This is what the Drupal Association needs

Its time for the electing the 2 members that can help the Drupal Association as they asked: … the community is asked to step in with strategic direction and new and fresh ideas through the nomination and election of at-large community representatives. In the last 6 years of hard community work ive gathered ideas & concepts that I truly belive will help the Associaition forward. Dont worry I am not gonna talk politics, Im keeping this to what the Association asked for & what the Community needs: Ideas & strategy that brings us to the next level: In a nutshell the DA need to be relevant to its members, fix the transparency issues & become an international organization.

Let me get to work & put me on the Board for the Drupal Association! the DA needs a strong voice from the community and somebody that can get shit done!
You can read the presentation of my candidature + see all kinds of questions to my concepts & ideas on the a.d.o
This is the braindump of some of the concepts, please discuss & comment - this is to importent to limit to a simple Voting for a board.

Be relevant for the community

Why would anyone become a member of the DA unless theres a good reason for it? the DA isnt “really” relevant for the Drupalistas, even that they do run servers, plans huge events(“huh does the DA runs drupal.org”) and whatever else thats not visible in the Drupalsphere - We can choose to be frustraded by that or look at how we can strengthen the connection to the community that we are so proud of. Lets get some love in between the Association & the members.

International org, easy baby!

Build an international structure, that can come in used no matter if you wanna do a local camp, find like minded, build more business, or plan a 5000 attendess Drupalcon, its all relationships and thats whats makes Drupal work: the community.

In rought sketches the organtational structure would be alittle like this:
Local -> Regional -> Continent -> World :
Local (user groups fx Copenhagen, manchester)
Country (countrys & states: Denmark, New York)
Region (scandinavia, Europe, North west pacific…)
World (Drupal Association)

local group & switchboard

When a new member signs up lets make sure they know whats goin on: a Welcome mail to the new member containing relevant info: user group’s , local contact persons date, list of upcoming events in the region etc, that will make new members feel welcome & have a place to go and geek out with other Drupalistas.

Regions

The regions is where we look at the bigger picture, what are the needs & what can be done, to strenghten that area. fx “Theme specific events”: “Drupal Developer Days”, Design Camp, Business meetup Nort england etc.
By having the DA to facilitate the events (the COD, that are running the DrupalCons today) Working with the community it layes the groundwork for Future bigger events, The regional community works together & learns eachothers strenghts & weaknesses.

Now we have an international structure, with simple communication structures, that would make even the boyscouts proud.

Drupalcon’s

Drupalcons are great events, I have said it before and will repeat it as many times it can: “Its the heartbeat of the Community” We have gone from a pure local planned events to a professional structure, lets remember what made the old events great & add that on top of the professional conferences we have now.

Drupalgangers needs some love again, we know the boyfriends, girlfriends, kids & parents are there, why did we forget them? Building on top of the Regional groups, it gets easy to figure out whos coming & communicate it out.

Afterhours hangout
DrupalCons are more than sessions + wifi + chairs!
I have learned that its not just a place we drink a beer afterwards - Its where we build the relationships, but lets not forget those of our comunity members that are not so loud, and dont have a need to party all night -make sure they are not forgotten! This isnt a thing that cost money, but it needs some planning from the local group and willingness from the Drupal Associaiton. By adding the social part back on the agenda, Its like 8 hours of more DrupalLove each day, at the cost of zero!

Drupalcamp box

The biggest issue for a DrupalCamp (besides of getting a Venue & finding a date + speakers) are those small things, that we always forgets: Name badges, Programs, posters, lanyard, Drupal Stickers, DA membership flyers. The DA should provide this to the members, call in and order the “DrupalCampBoxOfEpicAwesomeness”: 2 weeks later you have the 200 nametags, lanyards, tshirts stickers etc, there now the Camp looks supercool without having to hunt for designers & Drupal Looks good to the outside.

DrupalCamp Design & site building.

The 2md biggest issue for the camps, besides of all the points above ;) is the hosting & the Design of the campsite, there is an initiative that are working on making drupal pretty, but thats just a part of it. the DA have allready put in all the resources for the DrupalCons that are running on COD - It could be of great benefit to the local groups if that solution got shared with our local groups, shave off time for planning & make events even better.

We dont always have to invent the wheel, when initiatives in the community takes form into something great, we should not close our eyes to it, instead embrase the intiatives and make it better for us all. A HardRocking Event mapshould be easy accessible from d.o. Its simple low hanging fruit, but look at how much value it could give us!

Transparency issues

Angie @webchick asked me at the candidate page what my ideas was for making the DA transparent, its a lot of text & ideas and im sure your already tired in you head, heres a quick sum:

• Make it easy to understand what the DA does
• Make the Drupal association Board members visible
• Make the staff visible
• Set the agenda and take discussions about the hard issues in the open
• Do tell why things are as they are (ticket pries etc)

Meet the people! the DA needs better communication & listen to the community, not more Board members thats sitting in the big castle in Portland (I hope there is a castle) Its all about communication & building trust.

In a year Dude ?

This will “probably” take more than a year to complete, but that problem we can talk about in a year! or at the next camp im gonna be presenting “how & why the Drupal Association is Rocking hard” Happy Voting and lets share the ideas & movoe forward, we have all deserved a more open dialog of where we wanna see Drupal in the future, and that is from the beautiful code to the decisions that defines our culture