Drupal as a Career, Drupal as Business

With the proliferation of Drupal there has become a large need in the marketplace for Drupal developers, project managers, producers, site builders, architects. We will discuss the changes seen in the Australian market over the last few years.

There will be just over an hour of presentations from speakers and then the night will continue with networking. There will be a bar tab provided by our sponsors Acquia, if you would like food you can order your own from the bar, there will be tables provided in the meet-up area.

To sign up for the night visit http://www.meetup.com/Learning-Drupal-Sydney/events/68998812/ please RSVP as we will have a bar tab for the night and need you to RSVP to receive a drink band.

Drupal in the Marketplace
Look into how Drupal has grown within the web marketplace and also the adoption of local government'sand businesses.

“Drupal Growth” - Aimee Maree Forsstrom
Present some statistics on the growth of jobs for Drupal development since 2008. Discuss the current need in the marketplace for more Drupal developers as well as expected growth from the rapid adoption of Drupal.

Drupal as a Career Choice
A common thread you hear from people is "We started using Drupal in the workplace". Look at how people have stumbled into Drupal within their day to day workplace and how has it helped people in their career progression.

"Nurturing Drupal developers in Suncorp" - Choung Vu
Drupal is a strategic web content management framework for Suncorp. It powers sites such as AAMI, GIO, Suncorp, Suncorp Bank, Apia, Bingle, Just Car Insurance, Asteron Life, Vero and many more internal, external and mobile sites. We now have a core team of over 22 people across Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne supporting all our sites and this number is growing every year. A large proportion of our team was developed and nurtured in-house.

"How I became a Drupal Developer" - Magda Kostrzewa
Magda was working at the ABC when she was introduced to Drupal. She fast became a part of the Drupal Sydney User Group and contributed to presentations and discussions. Magda now works as a Drupal Developer at Cross Functional and is growing a reputation for being a documentation wizard. She will discuss how her career has changed with Drupal.

Drupal as a Business Choice
Look at why companies are choosing to use Drupal as their main web delivery platform. How can Drupal grow your business and help to gain market advantage.

"7 years of evolution" - Ryan Cross
Ryan will share his story about his journey with Drupal which started as a student and university and saw him go on to run the Sydney Drupal User Group and start his own successful Drupal development house servicing government, education, no for profit and corporate sectors. Cross Functional is a Web Development house that focuses on Drupal, WordPress, Mobile and e-commerce solutions.

“The PreviousNext Story" - Owen Lansburry
Owen will discuss the "Previous Next" story and how they came to use Drupal and went on to become the largest Drupal specific development house in Australia.

Drupal Support Network

How can Drupal business collaborate more efficently and help to grow the marketplace. Just what services and support are available around Drupal and how will Acquia's presence help support Drupal within the region.

"Drupal as a commercial eco-system" - John Kennedy

Drupal is rapidly becoming a mature web-technology, this has many scrambling to find Drupal talent and capitalise on its strong network. As other open-source technologies have launched into this phase many small business have been lost in the frey. A strong local collaborative commercial eco-system will enable the Sydney community of Drupal focused businesses to thrive.

John, runs a web-development agency Evelops and is active in the global conversation to foster Drupal Focused Businesses.

“Acquia driving Drupal adoption in APAC” - Chris Harrop

Providing a short overview of how Acquia fits in to the Drupal community, and then looking at how the local team will be focused on driving adoption at enterprise and government... creating more demand for Drupal resource across the region!

Chris, has a strong background in building business partner relationships and is the Acquia Regional Pacific Manager for the Asia Pacific Region.