Wrapping Up Drupal North

Last week at this time, most of Digital Echidna's staff were en route to (or already at) the Drupal North Regional Summit. It was a first-of-its kind event north of the 49th and a great opportunity for people to learn more about the Drupal Content Management System -- especially in light of the upcoming release of Drupal 8.

I've been involved with Drupal for a long time now and it was exciting to see so many people coming together, sharing information, and learning from each other. As you've likely heard (especially if you're reading this blog), Digital Echidna is all-in on Drupal -- and for what I believe are very good reasons.

As a diamond sponsor, we were proud to play a role in kicking off this event and I wanted to take a few moments to share some of what you missed if you weren't able to attend.

Multiple Languages, Multiple Passports

As a Canadian event, it was important to encourage people from all across the region to join. That's why it was so amazing to see that there were sessions in both official languages available for attendees. We had participants arrive from throughout Ontario, Quebec, and even New York State. And we were honoured to have a presenter from the United Kingdom on hand as well.

8th Time's the Charm

Drupal has been around for a long time, but as an open-source CMS, it's always changing and updating. The community of developers who support Drupal through sprints, patches, and fixes -- some of whom were in attendance at this event -- are readying themselves for the upcoming launch of a major update: Drupal 8.

As with any big launch, there's going to be some questions, excitements, and maybe even nerves. At Drupal North we talked about some key updates and configurations to Drupal 8 in regards to theming, site building, mobile development, and configuration management.

Headless Drupal

You don't need to reinvent the wheel with Drupal. One of the key themes that came out of Drupal North was Drupal's flexibility, particularly in regards to using Drupal to power sites that have been built using other front-end technologies.

As a developer (and in a business built on Drupal offerings), it's exciting to reinforce the message that a switch to Drupal -- and all if it's advantages -- doesn't mean you have to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Many companies are reticent about a wholesale CMS change simply because they're worried it's going to be exorbitant, but messaging like this can help assuage those fears.

Adaptive Content

We've talked about it on the blog. Drupal's founder Dries has spoken about it frequently. And the message was reinforced at the summit: the future of Internet commerce isn't about pulling customers to your site, but rather delivering content that's attuned to be relevant to the user's needs.

One of the key buzzworthy statements you'll hear from time to time is that the website is dead. That's not really the case and it's a little simplistic. What's more true is that the way in which people are interacting with information is changing. They're expecting relevant information to be delivered to them -- on their phone, on their laptop, or on any number of devices.

Of course, with that shift comes a number of technological challenges, which we need to weigh carefully in our development.

And More!

There were also some interesting themes coming out of the summit that were not specifically focused on development. For example, there were some great discussions on Drupal teams: how to build them, how to manage them, how to deal with conflicts, and advice on project managing Drupal teams.

Finally, the last day we were able to roll up our sleeves and get to work, courtesy of a Drupal 8 Core Sprint. Again, Drupal's open source and requires the time, attention, and dedication of its users to grow and develop. So the summit was home to a sprint -- a community effort to get Drupal 8 ready for release. And we were thrilled to have four Echidnas participating in the event.

Echidna was well represented all week. From our red hockey jerseys dominating the floor, to people playing road hockey (and taking home a few stuffed echidnas), to presenting to the crowds, we were really excited about the opening event.

Sure, there were a couple of hiccoughs (especially with AV), but that's to be expected from a first-time event. Overall, the summit went off pretty smoothly and I hope you'll join us at future events.