DrupalCon San Francisco and beyond

Like so many shops who use Drupal, DuoConsulting is gearing up for what will be an awesome DrupalCon in San Francisco next week. We’re sending 4 people this year including Drupal Trainer – Doug Vann [me], CTO Fred Salchli, Director of Developers – Tony Rizzo, and Director of Internet Marketing – Sonny Cohen. Our sponsorship of the event provides us a table in the exhibitor area where we will be handing out hip stickers that we designed especially for DrupalCon and you can preview it here.

Sonny and I return from San Francisco and 10 days later find ourselves presenting at the 2010 CMSexpo. Last year Sonny was an attendee of my Drupal KickStart session at the CMSexpo. This year he brings his marketing prowess and salesmanship to the stage to reinforce how Drupal is a solutions provider. Together we will give the audience a very well rounded understanding of the technical and practical aspects of the role that Drupal plays in business and technology.

While the rest of May affords a breather, June picks up the slack with 4 events! The WebContent Conference is back for 2010. Two days of multi-track sessions are designed to help organizations increase the effective utilization of the web for their missions and goals. Whether you’re large or small, non-profit or for profit, Chicago based or elsewhere this event is a concentrated dose of practical wisdom from nationally known experts in their fields. Visit the WebContent2010 website to see the phenomenal speaker and topic list. As the website boldly states, “With a solid content strategy and the right platform, you’ll always deliver the right information, to the right people, at the right time.”

From there things start going South; as in South Carolina. The SouthEast LinuxFest is building on the wildly popular event they pulled off last year. A bigger venue, more speakers, and something new. This year the organizers have asked me to put on a DrupalCamp right on top of their event. On Sunday the 13th we will have two of their large meeting rooms and 6 sessions in each room. When I made this public I received an instant flood of emails of people wanting to present a session. It will be good for the Linux and Drupal communities to hang out with each other and celebrate free and open source software.

Eleven days later we move slightly up the East-coast to Washington DC for LibraryCamp-DC. It is no coincidence that we’re doing this the day before the giant national event held yearly by the American Library Association. Duo Consulting is proud to say that we built the ALA website some time ago. We have also built a number of local library sites and continue to work on others. We see the library market as a very special group who has large communication needs and often restrained budgets. We’re happy to be able to utilize Drupal with it’s low-cost implementation and rapid deployment to satisfy the needs of this very important group. We are sponsoring the camp by sending me out to speak. I’m also helping to organize the event details.

Rounded out the first half of the year we have the 2010 Chicago DrupalCamp. Playing off of last year’s HUGE success, the organizers have found a larger venue with a more central location. The details have not been announced yet, but the anticipation is high with many very excited to have the event back in to the summer months. A side note, this years Chicago DrupalCamp is, in some ways, a precursor to the 2011 DrupalCon Chicago! The same event organizers are also planning what is likely to be the largest Drupal event ever for the Spring of 2011.

While San Francisco is raising the bar for DrupalCon attendance (2674 signed up – so far!), it is widely speculated that Chicago’s Midwest location will provide an easy go-to location for people all over North America. Even some Europeans have commented that a flight to Chicago is more appealing than a flight to the West-coast. Will the record be broken? We shall see! One thing’s for sure. You will see Duo Consulting there!