Committing to Drupal Excellence

Last week, at the TechAlliance of Southwestern Ontario awards celebration, we proudly watched as our very own Scott Reeves accepted the inaugural Techcellence Award for IT Professionalism (we posted the pictures here).

Sponsored by the Canadian Information Processing Society, Ontario (CIPS), this award is designed to recognize the importance of promoting ethical and professional behaviour in the information technology sector.

And we can think of no better honoree.

We nominated Scott for the award based on his leadership in the local community and commitment to helping the next generation of developers learn about the Drupal Content Management System. It's something that's close to our heart, because we have spent years building ourselves up to the point where we consider ourselves the premiere Drupal development firm in southwestern Ontario.

We've been devoted to Drupal for years now. And we're delighted that many of our colleagues in the community have come on board. As a powerful, open-source technology, Drupal just makes sense as a premier solution for our clients.

At Digital Echidna, we tend to speak softly. But when it comes to Drupal, we carry a big stick – a walking stick – because we believe it's more important to walk that Drupal walk than just talk the talk.

So how Drupal-y are we?

• Since 2009 we have been committed to developing exclusively on the Drupal content management framework. While we are well versed in other programming languages, time and time again we've seen how valuable Drupal is, from convenience for the non-technical end user to powerful and secure functionality for enterprise-level clients.
• We support local Drupal growth. Scott and I are co-organizers of the London Drupal User's Group (LonDUG). Alternating between core development sprints (more specialized) and general education and mentoring (training for all), we're committed to helping London grow as a hub for Web development. We've received some great support from our cohorts in the industry and we fully expect London to continue to grow and flourish in this industry.
• We had two staff members do presentations at the Ohio Drupal Camp;
• We dedicate time each week for our staff members to contribute to Drupal initiatives. This can range from contributing bug patches, reports, support forums, documentation, and testing.

We mentioned the Ohio Drupal Camp above, but that's just one of many events that we've been a part of. We are internationally known and have proudly flown the Forest City's banner at the following events:

• Drupal Business Summit New York (June 2012) – sponsor;
• Drupal Business Summit Chicago (June 2012) – sponsor;
• Drupal Business Summit Toronto (May 2012) – sponsor;
• Drupal Camp Toronto (November 2012) – sponsor;
• Drupal Camp Ohio (November 2012) – sponsor;
• Drupal Camp Atlanta (October 2012) – participant;
• DrupalCon Chicago (March 2011) – participant;
• DrupalCon Denver (March 2012) – participant;
• DrupalCon Portland (May 2013) – sponsor;
• DrupalCon Prague (September 2013) – participant; and
• DrupalCon Austin (to come June 2014) – sponsor.

As you can see, these are more than just a few (Drupal) drops in the bucket. We believe in this system, our clients see results, and we're proud of the talent we have that continues to contribute to his amazing open-source community.

We're not big talkers – it's not in our nature. But we are big walkers and we're proud of the strides Digital Echidna has made in helping put London on the map for Drupal development in North America.

And we know this is just the start of our journey. We're confident and excited to see where the future takes us.