Posted by jdearie on March 18, 2015 at 4:04pm
Start:
2015-07-22 (All day) - 2015-07-24 (All day) America/New_York Organizers:
Event type:
User group meeting
drupalgovcon.org
Capital Camp and Drupal GovDays have combined and are now Drupal GovCon. This year’s conference is July 22 - 24, 2015 at the NIH Campus in Bethesda, MD.
The schedule is now live and we even have FREE training before and during the Con.
Comments
cost
What is the fee for registering to attend the conference?
Thanks.
@tsakell, Drupal GovCon is
@tsakell, Drupal GovCon is free. The only charge would be if you wanted to attend one of the all-day trainings that some companies will be offering during the Thursday of the conference. We'll have more details about training and links to sign up on the website in the next several weeks.
Danielle Sheffler
Engagement Manager at Acquia
http://www.acquia.com
Drupal GovCon link
https://www.drupalgovcon.org/
free registration
thank you! looking forward to the all-day training opps, too.
Looking for Drupal Developers
ADG Tech needs junior to mid -level Drupal developers for onsite Support at Chantilly, VA. Interested candidates --please respond to simi@adgtech.net with contact details and best time to reach out for a discussion.
Full Time Offer with benefits !!
Thank You!
Looking for Drupal Developers
ADG Tech needs junior to mid -level Drupal developers for onsite Support at Chantilly, VA. Interested candidates --please respond to simi@adgtech.net with contact details and best time to reach out for a discussion.
Full Time Offer with benefits !!
Thank You!
Where's mark comment as spam
Where's mark comment as spam flag. ;-)
@ADGTech You just posted this
@ADGTech
You just posted this same announcement in 2 different group posts which had nothing to do with job listing that I am subscribed to, and doubtless other group posts as well. That is really annoying -- please do not do that. Also, please understand the this is not going to help you or anyone else. It was probably not appropriate to post in unrelated group posts but try to make new job post .
Thanks!
Already contacted
I already contacted them through meetup to let them know best practices in the community, as they had contacted me several weeks ago about how to post a job. They did post where I suggested and while how they posted in other threads wasn't the best thing to do, private messaging them is probably a better way to handle in the future. Hopefully we can all agree on that. Regardless, I think they're clear on what they should do from now on. :)
Danielle Sheffler
Engagement Manager at Acquia
http://www.acquia.com
Cool. It is just annoying to
Cool. It is just annoying to get notifications/email about the same thing in unrelated posts and that's all.
Disappointed by the exclusive .gov focus
I disliked the heavy .gov focus last year, and am beyond disappointed that it seems to have completely taken over the camp this year. I know federal contractcing is where Acquia's $$$ comes from in this market, but Drupal is thriving in the commercial and nonprofit spaces too!
John Shortess
4Site Interactive Studios
Not only .gov focused
It's true that CapitalCamp and Drupal GovDays have merged under the new name, which happens to include "Gov", but the event is about everything Drupal (and other technologies in some cases). The session tracks (see below) are all general/high level and will include plenty of speakers from commercial and non-profit. I believe the event shapes into one that is gov-focused because of the area and the participants are mostly from that space. The more you spread the word throughout the commercial and non-profit space, the more attendees and speakers there will be from those sectors.
Also, keep in mind the event is NOT put on by Acquia, but a wonderful group of volunteers (including myself). Acquia is one of the diamond sponsors.
Tim - Do you have any data to
Tim -
Do you have any data to support your assertion that this event has mostly been attended by people who work in government? In my experience, having attended Capital Camp for a number of years, more people from the nonprofit sector have attended.
If the data supports that assertion, that's fine. You should note though that branding a conference for all industries "Drupal GovCon" will turn away people who are not in the government sector. I lost complete interest just seeing the name.
No data
I don't have any data, just my own observations, which is probably skewed since I'm in the Government sector and know mostly people in that group. The organizers from last year might know more about the business sector demographics, but also may not since I don't think they collected that information.
Good point about the name.
I also lost interest based on
I also lost interest based on the name. How many gov folks would show up, do you think, to an event called, say the Drupal Nonprofit Summit?
(Now, if someone wants to plan a Drupal Nonprofit Summit, I'll be the first to sign up!)
John Shortess
4Site Interactive Studios
I am in the government
I am in the government sector, and I would still show up because even though non-profit sector often focuses on different things, there is still cross-contamination and a lot of good things can be learned from both sectors in my opinion.
Gov vs. Association vs. NonProfit
While there were a good number of Associations and NonProfits present last year the sessions did not reflect that. I would love to help change this as the focus for Associations and NonProfits is very different than Federal Agencies. Maybe a breakfast event just for this sector to meet each other? I know that our company is happy to find some association folks and suggest sessions. zfactor and johnshortess - i'd be happy to talk with you about this.
Tracy Betts
Balance Interactive
Tracy - Speaking only for
Tracy - Speaking only for myself at the moment, I'm definitely interested in helping to set something up. And I'll see if I can get the rest of the company on board as well. Let's talk!
John Shortess
4Site Interactive Studios
We too (Taoti Creative) would
We too (Taoti Creative) would prefer a mix of gov and non-profit focus. Putting 'gov' in the name certainly skews things a bit, but per Tracy, if we both plan for more non-profit (and commercial) tracks and promote them, maybe it won't be a big deal. We'll be kicking off our "Drupal Bootcamp" series of workshops at GovCon, and it will definitely have a more non-profit and association focus since that's for whom the course was designed. We'll be promoting it heavily to our non-profit client base as well to try to increase those numbers at the event. Let me know what else we might be able to to help with this agenda.
-brent (www.taoti.com)
We too (Taoti Creative) would
We too (Taoti Creative) would prefer a mix of gov and non-profit focus. Putting 'gov' in the name certainly skews things a bit, but per Tracy, if we both plan for more non-profit (and commercial) tracks and promote them, maybe it won't be a big deal. We'll be kicking off our "Drupal Bootcamp" series of workshops at GovCon, and it will definitely have a more non-profit and association focus since that's for whom the course was designed. We'll be promoting it heavily to our non-profit client base as well to try to increase those numbers at the event. Let me know what else we might be able to to help with this agenda.
-brent (www.taoti.com)
@tracybetts Being a
@tracybetts Being a developer, I'm more interested in development focused sessions and code sprints, which are usually sector agnostic. What sort of sessions do you think the non-profit folks would be interested in attending?
I agree that many sessions
I agree that many sessions and code sprints are agnostic. However, let me give you an example; we were asked to provide a session at this most recent DrupalGov event on integrations. So much of our integration work is with Association Management Solutions (iMIS, CRM, Aptify, Avectra....) that we didn't feel like we could make the session relevant enough to the .gov folks. We ended up doing the session on integration with visualization tools and a session on procurement for Federal Agencies but if Association or Non profit folks were in these sessions we would have changed the focus.
We straddle both sectors and our nonprofit clients are more focused on solutions for:
1. Building communities
2. Personalization of content
3. How to address a global audience
4. Event management
5. Cross channel communications strategies
more so than our .gov clients. Maybe 4Site, ForumOne and WDG want to talk further with Balance about what we can do?
Tracy Betts
Balance Interactive
So out of curiosity, why does
So out of curiosity, why does everyone feel that these sessions aren't appropriate for GovCon? Someone pointed out the prospectus talks about government and local tech folks. In my mind, we're all local tech folks; we're in the technology field.
As someone who used to be with a firm that worked almost exclusively with associations, I think these sessions (those mentioned by Tracy and others) are extremely helpful and beneficial to all attendees. In fact, none of the sessions that have been submitted for the conference so far have a government focus. As timwood pointed out earlier, none of our tracks even have the word government in them. I specifically changed the wording in the about page before the site launched to include the private sector so that everyone would understand that this event is all-inclusive. " It is the largest event in the U.S. Government Drupal community. Although there is a focus on government, there is also a heavy representation of attendees from the private sector as well." Could I have done a better job with the language? I'm sure I could have. And if you have any suggestions as to what would make it clearer, I am more than happy to hear them and will update the page on the site. I've been an organizer for both CapitalCamp and for the combined events (CapitalCamp and Gov Days) and the intent has always been to bring together the DC metro area Drupal community, and hopefully beyond that, so we can all learn from each other.
As for the event being at NIH...well, that's what makes the event free for everyone to attend and allows us to have money set aside in our budget for other perks and benefits for our attendees.
I wasn't part of the branding conversation and yes, I can see how it is a bit of a misnomer and something that can be reviewed for next year. But what's done is done, and it's too late to change the name now. So the question really is "what can we do moving forward?"
This conference will be what we as a community make of it. There is a lot of very hard work going on behind the scenes, both by public and private sector employees, to make sure we take care of everyone's needs. But one way that all of you can help is by submitting sessions or having other people you know submit sessions that are beneficial to the community. Yes, there is a government focus because we're in DC; it's just the reality of our location. That doesn't mean that we can't also have a focus on non-profit, associations, or any other industry or sector that is represented throughout the DC metro area. But the way to make that happen is for all of us to work together, not against each other.
If you'd like to talk further about how we can all work together on making GovCon a conference that really can encompass all of these areas, please feel free to send me a PM or email us at drupal4gov at gmail.com.
Danielle Sheffler
Engagement Manager at Acquia
http://www.acquia.com
HERE HERE! well said
HERE HERE! well said Danielle.
Danielle -Thanks for posting
Danielle -
Thanks for posting this. When I saw the announcement about the name change, I visited the site and half-expected to see the old Drupal4Gov "this event is restricted to government employees only" notice that I remember all to well from my federal contacting days several years ago. That's not there, fortunately... but neither is there anything readily visible to indicate that this event would be welcoming (or of any interest) to Drupalers who don't work in the .gov space. I actually didn't notice the "there is also a heavy representation of attendees from the private sector as well" wording buried on the About page until I read your post.
As far as sessions go, while a lot of sessions are TLD-agnostic, most of my current Drupal work relates to CRM integrations, advocacy tools, and using interactive video to increase conversions. Somehow I suspect that if I were to submit sessions on those topics, they just wouldn't get very big audiences at an event called DrupalGovCon... just as my hypothetical "Drupal Nonprofit Summit" uptopic probably wouldn't be the best venue for sessions about FISMA hosting, making sure your site meets all PII regulations, or writing site copy that complies with the Plain Writing Act.
Even if it's not exclusively a government event, I really think the name is going to put off a lot of potential attendees. I got quite an earful from several irate (to put it mildly) nonprofit Drupalers at the NTEN conference a few weeks ago (being mostly disconnected from meetups and such the past year or so due to family obligations, that was the first I'd heard about it). If you really want this to be an inclusive event, despite the name, it's going to take a lot of outreach, not just one sentence on the About page. I'm happy to help out in any way I can!
John Shortess
4Site Interactive Studios
WDG and other creative agencies most would prefer Capital Camp
Having the event at NIH campus is a blow to begin with. It's difficult to get to and passing through security is a whole other issue.
Additionally, the having the event in the middle of summer is not practical and probably limits the attendance. The Prospectus also reads " These events bring hundreds of government and local tech folks together for three amazing days to drink every drop of coffee on the NIH campus and fill the Natcher Center with enthusiasm, code, collaboration and community." To me this seems purely government focused especially since its also being held at a government campus. Perhaps we should look at how WordPress handles their camps or look at bigger conferences and how they do things?
Ab
Strategy, Design, Development
http://www.webdevelopmentgroup.com
Hi Danielle - I think you
Hi Danielle - I think you have done a terrific job. Truly. and i do not believe that anyone here wants to work against what has been done to-date. We want to help bring to fruition exactly what you have stated that this event is. We have been involved with this event for a number of years and continuously see the nonprofit aspect as lagging. It's time that we helped out with this! Happy to have a conversation on how we can help.
Tracy
Tracy Betts
Balance Interactive
Tracy, email me at the
Tracy, email me at the drupal4gov email address, and we'll get the conversation started!!!
Danielle Sheffler
Engagement Manager at Acquia
http://www.acquia.com
Drupal GovCon
WELL, that was dumb. I'm home sick and I asked someone to read it over and edit it and what do I do...leave their notes in!! Dumb, dumb, dumb. Clearly, I need more cold medicine!!
Let me try this again:
Perhaps a little history can help explain why Capitol Camp and Drupal Government Days are now Drupal GovCon.
Take a ride with me on the wayback machine to Drupalcon Chicago. At Chicago's Drupalcon, I sat under an escalator with Betsy and Amazon and we decided that we needed a Drupal Camp in DC. One with a decidedly government focus. In fact, Amazon wanted to do a full track that was gov only.
So, I tapped gov folks to find a location, and Betsy recruited help with the event. Lots happened that first year. Lost a location, moved the dates, had to raise the rates on sponsors. It was a lot of work. OH, My gosh, a lot of work and there was really just Betsy, Cindy, me and maybe one or two other folks. We thought it'd be fun if we could get 2 or 300 in a room and scattered about in the hallways. And we did. Pretty darn successful, and Gov keynotes, too.
But then again, the events we do are based on the people who put them together.
After the first year, I heard lots of complaints from govies. They couldn't go because it wasn't a government conference, or if it was clearly related to government, it'd have been easier to get the paperwork done if it was government focused or a government conference. Oh, paperwork. So, I asked my gov counterparts in Europe if we could do a Drupal Government Days here. Then, Jessica and I figured out when we could do a one day event in DC and Tim and Dennis volunteered to host at Commerce. We did it on a shoestring, killed the wifi (enough bandwidth, but not enough concurrent IPs) and we knew we needed to do something else the following year. For the 1st Gov days, we had 330. Of those attendees, about 60% were government employees.
But we aren't different from other folks.
We need responsive designs, devops, agile project management, integrations, decoupled Drupal, the new, the crazy and the secure. We contribute to Drupal. We're learning to participate in code sprints, and we've been working hard to bring new techies to Drupal.
Because of our similarities, I have worked hard to make Drupal4Gov events local community events. What most of those of you who seem to think GovCon isn't all inclusive don't seem to know is that attendees at the OPM event on March 17th were 45% government and 55% everyone else. And you probably didn't know that there were labor unions and associations at the event. A session on integrations or Drush doesn't have to be geared toward a govie or some idea of what a govie wants or needs from a session. We need the same thing that everyone else needs. Our sites have to build communities -- the communities we touch everyday. Sometimes, we just have more hoops to jump through, but that doesn't mean anyone should alter a session, not propose one, or offer a watered down version of something that we'd all like to know, do or see.
Last year, we merged Capitol Camp back into Drupal Gov Days. We couldn't decide on a name, so it was an insanely long one last year. Two camps like this have proven to be unsustainable because we often draw from the same pool of people - from sponsors to speakers to attendees. There is so much overlap that it didn't make sense any longer. Worse, the budget for Capital Camp was almost entirely going to food and facility and that meant rising prices for sponsors.
So, we decided to rebrand. That's how we came to Drupal GovCon. At 3 days, we're more of a conference, and it's at a gov facility with a huge government attendance. Tim isn't wrong; our events have a huge gov attendance, but we do go to the same sessions as everyone else. You probably don't even notice us, except so many of us still wear the gov uniform of business attire to the events, no matter how much I suggest that sandals and tutus are fine. :)
It takes a lot to organize a camp. We started day one of last year's event, and our organizing team this year is 18 strong. The team will be even bigger once we put out the call for volunteers. Today, there are 248 registered ticket holders, 5 session tracks and our Diamond, Platinum and Gold sponsorships are already gone.
If the local community can support a non-profit specific event, then start small. Let's do a half day. They're pretty popular. It's a great starting point if there's interest and you can start at the upcoming event. There will be Birds of a Feather (BOF) sessions. It's the perfect place to meet and decide on next steps, build events, and pull together a small core group of organizers. And as Danielle mentioned, we're more than happy to hear how else we can possibly support you, just email us at drupal4gov at gmail.com and we can make it so!
Just a minor kind of drupal geeky girl and for the US government no less!
Thanks
I appreciate how much work you are doing and I think a combination for DC makes sense.
Thank you Kirsten and everyone
Many thanks to Kirsten, Danielle and everyone who makes DrupalGovCon work. It takes a tremendous amount of time and effort to put something like this on.
Who may attend?
Hello,
I am a federal contractor working with Drupal and would like to attend. Is that permitted? I missed last year's event attending to urgent issues for my client.
BTW, https://www.drupalgovcon.org/ appears to be down.
Any info is appreciated.
Thanks!
Bruce
Anyone!
Hi Bruce,
Anyone is welcome to attend! It's a public event open to anyone interested in (primarily) Drupal.
I just tried the site and I'm able to access it. Can you try again?
-Tim
Spam filter
"Your submission has triggered the spam filter and will not be accepted. If you feel this is in error, please report that you are blocked."
Thanks Tim
The site works from a different network location
Great. So you were able to
Great. So you were able to get past the spam filter warning? Which form or page on the Drupal GovCon site was that a result of?