aaron Winborn
Drupal Multimedia (book, in October!)
AaronWinborn.com (blog)
Advomatic (work)
Aaron Winborn
Drupal Multimedia (my book, available now!)
AaronWinborn.com
Advomatic
Theming tips for accessibility
I'd love to see some stuff about accessibility-enabled and other best practices for theming, like how to structure a CSS document, how to structure navigation, etc.
Also agree with Aaron that a lot of the people who come to the camps are very new to Drupal. The Design/Theming and Dev/Programming tracks sound good, maybe just earmark with session is "beginner" and which is "advanced" and stagger them at the camp?
Lightning talks and BoFs?
I'd be interested in seeing BoF's again, and perhaps an hour of lightning talks. I still consider myself a bit of a Drupal Noob (Noobpal?) but I'd do a 5-minute talk on something. I'd also be curious about perhaps getting 5-10 people who are hoping to learn a lot at the Camp to talk briefly about the questions they have and the problems they're facing, and let people recommend which scheduled sessions those people should attend, and/or volunteer to run a BoF on the most common topics. If that "lightning questions" session were early, we could leave some time for later in the day for those BoF's to get scheduled. Dunno how plausible this is, of course.
-Larry
preview page?
Is it worth at this point putting up some kind of splash page announcing the Camp with the proposed dates, so that people can start spreading the word? I know there are some people at my company interested (and if enough of us go, I assume some minor sponsorship is a possibility, but absolutely don't quote me on that), but right now I don't have anything that I know of to point them to. Cheers,
-Larry
We're (Zivtech) working on
We're (Zivtech) working on putting up a splash page now. We'll let you know when it's up!
Sorry for the delay
Sorry for the delay but the splash page is up at http://drupaldelphia.com (and drupaldelphia.org, I don't know which we want to promote).
It's not much but at least it exists!
I am excited to participate in this event
Is there any list of softwares we should have other than ability to code into php,mysql,drupal cms.
Rashmi
Is there a cost to attend?
Is there any cost to attend this? If so do you offer an educational discount? Looking forward to this.
Probably $10-$20
We're still sorting out details on our costs, but we'll probably be looking at a nominal registration fee of around $10 to $20. Hopefully that won't keep anyone from attending.
Ugh! The fee stopped me.
I went to register and realized that my debit card (don't have credit) didn't have 20 bucks and by the time I got my check a few days later, registration had closed. Oh well, I suppose it gives me time to research the basics since I'm not even sure I know enough yet to ask questions.
Thanks,
Larry Esposito
Client track
I always see a lot of talk about newbie and advanced tracks at these events. I think it would be great to have a "new client" track. I have several not-for-profit groups for whom I supply Drupal websites at low cost and always seem to have trouble communicating the vast array of possibilities to them. Admittedly, because the cost to them is next to zero, I try to leave as much of the site management, particularly content, to them as possible. When I do spend time with them, it's usually lessons in menus and formatting and we never seem to get to understanding the community plumbing aspects like OG, surveys and webforms, etc. So, getting the client community to the next level, I think, would be helpful. I often tell them that if they see something on a website that they think would be useful to them, to tell me and I'll try to implement it for them, but they don't seem to be able to communicate what it is they are looking at.
Maybe this could be covered in a well planned showcase that would benefit beginning and mid-level (like me) Drupallers too.
Someone with experience building sites for issue advocacy groups, political campaigns, and the like, would be ideal to lead this.
Thanks for your consideration.
I had mentioned this
at the planning meeting, specifically a forum for "Why Drupal works for nonprofits." The quick answer that I was satisfied with is that could be on the newbie track.
Is there a reason why that wouldn't work for you? Also, there's always the keynote address to show why drupal is so great.
Would it be completely jargon free?
The newbie track I'd like to see would start administrators on the path of Drupal technical correctness. Basic subjects like roles, permissions, taxonomy, security, using themes, getting and using help, and updating (now that there's new versions of modules every couple of days, this is more important than even two years ago). And a middle-track that explains advanced theming, OG, views, Notifications, dealing with mail, CCK, and making minor customizations to modules.
I know none of this is very exciting to people that live and breathe Drupal, but getting started is always the hardest part of any task and the frustration for newbies that can be experienced trying to solve the simplest technical problems (which are more often than not caused by some simple misconfiguration of a setting somewhere, experience talking here) scares a lot of people away.
But on top of all this, I'd like to see something for the completely non-technical that spends more time examining the power of Web 2.0, if you will, and of course, how Drupal can fill those needs.
KJS
Speaking of Tracks...
Speaking of tracks, at the meeting we had an idea to forgo formal tracks, and instead come up with, um, tags? for each session, like "beginner, advanced, design, programming, business, showcase" etc. Maybe the agenda could show them with color codes. We'll only have 2, or possibly 3, rooms, so we need to be careful not to place all the advanced sessions at the same time, or all the design sessions at the same time, but otherwise, keep it free form with Room A, B and C rather than formalized tracks.
I liked the idea. Others?
Nate.
I like this because it will
I like this because it will give more context to the presentations. Also it will make it easier to "shuffle the deck" and different topics and tags in different rooms. One thing I'd like to change is how we had people just camp out all day in the beginner's room. More mingling, more conversation.
--
d.o: canarymason
twitter @canarymason
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d.o: canarymason
twitter @canarymason
Here are the topics I've
Here are the topics I've created for sessions so far:
People can pick multiple topics. If people don't know where to put something, they can mark it Other and a camp organizer will help them categorize it or create a new category if we've overlooked something. (This was inspired by Design4Drupal, which did the same thing.)
Separately people can mark experience level (Evaluator, Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced) and do freetagging.
Am I leaving anything out? Even though people can pick multiple topics, I didn't want to overwhelm them with 15 different areas.
An idea I had for the final schedule (be it printed or online) was to color-code based on the topic, and then have a little rating that represents the level, e.g. one Druplicon for evaluator through four Druplicons for advanced.
Agreed on tags vs. track
I like this, too -- the idea of tags for beginner, advanced, etc. Because people come to Drupal from such varied backgrounds (project management, development, design, etc.), I think you often want to mix things up in what sessions you're attending.
sysadmin-oriented sessions?
A few of the people who want to come from my company are sysadmins, so they'll want to hear whatever they can on the following topics:
Cheers,
-Larry
Hiring a Drupal developer
I'd be up for giving a session on hiring a Drupal developer or development shop. I've been through the process, and I think for nonprofits/businesses/startups, it can be sort of daunting. I'd provide tips on learning about Drupal before you hire, on writing great/detailed specs, and on sorting through the options. Do you go for a company that's interested in helping you work through functionality/UX/design/Drupal, or a company whose main focus is Drupal? Do you work with a separate designer? Do you work with a freelancer? A company with a small team that's local, or with a team spread out around the US (or world) who you might never meet? I think there are pros and cons to all of these options, and the session would explore those.
--
Allan Hoffman
Web100.com
http://www.web100.com
Please post sessions & topic ideas
Just want to make sure people in this thread know that the Philly Drupal Camp is now set up for session proposals and topic ideas.
If you've posted something in this thread, I encourage you to flesh it out if need be and then move it over to our "official" listings.
No more spots ?
Any chase at all that there might be cancellations ?