Greater Los Angeles Drupal Special Event: Silicon Beach Drupal with Friday5.org Founder Michael Berman

We're excited to announce a Greater Los Angeles Drupal Special Event: Silicon Beach Drupal with Friday5.org Founder Michael Berman. This event focuses heavily on the needs of startups, innovative ways to use the Drupal framework and related technologies, and the nuts and bolts of product development and customer acquisition.

Join us on Tuesday, September 16, 2014 in Santa Monica, CA, between 7-9pm Pacific. This will be our first-ever meetup at BLANKSPACES Santa Monica. Seating, food and drinks are limited and RSVPs are encouraged.

This is an off-the-record presentation and discussion and there will not be a webcast for this meetup.

Friday5 Demo and Case Study by Michael Berman

Michael Berman is Founder of both Friday5, a Drupal-based crowdfunding platform for nonprofits, and Ready, a real-time location-based mobile app that brings new friends together.

Prior to founding Friday5 and Ready, Michael spent many years selling at Fortune 1000 and Fortune 500 companies. In 2010, he stumbled upon a promising little startup in Silicon Valley called Eventbrite. Michael lead Eventbrite's sales team during two years of rapid company expansion, scaling from 40 to 200+ employees, and was a part of many successes including raising 130m in venture funding.

Michael's Eventbrite experience propelled him to create a company of his own, and it manifested into Friday5, an innovative crowd-funding platform that helps take the guesswork out of finding worthy causes and making tax-deductible donations. Members who sign up at Friday5.org enter their credit card information, select the amount they want to donate to a nonprofit each week, and then receive a weekly email detailing which cause Friday5 has carefully curated for that week’s crowd-funded donation.

In short, Friday5 is helping change the world — one Friday at a time — and they’ve been praised in publications such as Forbes and PandoDaily. Check out the case study, Everybody Loves Friday5: The Crowdfunding Platform for Nonprofits, for some technical information on how Friday5 was designed and engineered.

Thank You to Our Sponsors!

Sponsors help make our events happen. To learn more about sponsorship of our group and our upcoming events, please contact Christefano on Drupal.org or Meetup.com.

Our venue sponsor is BLANKSPACES Santa Monica (@BLANKSPACES), a coworking community of entrepreneurs and freelancers who share office space in order to collaborate.

Workspaces are available by the hour, day, and month. At BLANKSPACES, you 'work FOR yourself, not BY yourself'.

Our food, drinks and raffle prize sponsor for this event is Exaltation of Larks, a Drupal design and engineering firm with a team of Drupal experts in Los Angeles. Visit us at www.larks.la and follow us at @LarksLA to learn more about our Drupal services and upcoming trainings.

Our organizing sponsor is Droplabs (@Droplabs), a coworking space, classroom and computer lab in Downtown Los Angeles, California. We're the leading low-cost coworking space in the Greater Los Angeles Area and have services, programs and workspaces that are uniquely designed for entrepreneurs, freelancers, remote workers and lifelong learners.

What to Bring

Just bring your laptop, your business cards or whatever else you need. Food and drinks will be provided by our sponsor, Exaltation of Larks.

Drupal After Dark

Even if you can't make it to happy hour or the meetup, you're welcome to join us afterward for a Drupal After Dark. After we wrap up the meeting and clean up, a group of us will go to a nearby restaurant or pub. Stay tuned to the comments below for suggestions for a Drupal After Dark location.

Agenda

We'll start our meeting promptly at 7pm, so if you are at a happy hour nearby please be sure to request your check along with your food order.

For any changes to our agenda for the evening, stay tuned to this meetup announcement or RSVP (or both!) to be notified when the agenda has been updated.

   7:00pm
   Food, Drinks & Networking

   7:30pm
   Introductions
   News & Upcoming Events

   8:00pm
   Friday5.org Demo and Case Study by Michael Berman
   Lightning Talks & Announcements
   Community Q&A
   Raffle Prizes!

   9:00pm
   Wrap-up, Clean-up and Close-up
   Drupal After Dark & More Networking

Featured Presentations

Friday5 Demo and Case Study by Michael Berman

Michael Berman is Founder of both Friday5, a Drupal-based crowdfunding platform for nonprofits, and Ready, a real-time location-based mobile app that brings new friends together.

Prior to founding Friday5 and Ready, Michael spent many years selling at Fortune 1000 and Fortune 500 companies. In 2010, he stumbled upon a promising little startup in Silicon Valley called Eventbrite. Michael lead Eventbrite's sales team during two years of rapid company expansion, scaling from 40 to 200+ employees, and was a part of many successes including raising 130m in venture funding.

Michael's Eventbrite experience propelled him to create a company of his own, and it manifested into Friday5, an innovative crowd-funding platform that helps take the guesswork out of finding worthy causes and making tax-deductible donations. Members who sign up at Friday5.org enter their credit card information, select the amount they want to donate to a nonprofit each week, and then receive a weekly email detailing which cause Friday5 has carefully curated for that week’s crowd-funded donation.

In short, Friday5 is helping change the world — one Friday at a time — and they’ve been praised in publications such as Forbes and PandoDaily. Check out the case study, Everybody Loves Friday5: The Crowdfunding Platform for Nonprofits, for some technical information on how Friday5 was designed and engineered.

Join us on Twitter!

During the meetup, the event organizers will be monitoring Twitter for feedback and questions that mention @GLADrupal.

Raffle prizes! Collect them all! Must be present to win!

If you have any items you'd like to donate to the raffle, please contact any of the organizers either before or during the meetup. Our raffle prizes at meetups often include discount codes, magazines, DVDs, books, and free seats to professional Drupal trainings. We are always grateful to our sponsors for their continued support. Thank you!

Location and Directions

Venue change! Please note that this meetup is now at BLANKSPACES Santa Monica!

   BLANKSPACES Santa Monica
   1450 2nd St.
   Santa Monica, CA 90401

BLANKSPACES Santa Monica is on 2nd St. directly across from the Santa Monica Place shopping center.

Carpooling

Carpooling is recommended! Each person who carpools receives an extra ticket for the raffle drawing.

To carpool with others, post an offer or request below in the comments.

Parking

There is paid parking available on the street. Parking in the Santa Monica Place parking structure is free for the first 90 minutes.

About Greater Los Angeles Drupal

With several weekly and monthly events, the Greater Los Angeles Area is one the most active areas for Drupal in the world.

Formerly named Downtown Los Angeles Drupal, we've been meeting regularly in and around Downtown Los Angeles, California, since early 2010, and now organize a large number of events in the area. Our signature events include the Drupal Job Fairs and the Downtown Drupal, Frontend Drupal, Silicon Beach Drupal and EXTREME DRUPAL meetups.

Our members and organizers have produced hundreds of Drupal events, including job fairs, meetups and workshops, conferences, paid trainings, coworking days, study group sessions, movie outings, FREE tutoring sessions from Drupal professionals, and website barnraisings to benefit non-profits and members of our community.

Attending Drupal events in the Greater Los Angeles Area is one of the best ways to meet and talk with other Drupaleros and we encourage you to attend as many meetings and special events as you'd like. Whether it's to find solutions to problems you've been having, sharing something you've learned or just meeting interesting like-minded people, the Greater Los Angeles Drupal events are an essential resource for Drupal professionals and hobbyists alike.

If you aren't already a member of Greater Los Angeles Drupal, it's easy to join our community. Our community calendar is on our "Events" tab on our home page at http://groups.drupal.org/node/219129  

We proudly participate in the California Drupal Travelers Program, which aims to connect businesses and community members who are visiting the area with our local community and events. Inquire within by contacting any of the Downtown Los Angeles Drupal organizers, or by joining the global Drupal Hospitality Network.