A group of Brisbane Drupalers met today to discuss organizing our first DrupalCamp.
We are organising the camp for later this year, most likely in November.
Since we have a relatively small Drupal community here in Brisbane, compared to Sydney or Melbourne, we are hoping to attract/welcome interstate participants, as well as those coming from broader QLD.
One of the main reasons we want to share our intentions early with the Australian Drupal community is that we would like to organize our DrupalCamp being aware of the possibility of other Drupal gatherings happening during the spring/summer. We want to avoid the possibility of having two DrupalCamps happening in Australia (or NZ for that matter) at almost the same time.
Are there people planning Drupal events during the spring/summer? If so, potentially when/where?
We are considering hosting the camp on the weekend before or after OSDC 2009 http://www.osdc.com.au which is being held in Brisbane this year from Nov 25-27.
We are planning on the camp being a 2 day event that would occur over a weekend, most likely with a social gathering/networking opportunity on the Friday night preceding the Sat/Sun DrupalCamp. The Saturday will have an advanced track and beginner track, so we can accommodate to different levels of exposure to Drupal. We envision each of these tracks having sessions that will address different issues/aspects of building web sites using Drupal.
We hosted a Drupal 'Skills Share' day in May 2009 and about 25 people attended, most of them new to Drupal. For the camp we want to be mindful that there is significant interest in Drupal in Brisbane/QLD, but many new users. For this reason we plan to have two tracks, to accommodate as many participants as possible.
A portion of the Sunday will be devoted to a code sprint, while a 'build a website for a local non profit' workshop will be offered for those who do not have the skills/interest in participating in a organized code sprint.
Any interstate Drupalers that would be interested in attending and presenting a session, please get in touch via the contact form.
We will have a public website up in the coming weeks with further details.
Please offer comments/suggestions :)
Comments
will be up for it
Hi there not sure if we have meet i am from sydney :) i would come to brisbane for a drupal camp sounds great however i would like to say that we had a drupal camp in sydney last year the company i worked for was a sponsor in sydney it ws easy for us to get sponsors and make it free... this is what i think we should try to aim for at least a heavily subserdised... if there is a cost i would like to know early to plan, i will also state that i went to the recent Drupal meeting in Melbourne where we paid 50 and i certainly got more then $50 worth of information and networking... so ill be there with my parter so add an extra 2 on your list... i thinks its great to see so many Drupal things happening in Australia we are internationally known for our strong Open Source community and it is good to see Drupal Users/Community continuing that :)
Ideally, it will be free
Hi Aimee,
Great to hear you're interested and look forward to meeting you. Please spread the word at your monthly meetups.
Our goal is to attract enough community sponsorship to make the camp free. We'll be seeking out sponsorship formally when we make an official announcement on dates.
Thanks for the info on the recent Melboune DrupalCamp, I wasn't aware that it cost $50. We might need to take that into account when assessing the feasibility of it being free. At this point, we're operating under the belief that we can attract enough sponsorship for the camp to be free.
Mix it up
It's great to see the Aussie Drupal community diversify and not be too Sydney-centric. Feel free to ping me for ideas/help on sponsorship.
Just a thought - while it's great to have it as a satellite of a larger event such as OSDC, it would be good to spread awareness outside of the F/OSS community too. Also, from prior experience (and looking at other global DCs), a one day camp might be the way to go.
Regarding sessions - http://culturemap.org.au was a massive undertaking for us, and I'm sure many aspects of the project/process will provide inspiration for a talk. Do you have plans for a website so that we can post/vote on session ideas (e.g. http://2009.drupalcampla.com/sessions)?
We'll be in touch :)
Thanks for the offer of support, much appreciated.
We'll be soliciting feedback and suggestions for sessions in the near future, and we'll have a website up for this.
We're currently working on finalizing dates/venue.
QLD drupalcamp b4/after OSDC - Great Idea!
QLD drupalcamp b4/after OSDC - Great Idea!
I say go for it. I'm not sure if I'm going to OSDC or not this year, as I have another commitment the weekend before hand... but lots of web / foss folks go to OSDC - and it's the natural home for a drupalcamp with a chance to draw bodies from wide and far... a much better fit than LCA in some ways.
Go for it! Happy to help promote it, whether I can go or not.
Donna Benjamin
Former Board Member Drupal Association (2012-2018)
@kattekrab
Drupal Camp
in mentioning that Melb was $50 the Sydney one was Free and was bigger, i belive thecost in meb came down to sponsorship in sydney we got some big players using Drupal and it was easy to get sponsors, also Suncorp are using Drupal it would be good to see them contributing to the community maybe someone should approach them...
Already being planned.
Hey Brandon,
Great to see the Brisbane group getting organized. I have plans for Drupalcamp Australia that are already in motion though. I've been working on getting a final date before announcing it, but we're looking at a weekend at the end of October (similar to last year). I am expecting to have a date finalized with a proper announcement by end of next week. So, it would be best if there are not conflicts in dates.
Can you contact me directly so we can work together on this?
--Ryan
Ryan Cross
James Cross Construction Services
ProjectPier project management and collaboration software
--Ryan
Ryan Cross
Drupal Development Services
ProjectPier project management and collaboration software
Hi Ryan, Can you clarify
Hi Ryan,
Can you clarify what you view as being "Drupalcamp Australia"? Is that what you are calling the Sydney event? Or is it referring to some more nationally-based entity?
Would you expect the Bris, Syd and Melb events all to be called Drupalcamp Australia? As per the topic of this thread, our preferred name is QLD DrupalCamp, thus making your Sydney event the NSW DrupalCamp, and the Melb one a VIC DrupalCamp.
One day, if there are more than one in a state, we can rethink it again. I'm sure the precedent has be set in other countries. The DrupalCamps I'm aware of o/s call themselves after the city they're in, rather than the state or country. In which case we should be Brisbane DrupalCamp, Sydney DrupalCamp and Melbourne DrupalCamp. DrupalCamp Australia doesn't really make sense to me because the name implies too broad a region now that there are multiple regions holding them.
Jeff
Hi Ryan With new camps being
Hi Ryan
With new camps being organized, it would be better if you called yours DrupalCamp NSW/Sydney or something else.
Let's say DrupalCamp New York decided to call themselves DrupalCamp US. What does this imply?
I totally agree with sime.
I totally agree with sime. Now that Drupal is kicking off in Australia, and there are enough people to have proper regional camps, it's a little cocky to presume that one particular camp represents all of Australia. The rest of Australia probably also have a bit of a chip on their shoulder about Sydney presuming itself to be the centre of the universe :)
Simon Roberts
Taniwha Solutions
Confused
Is anyone actually presuming Sydney is the Centre?
only lyricnz :)
only lyricnz :)
drupal events & building community
Events are great.
Getting together to share experiences, ideas, knowledge and beers is one of the fastest ways to build a collective identity.
This has to start at a local level. So the regular drupal meetups happening around the place (and about to happen in tassie too! w00t) are a great sign of a healthy community. Building the momentum, and attracting new souls to the local meetups is really important. Finding ways to promote the local meetups beyond groups.drupal.org is critical.
Larger drupalcamps - 1-2 day events are the next step up the mountain and take a reasonable degree of effort to organise - Having these happen alternately in different cities 2 - 4 times a year gives everyone a chance to have a bigger conversation. Making them cheap and cheerful keeps them accessible too.
A national / oceania event would be cool - the experience from local meetups, and regional camps should naturally build to running a major national event. It has to start somewhere, and it doesn't matter much where that is - but it should roam like OSDC and LCA do... running a large event is a massive undertaking, and the community should share the effort (and experience) of doing that.
We need all 3...
Local regular meetups and get togethers, regional camps for more in depth learning and knowledge exchange and a national/oceania event to really focus our collective energy and attention and build the OZ/NZ drupal community into a thriving and supportive network of drupallers.
Maybe the national event happens every 2 years instead of every year? Eg the aus council of computers in education I'm working with at the moment runs their conference every 2 years in a different city - but each of the state organisations runs an annual conference... so that's a useful model to look at.
So if Ryan already has everything in place to run a national event in october - great! I don't have a conference on my calendar for 2011 - so I could possibly step up to help for the next one in Melbourne in 2011.
The idea being that the regional camp becomes the national camp in that city for that year.
So - monthly meetups. Cities everywhere, get out and about and start drumming up numbers - this is the wide end of the funnel for building community, and ultimately attendees to make a larger event possible, and to build expertise around presenting and facilitating talks, panels and workshops. eg. I'd love to see Ballarat, Geelong, Newcastle, Wollongong, Gold Coast having regular meets too.
Quarterly state/regional camps in major cities that have the infrastructure for bigger events (generally easier for people to travel to a major city, and get accommodation etc, more venue choices...)
National / International event every 2 years.
Donna Benjamin
Former Board Member Drupal Association (2012-2018)
@kattekrab
3 people makes a meet
3 or more people get together in a town or city, and talk about drupal for an hour...
short slidesows
new site demo
making config / install screen casts
record audio of informal Q&A
just take notes of what was discussed and post here, blog or tweet about it...
Donna Benjamin
Former Board Member Drupal Association (2012-2018)
@kattekrab
fun and clarifications
Hmm, I don't really care to be a nay-sayer, and this is how I'm bound to look, which is why I've not commented before on what is nothing to do with me.
So some clarification:
-- everybody should have events as often as you can manage to organize it.
-- everybody should feel free to organize Australian-wide event, you certainly have my support where I can give it.
-- call your event anything, it's a do-ocracy, but don't call it Drupalcon cos you legally can't.
I do think Jeff's view is valid, my previous comment is to support this view.
But, I also recognize that if DrupalCamp Oz is the best name for an Australian wide event, then that's perfectly fine. Again, it's a do-ocracy.
Maybe Brisbane this time
Just a thought maybe this time we could do a Brisbane thing... maybe we could have three camps a year a brisbane camp a sydney camp and a meb camp they could focus on different things?? im keen to go to Brisbane as it would be a good break and also great to see what is happening in Drupal in Brisbane. i also think it is good to spreed the love as there would be people in brisbane who can not get down to syd for a drupal camp... will ask at the next sydney meeting (me bad and missed last night) how many people are interested in travelling to brisbane and let you know :)
also great to see so many Drupal things happening in oz i always watch web chicks posts on all the drupal stuff in america and canada so its ood seeing the same thing occuring here, also im up for helping to organize some code sprints in sydney will try to discuss this with some education bodies as i know a bunch of students that would really enjoy it and i always love seeing more people getting into Drupal and open source code.
Nice idea about three camps
Nice idea about three camps evenly spaced throughout the year with different focusses, but as I see things that presents a couple of challenges:
if the expectation is that many people will go to all events, is the .au community big enough to have enough presenters for three camps?
at least for our Brisbane event, we are keen to connect with new users as well as have some advanced topics. If each of the three regions had a specific focus, it would need to also accommodate newbies somehow.
The big benefit could be that we'd have some really good presenters at all three, rather than relying purely on those who may be local (it would be nice to lure some southerners to our event for more advanced topics). Our core group in Brisbane is very technically knowledgeable but at this stage we'll all probably have to present beginner topics of one kind or another rather than share more advanced stuff.
How many people would go to three? I can't foresee sending our Marmaladesoul team to three. Two may be more likely.
Maybe Brisbane this time
Just a thought i know that Ryan discussed the sydney camp at the May Drupal users meetup however i think we still need a brisbane thing.. maybe we could have three camps a year a brisbane camp a sydney camp and a meb camp they could focus on different things?? im keen to go to Brisbane as it would be a good break and also great to see what is happening in Drupal in Brisbane. i also think it is good to spreed the love as there would be people in brisbane who can not get down to syd for a drupal camp... will ask at the next sydney meeting (me bad and missed last night) how many people are interested in travelling to brisbane and let you know :)
also great to see so many Drupal things happening in oz i always watch web chicks posts on all the drupal stuff in america and canada so its ood seeing the same thing occuring here, also im up for helping to organize some code sprints in sydney will try to discuss this with some education bodies as i know a bunch of students that would really enjoy it and i always love seeing more people getting into Drupal and open source code.
drupal camps
As I see it there are 2 ways you can go with this. This is something that should be discussed and agreed on by the whole Australia Drupal community. I would advise creating a poll.
You could have a DrupalCamp each year in every capital city that wants to, e.g. DrupalCamp QLD, DrupalCamp NSW, DrupalCamp VIC, as Jeff suggested.
The alternative would be to have a single conference, DrupalCamp Oz. You would set it up the same way as OSDConf, which is to have the conference in a different capital city each year. Basically whoever sticks their hand up that they want to do it, and can get everything organised properly.
Personally I think #2 would be the better option, because then you would get more people together at once, the conference would be bigger and better, and you would find it easier to raise sponsorship - just like OSDConf. If Brisbane want a DrupalCamp, I suggest putting a proposal to the community to host DrupalCamp Oz next year.
Two solutions that probably won't work:
1. Have DrupalCamp Oz as well as regional DrupalCamps.
2. Have DrupalCamp Oz in Sydney every year.
Mossy
Interesting
Interesting ideas. I like 2). The Australian Drupal community is still fairly small compared to many other countries. Also, 2) would enable a nice migration to an Asia Pacific Drupalcon one day :)
The other side of the coin is that 1) is really what DrupalCamps are, as I understand them — locally oriented one day (typically) gatherings.
Do any other countries have national events such as in 2) above?
Jeff
Examples of country/regional based camps
Drupal Camp India - http://drupalcamp08.drupalindia.in/
Drupal Camp Central America - http://www.drupal-centroamerica.org/drupalnica09
another example
DrupalCampUK occurred a few weeks ago
http://drupalcamp.org.uk/
But there have also been many local DrupalCamps in the UK too.
Regional summit?
Another option for an annual national drupal event may be something like this:
Pacific Northwest Drupal Summit
http://groups.drupal.org/node/24368
This event seems to be positioning itself as a mini regional DrupalCon-like conference in terms of how it's being defined, more focus on engaging existing developers, users, companies; rather than educating new users/businesses (which has been a significant aspect of the DrupalCamps I have attended).
Drupal Camp
this morning when i logged onto Drupal Groups i say Dallas and LA, so once again im putting my backing behind Drupal Camp Meb, Drupal Camp Syd and Drupal Camp Bris, and if Perth and Canberra want toi start their own let them.. we need to be aware that not all of us have large wallets to travel interstate also i would like to see Drupal Camps get some students etc attending as well as Corporate users. We did a two strain camp in sydney cause we had the numbers a newbies and an experienced, i have always put my backing behind setting up Drupal Camp the same way we have done other open source (i.e Linux) camps/days before where we have talks in the morning etc that all can attend then split off into two groups, i have no probs doing a workshop for newbies on setting up Drupal and getting some main modules working like CCK, Views etc the best way i have found in the past is to do a Calendar workshop which uses CCK, Views and also Date module (this shows how you can plug extra fields into CCK and create content types to work with in views etc) anyways all i am saying is grow the camp base in Meb we only had abut 50 Sime can correct me here ;) and it was great i think we all got something from it, i know that i have clients etc that would benifit from a Sydney camp and i would love to go to Brisbane if possible for a camp and to meet other Drupal Heads ;)
.
(reserved for future comment)
Agileware, Australian Drupal Developers
http://agileware.com.au
Please don't dismiss Ryan Cross' contributions
Please don't dismiss the immense contribution Ryan Cross has made in organising previous Drupal events and the regular Drupal meet ups in Sydney.
It takes a lot of time and effort to get these going, with very little reward. So credit where it is due. Drupal advocacy is a hard gig.
Agileware, Australian Drupal Developers
http://agileware.com.au
Dude, I'm not hassling Ryan
Dude, I'm not hassling Ryan - I know he's been working hard on this kind of thing.
Simon Roberts
Taniwha Solutions
DrupalCamp organizing as an adhocracy
I think we should really promote the organizing principles of adhocracies in organizing DrupalCamps:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adhocracy
Having lived in regional Australia before, on the South Coast, if there were a group of Drupal users/developers in the Wollongong area interested in organizing a local DrupalCamp, then I would hope the wider community would support those plans. Regardless of what's going on in the capital cities.
I've attended a few DrupalCamps over the years in N.A. and one of these was very small, 20 people at it's peak, though due to it's size there was a nice intimate nature to it and I still really enjoyed it.
I guess what I'm trying to get at is we should promote the organizing of these events in an organic manner and empower the organizers through supporting them in organizing tips and advice if there isn't a history of events happening in those areas. If there is a history, then members of the community will be in a good position to judge if it's time for another event, and if that's two DrupalCamps a year then all the more power to them.
I also feel that as things evolve there may be room for more thematic camps, such as DrupalCampGov (there some really groundbreaking work going on here for this with Rudd's new website, NSW government, ABC)
my 2c
i have been to one drupal camp in sydney - missed half of it due to qantas screw ups with my flights and been involved in the local brisbane drupal meetup scene
i like the idea of a local one in each city, as well as an ozwide one.
however if we have an ozwide one what location?
thats a hard call - it should maybe be where the majority of attendees are?? but that then possibly precludes the event ever going to where small groups are... and if you did rotate then would you exclude maybe people from large population centres who could be valuable contributors because they cant/wont go to other places.
possible solution
we all have access to mobile broadband - we can use virtual meetings and web cams and big monitors / projectors to tie in smaller remote groups. i have staff over seas who i would like to bring to drupal camps via this method. maybe its a solution??
On events and cities...
Let me preface this by pointing out that I'm in support of having both local and national events.
I've been working with a professional network that organises a lot of events each year for a while now and want to share our experience on this. We have members in every corner of Australia, although the largest single group is in Sydney, followed by Melb then Bris. Every year we discuss moving our flagship events out of Sydney that year and every year we come to the same conclusion: it's not practical. There are a few differences in our case - we fund travel for presenters (mostly international) and offer a limited number of bursaries although the majority pay their own way - but essentially it comes down to Sydney being the easiest/cheapest/fairest/most convenient option overall for our members. No matter where we held our flagship events a lot of people would have to travel, but if we held them outside Sydney more people would have to travel and on average they would be traveling further and paying more to do so.
Give me some poll
Give me some poll action!
http://groups.drupal.org/node/24485
regional Camps, national Con
I have a bit better understanding of the terminology and setup now. The "Camps" are regional meetups that do not have to be approved by the Drupal Association. However, a "Con" requires approval by the DA and so far they haven't approved a DrupalCon for anywhere other than NorthAm or Europe.
So this is what I suggest. We have the regional DrupalCamps, e.g. DrupalCamp VIC and so on. When we have the numbers, resources or whatever else is required for approval by the Drupal Association, we start having DrupalCon Australia/Oceania/Australasia or whatever you want to call it.
I don't think we should attempt a national/continental Drupal event without support from the Drupal Association, otherwise the Drupal leaders might not like it.
RE Mossy
Exactly the point im making we are part of a larger community here that has policies/ procedures etc that need/Must be adhered too. I will bow out of this discussion now as i stated we should have local camps and re a larger event it can only be a CON and this would need to be discussed based on the outcomes of regioanl Camps considering as we have only had Sydney and to a smaller extent Melbourne camps let Brisbane have a camp and Syd have another one (Syd has not had one this year) and if someone if stating that they will/want to organize a meeting at the end of this year to discuss camp out comes and how the community feels about appraoching Drupal about an Aus Con, i will state that if we are going for an Aus Con we would want to have done some heavy end event org before we even approach them with stats etc from not just Camps but user groups as well. I know i am often told that i state the rules to often however we have things put in place by a larger community consesus for Quality reasons (hence why the dilution of other Drupal Aus websites starts getting muddy and dirty for an example) considering this long discussion those who are calling for the renaming of camps/ con etc have you looked into the restrictions or assistance that Drupal allready has in place?
And Thanks Mossy seems im not the only one thinking about these things, i also know that is why in Sydney we have stuck to calling it a Camp, peps in Sydney such as Ryan Cross can help inform people about this (sorry Ryan did i sign you up for more work lol )
DrupalCamp
Just wanted to say that Ryan did an awesome job of organising DrupalCamp Australia last year. The title was appropriate at the time, because there were no other DrupalCamps in our area, hence it could be considered a regional conference with the region being Australia. However, with national events scheduled for Brisbane, Melbourne and perhaps elsewhere, I think the Sydney event should be called DrupalCamp NSW from now on.
A DrupalCon should not be in the same city every year, no matter how much more convenient it is for the majority. All other national or international conventions that I attend, including the Mars Society conference, NewSpace, ISDC, OSDConf, etc., are in a different city every year. It gives different people a chance to host, and allows for a different conference experience each time.
Will travel to Brisbane or Melbourne from Sydney
I live in Sydney and would be happy to travel to Brizzy or Melbourne for a Drupal camp, and of course would go to a Sydney camp too, if family commitments allow.
Happy to pay up to $200 fee for each, if necessary.
This article by a US Drupaler (Senpai ?) is worth a read:
http://joelfarris.com/blog/how-i-managed-to-survive-my-first-drupalcon-a...
The value for me in these events would be meeting people in person.
Might also be worth establishing a "willing to allow n out-of-town Drupler/s to crash at my place" register for these events.
Drupal Content Consultant
Sydney
I would love to sit and listen to stuff that goes over my head
I wonder how much value there will be to people such as myself that don't know php, and only use drupal as a hobby/business.
I love drupal, but would I be out of place at these events?
I know how to put a complex site together (unless something breaks!)
I ah live in brisbane and play tt
brisbanett :)
certainly there is value
there are other non php developers (like myself) who come. We run a drupal shop and there is always value in coming and learning new things, and also in sharing what you do.
Theres a great bunch of people here in brisbane - come to the next event - when Jeff gets around to organising it! (Nudge nudge)
Qld DrupalCamp - Brisbane 5th June 2010 - see new thread
Jeff Hanbury of Brisbane's Marmaladesoul has opened a new thread here on GDO for the QLD Drupal Camp - to held at UQ's St Lucia Campus in Brisbane on 5th June 2010: http://groups.drupal.org/node/60818
Please post on that thread any suggestions, updates or offers (or even repeat there any of above listed suggestions if still current) for topics to be included in the day's program. Would be great to see inter-staters here for this event!
Specific website for registering for this DrupalCamp will be opened soon.
Also the "Drupal Camp Australia National Event" that Ryan Cross et al are organising in Sydney for 17 & 18 July 2010 already has 30+ signups. Event thread to sign-up for that is here http://groups.drupal.org/node/46526 and discussion thread on planning meetings is here http://groups.drupal.org/node/60088
Cheers,
Sean Cleary, Brisbane