A different kind of Drupal event: Drupal Discovery Day Brighton 2011

Monday, 3rd October 2011A different kind of Drupal event: Drupal Discovery Day Brighton 2011

September saw the first ever Brighton Digital Festival which encompassed a number of events and conferences including dConstruct, Brighton Mini Maker Faire, WP-Brighton, and our very own Drupal Discovery Day!

After three years of running our local Brighton Drupal Users Group I thought the festival would be an ideal opportunity to show off some of the great work we've been doing here in Brighton and grow our local Drupal community. Although Brighton is well known for its high concentration of digital media companies (WiredSussex boasts over 2,300 companies and freelancers amongst its membership), Drupal adoption is still relatively small - which amazes me when I think of how much more collaboration and innovation we could be doing on if we were working on a common platform and speaking the same language rather than reinventing the wheel every time someone wants something generic - after all, no-one's asked me for rocket science in the last ten years of website building!

I didn't think the community at its current stage was ready for either a Drupal Business Summit or a DrupalCamp (although the latter is high on my list of future events!) so I decided to create a mix of the two and provide a Hello Drupal! workshop in the morning and a business-focused Discover Drupal conference in the afternoon. The day went fantastic and we trained over 30 people in the morning and over 40 attended our afternoon conference, which culminated in a panel discussion on "The Business Advantage of Drupal" (as well as video you can also listen to the panel discussion as a podcast). I was also lucky enough to win one of the very first Drupal Association Cultivation Grants just before the event to help create some marketing material and we ended up making a short film about "What is Drupal?" which has been greatly received by the Drupal community and we hope to make a few more very soon!

What impressed me most of all was the many different backgrounds of the attendees and the sheer number of conversations which were sparked off during break times and at the bar after the day had finished. For me, the best software has always been that which is created through discussion between end users and the people who can code; and when it can be done locally even the better. Everyone has slightly different needs and although generic software provides a great base to work from, the 'last mile' is highly important, and only truly free software can provide us with the freedom and ability to do that. Even in the CMS world when I look around at systems other than Drupal I don't see the levels of communication and innovation in their communities as many of the other systems see modules as an 'end point' - i.e. made by one person, charged for, etc. as opposed to building blocks as Drupal does. This is a significant difference, but this particular blog post is not the right place to start explaining that one so I'll leave that for another time...

A big thanks to all who came along on the day and to those involved with the event, many who also provided sponsorship (White Hat Media, blue-bag, i-KOS, halfmesh, miggle, Sereno, and Acquia who gave all attendees a year's free DevCloud hosting); and to the wonderful Lighthouse who's venue provided the perfect setting for the event - even though the wifi was a little ropey!

Now the event is out of the way I'm focusing on building my training business helping teams get up-to-speed on code-driven Drupal app development whilst also thinking about what event to plan next... a DrupalCamp perhaps? It's been a while since we had one in the UK!

Here's some pics and a list of the videos from the day:

Acquia's Jakub Suchy providing the Hello Drupal! workshop

Many people learning Drupal!

14:15-14:30 Welcome to Discover Drupal - Steve Purkiss, purkiss ltd.

A brief introduction to the event from Drupal Consultant, Trainer, and founder of the Brighton Area Drupal Association, Steve Purkiss.

Video: http://bit.ly/dddbrighton-welcome

14:30-14:50 Drupal is Scalabe: From a single-page blog to the world's biggest sites, Drupal does it all! - Guy Schneerson, Blue-bag

With modules covering Content Management, Commerce, and Collaboration, Guy shows how easy it is to do much more than just blogging with Drupal.

Video: http://bit.ly/dddbrighton-scalability

14:50-15:20 E-commerce Made Easy with Drupal Commerce - Richard Jones, i-KOS

Drupal Commerce is a lean and mean open source e-commerce framework built on Drupal 7. Use it to build flexible and highly customisable websites based on the best platform for social commerce.

Video: http://bit.ly/dddbrighton-easy-ecommerce

15:20-15:30 Exploiting Drupal Distributions - Steve Purkiss, purkiss ltd.

  • Overview of popular Drupal Distributions
    • OpenAtrium - Intranet in a Box
    • COD - the Conference Organising Distribution
    • OpenPublish - News & Online Magazine Publishing
  • Web design & development companies - leverage your own distribution!

Video: http://bit.ly/dddbrighton-exploiting-distributions

15:30-16:00 Afternoon Break

16:00-16:30 Introducing Acquia Professional Services and the Acquia Commons Social Network Drupal distribution - Jakub Suchy, Director, Professional Services Europe, Acquia Inc.

Acquia is a private, fast-growth company supporting enterprises that use the free and open-source content-management system Drupal. Co-founded by Drupal's creator Dries Buytaert in 2007, Acquia recently won a fourth funding round of $15m to help drive the adoption of Drupal.

Acquia Commons is the open social business software that has everything you want - collaboration, community, and more - at a surprisingly low total cost. Increase engagement and productivity immediately. Whether your community is public or private, Commons does it.

Video: http://bit.ly/dddbrighton-acquia-commons

16:30-17:30 Brighton Area Drupal Association Site Showcase

Take a peek at some amazing Drupal sites built by local companies in this lightning showcase session.

Presenters:

17:30-18:00 Panel Discussion - The Business Advantage of Drupal

Panel:

Video: http://bit.ly/dddbrighton-panel-biz-advantage-drupal

tags: Drupal PlanetdrupalbrightonDrupal Discovery Dayeventconferenceworkshop

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