Wiredgeek's Professional side

2009 Association Budget

Jacob Redding — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 05:05:02 +0000

As the first major budgeting process the Association undertook it was a bit of a long and mildly painful process. However we work out the kinks, set our goals, priorities and creating awesome working teams. Check out the newly published 2009 budget!. As always if you see something interesting and want to get involved contact us.

Drupalcon Survey

Jacob Redding — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 06:59:13 +0000

Another Drupalcon has come and gone but our work is not over. A dedicated team is actively at work on Drupalcon Paris and another team is being formed to put on Drupalcon 2010. Drupalcon is built by and is for the community. They are what you want them to be. Help us shape the future of Drupalcon by taking a few minutes to answer the questions in the Drupalcon Survey.

Thanks to every one of the over 1,400 people that showed up in D.C, I hope that we can top that number in Paris and then again in 2010!

Rock your session at Drupalcon

Jacob Redding — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 07:10:14 +0000

Are you presenting at Drupalcon D.C? Rock it!

Drupalcon D.C is nearly upon us and the registration is slammed shut full. The D.C team found extra room released a few more tickets and hired white gloved people to shove everyone into rooms Japanese Subway style. This is going to be the largest and most packed Drupalcon ever. This is your chance to address hundreds and thousands of Drupalers about your module/API/technique/process or <Insert name of your session >. Put your best foot forward and rock your session.

You were chosen to speak because you are an expert in your subject and people want to hear your thoughts, opinions and to learn from you. You were also chosen because you have an ability to convey yourself well and understand the time and other constraints imposed when speaking at a conference. With just two weeks left now is a good time to start practicing and getting ready for your session. The Drupalcon D.C team and Emma Jane have graciously stepped up to help you out. The day before the conference Emma will be hosting a session entitled "Presenting You!", all presenters ( seasoned or not) should try to attend.

Presenting You! will go over techniques to overcome nervousness and maintain your collective self while on stage and being stared at by hundreds of eyeballs (not to mention cameras, phones, voice recorders, etc.). She'll will also give you tips on managing your time and controlling the presentation so that you use all of your time effectively. The session description also has great resources to help you prepare your slides as well as your talk.

You don't have to wait until Drupalcon to get ready. If you haven't already present your session to your local Drupal meetup. Give it a good once through to work out any kinks. Your local community will appreciate it and you'll learn the nuances that can take your session from good to great. You may also consider attending your local Toastmasters to brush up on your public speaking skills if its been a while.

Drupalcon is a success because of YOU. These resources are here to help you become the best presenter you can be and leave the audience wanting to know more.

See you at Drupalcon!

Moving on from Events manager to Treasurer? (Drupal Association Elections)

Jacob Redding — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 07:48:06 +0000

TIme has flown by, its been almost a year since I ran for and was elected to the board of the Drupal Association. Over the past year I have been performing the duties of Event manager for the Drupal Association. In that time I worked to create and refine processes for Drupalcon as well to lay the foundation for supporting Drupalcamps and Drupal meetups around the world. Although I didn't accomplish everything I had set out to, for example I never sent buttons around to Drupalcamps, I did accomplish a few key items around Drupalcon that will help to ensure the success of Drupalcon for years to come. A big part of me wants to continue in this position for another year so that I could accomplish the goals I set out to when I started. However the prudent part of me says that its time to get some fresh blood into the position.

I don't want to go too far away though. I have submitted my application for Treasurer.

Why Treasurer?

While serving as the events manager over the past year a sizable chunk of my time was spent on financial and business related matters. For example the legal entities surrounding Drupalcon as well as the receivables/payables accounts that arose from the conferences. These were a natural byproduct of the escalated size of the conferences. . Drupal has expanded rapidly in the past few years and the donations to the Association have also grown as rapidly. It became clear to me that some serious time needs to be dedicated to ensuring that the Association's accounts are managed properly and efficiently. To this point they have been managed beautifully by the current Treasurer, Dries Knapen, but his time has come to end. After successfully obtaining his PhD he has wisely decided to concentrate time on his research and work leaving a void in the current position. I hope to use my educational and work experience background, in accounting and finance, to fill this void and ensure the success of the Drupal Association.

Call for a new events manager

As I want to switch my position within the Association it leaves an excellent opportunity for the new events manager. One of my primary goals is to not only ensure a smooth transition to the newly elected individual but also to work with that individual to establish processes that create a sustainable position. This includes creating documentation and processes to successfully transfer knowledge, introduce them to the community, partners and key individuals so that the new events manager is not only prepared for their tasks but also so that external individuals are not confused by the transition and are ready to work with the new board member. The goal is to create continuity within the Association.

My application for Treasurer
If you have questions about the events manager position feel free to contact me

Drupalcon NA and Beyond

Jacob Redding — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 04:43:52 +0000

Today I began a discussion on the future of Drupalcon. I have copied the text here so that you don't have to click over immediately. The conversation, however, is taking place on the original piece so please click over to comment.

This post is an open discussion on the future of Drupalcon management. After Drupalcon Boston held in March, 2008 it became clear that Drupalcon was (is) growing at a rapid rate and that the underlying management infrastructure needs an upgrade. Changes were made for Drupalcon Europe as well as for Drupalcon D.C (2009) and these have proven to be successful. The process still needs to evolve such that we not only meet the demands of the attendees (expected to be 1,200 strong at D.C) but give these attendees the high quality conference they expect. In short, we can and should do more.

Drupalcon Background
Drupalcon (Drupal Conference) is the only official Drupal conference put on by the Drupal community. Two conferences are held annually, one in North America and another in Europe lending to the names Drupalcon NA and Drupalcon Europe. North America is held every spring and Europe is held in the fall with an approximate 6 month gap.

The first Drupalcons were put on by a group of volunteers that got together and simply decided that they wanted a Drupal conference and made it happen. Usually the Drupalcons were commingled with a larger conference (FOSDEM, OSCMSS, etc.) but beginning with Drupalcon Szeged (Europe, 2008) they became a freestanding conference with a decent sized, and paid, support staff.

How a Drupalcon is organized today
After Drupalcon Boston it became clear that the old model of a few people getting together to put on a conference wouldn't scale to 1,000+ attendee events. Attendees were spending a serious amount of time and cash to come to Drupalcon and the management team needed to step up to deliver a quality conference. The current model is as follows.

Drupal Association
The Drupal Association is the maintainer of Drupalcon. The Association maintains the name as well as the final decision on where and when a Drupalcon occurs. It also engages in a supervisor role for Drupalcon management but it does not manage Drupalcon. Management, and ultimately all kudos and thanks, goes to the next people.

A community team

Members of the Drupal community band together to create a Drupalcon team. This is usually always based on geography but doesn't always. For example the Drupal Hungary community collaborated and put on the highly successful Drupalcon Szeged, 2008. This team sends a proposal to the Drupal Association asking to host Drupalcon. The association and the team meet, discuss and eventually agree to let the team host Drupalcon. After acceptance the Association will supply the team with initial capital to secure/rent venues and get the gears turning. This team then kicks into gear.

The team is responsible for all aspects of Drupalcon (which is why we owe them great respect and thanks). The team is responsible for fundraising the capital needed to put on Drupalcon by soliciting sponsorships or other actions. As recent Drupalcons cost nearly 200,000 USD this is no small feat. They also build the website, filter the sessions, contact attendees, answer all attendee questions, arrange hotels, provide maps, find the venue, setup chairs, run power outlets, etc. They do everything.

Events management company

Beginning with Drupalcon Szeged a budget was allocated for the hiring of an events management company. An events management company should handle all aspects of the venue including room allocation, chairs, projectors, power, food, coffee, signage, etc. Prior to Drupalcon Szeged all of this work was done by volunteers from the Drupal community which proved to be unsustainable (i.e. we were burning out our volunteers at astronomical rates). This model was continued with Drupalcon D.C. The idea is focus the community on the more important aspects; sessions and the attendees.

Summary
So that's the current model.
Drupal Association --> Community Team --> Events management firm. In all it starts with as little as 3 people and grows to around 50. Outside of the events management firm few people are paid. In fact the key people that organize the conference are all volunteers.

Moving forward and our challenges
From this description it seems as though things are running fairly well particularly since Drupalcon Boston and Drupalcon Szeged were highly successful and Drupalcon D.C is on track for being another success. Things may very well be A-OK but we do have some challenges that still need to be overcome.

Our challenges
Planning is becoming more arduous and tedious
The hiring of an event planner has helped things and our current community teams are doing a great job at it. However at the end of every Drupalcon these teams are rather burned out.

Maintaining consistency
Because each Drupalcon is held in a different geographic region as well as the simple fact that hosting Drupalcon is incredibly hard work we find ourselves with a new team for each Drupalcon. Although we are not reinventing the wheel at each Drupalcon we are repeating an incredible amount of work.

Marketing
78.6% of the people that responded to the Drupalcon Szeged survey (around 260 people) discovered Drupalcon from drupal.org. Drupal is growing and the successes of Drupalcamps as well as Do it with Drupal have shown that there is a large base of users that are completely unaware of our community. We need to reach out to them.

Increase session quality
Feedback from surveys and personal interviews have shown that while Drupalcon is highly successful and people enjoy the conference the sessions are not entirely up to snuff.

Keep it accessible and affordable
As the conference has grown so have the costs. Sponsorships and volunteers have been key to keeping the ticket price of the conference affordable (<$300), however, we're starting to see that this may not be a sustainable process.

What we are doing
Some of the quality enhancements are easy. For example a decision was made to choose the next year's Drupalcon one month before the current Drupalcon thus the deadline for Drupalcon 2010 is Feb. 2009. This gives the organizers more time to plan and execute the conference. Others enhancements are not so easy.
Marketing, increasing session quality, keeping it affordable, etc. are currently being looked at and are the subject of this post.

At Drupalcon Szeged a proposal was raised to hire a single events management firm to handle all Drupalcons. Although we decided against this for Drupalcon D.C (the D.C folks had a great firm lined up), its still an option on the table for 2010.

The O'Reilly proposal
Earlier this year Dries met a few people who talked to a few people and it eventually led to O'Reilly events contacting the Drupal Association. For a quick review the O'Reilly company has a publishing company AND an events company, the two are tied only by name. At the moment we are currently engaged in talks with O'Reilly eventsregarding the management of Drupalcon.
So what does this mean?
First lets go over what it does not mean. It does not mean that a decision has been made and it does not mean that the community has no say in this matter. This is, again, the reason for the post.
OK, so if O'Reilly does Drupalcon what changes?
Without getting into major details (we can do this later) O'reilly would become this central events management firm. They (O'Reilly) would handle all logistics including venue scouting, A/V, electrical, Internet, chairs, coffee, food, etc. The location, date and session are all determined by a committee between O'Reilly and the Drupal Association with both parties having to be in agreement.

What is the benefit to the Drupal community and Drupalcon?
1) Focus on session quality. With the major pieces of the event being taken care of the community has focus on what the conference is really about; networking with other Drupalers, learning more about Drupal and strategizing as well as defining the future of the project.
2) Outside speakers. O'Reilly has a vast network of previous presenters as well as reviews on how they did. Drupalcon could tap into this resource to bring in some outside speakers on various topics.
3) Marketing. O'Reilly puts on tech conferences its what they do. They know how to reach the techies, the geeks, the managers, the contemplators, the decision makers, the developers, the project managers... well you get the point, they know people.

What is the benefit to O'Reilly?
O'Reilly charges an entrance fee and they get a cut of that. So in short,

Cons?
We waited to bring this issue to the community until after we had a chance to have some serious talks with the O'Reilly folks. They (O'Reilly) are extremely receptive to the feedback as well as working within our community should this be what is decided upon. Here is a list of potential "issues" we have discussed with them.
a) Ticket prices: Drupalcon has historically been sub $400 per ticket. O'Reilly conferences are typically not this inexpensive. Although there is no final decision O'Reilly is very receptive to discovering way to keep the entrance fee low.

b) Location: The Drupal community gets to choose the location and provided that its in a major city and has the infrastructure needed to put on a conference of our size Drupalcon can happen there. This means that Drupalcon won't always happen in San Francisco.

c) Sessions: The Drupal community is actively involved in the session decision process and there is no indication that are currently processes will change. They will augmented by people with loads of experience in helping to find excellence speakers and pair them up with the right topics as well as scheduling them accordingly.

d) Drupalcon remains Drupalcon. The name will not change.

e) NO publishers will be locked out. As this is O'reilly events and not O'Reilly publishing no other publishers will be barred from booths, sponsorships or the selling/trading/giving-away of books. We appreciate the publishers that are printing Drupal books and they are always welcome equally in Drupalcon. I will stress the word; equally.

Stop rambling and listen
This is exactly what I need to do at this time. I've rambled on quite a bit and now I(we) need to hear from you. Post your feedback, comments and suggestions. If you have the time and are willing to get involved please do so. Drupalcon is the community's conference and you are the community.
Please click over to join the discussion

Drupalcon Deadlines

Jacob Redding — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 23:00:35 +0000

Drupalcon has grown from a small conference for a few folks to a much larger conference with hundreds and, possibly, thousands of attendees. The benefits of a bigger conference is that we reach out to a larger audience and introduce more people to Drupal and to its development. A larger conference, however, takes more time to plan and prepare for. In order to give conference organizers the time they need the Drupal Association has decided on the following deadlines

January 31st, 2009: Proposal Deadline Drupalcon Europe 2009 to be held fall 2009
February 15th, 2009: Deadline to submit an intention to submit a Drupalcon North America 2010 proposal.
March 1st, 2009: Proposal deadline for Drupalcon North America 2010

As always if you have any questions on this process feel free to contact the Drupal Association or me directly.

Drupalcon Schwag Swap!

Jacob Redding — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 10:27:36 +0000

I just posted the announcement for the Drupalcon Schwag Swap. I have been talking about it with people for quite some time but nows its official. I want to meet people from all over the world at Drupalcon D.C and come home with stickers/buttons/shirt from their communities. I think its absolutely awesome how large and diverse the Drupal community has become. Lets meetup and swap! Here is the description, theBoF session is listed here. ------------The Drupal community is large, diverse and extremely well organized. So organized in fact that many communities, camps, meetups, etc. have their own stickers, t-shirts, cycling jerseys, buttons, mittens, socks, or small militias* all emblazoned with the Drupal logo or name on them.At a designated time, date and place we're all converge with extra schwag from our respective community and swap it with others. Come with a cool set of NYC Drupal stickers and leave with a awesome button from Michigan. Bring extra shirts from your last Drupalcamp and leave with a pair of awesome Drupal socks.If you've created Drupal schwag for your community, meetup, camp, or even company bring it to the Drupal Schwag Swap!(*Drupal militias for illustrative purposes only, militias can not be swapped)

Drupalcamp and Drupal meetup Organizers at Drupalcon!

Jacob Redding — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 05:42:18 +0000

Do you want to a Drupalcamp in your town? How about having a nice Drupal meetup group?
If you have been curious what it takes to run a Drupalcamp, Code sprint, Drupal Jam, or Meetup come join us at Drupalcon D.C March 4th to 7th. Currently there are 3 sessions proposed for the conference that are designed specifically for current and future Drupalcamp and meetup organizers.

Drupalcamp Howto and Q & A
In this session the focus is on what it takes to create a Drupalcamp in your town. Answer questions such as:
What are the costs?
What are the risks?
How do I get people to attend
Who will present?
A panel of experienced Drupalcamp organizer will be on hand to answer any additional questions you have as well as to talk about their experiences and useful tips n' tricks.

Build a Drupalcamp Site
Once you have a Drupalcamp organized you might need a good site for it (if the barcamp.org WIKI isn't working out for you). Attend this session to find out what it takes to make a good Drupalcamp website.

B.O.F Drupal meetup organizers
Maybe a camp isn't quite your deal and you'd rather focus on the monthly meetings that get communities together. Come join other Drupal meetup organizer to discuss what you are doing or what you'd like to do. Learn the tips and tricks from those that have been organizing successful groups.

Drupalcon pricing structure

Jacob Redding — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 13:17:28 +0000

Drupalcon North America has been announced and will be held in Washington D.C from August 4th to the 7th, 2009. Ticket prices have been announced as well as the ticketing scheme. Frequent Drupalcon goers probably noticed something new at Drupalcon Szeged, a tiered pricing scheme. In Szeged we started ticket prices out at 80 Euros and incrementally raised them to 250 Euros on the day of. In Szeged this was based on timeframe. Tickets purchased in June were priced at 80 Euro, a month later prices raised to 125 euros and so on until the day of the conference.

In D.C we did something similar but based this time it is based on actual ticket sales.

first 100 @ 125 USD
next 300 @ 175 USD
next 400 @ 200 USD
all others @ 250 USD

Why?
We introduced pricing schemes for Drupalcon Szeged as a direct result of Drupalcon Boston. In Drupalcon Boston we had expected 600 people to show up but just a month before the conference we barely had 400 paid registrants although 1,000s had registered online. This presented the Boston team with a real challenge as they were facing several hundred thousand dollars in costs. The Boston team had to make a lot of decisions, should they scale back? push people to buy tickets? do more marketing? What?

Scaling back is not an easy option when you are facing fixed costs such as the rent of a conference center, projectors, audio equipment, Internet, WiFi, etc. Without getting into the gory details of fixed vs variable costs (for the curious they are outlined here) lets just say that Drupalcon Boston was staring down a decent sized loss. Fortunately the Drupal community is awesome. In the last few weeks leading up to Drupalcon Boston ticket sales started to surge. Sales hit 600 tickets. Another 100 tickets were made available and those were quickly snatched up. The doors were shut but people still kept asking. Eventually the conference ended just over 900 people.

So what's the problem with this?

The Boston Drupalcon team was sweating bullets when sales has slumped and only a few hundred had confirmed their presence by purchasing a ticket. Several costs are variable, such as T-Shirts, lunch boxes, etc. but they require several weeks advanced notice. At Boston they were adding people by the tens just days before the event; which is simply not enough time to handle the extra load or keep the variable costs under control.

This is why the tiered pricing scheme was introduced at Drupalcon Szeged. The attempt was to get people to buy their tickets early which provides us with two items

Cash Flow
Accurate attendance numbers

Cash flow
Cash flow is an extremely important item to manage in a conference of this size. The conference venue is over $30k USD and they require cash up front. There are also expenses for Internet connectivity, catering, audio gear, etc. etc. all adding up to nearly $200k USD. Unfortunately these people don't wait until the conference starts to get paid, they want their money as soon as they can get it. The conference thus then relies on the money from tickets to help cover these costs to the best of its ability. The sooner we get the cash from ticket sales the sooner we can pay the suppliers and the less sweat and hair we loose.

Attendance numbers
Holding a conference for 400 people or a conference for 1,000 people changes a lot more than costs. The dynamic changes as well as the logistical challenges. In some respect the tiered pricing scheme worked very well for us in Szeged as it allowed the team to adjust the venue for the number of people. We originally expected 900 people in Hungary but ended up with just over 500. We saw a huge surge in ticket prices at the beginning and then a sharp taper off of sales. Although there was a bit more ticket sales towards the end the team was able to get a fairly firm grasp on the fact that we were not getting the 900 we expected and they adjusted items for 500 attendees.

Wrapping up
The entire purpose of the tiered pricing structure is to get cash in the door as soon as possible and to determine the audience size. If your considering attending Drupalcon please buy your ticket early. This way we can count your attendance and be prepared for your presence. Also this is not the only we way we are encouraging people to buy their tickets early. This year we started marketing earlier and also lined up a few presentations before the site launched. We also have a few other tricks up the sleeve.

Drupalcon pricing structure

Jacob Redding — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 13:17:28 +0000

In D.C we did something similar but based this time it is based on actual ticket sales.

first 100 @ 125 USD
next 300 @ 175 USD
next 400 @ 200 USD
all others @ 250 USD

So what's the problem with this?

This is why the tiered pricing scheme was introduced at Drupalcon Szeged. The attempt was to get people to buy their tickets early which provides us with two items

Cash Flow
Accurate attendance numbers

China Open

Jacob Redding — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 16:14:20 +0000

China Open officially started today. China Open is an initiative to help encourage the use of Open Source and collaboration methods with the developers in China. My good friend John is the man behind the scenes there and has really pulled off something quite impressive.

China Open

Jacob Redding — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 16:14:20 +0000

Shanghai Software Park

Jacob Redding — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 08:33:57 +0000

Most tourists like to travel to resorts, amusement parks, or fancy restaurants. I like software parks!

yup, I'm that geeky

Shanghai Software Park

Jacob Redding — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 08:33:57 +0000

Most tourists like to travel to resorts, amusement parks, or fancy restaurants. I like software parks!

yup, I'm that geeky

Huangzhou Developer Conference

Jacob Redding — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 08:26:10 +0000

May 24, 2008 I attended the 2nd annual developers conference in Huangzhou. I have to say that I was quite impressed with the line up of speakers and with the quality of the presentations. I was always extremely interested to compare how I, a big white westerner, and the local Chinese students interacted within the sessions. Or maybe I should say that lack of interaction within the sessions. I was extremely excited to ask questions, to probe deeper and to really get at the "meat" of the matter(s). The Chinese students seemed bored and also as if they knew all the answers or maybe they just didn't care.

I was cool to attend and to see how the local developers interact and to watch this ecosystem grow. In 10 years (or less, according to the Chinese government) the world is going to see a lot more highly skilled, very talented developers hit the industry.