Six of our team have come over to Lille in France where the annual Drupal conference for Europe is this year. It’s a new experience for some and a chance to reconnect with friends in the community for others. We’re all here to learn, and also share where we can. I’ll talk here about the first main keynote sessions, with more articles in the pipeline.

Tuesday opened the conference with a comical introduction from the local French Drupal association, in which we were taught which part of a baguette is «le quignon» and which is «les miettes». They – the association, not the baguette parts! – seem a great example of how Drupal’s success relies on local communities as much as the global community. That human aspect to this conference was also obvious as we celebrated the Women in Drupal awards. None of the big sessions in the main auditorium have been very techy so far, but that’s good! It’s been much more about inspiring us, building our understanding of ourselves and Drupal’s place in the world.

Drupal’s founder, Dries Buytaert gave his keynote in the form of a fairy tale, using a metaphor of villagers trying to build their homes - with many puns! It helped us remember Drupal’s strengths and recognise how it stands in contrast to some other similar solutions. As with all of the sessions, recordings will be available online - this one is worth finding the slides or a video to see the story’s pictures! 

Information overload can be a risk at Drupalcons so we skipped Wednesday’s first keynote which was a case study into some specific brands’ Drupal projects, but the day’s second keynote was interesting. Sarah Furness, a former military helicopter pilot, advised us about how to lead fearlessly - recognising we’re all humans who make mistakes, but that ‘going first’ to share those can actually be the best way to lead. Again - nothing techy at all, but inspiring advice from a new perspective, worth taking in. Though in all honesty I’m glad my job doesn’t involve the level of pressures and costs like hers did.

I’ll be back with more tomorrow on our favourite smaller sessions so far. For now, see how pretty parts of Lille can be at night? Much prettier than most of us ;-)