 Alright everyone, welcome to this webinar. This one is called Maximizer Sponsorship. If you attended the last one, that was about your sponsorship that covered more of the logistics and coordination surrounding sponsoring the Drupalcon conference. This one's going to be more about how to take advantage of it. Drupalcon is a large, exciting, and sometimes chaotic event and you as a sponsor, as appreciative as we are of your support and donations towards the Drupal project and to the Drupal Association, sometimes you have different goals and objectives in mind and it helps to have a better understanding of how to communicate with the audience, what there is for you to take advantage of and really maximize your time as a sponsor at our conference. If you don't know me already, my name is Tim. I work with all the sponsors at our Drupalcon and some of the supporter programs and my goal is to really make sure your time as a sponsor, your time as a partner of the Drupal Association is well worth it. We are so appreciative of what you guys have done over the years. Some of you are continuing to come back and back again. Some of you are here for your first time. Either way, I'm very accessible. If you ever have questions, feel free to reach out to me. To go ahead and get started here, many of you know this. I'm not going to try to preach how to market your company, how to go about a sponsoring event because you guys have either a marketing team that takes care of this or you already know this because you're educated person and you started your own business. I'm going to lay off on teaching you or trying to tell you what to do. Basically, I'm just trying to give you some more guidelines and then dive a little bit deeper into Drupalcon specific goals or tools. Just from working over Drupalcon's past couple of years and working with some people that have been there for since the beginning, we've narrowed down the steps of success. First thing you got to start with is just really understanding the Drupal community and understanding what Drupalcon is all about. If you are a Drupal shop or a Drupal agency, you probably already have a grasp on this. It's a pretty unique community as many of you know. It's a very large and diverse and global community, but if this is your first time sponsoring event and you're just now diving into the Drupal market or the Drupal audience, I recommend just doing as much research as you can. You can go to Drupal.org. You can contact us. You can reach out to your contacts. I highly recommend doing as much research as you can because this isn't your average tech conference. The next step to success is to really define your goals. It's important to define your goals before you attend the Drupalcon and well before. You probably already have these in mind and you guys probably understand this already, but your goals should be measurable and you should already know how you're going to measure these goals. At the end of the conference you know what to look back on, determine if it was a success or not. You might find that you find successes in fields you weren't expecting, so that's just an added bonus, but when you're able to really look back and look at the numbers or see some sense of achievement, it really helps put things in the perspectives at the end of the show when you're trying to wrap things up after this chaotic and exciting event. It's important that your entire team is on the same page as well. If you are leading this sponsorship, make sure everyone that is attending or everyone that is back home promoting your presence here at Drupalcon knows what the goal is and make sure everyone is on the same page when it comes to your messaging. That's what brings us to our next point which is just to define your message. This is really more to keep it consistent. Nothing's worse than switching your messaging, switching your branding from person to person or you know not being clear on why you are there or what you can do for the people attending. And it's important that everyone's on the same page again because you're not always going to be there if someone's talking to a prospective client or a current client and they're saying something different than what you're saying. So take some time. I always recommend sort of what we do. It's just set up meeting before you attend and kind of just go over it step by step. Make sure everyone's on the same page and this helps expand your presence at Drupalcon because if people are attending sprints, attending sessions, that's just another opportunity to increase your presence and increase your exposure there at Drupalcon. So define your goals, define your message and more importantly just be proactive about everything. Drupalcon is sort of a platform for you guys just as Drupal is a platform. We hope that we've provided all the tools for you. The community is coming. It's gathering. So now that you have the tools, it's really what you're going to or what are you going to build out of it. It's very important that you take full advantage of Drupalcon. So that's why I put that little note at the bottom. It's one thing if you're a booth sponsor and you're only focusing on your booth but there's so much more to Drupalcon. There's so much more that you can do that even if it's beyond your daily activities. So be proactive. Prepare, know your game plan during and always, always as you may as well know, follow up on what you've done when you're done with Drupalcon. So the first thing I want to cover is the first step is just understanding Drupalcon and understanding the Drupal community. I just pulled this little quote from the website. Drupalcon is premier conference to hone your Drupal skills, connect with the community and learn about the future of web technologies happening on the Drupal platform. And so this kind of gets to the first point. Drupalcon at Drupalcon, Drupal is king. I mean, this conference is literally put together surrounding this one technology or this one piece or this one project. So if you're coming in hoping to discuss other technologies up there, or just you know, where the CMS market is in general, you know, it may not be as well as we see these people have committed a lot of time and a lot of effort and sometimes money into Drupal. So this is where why they are here. So if you are a, you know, a software that integrates with Drupal, keep your messaging surrounding Drupal. And if you're a an agency, you know, that offers a wide range of services, stick to Drupal case studies, you know, what have you done with Drupal, prove that Drupal is, you know, a great solution for whatever the problem is at the time. I put this quote here come for the code state for the community, kind of the mantra around Drupal because it's so true. So many of these people have came, you know, started Drupal because it's a great platform, it's a great tool. It's a free, it's a great way to start a business. So if you are a Drupal agency, you know, you have this free tool at hand, but it's really so much more than that. So a lot of these people are coming for the community side of things. As I mentioned before, this is a volunteer driven project for people are investing so much money, so much time, so much of their effort into making it better. So really just try to stay around that don't interfere with these people are here for the community. It's a community driven event, just like it's a community driven project. So instead of interfering and trying to, you know, really capitalize on this gathering, you know, ask more what you can do for them. Just like in the Drupal or just like how an open source project work, everyone contributes, everyone shares their knowledge, everyone's trying to make everyone else better for the greater good. So take your sponsorship as an opportunity to reflect this, you know, what can your software do to make them better at Drupal or to make it easier for them? What can you do? You know, what are the experiences you can share as a Drupal agency that other agencies can learn from that will ultimately progress the project? And if you don't know, you know, if you don't know what the community is all about, if you don't really know what you can do, or how to tailor your messaging, you know, find out again, this goes back into the research, there's Drupal.org that is, you know, the home base for the Drupal project where people are communicating on a daily basis. Go in there and ask, ask around, go to the communities page, join groups, look what's happening in issue queue, see what's really relevant at the time. And, you know, tailor your messaging to this. Again, if you're a Drupal shop, and you're heavily involved, this might sound pretty obvious. But if you're an ISV, or if you're a software integrating company or a hosting company, you know, figure out what Drupal is all about by starting from square one, which is Drupal.org. And if you don't know, you can also ask us, you know, part of the benefits of sponsoring a DrupalCon is we are accessible here at the Drupal Association. I'm here, you can talk directly with your account manager, whether it's Delana or Johanna, Mark, Megan, we're all here, we're accessible. And if we don't know, we can find out for you. We can ask our contacts. So please don't hesitate. It's so important that you know, and you understand the DrupalCon environment and the Drupal community before you go in here, to really make it worth your time. And, you know, honestly, to make it worth an attendee's time, no one wants to be sold to while they are trying to have fun and educate themselves. So, you know, do your prep work and, you know, find out if you don't know. So now on to the next step. So this is, I know you guys all have your own goals in mind. So I'm going to try to briefly cover this, but over our time, putting on these events, we've really nailed down what the four main goals that people are sponsoring for. This is based on what we've asked people and just are seen organically. And so this is going to be business acquisition and development. So, you know, business acquisition is obviously any new business, business development can be business that you already have or business that is in the pipeline that you're trying to work on. Networking and partnerships. So this is networking with other Drupal leaders or networking just within the general Drupal community. Our partnerships is huge at DrupalCon. We like to really foster this environment where, you know, just where just as Drupal itself is a, you know, sharing and partnering and teaming up project, you know, a lot of shops, a lot of companies partner together. So if you're a software integration company, sometimes it's, you know, it's important to team up with a Drupal shop to launch a product because they know the Drupal environment more than anyone, or maybe you're two small Drupal agencies and you want to team up and make a merger, or maybe you're a handful of Drupal agencies that just want to group together to have a global presence. I mean, you know, this is a great opportunity to keep that in mind. And so that's what people see it as. Another goal that people like to sponsor for is for talent recruitment and talent strengthening. You know, the Drupal community is a very, very educated, smart, intuitive community. And it's rare to come by this, this high level of talent specifically specifically within Drupal. So, you know, what better place to recruit talent than at a DrupalCon? Or maybe you're just trying to strengthen your team already, you know, prove to your team that, you know, prove to your team that you are invested in the Drupal, you know, you are invested in Drupal and you're willing to invest and give back, which keeps them, you know, happy, keeps them staying around, or maybe you're just trying to, you know, develop their, their skills. The next part, the next goal that we that we see here at DrupalCon is just, you know, to demonstrate your community and thought leadership within the existing Drupal community or within the Drupal economy. So, I kind of just want to break down each one of these goals a little bit. Again, I respect and I understand you know, so just to make it short. So, if you are, if your goal is new business or business acquisition, it's important that, you know, if you are a Drupal agency, you're really pushing Drupal. There's going to be thousands of people that are Drupal experts here that can essentially all do the same thing or that know about it. So, your goal, if you are reaching a site or an owner, is to really push Drupal and then you go into what separates you from the rest of the Drupal shops or why your services are there. You know, Drupal is ultimately competing against other CMSs and these site owners and these CTOs, they need to make these decisions and they are there to learn about Drupal. They're not there to learn about you. That comes after the fact. And if you're a software and if you have a software that integrates with Drupal or you're a hosting company that supports a Drupal platform, you don't talk about why you decided to integrate with Drupal and how it helps push the Drupal experience. So, if you are after these Drupal shop owners or agencies and you know that your product or your software can really expand on Drupal, again keep your messaging tailored around Drupal itself. If your goals to develop business, this means you've already have this existing relationship. If your client already, you know, even better, but if you're trying to push them down this pipeline, this is your opportunity to really be their Drupal ambassador. You know, invite them in, show them around, introduce them to key figures within the community. Take them to your, if you have a sessions or if you have trainings or if you're a part of boss, birds of feathers, take them there and just demonstrate that you are committed to Drupal and that you are a influencer. This can be key. So, don't hesitate or don't be scared to bring in your clients or bring in your pipeline. If you do, just be prepared to show them around. You don't need to baby them, but you know, sometimes it's nice to have, you know, be with him by the side, but you know, show them around, show them what Drupal is all about, because so many people change their complete aspect or mindset on Drupal when they just see the community in action. It can be a great and beautiful thing, so don't hesitate. If your goal is to just network and partnership or to see what partnership opportunities there are out there, look around a little bit. Have you seen who's coming or have you seen better yet who is sponsoring? You know, just knowing what you're, you know, what you have in mind as some potential opportunities before you come can really drive these conversations. Don't be afraid to ask or don't be afraid to bring it up to someone, but don't miss out on not bringing it up by not being prepared. So, you know, look around, attend all the events, do your research again and see what sort of opportunities are there before you arrive and then continue to follow up as always. If you're there to recruit talent or to, you know, strengthen your existing Drupal team, so one, if you're hiring, make it known. Or, you know, if you're hiring, show it off how nice it is to work for you. So, if you're going to make it known, this means have your job listings ready. If you're hiring for a specific Drupal developer job, make that easily accessible. Don't just say you're hiring, what are you hiring for? There's a lot of different jobs within an agency or within a, you know, development atmosphere, so be specific. And if you're trying to hide higher Drupal developers, what better yet, what better hiring tool than your existing developers themselves? Let them go attend the sprints. Show that they're happy, you know, make sure that they're proud to work for you, representing your brand by wearing your shirt. Show that they're having a good time. That could be the best tool of all because a developer is going to know a good developer when they see them. And so train your team, train your staff, like hey, if you're hiring, let them know that you're hiring so they can be out there actively recruiting themselves. And if you're there to just strengthen your team, make sure it's both professional and personal development. We offer trainings and a lot of these trainings are high quality stuff. You know, let them attend these trainings. These are all going to be happening on Monday. So this is going to make you as a company better if they become a better developer. But this is also time for just developing their personal or, you know, personal development. This is fun. This is a community driven event. Invite them, have them, you know, you know, let everyone have a good time. You know, don't stress them out too much. You know, build their excitement and show that you are invested in them and you're invested in Drupal. I can't stress enough how important it is. Just if you as a company show that you're invested, people will be invested in their personal wellbeing and invested in Drupal. You know, people will start coming to you. So I can't stress that enough. And if you're here to just demonstrate your community and thought leadership, it's important that you're a part of the conversation. So you're attending boss. You are attending sessions. You are attending sprints. You know, you're there because you're committed. And, you know, you're not afraid to start to show that off. Don't just be in the background listening. You know, join in, join in on the conversation. And if you're, you know, you don't have to necessarily be a existing leader. If you're just now joining in, or if you have a team that is new to the Drupal environment, learn how you can get involved. And you can't really get involved without sort of pushing your boundaries and, you know, attending these events and these separate things happening around DrupalCon. You know, explore, meet people, learn. This is a great, great educational opportunity. So if you're not an existing leader, learn how to be. And if you are a leader and if you think you have, you know, the right insight, join in on the conversation and provide your input. Everyone's going to be appreciative of what you have to share and the experiences that you've had. All right. So the next step to success is to define your message. Similar to define your goal. This is something that you want to have set in place before you come. And the first point is just know who you want to talk to. You know who your target is. You know why you're there sponsoring. But it's important that your whole team, again, you, everyone knows who you are, you want to talk to. There's going to be a different set of people here that's going to be developers. There's going to be business owners. There's going to be site owners, agencies. So just nail down who you want to talk to and then start understanding who you are talking to. So I like to say, you know, an open source community is a sharing community because just like any other open source project, it's built off individuals sharing their knowledge, sharing their code, or just sharing their case studies to help people, you know, better themselves and to better the project. So when you're talking to someone, you know, come from a spectrum of what you can share with them, whether it's, you know, you have a software that integrates with Drupal and it's going to make this project more efficient. Or if you are a Drupal shop or an agency, share case studies, you know, come from it, from that perspective, you know, this is what we've done, you know, let us help you, let us share our experiences with you. And, you know, if you're not sure of what they are after, you know, just ask or ask us. We have a pretty good understanding of the Drupal community or ask the people or ask the community themselves by, you know, messing around on Drupal.org or just talking to developers or talking to site owners or talking to Drupal shop owners. Just having grasping the understanding will really help you be able to tailor your message. And so once you know who you're talking or who you want to talk to and sort of who you're talking to, you know, learn what they want to hear. Again, there's going to be different types of people here attending DrupalCon. I kind of broke it down to developers, agencies, customers. Again, it extends way beyond that. But, you know, developers are here attending DrupalCon because they want to know what's new. They want to know the new technologies out there that are going to extend Drupal that are going to push Drupal to the next level. And, you know, they're going to want to know what's out there that's going to make them better at Drupal or better at using Drupal. So they're going to look in for educational experiences or educational opportunities. So if you can provide those, you know, share it and make them come to you. And the last thing is, you know, why should I, if you're looking higher, you know, why should I work for you? There's hundreds and hundreds of companies out there. There's hundreds and hundreds of agencies that extend beyond Drupal out there. So one, what's your company culture all about? What do you have to offer me? And then why should I invest in a Drupal agency? Or why should I invest in working in Drupal? So, you know, understand what they want to know. And so if you are a Drupal, if you're looking to talk to Drupal agencies and you're talking to these these agencies that work within Drupal and you're an ISV company, or sorry, if you're a company that has software that integrates or extends Drupal, or if you're a hosting platform that is catered toward the Drupal environment, you know, they want to know how you can help move them up the stack. They're there to work in Drupal because that's what they do. And they want to offer their customers, their clients the best Drupal, or the build the best websites that they can for them. So you, as a software integrator or a hosting company, is to help them move up their stacks so they can invest all their times and resources and their developers into doing what they do best, into doing what they do originally came to do, and that's to build amazing websites. So look at it from that perspective. And if you are the Drupal agencies or you are a Drupal shop that, you know, builds websites, again, talk about and you want to work to these customers, we call them customers. These are the site owners, the people that ultimately have their sites built off Drupal. You're there to talk about why Drupal first and foremost. You know, what separates Drupal from the rest? They came to DrupalCon to learn about Drupal or you invited them to come to learn about Drupal to show your presence in Drupal and why you are invested. So make that clear. And then you go on to why you, you know, why your agency, what do you do better than everyone else? And to sort of see, you know, prove your credibility. So this can be, you know, hey, we're, you know, this can be based off of case studies, you know, we've done this, we can prove it. But then again, you've already taken the first steps. It's credible. You as a sponsor have a step above beyond anyone else who's attending that is not sponsoring because it shows that one, you're thriving, two, you're invested and you know that Drupal is going to be the right product for you or for your customer. And then you can show like your, the people themselves that are going to be building your website. So this is going to be your developers or your team that are going to be in charge of that. So one, why Drupal and then two, why you, what separates you, whether it's what you've done in the past, what you're doing now or the workforce you have on him. And then the next thing about defining your message is just to determine how you'll get the, get them to hear you. So this can be, you know, are you going to be talking to them? Do you want to, you know, just get your brand out there to make it recognizable? Do you want to, you know, get them to hear you by showing your influence and say within Drupal community or your presence at the sprints. Whatever it is, you know, determine which medium or platform you're going to use to get these people to hear you. Because again, no one wants to just be simply pitched to. They're here for a different reason. So, you know, have that laid out and stick with it. Again, you know, certain benefits might arise that you didn't see. But that's only a benefit from there on out. So determine, you know, what your best practices are going to be. So the next step to success is to really be proactive. And I'm going to try to break this down into before, during, and after. I personally think this is one of the more important aspects when it comes to sponsoring. Because again, like I said DrupalCon is a platform where, you know, people are gathering. It's here. We've provided the tools. So now really what are you going to do about it? You know, how are you going to maximize it yourselves? You have your team. You have your marketing goals. You have your sales team. So it's very important to be proactive. So before the conference even starts, again, you want to set your goals and messaging. We've already covered that. You want to prepare your team. Make sure your team knows what your goals are. And make sure they know what your messaging is. Because remember, you won't always be around. You're either going to be manning your booth. You're going to be attending a session yourselves. And so it's important that one, you bring your team a little tip. Bring as many people as you can because more people you have, the better chance you have to expand your presence within DrupalCon. Because again, it does extend beyond the show floor or beyond the exhibit hall floor. So just prepare your team. Make sure everyone's on the same page. And if you are there to reach, you know, site owners, or if you're there to reach businesses, Drupal shops or Drupal agencies, or if you're there to network and partner with other people, you know, reach out to them, find them. We have tools. We have the community page on the events website where you can see who came. If you are a, you know, certain level of sponsor, you received an attendee list with the names of people attending. So reach out to them. And if you don't see anyone that you want to talk to, or if you don't see any really prospective clients, bring them in. Invite them to DrupalCon. We've provided you with codes for you to send out. That gives them to, you know, discount. We've sent you over free tickets for you to just bring anyone else you want to. Or you can just simply, you know, be their chauffeur and, you know, take them on from floor one. Nothing's better than to have your audience there waiting for you, rather than having to find them while you're at DrupalCon. So set meetings with these people. You know, tell them to stop on by your booth. Invite them to outings, explore the town. But it's also important that you are accessible. Because maybe there's people out there trying to do the same thing to you. Maybe you are the potential partner. Or maybe you are the company that someone wants to work for. So again, be accessible. While you're registered, you have the chance to, you know, put yourself public on the attendee page. I recommend doing so because if someone wants to reach out to you, it's important that you're able to be found. Again, I can touch on this, but set up meetings or set up these social outings. If you want to have a meeting, sit down meeting or conversation with a prospective client or an existing client or a client that is in the pipeline right now. You know, make sure there's time to sit down and have the conversation that you need. Because I've touched on it. Krupakon is big, it's exciting. There's a lot of things happening. So it's important to sort of have this time set aside. Or maybe you just want to have a social outing, just to sort of, you know, wind down, get to, you know, build the relationships with your with your clients or to build a relationship with people that you potentially could see yourself partnering with. You know, New Orleans is a great city, take advantage of it. So do all that stuff beforehand and then have a plan in mind and how you're going to follow up before you show up. There's classic, you know, you always want to have your business cars in mind. So one, you can follow up with them or two, they can follow up with you. And if you're going to be emailing people, have your email set in place before you go or have your messaging set in place or, you know, the sort of a template set because, again, there's going to be a lot of things happening and things might change and to stay consistent. It's just nice to have these messages made before your things even begin so you don't lose track of that. And if you're going to be tracking leads, you know, there's lead scanners you can order. We'll get into more detail to that. So, you know, order that beforehand. There's a lot of tools on how you're going to follow up. It's important that you and your team know how you're going to do it. So the ways to be, take advantage of, or sorry, to be proactive during the event, there's a couple different, there's a couple different things here that I like to talk about. So this is where we really, this is really where we begin to get into Drupal specific or Drupalcon specific activities. So this is where I would like to highlight a few things. So if you're going to be proactive at Drupalcon, it's important that you take advantage of everything that Drupalcon has to offer because, again, this is a platform for you to really build off of, take advantage of. Yes, you can do the minimum, and you may not be happy, but, you know, it's your option. So I'm just here to let you know that this stuff exists. So the first thing I want to touch on is the exhibit home. So if you're a core sponsor and you have a booth, this is where it's going to be. This is where lunch is going to be, all the sponsors are going to be, exhibiting, coffee breaks, fun activities, wherever it is. So I want to start with your booth. There's going to be a lot of booths out there. We do provide, you know, a table, a couple of chairs, some tablecloths and whatnot, but it's really an empty slate for you to build off of. If you want people to come to your booth, you know, make them come or, like, invite them to come. You have Freeman services. Freeman, you can order all the furniture you want. You can really decorate your booth to stand out. You can ship anything that you need through Freeman. So look through their exhibit or services kit and see what's out there. You know, what are you going to do to stand out or what are you going to do to drive people to your booth? You know, if you are sitting there with a banner and just two people sitting at their tables with the laptop, you know, that aren't really engaging with traffic and they're kind of getting bored, you know, the effort you put in is the the output you should expect. So you have these tools and if you really just want people to come, not necessarily too concerned with coming because they want to see your product, you know, think about ordering some catering. Everyone's going to be hungry, everyone's going to be thirsty. You have the option, you have a full catering menu at hand. So if you look through the Freeman exhibit or services kit, there's going to be a section for catering. The catering is going to be done through the convention center. There's literally a full menu where you can get beverages, alcoholic and non-alcoholic from beers to cocktails to whatever it is that you need. You have this option and the great way to stand out, you know, serve something that you know, serve a couple snacks on a Wednesday later in the day when people are hungry and they don't have any more lunch but they got to make to the next session and they got to be engaged so they need that energy. And if you want to collect leads, every badge is going to have a every badge is going to have a QR code or a barcode on the back. You have the option to order a lead scanner through American trade show. They'll be there on site helping you, you know, to really maximize what this scanning capabilities do. But if you're worried about forgetting people's names, not being able to follow up, think about ordering that pre-ham. Then you also have pro-av who are going to be our audio and video service providers. Again, this can all be found in Freeman's kit. But if you want to show your product off, nothing's better than to demo it. It's one thing to just talk about it. It's another thing to prove it and to show its full capabilities by doing it on hand. So you can order monitors, you can order all the audio, video equipment that you need or again you can bring this in, you can ship it. But if you want people to come to your booth, stand out. Another part I'd like to mention is so during the exhibit hall there's going to be breaks in which session traffic is going to or sorry traffic is going to be a little bit larger than the rest of the day. So be prepared. So during coffee, which is at 10.15 a.m. each day, after the keynote there's going to be a large coffee break or longer coffee break, you can expect a lot of people to be attending. So make sure your booth is manned. So nothing's worse than you know missing an opportunity because you don't have the capacity. So if you have other people attending event, developers, project manager, managers that are really just there to you know see the rest of the activities going on, have them help you out during these breaks because this is when you're going to need it. Lunch, which is going to be happening at noon every day, is going to be another big one. This is going to be an hour long break where people are going to be one, obviously they're going to be eating, but the food is going to be served in the exhibit hall. There's going to be a lot of people coming around and once they're done they're going to want to learn from you. So be prepared and then in between each session there's going to be about a 15 minute break. These are other times when you you know just want to make sure you're at full capacity and ready to go. Eat beforehand or eat after lunch, get your coffee before, get your coffee after. Either way you know you don't want to miss out on this traffic. The last aspect I want to mention about the exhibit hall, so when these breaks aren't going on or traffic seems to slow down, take advantage of the fact that there are about 80 quality companies out there that you can network with. This is your time to walk around the exhibit hall, meet these companies that you had prepared to meet before you came. You know talk with them. There's literally have been mergers that have started on the exhibit hall four of these of these Drupalcons. So again look at the Drupalcon, or look at the sponsor list on the website. See who's coming, scout them out and you know this is your time to network and have conversations with them. And if you're looking for a quiet spot to have a conversation, new this year we've created a little lounge for you guys to have these conversations in. It's only for sponsors. It's going to be on the perimeter of the exhibit hall floor. It's going to be places to sit down, you know light refreshments, bring them in there. You know this is your chance to network and have these conversations without being too far from your setup. So the exhibit hall is you know an event in its own, so take full advantage of it please. So taking full advantage advantage in programming. So again Drupalcon is a very large thing. There's a lot of things happening. Programming is essentially the things that are we've curated as the Drupal Association that you can go to learn, to talk, or to just generally progress the Drupal project. So I'm going to break these down real quick. So we have summits. These are all going to be happening on Monday, May 9th. Majority of them start at 9 a.m. Some of them start at 11 30 a.m. If you want further detail, if you want to sign up for them, one thing I have to point out, higher ed summit has sold out. You know you have the option to buy tickets to these. So the business summit is going to be for these Drupal shop or Drupal shop or Drupal agency leaders that are already invested in Drupal and they're there to discuss the Drupal business ecosystem and how it's running and to share experiences with someone. So if you're not heavily involved at Drupal, this may not be the place for you to go because as I've touched on a couple times, this is an open community and people are there to share experiences and share their knowledge. So if you don't have experiences to sort of contribute to this conversation, it may not be the best one, but if you if you are you know a high level exec type manager type, you know that are one invested in Drupal or want to be invested in Drupal or two you own a shop, attend this. This could be the great time for you to see what other people are experiencing, learn from their experiences and really just talk about the future of Drupal. The higher ed summit, the media publishing summit and the government summit are designed for people working within these industries. So these are going to be universities, these are going to be media companies or government agencies that are looking to explore new CMSs or if you are a shop or a software company that is already highly involved in either of these three sectors, meaning you have past experiences for you to you know to share yourselves or to contribute to the conversation. You can attend these and be a come up, you know, be a common part of the programming. They do breakout sessions where literally it's just conversations being had. This is an opportunity to be in a room with people and have a designated time to have these conversations that you can't normally have because you're off running a business or managing elsewhere. This is not the time to go in and to start selling to the people that are attending these. So if you are a Drupal shop and you're looking to you know get some media clients, this is not the place for you. If you're a software integrated company and you're trying to reach you know agency owners, the business summit is probably not going to be the place for you. We do have a business code of conduct and if you do attend these and this and people start recognizing you may be asked to leave but if you're there actively contributing and being a part of the conversation as I touched on earlier, this is could be an event all itself. So if you haven't already look at the tickets, again, higher ed sold out. But that's something going on on Monday. The next thing I want to touch on is trainings. Trainings are also going to be happening on Monday. And if you're there to just for developing your team or to you know this could be touch both the professional and personal development side because one it shows that you're willing to invest in them to make them better as a professional. But I also kind of touches on the personal side because you know these people are developers really do enjoy what they are doing. But there's something for everyone too. It's not just coding language being talked on there. There's project managed tracks. If you're in a software company, there's a whole training on building modules for Drupal 8. So if you're looking at how to integrate better with Drupal, you know maybe you think about sending some of your software developers or Drupal developers to this to this training. So it's going to better you as a company when your team is armed with this knowledge. So the next two things are happening Monday Tuesday or sorry Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday of the conference. So May 10th, 11th and 12th. This is the sort of programming that's happening for the paid aspect sort of things. So Monday you don't need Drupal Pass to attend. So you can attend just the training or just a summit and not attend the Drupal Con the full four days. But if you want to attend Boston sessions, you do need the full pass. So if you're not familiar with what a boss is or a birds of feather, it's sort of like a summit where it's just an organic conversations. There's going to be no one really leaving this, but you do have the option to submit a topic. So if you're really passionate about a topic and you want to make sure it's discussed while you're at Drupal Con, go on to the events website, go into the boss section and find an open time slot to submit this topic. There are a few left. So the opportunities there are kind of slim, but then there's also chances for you to just see what other people have submitted if you see something that you are passionate about or you want to just network with people that also feel the same way. And this is a great, very, very good, organic networking opportunity that is going to be revolved around a specific topic. Everyone knows the general networking. Hey, let's go have a dinner. Let's go have a meeting. This is a great way to network through thought leadership and through goals and missions, I guess that's the best thing to say for lack of better terms. So look to attend these and make sure, if you are at your booth, make sure people within your company are attending for you and representing you. The next thing is sessions. Sessions are led educational opportunities. This is not going to be a chance to have a conversation because it really is presentation, but if you want to learn about Drupal, say you are in a software company or hosting company and you want to learn what Drupal is all about, attend these and if you don't, if anything, you come away knowing how to, you know, knowing the Drupal community or the Drupal ecosystem even more. If you are a Drupal agency or you offer Drupal as a services, obviously this is your chance to learn how to Drupal better or to use Drupal better. If you're a developer, if you're a developer, or you're sending a development team, this is a chance for them to better their skills. If you're a business owner, there's business tracks, this is a chance for you to learn how to become a better business owner. So again, take full advantage of all the programming happening around DrupalCon because, you know, it's beyond, it extends beyond your booth or beyond your sponsorship. So there is a lot going on and I know you can't be all places at once, but it's important to try to at least attend some. So again, do your research beforehand, see what you want to do, and bring a large team. So if you can't make it, someone else can. So there's also a lot of events happening around DrupalCon, surrounding DrupalCon that aren't going to necessarily be programming. So the first thing I want to touch on is the first time attending social. This is going to be happening on Monday at 4 p.m. So this is during the same day the trainings and the summits are taking on. It's only an hour, but if you are just new to Drupal, or if you're new to DrupalCon, or if you're sending a bunch of developers that are just new to DrupalCon, have them attend. It's fun. It's an open environment. Just transfer them to me and prepare people. The next thing that also happens on Monday from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. is opening your reception. This is the one time in the whole event where there's no other programming going on, or no other events going on other than the exhibit hall. So it's going to be packed. It's going to be exciting. It's going to be fun. So make sure you, if you're a booth sponsor, are fully armed and ready to exhibit beforehand. So you can set up beginning at 9 a.m. that day. I recommend coming in as early as possible, getting your setup ready, making sure all your technology is working. You're connected to Wi-Fi. Go home, rest, recoup a little bit, and then come back around 4 or 4.30 and be prepared. Another event that's happening is Women in Drupal. This is going to be an off-site event. I mean, the title speaks for itself. If you're investing in Drupal and you just want to see how women in the Drupal ecosystem and really just the tech world are influencing or how to become better influencers. Attend this. It's a great networking event as well. It's a little bit more formal, but our team has put on this for you guys and for everyone to attend. So I highly recommend it. It's going to be after everything happens so you don't have to miss anything. The next thing I want to touch on is kind of my bread and butter is the sponsor appreciation VIP happy hour reception. So this is going to be happening or sorry, on Wednesday, beginning at 5 or 5.30. This is if you're a sponsor, you got a set amount of invitations that you can have for this event. I always recommend sending your executives or your managers because this is a cream the crop networking activity. This is where all the influencers and community leaders and business shop owners are going to just have a chance to relax and rewind. It's social. There's going to be free drinks, free food, and it's going to be happening right there at the convention center. So you don't have to go far and it's just great time to wind down and you'll have some social conversations and build relationships with people and meet people that you've never known. So if you haven't RSVPed your VIPs, please do so. You can do that on the sponsor event kit I sent you. And then there's meetups, parties, and trivia night. So these are just things that have been arranged by the the trivia night was arranged by us, but the meetups and parties and such are arranged by the community. We have promoted them. So if you go to the social events page, you can see a list of what's happening because so much I can almost argue most of the business is done outside of Drupalcon itself because Drupalcon is there for learning, for education, for showcasing what you're doing, not a chance to have these conversations. So attend these events or put on your own events. Nothing says that you don't you can't do it yourself. Put on a dinner and invite everyone. It doesn't have to be public or you can make it public. You can throw a huge party and you know invite the whole world and everyone can see how great your brand is, but these are where your real networking opportunities are going to lie. So please attend them because most of the Drupalcon attendees will be attending them as well. So it can make for organic networking or you can just set something up like I mentioned and cater or curate the networking events. I love trivia night. Probably not the best networking as far as business goes, but on Thursday we put on trivia night. It's super fun. And if you actually do have a client or a prospective client that wants to know what the Drupal community is all about, you know, invite them there because so many times people come to Drupalcons and once they see the community at work and really what the community is all about, that's when they make their decisions to go with Drupal. So again, that takes a lot of prep work if you want to bring in clients or bring them out, but just show off the community. You don't necessarily just have to show off how great Drupal is as a tool, but you know, show off the community and this is a great chance to do so. And last but not least, you know, take full advantage of New Orleans. It's, you know, we don't just pick these cities, you know, out of that hat. There's a reason we chose New Orleans. There's a lot to offer. It has a lot to offer. So, you know, take a night on the town or come a little bit earlier, stay a little bit later and meet people, invite people to dinners, to lunches, you know, start reserving your rooms because I already know people or start reserving your restaurants, your dinner reservations because I know people already have done that. So see what's going on. Check out Yelp for good reviews. See what's, you know, you can ask us. We have some places in mind, but take full advantage of New Orleans because as much as JupeCon is happening, there's also this huge city for you to just conduct your business in. I kind of just want to end with some networking 101. Most of you probably know this, but this is something that you could sort of just relate to your team. One, bring plenty of business cards. There's going to be a lot of people. You're going to meet tons and tons of people. Experience it a lot. So make sure that one, people can remember you by having a business card and two, you grab their business card so you can remind them. I'll prepare a little elevator pitch. Again, you're going to be meeting a lot of people, so it's a nice chance to make an impression. You know, we have a set of, so you could literally run into the elevator situation because we have the set of hotels where majority of the hotel are. Double con attendees are going to be attending. So if you do happen to be an elevator, make sure you're prepared or if you're at a trivia night when you only have about 10 seconds to talk, make sure they're prepared or inform your team on what the messaging is going to be so they can give these little pitches and avoid gravitating to people that you know. Again, this is a community driven event and so this is a time for the community to finally get together after talking so long on Drupal.org and fixing all these issues and making the project better. It's your chance to really meet new people so please don't gravitate to people that you know. Try simple, if you're shy or if you have a team that's shy, invite them to just be pretty blame because no one's going to oppose it. Hey, I haven't met you. My name is Blink. Find people that are by themselves, pair up with a friend because you never know who you're going to meet. You never know who is who. They do have a tuning badge but you're not going to see their job title from across the way so scout them out. Again, I can't tell you not to sell anything rather just this is your chance to build relationships and then later on when the time rises that may be your chance. Find out more about them. Again, this is an open source community. What can you learn about them? What can you do for them? Tell them about yourself, tell them about your company and learn about them and learn about their company. And if someone's given you a car, if you're meeting someone, take notes, take down their numbers and so you can be personal because no one likes to just get an email blast. It's almost offensive to just be like, hi, we can so and so we met and you can just tell it's a mail merge. So be personal and be personable. It can go a long way so you may already know this but educate your team before they come. Quick recap of what we covered. So these are the steps to success. So understand Drupal, understand the community and understand DrupalCon. Do your research. Understand who you're talking to and who you want to talk to. Define your goals before you come. Make sure they're measurable. Make sure you have an opportunity to come back and when you are done wrapping up all your follow-up emails, whatever it may be, that you can look down and you can see, yes, we achieved it, no, we didn't achieve it. Define your message. Know who you want to talk to, know how you're going to talk to them and make sure you're consistent with your message. Make sure your team knows to be consistent. If you're bringing in a team, make sure they're, you know, dress them up in a uniform. A brand and shirt can go a long way. If you have people sprinting and they're sprinting, if they're at the sprints wearing your shirt, that right there is in a marketing tool is showing that your company is contributing back to the, or giving them back to the project and be proactive. There's a lot of things, a lot of steps that you need to do before, during, and after, whether it's scouring social media, letting your presence known, following up with some personal emails or setting meetings or tending buffs, attending sessions, whatever it may be. We've set up this platform for you guys and we hope that you guys really take full advantage of it. So if you ever need help, feel free to reach out to me. This is me. That's my Skype ID. That's my email address. I'll do my best to answer any questions I can. I'll be on site. I'll be the guy running around the exhibit hall floor with a walkie-talkie, probably with a backpack. Reach out to your account managers. They may be more of help and me may be more insightful if you're looking for a little bit more insight on the Drupal community or just reach out to the Drupal community themselves. Everyone's here to help. And we really hope you have a great time as a sponsor at DrupalCon. And again, I can't thank you enough for your support of the event and of the Drupal Association.