Elvis Blogs - Elvis McNeely

It has hard to believe that Drupalcon Boston is just 6 days away. And a sell out, according to Drupalcon.org. The sessions lined up are just absolutely great! Most of the sessions I am interested in are related to the Marketing & Business tracks, although some of the Site Building sessions look interesting too.

What do I want to get out of Drupalcon? Here is an unordered list:

• Meet the community! Match all those weird community names to faces.
• Networking, I am one person. I would like to build some contacts (fellow Drupaler's, Design Studios, Drupal Shops, companies etc) and get to know them with hopes to do business with them in some capacity in near the future.
• Why Drupal? Learn why companies interested in Drupal are willing / need to pay big bucks for Drupal services.
• Find ways to get involved and use my skills for the Drupal project.
• Learn what other Drupaler's are up to, how they market Drupal, seal deals, run a Drupal shop. This list goes on and on and on...

One thing I will be doing to help build contacts is handing out business cards as well as asking others for theirs. This will be the first time I attend an event like this so I will need to learn fast how to "connect" with others and build lasting business relationships/partnerships. I think this will be the fun part!

I am hoping that somewhere in the mix the story of Drupal will come about. I would like to learn (by voice - not reading) how the core developers got involved, how they came to agreement and communicated changes, and how they plan to manage the community for the health of Drupal.

In reality this project is really huge and it is so surprisingly how quickly the community grows, responds, contributes, etc. And to know there are no hard rules in place to govern or manage this community - just inspiring to think about.

And, if time permits and others are interested, I would like to see at least one cool thing about Boston! And take lots of pictures for my family who won't be able to make the trip.