Why I Drank the Blue Kool-Aid

This month I celebrate one year at Digital Echidna. 

Over these past 12 months I've worked with clients exclusively on Drupal solutions. I've understood the technology and the benefits of the framework and I’ve been able to speak to its value in a sales presentation or an architecting meeting. However, I have to sheepishly admit that until last week I've never quite "gotten it." I never truly understood what the appeal was.

Until now.

I recently returned from DrupalCon 2013 in Portland, OR. It's a week-long event dedicated to all things Drupal. All day, every day – Drupal, Drupal, Drupal. Business streams, code streams, project management streams, the future of Drupal, the strengths of it, and, surprisingly so, the weaknesses of it. I watched a keynote from Dries Buytaert, the creator of the technology framework, during which at one point he ripped apart Drupal.org and illustrated all the weaknesses of its design. In front of 3,500 people Dries publicly bashed his own site to point out ways it can be improved.

At that moment I started to understand what makes Drupal great.

It’s the Drupal community's willingness to point out its own flaws and the vigor with which it tries to improve upon them. Throughout the rest of the conference I attended a great number of sessions and was continually impressed by how open and honest the community was. Competitors openly discussed their sales and development processes. Never before have I seen a room full of competing companies trying to help each other improve -- all to drive their framework of choice forward.

It was amazing.

This is why I get it now and why I’ve become a true fan of Drupal. It’s why I now understand the rapid and continuous growth of this framework and why I'm excited for the future of Drupal, and the solutions I can offer my current and future clients. Most importantly I understand the passion and the drive of the Drupal community.

And this is why I drank the blue Kool-Aid.