Over the last two years we've seen a rise of Drupal business summits. In 2010 Acquia held Drupal business summits in NYC, Washington, Chicago, and San Francisco. http://revolution2010.acquia.com/
In 2011/2012, local communities organized Drupal business summits in San Diego, Atlanta, Vancouver, Toronto, Chicago, and NYC.
http://www.drupalsummit.com/city/vancouver
http://www.drupalsummit.com/city/san-diego
http://www.drupalbusinesssummit.com/
http://atlantadrupalsummit.drupalgardens.com/
We are also getting ready to hold a business summit prior to the Bay Area Drupal Camp. I was in Portland for the Drupal association board meeting this weekend and started talking to some of the local Drupal community and suggested that the local community could organize a business summit. This would be a good warm up leading up to Drupalcon Portland.
I've already received commitments from some of the local community about helping to organize the summit and I'd like to put a broad call out to the local community for organizers so I can hand this off and go focus on the Bay Area Drupal Summit.
Here's a Doodle to find a time for the call for organizers meeting: http://www.doodle.com/4x875r8gc2sisv8u
I'll set up a webex and try to invite organizers from some of the other summits to be available to answer questions about the level of involvement and what it takes to run a summit.
Comments
Great idea!
I just signed up on Doodle. Sorry I don't have much availability this week but am happy to try and help.
Meeting time set
Hi, we've selected Wednesday 4PM as the most common time for availability:
http://groups.drupal.org/node/239578
Webex: https://acquiameetings.webex.com/acquiameetings/j.php?ED=192819687&UID=1...
877-668-4493 Access code:737 508 532
iPhone oneclick: 8776684493,,737508532# then enter UserID
summary from the meeting
Hi everyone,
I wanted to share my notes and send out a quick run down of the meeting today. Feel free to make comments.
Audience: Reach out to the business audience not your developers. This summit is for the IT managers, executive managers, CMOs, and the heads of marketing and business development. The people who are the decision makers and want to learn the business benefits of Drupal. It is not just for the big businesses but also for the small shops. Think of your past, present and future business clients too.
Speakers: We need to recruit speakers who will say how Drupal has empowered them with real case scenarios. We should try for big names that will attract people to attend (networking!).
Marketing: In the past, other cities have spent 5 to 10,000 dollars on lists and sent them mailers. Then following up on the mailers with phone call after phone call. This is the time when we should be cold calling companies and inviting them to attend (and if they don't answer, call them again, and again and again).
We can co-market the summit with DrupalCon. DrupalCon is where the developers go; the summit is where the business people go.
We created a google doc for sign ups and ideas (link below). Please share and add to it as you see fit!
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OH4uVloGA6C7BANcdKx_HOvGt2KlA1KdO186...
We will have our first in person meeting coinciding with the July 11 User Group meeting at OpenSourcery at 6pm. Delona and I will send out a call in number if you can't make it live.
I'm excited to get started!
Mandy
OpenSourcery
mandy@opensourcery.com
Next Meeting
We are announcing this idea at Group meetup tomorrow at 6pm at OpenSourcery. We will not have a meeting after that.
Instead, our first official meeting will be Tuesday, July 17 at 4pm with the call in number 1-712-432-2807, then enter the following ID when prompted: 925-367-448.
We'll plan on weekly meetings, same time same number.
We welcome everyone to participate.
Mandy
mandy@opensourcery.com