Upgrade Your Drupal Skills

We trained 1,000+ Drupal Developers over the last decade.

See Advanced Courses NAH, I know Enough
Oct 10 2018
Oct 10

Authors are eager to learn, and a content-focused community is forming. But there’s still work to do.

Julia GutierrezMassachusetts Digital ServicePublished in

6 min read

Oct 10, 2018
Video showing highlights of speakers, presenters, and attendees interacting at ConCon 2018.

When you spend most of your time focused on how to serve constituents on digital channels, it can be good to simply get some face time with peers. It’s an interesting paradox of the work we do alongside our partners at organizations across the state. Getting in a room and discussing content strategy is always productive.

That was one of the main reasons behind organizing the first ever Massachusetts Content Conference (ConCon). More than 100 attendees from 35 organizations came together for a day of learning and networking at District Hall in Boston. There were 15 sessions on everything from how to use Mayflower — the Commonwealth’s design system — to what it takes to create an awesome service.

Graphic showing more than 100 attendees from 50 organizations attended 15 sessions from 14 presenters at ConCon 2018.

ConCon is and will always be about our authors, and we’re encouraged by the feedback we’ve received from them so far. Of the attendees who responded to a survey, 93% said they learned about new tools or techniques to help them create better content. More so, 96% said they would return to the next ConCon. The average grade attendees gave to the first ever ConCon on a scale of 1 to 10 — with 1 being the worst and 10 the best — was 8.3.

Our authors were engaged and ready to share their experiences, which made for an educational environment, for their peers as well as our own team at Digital Services. In fact, it was an eye opening experience, and we took a lot away from the event. Here are some of our team’s reflections on what they learned about our authors and our content needs moving forward.

“The way we show feedback and scores per page is great but it doesn’t help authors prioritize their efforts to get the biggest gain for their constituents. We’re working hard to increase visibility of this data in Drupal.”

— Joe Galluccio

Katie Rahhal, Content Strategist
“I learned we’re moving in the right direction with our analysis and Mass.gov feedback tools. In the breakout sessions, I heard over and over that our content authors really like the ones we have and they want more. More ways to review their feedback, more tools to improve their content quality, and they’re open to learning new ways to improve their content.”

Christine Bath, Designer
“It was so interesting and helpful to see how our authors use and respond to user feedback on Mass.gov. It gives us a lot of ideas for how we can make it easier to get user feedback to our authors in more actionable ways. We want to make it easy to share constituent feedback within agencies to power changes on Mass.gov.”

Embedded tweet from @MassGovDigital highlighting a lesson on good design practices from ConCon 2018.

Joe Galluccio, Product Manager
“I learned how important it is for our authors to get performance data integrated into the Drupal authoring experience. The way we show feedback and scores per page is great but it doesn’t help authors prioritize their efforts to get the biggest gain for their constituents. We’re working hard to increase visibility of this data in Drupal.”

Bryan Hirsch, Deputy Chief Digital Officer
“Having Dana Chisnell, co-founder of the Center for Civic Design, present her work on mapping and improving the journey of American voters was the perfect lesson at the perfect time. The page-level analytics dashboards are a good foundation we want to build on. In the next year, we’re going to research, test, and build Mass.gov journey analytics dashboards. We’re also spending this year working with partner organizations on mapping end-to-end user journeys for different services. Dana’s experience on how to map a journey, identify challenges, and then improve the process was relevant to everyone in the room. It was eye-opening, enlightening, and exciting. There are a lot of opportunities to improve the lives of our constituents.”

Want to know how we created our page-level data dashboards? Read Custom dashboards: Surfacing data where Mass.gov authors need it

Embedded tweet from @epubpupil highlighting her positive thoughts on Dana Chisnell’s keynote presentation on mapping and improving the journey of American voters.

“It’s great to see there’s a Mayflower community forming among stakeholders in different roles across state government. ”

— Minghua Sun

Sienna Svob, Developer and Data Analyst
“We need to work harder to build a Mayflower community that will support the diversity of print, web, and applications across the Commonwealth. Agencies are willing and excited to use Mayflower and we need to harness this and involve them more to make it a better product.”

Minghua Sun, Mayflower Product Owner
“I’m super excited to see that so many of the content authors came to the Mayflower breakout session. They were not only interested in using the Mayflower Design System to create a single face of government but also raised constructive questions and were willing to collaborate on making it better! After the conference we followed up with more information and invited them to the Mayflower public Slack channel. It’s great to see there’s a Mayflower community forming among stakeholders in different roles across state government. ”

Sam Mathius, Digital Communications Strategist
“It was great to see how many of our authors rely on digital newsletters to connect with constituents, which came up during a breakout session on the topic. Most of them feel like they need some help integrating them into their overall content strategy, and they were particularly excited about using tools and software to help them collect better data. In fact, attendees from some organizations mentioned how they’ve used newsletter data to uncover seasonal trends that help them inform the rest of their content strategy. I think that use case got the analytics gears turning for a lot of folks, which is exciting.”

“I’d like to see us create more opportunities for authors to get together in informal sessions. They’re such a diverse group, but they share a desire to get it right.”

— Fiona Molloy

Shannon Desmond, Content Strategist
“I learned that the Mass.gov authors are energetic about the new content types that have been implemented over the past 8 months and are even more eager to learn about the new enhancements to the content management system (CMS) that continue to roll out. Furthermore, as a lifelong Massachusetts resident and a dedicated member of the Mass.gov team, it was enlightening to see how passionate the authors are about translating government language and regulations for constituents in a way that can be easily and quickly understood by the constituents of the State.”

Fiona Molloy, Content Strategist
“Talking to people who came to ConCon and sitting in on various sessions, it really struck me how eager our content authors are to learn — whether from us here at Digital Services or from each other. I’d like to see us create more opportunities for authors to get together in informal sessions. They’re such a diverse group, but they share a desire to get it right and that’s really encouraging as we work together to build a better Mass.gov.”

Embedded tweet from @MassGovDigital highlighting a session from ConCon 2018 in which content authors offered tips for using authoring tools on Mass.gov.

Adam Cogbill, Content Strategist
“I was reminded that one of the biggest challenges that government content authors face is communicating lots of complex information. We need to make sure we understand our audience’s relationships to our content, both through data about their online behavior and through user testing.”

Greg Derosiers, Content Strategist
“I learned we need to do a better job of offering help and support. There were a number of authors in attendance that didn’t know about readily-available resources that we had assumed people just weren’t interested in. We need to re-evaluate how we’re marketing these services and make sure everyone knows what’s available.”

Embedded tweet from @MassGovDigital highlighting the start of ConCon 2018.

Thinking about hosting your own content conference? Reach out to us! We’d love to share lessons and collaborate with others in the civic tech community.

Sep 02 2018
Sep 02
Drupal Europe3 min read

Sep 2, 2018

In only 8 days Drupal Europe will be happening from September 10 to 14 in Darmstadt, Germany. Are you coming?

Throughout the last 12 months a lot of volunteers worked really hard to make this event happen. Starting with our decision and commitment at DrupalCon Vienna to organize Drupal Europe, followed by an extensive search for locations, numerous volunteers have been busy for a year. Reaching out to sponsors, structuring the program, organizing the Open Web Lounge, planning the venue spaces, answering all your emails, writing visa invitation letters, launching trainings, reviewing sessions and putting together the big schedule.

How it started in the community keynote photo by Amazee Labs

Drupal Europe hosts 162 hours of sessions, 9 in-depth workshops, 3 training courses, contribution every day but the biggest value of all is meeting everyone. This conference brings together CEOs, project managers, marketing professionals, and developers alike. It is both a technology conference and a family reunion for the Drupal community and that is why we organized it.

Drupal Europe is a unique possibility to meet your (international) colleagues and talk about what drives, connects and challenges our community. There is only one open source community where “you come for the code and stay for the community” is so deeply rooted. And Drupal Europe is also a great place to connect with other open source technologies. WordPress, Rocket.Chat, Typo3, Mautic, you name it! You may be surprised that there are more that connect us than what separates us.

Have a look at the diverse and interesting program.

Besides the sessions and BoFs we also plan our other traditional activities.

On Thursday evening we organise the exciting Trivia Night where you can win eternal fame with your team.

Contribution opportunities are open all week. On Monday and especially Friday, mentors will be around to help you get started contributing. Contribution is for everyone, all skill and energy levels are invited.

New this year at Drupal Europe is the first international Splash Awards! All golden and silver winners from local Splash Awards will compete for the European awards.

All together we think there are plenty of reasons why you should come to Darmstadt and participate at Drupal Europe.

To make our offer even better, if you buy a ticket before end of the late ticket deadline (today or tomorrow), you enter a raffle for a free hotel room for Sept 10–13 at Intercity Hotel Darmstadt! Use FLS-LPNLGS5DS84E4 to also get 100 EUR off the ticket price.

The hotel room raffle closes and online ticket sales will stop at end of Monday. You will only have a chance to buy a ticket onsite at Drupal Europe afterwards.

Grab this last chance to join us at Drupal Europe, book your travels and have a safe trip getting here.

See you in Darmstadt!

Image Darmstadium venue in Darmstadt, Germany
Aug 14 2018
Aug 14

Drupal Europe: Publishing + Media Special Focus

Drupal Europe2 min read

Aug 14, 2018

What industries come to mind when you hear blockchain? Banking? Trading? Healthcare? How about publishing? At Drupal Europe publishers will gain insights into the potential blockchain technology offers and learn how they can benefit. Meet Gagik Yeghiazarian, founder of the nonprofit foundation Publiq, and learn how he wants to fight fake news and build a censorship-resistant platform — using blockchain.

The publishing world is changing. Publishers no longer solely control media distribution. Big players like Facebook and Google are middlemen between the publishers and their readers, and technology built to entice publishers — Google’s AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) and Facebook Instant Articles — has strengthened social platforms as distribution channels. Additionally, publishers have lost money making classifieds business as employment and real estate markets create their own platforms and portals to reach the audience.

Photo by Ian Schneider on Unsplash

As a result of these developments, publishers are losing direct relationships with their readers as well as critical advertising which traditionally supported the editorial and operational costs. The platforms act as middlemen, using the content of the publishers for collecting data and selling them to advertisers. The publishers are left out in the cold.

Critically, publishers are also facing a crisis of confidence. As social platforms are used to spread fake news and poor content, mistrust in journalism grows.

The nonprofit foundation Publiq wants to face these challenges with a blockchain-powered infrastructure. It aims at removing unnecessary intermediaries from the equation and helping to create an independent, censorship-free environment. Gagik Yeghiazarian, CEO and Co-Founder of Publiq, is convinced: “Blockchain infrastructure allows content creators, readers and other participants to build a trusted relationship.”

You can learn more about Publiq and its blockchain infrastructure at Drupal Europe in Darmstadt: Gagik Yeghiazarian’s session “Blockchain Distributed Media — A Future for good publishing” will give you a glimpse into this new technology and a real-world application of it.

While you’re at Drupal Europe, be sure to check out the exciting blockchain panel discussion where Gagik, Ingo Rübe of Botlabs, and Taco Potze of Open Social, will share insights and use cases for blockchain technology. Don’t miss this!

Drupal Europe
Publishing & Media — Track Chairs

Jun 27 2018
Jun 27
Drupal Europe3 min read

Jun 27, 2018

Community. Sharing. Helping. This is the spirit of Drupal. These things bind us all together. Be a part of it by joining us during Drupal Europe between 10–14 September 2018 in Darmstadt, Germany.

photo credit Susanne Coates @flickr

The track dedicated to Social + Non-Profit will gather ambitious life stories about helping others and projects whose purpose is to invest everything in making the world a better place. You will have the opportunity to meet colleagues from your field of interest and join forces, learn how to use pre-configured Drupal distributions and get inspired by ambitious social impact projects built with Drupal. Also learn how Drupal can be used to ensure accountability, trustworthiness, honesty, and openness to every person who has invested time, money, and faith into a non-profit organization. Talk and share ideas, learn from each other, improve, innovate … and take a leap forward. There are a lot of things you will learn, no matter your technical skill level. From developers to people with a big heart, you will for sure find something that inspires you.

Interested in attending? Buy your ticket now at https://www.drupaleurope.org/tickets.

We are looking for submissions in various topics. Here are some ideas to share your experience on with the rest of the world.

  1. Every nonprofit organization must apply the 3 E’s: Economy, Efficiency, Effectiveness. Economy forces you to handle your project with low budgets, that is almost always the case with non-profit organizations. Efficiency is required also due to low resources available to most non-profit organizations. Effectiveness ensures you get the job done and complete your targets. How are you doing that? What tools and practices ensure this?
  2. We live in a world that is changing every day and technology is a big part of it. What are the new technologies you integrate in social projects? What do you need and what do you find on the market? How drupal is helping you achieve your goals?
  3. Transparency, accountability and full disclosure on operations is a must for all non-profit organizations. People will donate to and support campaigns only if they know exactly where the money goes and how are things handled. This way, they ensure their credibility in front of the world. How do you technically implement this?
  4. A lot of people talk about making the world a better place. But talking is not enough. You have to take action! How do you plan to do it? How do social activities raise the level of engagement in your community? How are people’s lives improved by your actions?
  5. Non-profit is done mainly from the heart. Volunteering is the key word. What are your life stories about helping others, inspirational first hand experiences? Why, what and how did you do it? What drives you? What are your goals?

We look forward to your submission sharing you experience with the other attendees.

See you in Darmstadt!

As you’ve probably read in one of our previous blog posts, industry verticals are a new concept being introduced at Drupal Europe and replace the summits, which typically took place on Monday. At Drupal Europe these industry verticals are integrated with the rest of the conference — same location, same ticket and provide more opportunities to learn and exchange within the industry verticals throughout three days.

Now is the perfect time to buy your ticket for Drupal Europe. Session submission is only open for a few more days so please submit your sessions and encourage others who have great ideas.

Please help us to spread the word about this awesome conference. Our hashtag is #drupaleurope.

To recommend speakers or topics please get in touch at [email protected].

Drupal is one of the leading open source technologies empowering digital solutions in the government space around the world.

Drupal Europe 2018 brings over 2,000 creators, innovators, and users of digital technologies from all over Europe and the rest of the world together for three days of intense and inspiring interaction.

Drupal Europe will be held in Darmstadtium in Darmstadt, Germany — which has a direct connection to Frankfurt International Airport. Drupal Europe will take place 10–14 September 2018 with Drupal contribution opportunities every day. Keynotes, sessions, workshops and BoFs will be from Tuesday to Thursday.

About Drupal Sun

Drupal Sun is an Evolving Web project. It allows you to:

  • Do full-text search on all the articles in Drupal Planet (thanks to Apache Solr)
  • Facet based on tags, author, or feed
  • Flip through articles quickly (with j/k or arrow keys) to find what you're interested in
  • View the entire article text inline, or in the context of the site where it was created

See the blog post at Evolving Web

Evolving Web