 Hello again, it's Rachel Lawson from the Drupal Association with another Community chat video where we're talking to candidates from the Drupal Association at large board Election for 2020 and today I get to chat with Adam Bergstein. Hello, Adam. Hello. Hello. How are you doing? Very well. Thank you very well It's good to say it's actually both lights there and here because I'm in the UK and you're in The US is it Chicago that you're in? No, I'm in Pennsylvania But we have a it's a very short flight to get to Chicago from here. So certainly not too far from What you suggested? All right, I can never remember where everyone is It's a big country It is a big country lots of time zones, too So when was it we first met? I think was it was it Nashville? Yeah, I think that's correct. Yep Yeah, yeah, okay so I know that you've got involved in lots of things with regard to governance and and so on in the history of the Drupal project, which is great and How the Drupal community works and builds together So I suppose one of the first things that we really should talk about is building community and what you think About that. What does it actually mean to you? What does community mean? Yeah, I mean, I think it's all about the like people quite frankly, right? I mean when you think of community, there's you know shared goals. There's a motivation in this case It's really around Drupal itself. It's keeping Drupal vibrant. It's working on Drupal It's using Drupal advocating for Drupal all of these things But really to me the if you have a healthy community it's it's truly about the the people right and If I'm looking at You know how we build community we need to you know strengthen those bridges of the people Listen to people understand what their needs are help to grow and evolve Based around that right, you know, I've always and long felt I think that Drupal really is Has only been successful because of its community, right? It's so strong. There's so many people. It's international Great ideas come up all the time We have to you know find good ways to Surface that to listen to strengthen the local communities make sure that those local groups are working You know more within their communities themselves build that up strengthen the relationship from even the the central DA and the local DA Associations, you know to me those are things that I feel like a really really important and You know and and I know this might seem odd coming, you know from someone who's you know white and male and and living in the US And we have a certain Certain reputation at the moment in the world, which I don't believe in personally, but But I really do feel very strongly that you know, we need to ensure that Any effort to build the community out is highly representative of being inclusive Representing our diversity as a community. It is the biggest strength that we have it's something we care about with our values You know, and we need that to be leading The way and how we approach anything around building community. It's something very important to me You know and and I'll do whatever, you know if elected to to serve in that capacity Alright, that's brilliant. Okay. Well, thank you very much. It's it's interesting because there's so many different things there And it all sounds related to people which is great and not you people people focus And and you mentioned a couple of different things there one of the things you mentioned was around Advocating for Drupal about the project. Yeah, so Advocating What does it mean to you when advocating to who? Yeah, that's I mean, that's a great question. So in the response that I wrote in on the Drupal Association page, I You know, I think that advocacy has a number of different avenues, you know, I think we need to continue to strengthen You know the events that we have throughout the globe and make sure that people are able to share their voice and talk about and You know what they care about and how they want to lead and and their thought leadership, you know To continue to strengthen the community and advocate for Drupal, but one of the things I think that's equally as important If we're looking at expanding or growing our community, we have to look at other communities that are in the world Right. We have to take a good study of those and try to understand How Drupal how we can advocate for Drupal in new and innovative ways that we have not done so far, right? And I think we have to look at, you know communities front-end communities and You know other more domain-specific communities where Drupal might fit into one part of that equation Maybe it's a headless CMS. Maybe it's a Sort of an integration tool, right? It could be Using, you know an internet of things or pushing information between devices or anything like that, right? Drupal would do so well and already has done great things in those spaces But I don't feel like we have done a fantastic job as a community of telling its story outside of our community I think we can do better. I think we need to have a much larger and much more focused effort in Identifying which communities we want to engage with have them not only So you're talking about actually going out and oh, yeah, and spreading the message Other places absolutely. I think we should be looking at other events other communities blogs that are, you know Exist from other communities and other audiences and I think we can really help to tell Drupal's story You know the community has made a huge investment in you know new and innovative things with media and layout builder accessibility You know all of the the headless web service driven features of Drupal itself. Let's really take that out to the world Let's talk about it. Let's advocate for it. Let's tell our story and share how Powerful Drupal really is and why and how it can serve people, you know A lot of communities are really keen on open source, right? And it's important that we are right there. We are a very mature project. We've been around a long time We know we've solved a lot of hard problems. We have a really good story to tell people and we need to be doing that Yeah, absolutely. We do. Yeah, so talking of tell it talking a good story. I mean You coming into the board is an interesting thing because you're bringing experience from other places So is that something you want to what what are you bringing to us? Yeah, I've spent a lot of time Both as a community member but also just in my professional career Seeing Drupal and using Drupal in different ways, right in different capacities some more business centric Some more development centric or more community centric. I've have experience, you know leading teams I have experience with agile. I have experience with Community contributions. I have I have experience working on products that use and leverage Drupal I have experience building Drupal sites and creating them for customers and and things of that nature and more of an agency style, right? And so I also have worked in specific industry verticals. So I've worked in higher education for a long time I've taught in college different colleges both my alma mater and Actually, both of my alma mater is believe it or not from a master's degree and my undergraduate I've taught in both of those places And you know, I can really see and empathize with all of the different personas of people that engage with the Drupal community And I think having that kind of perspective has been really helpful in my personal professional career But I feel like I want to bring that experience to my you know board candidacy And hope that you know that will serve me well in in representing the community at large Absolutely, that would be fantastic so I mean, I know that one of my favorite memories as when I started as Drupal Association Community Liaison was the Occasionally surreal experience of being at Drupal Con Nashville and Helping to put together And literally running around the entire conference hall Literally for hours on end get talking to yourself and other people into what became That governance committee. Yep, which was really exciting times. It was really great and you were Instrumentally making that happen. But are there any particular favorite memories of your of your own? And Yeah, looking back at your time That's as such a challenge. Um It's that's a big that's a big, uh, it's very very difficult to To answer. I mean I um, I've been very fortunate. I will say and I use that word Not lightly That I have been able and in a position of being able to engage with the community face-to-face through events um, you know In ways that, you know, my professional career has allowed me to do community work at the same time of doing, you know, my Uh company obligations, right and it's been To me the the real thing that that speaks out Is it's not just one thing, right? It's the collective If you if I look at my experience Whether it's the hallway track at Drupal con or it's, you know Sitting with people at an event and having a coffee or drinking a beer Or having like, you know, the governance work where we get to collaborate with people throughout the globe You know in Drupal, which was fantastic. That was like that was such a joy to participate in that with such strong people and Like, you know, but all of these things, you know, are they just kind of I'll come back to the collective experience and the the people that you interact with in the community And all of those things holistically add up to something very valuable and you can't replace it, right? And you know, I can look at almost every single one of those experiences almost all of those conversations And I always try it's been a personal goal of mine every time that I have the opportunity To engage with community members or sit down with them It's it's always fun and I try to get as much out of it as I can I want to hear from people I want to understand how they're doing like to know, you know, where we can do better How we can drive that, you know, because I think that's important It's not just the the listening the talking talking our community Thrives on action, right? We thrive on impact and Moving forward and it's always fun to like brainstorm and come up with ideas with people and sit down and and have a beer and enjoy And appreciate one another, right? And I think, you know, that's been some of the most fun that I've had and like some of the most insightful conversations That I've been a part of And it happens all the time, you know Yeah, I'm just very lucky. I think in that respect. That's really amazing. Yeah It's funny actually how you were saying there about being given that opportunity to do all those things is It's so important and maybe that's a conversation. We should have another time Yeah, for sure because it's changed your ability to do stuff and it It's it's true for all of the other people that are able to do things. Absolutely I would love to be in a position where we can help to drive those outcomes for other people, right? It would be so great to ensure that others in the community have had the same kinds of opportunities that I have been able to have That I feel very lucky to have, you know, be in the position that I'm in You know But it would be really wonderful to continue to think of and drive that to Allow other people to have the same things and get that same kind of connection All right, that's fantastic. So actually I was I think they were all the specific questions I wanted to ask and I don't know if there's anything that you wanted to Add on the end and you think about your candidacy that you think people should understand or Yeah, I mean I Personally, I just want to acknowledge how strong the candidate pool is this year and I feel like That if people really take a good study and look at the different candidates that are involved They're the community will win in any capacity. These people are strong They're committed. They have great experience I you know, it will be fantastic in any way that this plays out And I I really encourage people to dig into the details and look at who aligns with What you want from that representation, right? And if it's not me, I'm okay with that, you know, I think it's it's Like I want people to to do what they feel is right and who can best serve them and and there are so many strong options you know, and I will say this that from Um From my experience, you know, uh, not having been on this board before I've interacted with people on the board I know them well So I have some sense of what What the obligations entail and everything of that nature But um, but I I want to make sure that, you know, I'm in a position to to use my experience It's not I don't want it to be too scripted. I want to make sure that I can use that experience and learn and evolve out to what you know, the the needs of the community are and also What the role of the board member is supposed to be and just serve that in an effective way um But yeah, I I don't want to get too caught into the specifics until you know If I'm lucky enough to be nominated and be in that seat that I can learn What success looks like in that role and really um Listen and evolve and make sure that uh, we can do The big things that the community wants done Well, that's great. Well, thank you very much, Adam. Um, Good luck and we shall see what happens very soon. Absolutely. All right. Thank you for having me