Another common theme is to see DrupalCamps occur on a college campus. Vanderbilt University Owen School of Business will play host to DrupalCamp Nashville. Details at http://drupalcampnashville.com

I’m flying out Friday and having dinner with event organizer Jamie Meredith. Jamie heads up the local Drupal Users Group and runs a Drupal development firm named TMG Studio. Jamie has put together what will surely be an excellent first time out for all of the Tennessee Drupalers willing to make the trip to the Country Music Capital of the World!

Enter the BakerTweet … it’s a communication platform, purpose built to tweet canned messages at the twist of a dial and push of a button as the cookies come out of the oven! Think of it as a content management system in a box. Though currently a proprietary piece of hardware, it is built upon open source hardware components (Arduino). Messages are managed from a central location via the Django CMS framework. There’s a lot of goodness baked inside. Expect to see network enabled devices popping up in a neighborhood near you soon!

Doug Vann and Brandon Morrison have submitted a total of 6 sessions for this year’s DrupalCon and, if you’re registered on SF2010.Drupal.org (free to register), it would be great if you would visit the site and vote for these presentations. DrupalCon presentations are determined by popular vote among those registered on SF2010.Drupal.org:

Doug Vann has four presentation proposals:

• This years DrupalCon is featuring a much needed Beginner Track. Learn the basics, the terminology, and build a quick and easy blog site by attending: Beginning Drupal
• After that it’s a natural progression to learn what you need to know about CCK in: CCK Demystified
• Doug Vann is teaming up with Rain Brew to deliver a double dose of Views:  Views Demystified ONE and Views Demystified TWO
• Taking a breather from the beginner track, you can jump in the deep end and spend some time getting familiar with the Linux Command Line! Get off of FTP and your web hosts chintzy control panel and do things quicker and more easily by attending: Linux Commands for Drupalers

Brandon Morrison will be presenting:

• Tips and Tricks to Incorporate Flash with Drupal for Flash developers wanting to dip their toes into Drupal
• Painting Legos – Creating Project Specific UI’s on Top of Prebuilt Modules That Won’t Make Your Clients Scream is for developers wanting to add value to their projects by giving their clients a better user interface.

You can catch Sonny Cohen at our exhibit in the exhibition hall and pick up one of our swanky Duo Consulting San Francisco DrupalCon stickers!

Please look at the presentation offerings from our team and V-O-T-E by March 1.

This DrupalCamp had 3 tracks; a beginners, an intermediate, and special topics. I presented an intro CCK (Content Construction Kit) session in the beginner track and an advanced VIEWS session in the intermediate track. The special session track had longer sessions that were rather advanced. The only one I made it to was a demonstration of GIT; a software version control system that gaining a lot of attention and momentum these days. It’s pretty much been decided that the CVS repository of Drupal Core and Contributed Modules is switching to GIT very soon.

For my advanced Views session I showed off the glorious yet complicated Views that Duo created for the Leonard.com law firm project. Michael Porter, and Rose Miller, and I had the task of creating content types with large numbers of related fields in them. After that, we had to create views that would take advantage of these relationships and show related data on very specific pages. We accomplished this through the heavy use of the ViewField module and very heavy use of Argument and Relationships in the Views settings. Going in, I knew the topic was very meaty and would be complicated to grasp. I stressed the point that the videos would be available soon, and they could re-re-re-watch the parts that didn’t make sense the 1^st time.

My basic CCK session was a hit! I’ve never done it in 30 minutes before, but still, I saw the “Aha!” on most faces as I went through it. For this session we created a Job Posting content type and added two fields to it; one for salary and the other to indicate to whom the applicant would be reporting.  One thing that is always fun to explain to the uninitiated is that you use CCK to create the content-type of Job, then once that’s done, users can use the content type to add content to the site. It’s an important distinction that needs to be understood.

Duo Consulting was among the sponsors of DrupalCamp Orlando – as well as sponsoring my trip.  Thanks to all the sponsors, each event attendee paid only $5 for the camp. And that ain’t all. They also received a free camp t-shirt, a swag bag, and super yummy lunch from Tijuana Flats which originated in Orlando. (Note: My home in Indianapolis is 4 miles from the only one in Indiana!)

Lastly, an old familiar friend showed up at the camp – the Drupal Song! Written by Lullabot cofounder Jeff Robbins in 2007, the Drupal Song is a simple jingle that has inspired many a musically inclined Drupaler to break out in song at various Drupal events. Watch  me ending vocals while Florida local Vernon plucks his ukulele only moments after I taught him the tune!

The install process is a little different; maybe even a little friendlier.  Here’s a quick rundown. Users needing to install Drupal in other languages will enjoy the information provided at time of install. Drupal can now be installed with either STANDARD or MINIMAL default functionality enabled. The database options include the usual Mysql and PostgreSQL and a new one; SQLite.  If you’ve installed Drupal before, you will not be surprised by the familiar notice that you have to copy the default-settings.php to continue the install. After you enter the information needed for the install you now get to see a busy screen indicating what’s going on behind the scenes as Drupal installs itself. That’s kind of fun, for geeks like me!

We’re used to seeing some basic configuration options after successfully installing Drupal. Some of the new settings I found were Default Country, and an option to receive email notifications about updates to “installed components.” I presume this means that if core OR contrib. modules have updates, I will receive an email to the address entered earlier in this form. That is quite handy!

Another new development is the new Welcome Page. Drupalers have LONG complained that the welcome screen of a fresh Drupal install is a DEAD-END where many a curious soul say, “Huh? Now what do I do?” then slink off and say that they “Tried Drupal once but didn’t care for it.” Well. That has changed in Drupal 7!

Across the top is a new set of menu options consisting of Dashboard, Content, Structure, Appearance, People, Modules, Configuration, Reports, and a very handy option named Help.

In the main content area the big welcome message has been replaced with a notice that “No front page content has been created yet.” Below that are 2 links; Add New Content, and Change The Default Front Page. The closest thing you will find to the old Administration menu is the left sidebar link labeled “Administer.”

It’s also important to note that selecting any option opens up a modal box which is similar to a lightbox popup. Subsequent interaction with that box keeps your original page open in the background until you close the modal box.

Installing contribute modules is new and fun! (Here’s where I get excited!) OK. We finally have what many other web apps have enjoyed for quite some time. Now you can just copy the URL (web address) of the module or theme you want to install and paste it into the Drupal interface and install the module! If need be you can point to a local file and install the module from there as well. This means no more using FTP (File Transfer Protocol) to get modules and themes FROM the Drupal.org site TO your computer then UP TO the web server. This is much much faster and will be among the bigger crowd pleasing features of Drupal7!

In conclusion, I simply installed it and looked around. I didn’t create any content or go too deep into configuration. I just wanted to see what 1st time seekers will find. I believe whole-heartedly that Drupal7 will destroy many of the barriers to entry that have turned off so many developers, designers, and users. Those of us who are already savvy will take advantage of the User Interface improvements to give our clients a more intuitive means of managing their own sites. I for one look forward to updating all my future presentations to show off the amazing progress that is evident in Drupal7!

Distinguished Presenters
There will be many fine Drupal experts presenting at this event. We’ll mention a few and here’s a list of all the presenters. Damien McKenna has launched a number of Drupal sites for various Bonnier Corporation’s publications. Ryan Price and Michael Anello, of DrupalEasy.com and the DrupalEasy Podcast are bringing their flare. Christopher Mitchell will be coming to work on his day off. Chris works for MindComet, who was gracious enough to share their facility for the DrupalCamp. Don VanDemark is a Delivery Executive for IBM who uses Drupal for personal projects such as open-stats.org.

Sold Out!
The 150 limit for attendees was reached pretty early. Yet another Drupal Camp growing out of control! Those who registered in time will walk away with more of the tools they need to develop their personal and company projects or land a job with a Drupal shop. Those who stick around to build the site for Junior Achievement of Orlando will get to put their new skills to work!

As usual, I’m pumped and privileged to be part of this DrupalCamp and Duo’s continued support as both a sponsor as well as sending me.

This year day two of Florida DrupalCamp will feature Code for a Cause, a common element among DrupalCamps across North America. Code for a Cause is an opportunity for camp attendees to build a complete website while they attend the camp. A number of not for profit organizations have submitted requests to be considered for the one day, group-coding event. Drupal is a popular platform for nonprofits due to its zero cost entry and robust training environment.

Duo Consulting is among the many sponsors who are making the camp possible. The fee for attendees is a meager $5.00 for which attendees will receive the one-day multi-track instruction and the second-day Code for a Cause. Lunches and snacks are provided for both days.

A Word About DrupalCamps
Over the past few years the Drupal community is witnessing smaller Drupal camps return and occupy larger facilities. Such is the case in Orlando. At the same time cities that have never had a Camp embark upon their first. For example, Atlanta DrupalCamp 2009 was an excellent showing for an inaugural camp. Last year’s Chicago DrupalCamp saw packed rooms and some attendees missing out on their preferred session when the aisles and doors were crowded with attendees trying to catch the session (Adjustments have been made for 2010 Chicago DrupalCamp.) The Drupal community is growing and this is never more evident than at these events that draw people in from around the country. For now, we’re looking forward to the Florida DrupalCamp, which strikes me as a great place to spend a few days in February.

As interesting as San Francisco DrupalCon promises to be, it is only one, albeit the main event, among a lot of Drupal conference activity in the U.S. and the rest of the world. Here’s a quick rundown of some of the regional activities in which Duo is directly involved:

Florida Drupal Camp is right around the corner, February 20 & 21 in Altamonte Springs, Florida. This second year conference features Coding for a Cause where volunteers among attendees will collaborate to develop a Drupal website for a not-for-profit organization.

Nashville Drupalers is planning their one-day Drupal Camp on March 13.

The roving big daddy of Drupal events, DrupalCon, is in San Francisco this year, April 19 – 21. We’re sending a team to participate. Both Doug Vann and Brandon Morrison have submitted proposals to do presentations. Additionally we’re an event sponsor so we’ll have an exhibit and, yeah, probably stickers!

Duo will be running its 4^th annual Web Content Conference June 7 & 8. This year’s new twist includes a pre-conference ½ day Drupal symposium. The focus of this event is not-for-profit and government organizations as well as small businesses.

The Southeast Linux Fest (SELF) takes place June 19 & 20. To the organizer’s credit (Duo is not the event organizer) the event is fully sponsored and being held for FREE.  Duo Consulting was invited to produce a Drupal Camp in concert with SELF.  We are beginning to fill the presenter roster.

CMSExpo returns to Evanston, IL May 3 – 5 and will have its Drupal track.

There’s a certain breathless aura to all the events being planned. This is fueled in part by the much anticipated release of Drupal version 7.x.  The excitement is well-placed as it reflects improved functionality that is being incorporated into progressive websites. We’re looking forward to being a part of it and we hope you are, too.

Is this Conference Legit?

My first concern was the integrity of the conference organizer.  Company produced conferences might often be viewed by internal staff as shooting fish in a barrel. With all those live one’s in a room it’s hard to resist the temptation to reel in as many as possible. While Avvo CEO Mark Britton opened and closed the conference, he served as effective conference bookends and actually had something of value to say. Although sales staff silently trolled, they mostly stayed busy helping to manage event logistics.

About the Attending Lawyers

The event was attended by  about 200 lawyers including some bar association types and a very small smattering of legal marketing consultants. Lawyers were mostly small boutique firms liberally represented by plaintiff and consumer law. Although Perkins and Coie was an event sponsor, I didn’t meet any others from BigLaw.

Attending lawyers were largely media and technology savvy. Off-topic conversations included discussions of office efficiency and personal productivity. As a group they had crossed the chasm. Few were questioning the social media proposition as much as they were working to define their strategies and tactics to leverage new media. Only the professional crowd I met at EduWeb, a conference I attended for higher education educators earlier last year, showed a higher level of media and technology savvy than this group of mostly younger lawyers.

All About the Content

The best presentations and presenters connected their message directly to the attendees. Doug Mandell, discussing LinkedIn, had taken the time to evaluate every attendee’s LinkedIn profile against 14 criteria. When the performance average proved to be 8 of the 14 (57%), Mandell assigned the crowd an “F”. That got everyone’s attention. Tim Stanley of Justia riveted the crowd, ending the first day by going 50% over his allotted time (with permission) and then still apologizing for talking so fast.

The second day began with an optional 1 hour of CLE credit on the subject of Ethics in Marketing. Although not an attorney, I “audited” the session and found the information compelling. The downside of social media and the ethical issues dominate most lawyers’ thinking on this marketing strategy. Yet keynote speaker Bob Ambrogi @BobAmbrogi observed, “”As far as I know there has never been a disciplinary action against an attorney for answering questions online.”

Susan Lyon @SusanLyon from Perkins and Coie presented the perspective of a large firm practicing attorney who also maintains a broad public persona on Facebook and Twitter in addition to the more business-oriented LinkedIn. Susan confronted common concerns by lawyers about establishing the right balance between privacy and social networking.

Random Acts of Meanness

The event was not without some mild excitement. Midway through the first day, event organizers were confronted with some non-attending jackass Twitter flame throwers. Although there may have been a message in their sarcastic comments, it was obscured by their rude and disruptive behavior. Conference organizers didn’t blink at this menace and the dialogue flowed around the scofflaws and at a higher level.

Always Finish with Beer

We closed the conference properly with  Beer for Bloggers at Kell’s Irish Pub with local resident and legal blogging maven Kevin O’Keefe of LexBlog picking up the tab. Thanks, Kev.  All told it was a bold and successful move by Avvo. And we had some great beer, too.

P.S.

Yes,  I went bird watching on the Kitsap Peninsula after the conference with a friend who works at Amazon. We found 43 bird species and I added 8 life birds to my list.

Like many well-organized conferences our broadband-enabled conference room included an active Twitter community of attendees. Non-attendees were also chiming in at #avvo. As a best practice, the Twitter stream was also displayed in a Twitterfall on the podium. That is, the Twitter-enabled backchannel of commentary and opinion was brought forward to complement each presentation. I find this kind of total immersion Presenter – Twitter environment works well to stimulate my active engagement with others based on the presenter’s material. Except this time I experienced a new twist.

In the midst of the topic-relevant Tweets, non-attendee @ScottGreenfield scolds, “This #avvo used car salesman conference is deeply disturbing.” @btannenbaum @btannebaum added, “Remember something you avvocating maniacs, if you’re not a good lawyer, people will find out, despite your blogs and online garbage #avvo.” @ScottGreenfield continues, “We’re twitting about the #avvo conf in Seattle. We are living it via twitter. It’s very ugly.”

Ironically, the essence of what these two harassers were saying was not incorrect. In fact, they had some great points about abuse of social media, thoughtless blogging and even the alleged “social media gurus” (SMG) who industrialize the process of building real human networks.  However, as one who was present, what was clear was there was a mis-match between their sterotype of the interests of the attendees and the reality of what people were focused on learning and being taught. The flamers were flinging mud but they had the wrong target.

In the end, the rogue Tweeters were not effective but simply annoying, prompting @kaitlinjanusz to respond, “no one wants to hire attorneys who are malicious to other attorneys via social media. The avvocating conference is wonderful.” I, too, elected to offer my two cents, observing with some tongue in cheek, “Most diminished brand of the day: @ScottGreenfield. Forget it. I’m not referring any of my criminal friends for you to defend. #avvo.”  After a few more insults directed at the conference organizers, the attendees and me, the squabblers went away – hopefully to do some legal business and not editorialize by remote.

Without being too doting, I credit the Avvo conference organizers to unflinchingly maintain their commitment to the public Twitter feed and stoically ignore the Twitter flames. Reality is an adventure and Avvo seemed to be up for the experience in this, their first social media conference. Howsoever it was structured, an engaging conversation emerged among attendees as well as several not present. In the end, the conference was a richer experience for everyone. And the flamers were simply noted for being jackass.