Anyone even remotely connected to the Drupal community knows how special DrupalCon is. The community, code sprints, co-mingling of ideas, and, of course, coffee. Thousands of people from around the world getting together – in Austin, no less – to share, learn, and have fun. Eleven of us went to Austin this year, and now we've had some quality time to reflect, we wanted to share our thoughts and experiences.

Kelsey Bentham

I had a couple of goals going into DrupalCon I wanted to learn some new things, meet some new people, and eat some Tex-Mex – boy, did I accomplish those goals. I am now even more excited about Drupal 8 than I was when I left, and I was pretty excited about it before. I have also learned a lot about how this community functions and continues to grow.

I have to admit, I was a little apprehensive about going to my first big tech conference; thankfully all my worries were for nought. I met some amazing people, and had some great discussions about what people in the community are doing and how they are doing it. I thank you all for making this a wonderful experience. Just so you know I plan on using all of your knowledge and experience to enhance my own. As for the Tex-Mex, it is something I will never eat again outside of Texas.

Tom Jones

Going into DrupalCon, I was excited for the opportunity to learn and exchange ideas with others in the Drupal community – plus catching up with a few clients. And, yes, indulging in Austin’s local culinary adventures.

Being my first DrupalCon, I was impressed by the veterans welcoming new folks. Drupal is truly an inclusive community, and gratitude is the one contribution we can all make going forward, even if you never commit a line of code.

The highlight of the week, and what made the greatest impression on me was spending time with our clients. We employ an integrated approach on projects, and our clients really become part of the team. Seeing them at DrupalCon was really like catching up with old friends.

We know our clients are great, but having the opportunity to observe them at DrupalCon gave me an entirely new perspective. It was inspiring to see their passion first-hand, and how they are using Drupal to achieve their mission. Whether higher education, publishing or medical, our clients are purpose-driven, and it is incredibly gratifying to “empower and enable” them each and every day.

Ryan Wagner

Having been to many Drupal Camps around the east coast, I was incredibly excited to finally attend my first DrupalCon. Being surrounded by so many other people who had come together to learn, share, and talk about something so positive was an excellent experience. My stated goals at the outset were to meet good people, learn new things, and indulge in some local cuisine; I would say that my goals were met or exceeded in all respects. Addendum: Any dietician would likely lift eyebrows at how enthusiastically I tackled the last goal.

Aside from excess amounts of food, I borrowed from DrupalCon an incredible amount of new knowledge and a fresh appreciation for how many people contribute so much time and effort into the Drupal project. With the help of the mentors, I’m now proud to say that I’ve started down the path of my own (small for now) contributions towards the project, and I’m hopeful to make many more.

Steve Persch

I try to focus my Drupalcon experience around catching up on the latest big ideas in the community, and then getting small concrete progress on those ideas. This year that meant working on pull requests to the the Drupal Media team's Entity Embed module after seeing two core conversations that referenced it. Jeff Eaton's Battle for the Body Field Core Conversation highlighted the need to separate the storing and rendering of transcluded data. Dave Reid and Janez Urevc talked about how Entity Embed would be the module in Drupal 8 to carry that idea forward. You, too, can dive in here: https://github.com/drupal-media/entity_embed

George DeMet

While I didn’t get a chance to attend too many sessions at this DrupalCon, I spent a lot time doing Drupal community work for both the Drupal.org Content Working Group and the Drupal Community Working Group.

The Content Working Group and user experience coach Whitney Hess kicked off user research that will inform a revamp of Drupal.org next year. This is a really exciting project intended to help draw new audiences to Drupal, as well as improve the experience for existing users of the site. Look forward to hearing more in the months between now and DrupalCon Amsterdam.

The Community Working Group is responsible for helping to uphold the Drupal Code of Conduct and maintaining a friendly and welcoming community for the Drupal project. In Austin, we approved a conflict resolution policy designed to put process around conflicts that might arise within the community and cannot be easily resolved by the affected parties.

Erynn Petersen’s keynote which made a strong case for the role of diversity in healthy and productive communities, was one particular highlight of the conference for me. While Drupal has a more diverse community than many others in the tech industry, we still have room for improvement. I’m hopeful that the work that both the Content and Community Working Groups are doing will ultimately help to make the Drupal community a more welcoming place for everyone.

Ken Rickard

I spent my time in the DrupalCon “hallway track” having conversations, introducing people and making connections. There were two things that stood out to me: 1) the folks who have been going to DrupalCon for a long time (this was my 15th) really try to reach out to newcomers, and I think this should be an area of focus. Hat tip to Andrea Soper for leading mentorship sprints designed to onboard new developers. 2) There was a sizable Latin American presence at the conference, the first time I’ve really noticed that. I met people from Columbia, Argentina, Bolivia, Costa Rica, and Mexico; and they are all very excited about DrupalCON Bogota next year, and that enthusiasm is spreading.

I also have two main highlights: 1) Inigo San Gil’s performance at the DEIMS session. He was fabulous, and he really nailed the importance of the project and reinforced why we took it on. 2) After a week of convincing, I did finally ride the mechanical bull.

I also had numerous great conversations with people at the booth, centered around the question “What can we do to help make you successful?” I talked to large and small companies, non-profits, schools, libraries, and hospitals and the topic was the same from each: We’re undertaking something new and we need it to be great. We think Drupal can do that for us, and we need someone who can help us realize its potential.

Shawn Smith

With it being my first DrupalCon, I didn’t quite know what to expect from the show or the community at-large. Granted, I had heard many amazing things about the Drupal community since so many Palantiri are so deeply rooted in it, but first-hand experience is always different, regardless of expectations. What a joy all around! The entire atmosphere was welcoming, interesting, fun, and so much more. The show itself was relaxed yet specific. Often at traditional trade shows, there’s a lot of awkward, fluffy networking that leads nowhere. DrupalCon was different. There were no hard sells. Nothing came off as slimy or smarmy. Just good people, good conversation, and good feelings. If I were to pick a singular experience as a highlight, it’d be Trivia Night. Ken suggested I be a runner, and I’m so glad I accepted that role. Met a lot of nice folks, learned more about Drupal, and had a lot of laughs. Thanks for an amazing first impression!

Chris Zietlow

While I’ve been to many local and regional Drupal Camps, Austin was first time attending a Con. I boarded my plane with the expectation that a DrupalCon is just a Drupal Camp turned to 11. Austin was far beyond my expectations of 11. I was hoping to spend a lot of time in sessions, talking to some of the community elites, and generally absorbing as much knowledge as I could. What I couldn’t begin to image was the scale and amount of awesome of the Drupal community. It was thrilling to experience that in person, rather than via forum posts or IRC.

I’ve read the attendance numbers for previous cons and have even seen the infamous group pictures with thousands of people, but wasn’t expecting to feel as welcomed as I was around every corner. In many other open source communities, it’s easy to become just a number and hide in the background, especially as they grow and scale. While I may have been attendee #533, the entire time I was there I felt like an integral part of Drupal. Come for the community, stay for the code as they say.

This has me even more excited for Drupal 8. I’ve been excited by the new architecture, and technical debt that’s being cleaned up, but now I’m waiting to see where our amazing community can take the newest version of Drupal.