On Tuesday of this week, the Western New York Drupal User Group had its first meeting at Medaille College. WNYDUG member Joe Flateau made all of those arrangements and is a rockstar, indeed. We had sixteen people at the meeting - twelve in the room, four online/dialed-in - and man was it a good time. I won't bother with a blow-by-blow (that's available online already), but do have some observations about the local community that bolster my excitement about the WNYDUG and Drupal in general.
THE WOODWORK
I was totally impressed with the turnout, and hope everybody felt good about coming out, too. But outreach hasn't really begun yet. Sure, I started the Western New York group on g.d.o, started the Facebook group, opened the LinkedIn group, curate @wnydrupal on twitter, and attend other local user groups in part to promote the WNYDUG. Those are mostly passive actions. But there are lots of universities, libraries, non-profits, and at least two large businesses in our area that have adopted Drupal wholeheartedly. We need to reach these folks. Can you help?
MERGE, BABY, MERGE.
The much older Rochester, NY group on groups.drupal.org ("g.d.o") is merging into the Western New York group that I started in August 2009. Mostly because of momentum and, well, there's a lot of activity in the WNY group now, including folks from Rochester committed to driving and calling in for the meetings. As a result, we'll probably split meetings between the cities and venture into an "online only" version at some point if venues become a problem. I really like the physical meetings, though -- I think it's important to put names with faces, enriching that online component.
MOTIVATIONS
My motivations in starting the group in the first place were to encourage the adoption of Drupal locally and to find my local peers. It was a lonely time for me, working from home 90% of the time while under the employ of BuildingGreen (based in VT). Starting my own Drupal firm this year, Fending Group, I added a few motivators to that list. First, I *really* want to see Drupal adoption now - I do not want to keep traveling for engagement meetings like I am; instead, I wish to handle most local meetings personally and have my consultants do a bit more of the remote meetings once an engagement has begun. Second, I want to see more local Drupal talent, and I want to help that talent develop. I will in no way limit my use of the primary five (and growing!) ninjas that consult on FG projects, but they're spread among every time zone in the United States. Sometimes, you need to sit in the same room to do collaborative product development. Yeah, I said it. Lastly, if I lose a bid for work, I want it to be to a firm that knows what it's doing. Raising awareness that Drupal is its own specialty, and that not every professional services firm can develop (well) in it, is important to the future of Drupal adoption. We all want strong implementations, and weak one open the door to competing solutions which, well, aren't as good in the long term. In support of this, I want a lot more Drupal firms and independent consultants around me - FG cannot (and will never!) take every project that comes its way. The WNYDUG is a step in that direction.
RECOGNITION
Obviously, I need to thank the totally awesome Joe Flateau (who I understand is a big fan of The Drupal Song :) for coordinating the first meeting with me. This was huge. Back in March of this year, I met up with videographer John Weiksnar at Spot Coffee, just talking about multisite, Drupal 7, and his projects. A total novice, he dove straight into Drupal 7 to build his next-generation website platform for marketing and commerce. D7's not even out of alpha release yet! This was inspiring to me, and a big part of why I took further initiative to get the meetings going. So thanks, John.
NEXT TIME
The next meeting is tentative for mid-June, but we need a venue. Do you have one? There have been a couple of suggestions, and we'll be augmenting A/V support by about 20X for next time. Please take a second to get involved, and learn how other locals are using Drupal in awesome ways.
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