Business and community-spirit: DrupalCon Copenhagen 2010

By Ramona Fischer

A successful premiere: With 1 200 attendees from 52 countries, DrupalCon in Copenhagen (24th - 27th Aug) was the largest Drupal conference in Europe so far. In addition to the sessions, networking was one of the most important agenda highlights at the four-day conference. The conference featured its own bar (the "FooBar"), the premiere of the first Drupal rock band ("The Kitten Killers "), and a beer brewed especially for the event ("AwesomeSauce"). These were just some of the touches added by the organisers to foster the community spirit. What expectations did attendees have when arriving at DrupalCon? What challenges did the organisers face? And where is the community heading?

"I want to connect and expand my professional network," Drupal-programmer Julien Dubois (CommerceGuys , Paris) says. Attending DrupalCon for the first time, the 23-year-old has especially been looking forward to meeting people he already knows from the web. "It is amazing to be able to put a face to the names." Seeing familiar and new faces has also been the reason for which Drupal-consultant and author Hagen Graf (France) decided to attend the conference. "I have been involved with the community for a long time and find it most interesting to see who is still here and who is new", says Graf who has written various specialised books about Drupal. "Socialising is key to Drupal conferences". During the day people are discussing technical matters, Graf says, whereas at night at the bar the "real talks" take place. Bringing home contracts is what web producer Robert O'Connor (booksellers.com , London) came for. "I am looking for skilled Themers, Designers and Developers with whom we could work together in a project partnership." O'Connor, who is lead developer and was sent by his manager to DrupalCon for the first time, also attended for strategic reasons. "We are interested in the business models our competitors use and how they earn money with Drupal."

"Evolution is healthy"

The fact that more, and larger business are taking an interest in Drupal was quite noticeable at this year's DrupalCon. Whether freelancer, small or medium-sized company or major market player like IBM and Accenture: more and more people and companies are using the open sourced CMS to pay their bills. Their various interests put the community in motion. "Changes within the community are part of a natural evolution" says "User Number One", Dries Buytaert (Acquia , Belgium). The inventor of Drupal considers growth to be an opportunity: "We need to be open and adapt to changes in the market, otherwise we will stagnate." Drupal-trainer Bèr Kessels (Netherlands) knows how much the Drupal community has developed over the past years. The IT-expert joined the Drupal community in the early stages. "Our very first 'DrupalCons' took place in small meeting rooms, where internet access broke down on a regular basis and the pizza deliverer came by bicycle." At the second DrupalCon in Amsterdam various OpenSource conferences took place at the same time, among others a meeting of O'Reilly, the Drupal expert remembers. "Little by little the O'Reilly guys joined us because Drupal was much more interesting." This familial "every-body-knows-each-other" feeling is vanishing the more Drupal spreads, Kessels regrets. "On the other hand, however, the event becomes much more professional in terms of technnique and contents."

A matter of location

A symbol of the changes in the community are the dimension and infrastructure of DrupalCon. "In the beginning it was enough to have a room for 30 to 40 people, which was often available for free at some university", says the event manager of Drupal Association , Cary Gordon (Cherry Hill Company, California). With turnout numbers of currently 1,200 or 3,000 in San Francisco (USA, 2010), finding a scalable location is one of the biggest challenges the organisers have to face, he says. This is confimed by Copenhagen team-lead Morten Birch Heide-Jørgensen : "Our goal was to establish convenient surrounding conditions, connecting the community in a centrally located venue." says the web designer, who estimates his work input for the organisation of DrupalCon to be 800 to 1,000 working hours. After long discussions, they had to switch to Bella Center since a location in the inner city wasn't affordable, he says. A new model and possible solution for the location problem is being introduced by the team of DrupalCon 2011 in Chicago (USA). Organiser Tiffany Farriss revealed on DrupalCon in Copenhagen: "Everything's going to be concentrated in one location: DrupalCon attendees are taking over an entire hotel."

Plattform for exchange and inspiration

Drupal pioneer Dries Buytaert knows how important personal meet-ups are for the community: conferences like DrupalCon are vital for the community because people step out of anonymity and get to know the person behind a handle, the Drupal-inventor says. "Without conferences we could not work together". This is confirmed by the Drupal Association's infrastructure manager, Gerhard Killesreiter (Freiburg, Germany). Activities in local usergroups, drupalcamps and code sprints are just as important, the Drupal consultant adds. According to him, innovation and development take place on a local level. "The Drupal-spark originates locally", Killesreiter says. Web developer Robert O'Connor seems to have already caught the DrupalCon spark: "Once back in London, I will join the local Drupal community", O'Connor said before heading home.

A personal conclusion

My very first DrupalCon; it was an adventurous arrival, and an even more adventurous departure. And in between I had numerous interesting talks with amazing people about the whole world and Drupal. Despite the modest food rations at the 'Con, and the altogether immodest prices of Danish food elsewhere, I somehow managed to scratch by without spending too much money (at least by some definition of too much).

To me, DrupalCon in Copenhagen was an amazing and unique experience, which I won't forget too quickly. This is why I especially would like to thank erdfisch and The Drupal Initiative who made this adventure possible for me. And I would like to thank all those who shared their experience and thoughts with me, giving me the possibility to wrap it all up in words!

And last but not least: some numbers the organizers of DrupalCon CPH have collected:

Altogether 5000 bottles of the specially brewed beer "AwesomeSauce", two bottles of Jack Daniels and one bottle of Jägermeister were served in the "FooBar", the organisers say. "I have no idea how many people drank in the bar" says CPH Team-lead Morten Birch Heide-Jørgensen. "But they were happy." And Szeget-organiser Gábor Hojtsy comments: "Drupalers have a tendency to party very well."

German Version