Drupalcon Denver: Blood, Sweat and Fears

Here, I've informally taken on the role of documenting the organizational and people-oriented side of putting on a Drupalcon, specifically Drupalcon Denver. I didn't write last week as, well, things were up in the air.

From what I understand, every Drupalcon has at least one point in the process where there is a divergence of opinion (I'm trying to be as nice as I can here) and the process is thrown into disarray. I will not air any of our dirty laundry here, but the genesis of most of our problems is that the entire Drupalcon Denver team is extremely passionate about putting on the best event possible. Sometimes, the concept of what is "best" is not shared by everyone. Frankly, I could be talking about contributing code to an open source project.

Although online tools serve us all very well, there are just times that nothing will substitute for getting together face to face. Many thanks to Neil Kent from the Drupal Association on flying out from Atlanta to talk this out at a dinner in Denver. However, Neil, next time, could you please pick a time that would not require that we drive back late at night during an early season snowstorm?

So, what did we learn?

Communications is hard. Even though the Colorado Drupal community has worked together to put on Drupalcamp Colorado, we've pulled in more volunteers, the Drupal Association is involved and we all prefer different ways of communicating. Without going into details, everyone is now going out of their way to communicate issues and reach out more than ever before. As this is so difficult with volunteers trying to make a living at their day job, I'm sure we will slip again in the near future.

No one has the silver bullet. Each Drupalcon is different. Yet, with our global track chairs and the Drupal Association personnel, we are trying to learn the best ways to put on a Drupalcon without falling into the same holes as the past. Some decisions translate perfectly from one Drupalcon to the next... From one group of volunteer organizers to the next... Some don't.

Work. In my other blog posts, I enthusiastically encouraged you to volunteer to help put on a Drupalcon if you have the opportunity. I still recommend it, but be aware that certain leadership roles can really consume your time. At Monarch, we use Harvest to track our time. I don't really break out my time between Drupalcon and organizing the Southern Colorado User Group, but I've spent 219 hours so far this year working on these two projects. I couldn't do this without my great staff at Monarch. (Thanks James and Bryan.) Things can obviously get tense when business appears to be suffering while Drupalcon tasks are demanding attention. Would I do it again? You bet!

We learned much more than just this. But I feel that our group has grown and I hope that the next Drupalcon volunteers will not have the problems we encountered. They will have their own issues. We are all continuing to learn and grow. The "All I Needed to Know, I Learned in Kindergarten" rules apply here: Share, play fair, don't hit... We are the Drupal community.

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