 All right welcome everyone. This is the Drupal Association community chat This is an informal session where you can talk to members of Staff and the board about the DA about our programs about our plans for the future About upcoming Drupal cons any and everything that you might want to ask We do want to take your questions So as soon as you have something you'd like to ask please do start lining up at the mic But we'll do some introductions and go over some things as well just informally here. So it'll be Mostly driven by you and thank you for joining us Maybe we should start off making sure that everyone knows who's on stage. So I'll start really quick I'm Tim Lennon CTO of the Drupal Association Hestanet on Drupal.org Been with the Association about seven and a half years and in Drupal about 14 years So you'll see me working with the engineering team to support all of the collaboration tools that we use to build Drupal together responding to Performance or security issues or anything like that with the rest of our team and working to build a better Drupal You might know this guy. I guess I'll introduce myself to my name is Dries I started the Drupal project. I'm still the project lead today. I've been doing Drupal for 22 ish years No, maybe what maybe not everybody knows I also started aquia is one of the sponsors And I'm the chief technology officer at aquia Hello, my name is Mike Herschel. I'm the community elected board member. That's on stage here I've been part of the board since maybe October or November I've been doing Drupal for like 15 years now, which is like pretty pretty crazy for me And I care about it a whole bunch and I'm from Gainesville, Florida Hi, my name is Nick Vienhoff. I'm from Belgium. That's where Drupal started I've been in the Drupal world for 15 years and up until last week I was the CTO of drop solids, which is like European Drupal company and since this week I'm the director of contributor success at kid lab And since November in the board Thank you. I'm but the I come from Iceland and I live in Germany at the moment Probably for a very long time And I am in the Drupal Association board since 2018 and before that I was mainly organizing events in the Drupal community I've been using Drupal since 2007 and Yeah, I'm currently the chair of the board. I think we are here for from the board. Yes So if you have any questions around the board or how that works or what we do Then bring them on and we will answer them Angie Hi, I'm Angie. I am the chief finance and operations officer and also the acting executive director as of a few weeks ago I think now So pretty new to the role. I live here in Portland. So welcome. I haven't met you yet. Please say hi to me I've been with the Drupal Association for well, let's see. It'll be four years this fall And I'm just excited to chat with you all Ashley is also here Chief development officer So if you have any questions that you want to ask Ashley, she can come up while I hand her a microphone. Oh I can't it's really hard to see from up here raise your hand if you're Drupal Association staff Yes, thank you It is quite hard to see from stage so if other staff roll in feel free to let us know So I'll kick off with some questions and again at any point when anyone has some Please do line up at the mic and we'll cut you in front of the rest of the line but I'd love to go down the row and Let everybody express What you what's most important to you about the mission of the DA? Why you think it's an important part of the Drupal community and kind of what we do? And Dries, I mean you have the history of you know starting it Getting everything off the ground. So maybe you could tell that story a little bit. Oh, yeah But how the Drupal Association was started and why yeah, honey Let's see. I think I got when we got started actually, but so You know I had started Drupal Drupal had started to grow and In 2005 We decided to have the first Drupal conference And so we organized that with a few people and it was a huge success At the time you had expected maybe you know 10 10 people to show up and and you know 40 people showed up and we couldn't believe it, you know And I couldn't believe it because you have to remember at the time I was doing a you know, it was a software developer And my job had nothing to do with Drupal. I would work on Drupal at night on the weekends And I would honestly never talk by Drupal with anyone And all of a sudden there's like 40 people in Belgium that wanted to talk about Drupal all week It was was crazy, but it was also a lot of fun and we left that Drupal con With the idea that we were going to organize some more Drupal cons And so I helped organize the next one as well and I'm not sure if I should say this or not, but We've we found sponsors and budget and I would just take on that money and put it on my personal checking account, you know And I should that I should have probably declared that as income. I guess I'm not sure but It's long enough that the IRS can't get you. That's right. Also. This was in Belgium. So Maybe that's why I moved to the US The secrets of dreams is tax evasion review But anyway long story short, you know, we started to do these things like conferences we had to pay for servers and I was doing a lot of that from my personal checking account and other people would do other things from their checking account and Obviously that isn't a good way to do things, right? And so it makes and it made sense at the time to create an organization that could Be the checking account and or we could put the money and we could use the money to do I'll you know fund the operations and that was the original reason why the Drupal Association was started It wasn't a grand vision or a big plan. It was just like we needed to You know professionalize How we do, you know simple things Of course over time the Drupal Association has grown quite a bit because in the beginning There was no staff for the first. I don't even know right now many years There was no not a single staff member. Everything was done by volunteers but as Drupal con started to grow as our You know visitors on Drupal or Doric started to grow our number of contributors started to grow all these things got bigger and bigger and bigger And all of a sudden we were doing conferences, you know with two thousand people three thousand people Millions of people visiting Drupal the Doric and it became quite the operation And so the Drupal Association grew and we started hiring staff and all of these things And so today the Drupal Association is absolutely You know essential to Drupal's success like without the Drupal Association you know Drupal would just stop to exist because The Drupal Association takes care of obviously Drupal con but also You know all of our collaboration infrastructure So to answer your question there like one of the key things that the DA does is it makes sure that we can all work together On Drupal the Doric You know all the tooling And so yeah, that's kind of the history of it really Started in Belgium, and we actually moved it to the US too at some point So it has gone through a few iterations That's how we got here Awesome. Thank you very much trees Mike, why don't you give your perspective especially as a new community elected member of the board? Your perception of the DA and your understanding of the DA and maybe how that's changed before and after we joined That's an excellent question so Prior to coming to the board like there's a perception that you know Everybody but they're off handling things that don't directly affect me, you know like like that the board is is Solving problems that might not need to be solved or something like that coming into it What I learned is there's a lot of big picture Topics that are being discussed that directly affect how I contribute code if y'all don't know like I do I do some core contribution, and I also do I also have a module that I contribute and It's interesting to To see how these conversations Directly will affect me and that and that does like the stuff that you're working on with GitLab and stuff But it goes beyond that, you know, there's there's You talking about Drupal.org Drupal.org has like so many different functions in addition to being our primary collaboration tool It's a prime. It's a very it's a marketing tool You know, it's it's a learning tool. It does all this type of stuff and and that affects me either directly or indirectly so It's really interesting and I think the most surprising thing that For this weekend, this is my first weekend being in person with everybody And I really expected to go into the boardroom and I would expect at least one person. I didn't like And Nick But like everybody was very warm and like I'm coming in there and I have you you have a little bit of imposter syndrome being with people like Theresa Nick and I I had ideas and Everybody was very open to my ideas and that like really surprised me and made me feel valuable. So thank you all for that Awesome fantastic. You're not please. You're not the only one with an imposter syndrome. I'm just saying Yeah, maybe to add to that question I come from a very Biased position in Europe in that sense. So I'm very involved in the European community I'm the chair of the Belgian Drupal association as well and then three weeks ago. We organized Drupal developer days You might know the event. I haven't so it's very much Europe and development and contribution and all that kind of stuff what you said about like How does that impact me the Drupal station or the board even so I was also very curious What is happening there? And like for me that the biggest takeaway is that I started to think about how do you connect the dots? Like how do you connect the local association with the global association? Like how can you benefit from both ways? What's that bridge? And I think yeah, that's like If I wake up with the jet lag like last night, that's what like pops up in my mind so How about you baddie? What's your how is your perception of the dh changed over the years as you became involved in the Board and now the chair and Where do you see us going? I am So how I Started in Drupal in 2007. I didn't know that the Drupal association existed until in 2015-14 when I went to my first Drupal con so Obviously when I didn't know it existed. I just used the tool that you use the infrastructure So therefore for me that was you know an interesting journey Because then obviously when I started to learn what the DA does I realized that hey that there is actually somebody There you know, this was just my ignorance then you know There is somebody who takes care of the software, you know because he thought it was just there, right? And I really appreciate that that that was the first thing that we did when we decided to be a part of the Drupal Association was actually just we need to fund that So we started to be supporting partners right away And I think the other European companies that came to me and they said as well when I say we I talk about my company in Europe They said like you know, why are you a supporting partner of this thing there in the United States doing Drupal con? And I'm like no no no no like Drupal con is something part of it but like I need to fund the infrastructure that is where I'm running my business on and That is and has always been like my heart with the Drupal Association And then of course like learning everything that you're all doing and I think like with this very small team You know that there's like all the support in you know, I've been part of the event organizer group With Matthew here and others and like all the support that you're bringing like everything that you're doing when we say like We need a place to put our events on you know events dot Drupal dot org is not Enough for us, then you're like, okay, we're gonna do it You know, it takes of course time because there are priorities, but you know extremely great journey and sometimes I think we don't talk about enough and That is my mission now to actually like highlight all the great stuff that you're doing. So thank you for that Awesome, but how about you Angie something about the DA or the board that maybe People don't know about or part of the regular experience perhaps that you'd love people to be more aware of um Well, I think the staff is Incredibly impactful and nimble for the size We tend to be really humble I think as a team but Neil Brendan Tim and Ryan who's not here in particular Do such cool stuff all the time for the Drupal project? And so one of the things to kind of echo what baddie said, I think we as a association can do more to kind of talk about that Externally and you know, that's in itself such a great reason to support the Drupal Association And then just in the last couple of years Part of this came from Heather who was our previous executive director and was so great for the organization We started focusing a lot on Diversity equity and inclusion internally lots of education for the staff along that topic Lately we've been really focused on Things like how we build a psychologically safe workplace and what we can do to really support the staff We have a program that I have been lucky to be a part of called discover Drupal And there are a couple people sitting in the audience that have been a part of that which was a really cool. Yay Really cool program that actually community came to us and said hey that we really care about this Do you care about it too? And I was like absolutely. This is really great. I want to teach new people Drupal I want to reach out to historically Marginalized communities and bring them into Drupal So how do we make this happen? And I think one of the really cool parts about the Drupal community and about the DA is like we can all work together For these common goals and to really make impact. So I just was really excited to be able to Work with these community members that are so passionate and engaged in volunteering their time I Mean I could probably talk for like two hours about all the cool stuff that we do Those are just a few things that are sort of top of mind for me and especially I got I had the privilege of sitting with the board for a couple of days in the boardroom and hearing all of their cool ideas and strategy To really impact not just the organization, but the Drupal project and that was really exciting So I think we're gonna see some really cool stuff happening in the next year. Yeah Awesome. Very cool. And I think it's important to emphasize the fact that because the Drupal Association is a small staff and Led by a volunteer board It's easy for us to sometimes feel sort of outnumbered or perhaps overwhelmed by the scope of a global community that we want to Support and both for ourselves and for the people who want to come to us and work with us as a community It helps to think of us as multipliers where people who can take of an idea in the community and amplify it Give it reach give it attention and help us do what open-source does best which is organized together Around achieving these initiatives. So, you know, it's never up to this staff alone to make something happen It's up to us to highlight enable Accommodate new ideas that will move the Drupal community forward and I think that's a big part of what we do Um Was there a question yeah, let's First off, I want to say thank you so much. It feels really really good to be back together This is my 25th Drupal con You know, I've been involved in the community since 2006 in a wide variety of different different roles And this this community is one of the most blessed things in my life So I just just wanted to say that to start off with I am super interested in how the Association has weathered Financially about the year ago a little over a year ago There was a huge community effort to fundraise for the for the for the association my little camp donated all of its all of its Profits for for for its year, you know to to the association to try to help out And I know that there were a lot of other folks in the community who did the exact same thing their camps did the same thing I also have a sense that the numbers that you have here this year a little bit lower than than previous years Although still tremendous given the fact that we're coming out out of the pandemic, but all of these things You know make make make some of us a little nervous Because we do not want you to go away It took a drink of water because I had a feeling that I would be the one answering that question since I've been in the chief finance Financial operations officer can't even say the title right now So to answer your question, we are in good shape That is the very short answer slightly longer answer So Drupal cares, which was the fundraiser that you referred to we raised About half a million dollars, which was amazing and at that time we were facing Trying to cancel multiple in-person events We had contracts with venues and hotels, which at the time we did that was a great idea to do But unfortunately we had no way to know that we would have a global health crisis to face so that fundraiser coupled with Scaling back a bit in the organization budget wise We received two payroll protection loans Throughout the pandemic that were forgiven. We actually were able to To have met positive years the last couple of years and I've been looking at What year was that 2020 when this all started I've been looking at the last several years kind of as one long year not only because it felt like one year long here, but also because We wanted to be prepared for what we knew would be coming, which was the slow kind of Re-entry into these in-person events and just building financial stability in the organization, so We Actually built up some cash reserves with some of that fund raising money that's gonna help us now mitigate the risk of Not only this year and by the way this year we budgeted very carefully for a smaller event We knew based on surveys and other information that we should plan for that But we still have two more Events that we are contracted in person and of course we want to have Drupal con, but we've got these big contracts So we are well positioned and kind of thinking of that all holistically in terms of the risk But we also didn't want to just sit on a bunch of cash So the board actually set aside some money in a board designated fund to Invest in some strategic initiatives, so we're also trying to be cautious, but still make an impact and and not just kind of Sit on on those funds And we've I think in the time that I've been with the organization. We've also done a lot to just Build extremely strong financial controls looking at best practices in the nonprofit industry in particular and adopting those best practices and We've you know worked on Improving our our budgeting systems and lots of nerdy accounting things And it won't go too much into depth on but so we're in great shape Thank you For donating because that made a huge difference and anyone else here that donated and we are Being really good stewards of those donations and it's Part of why we're here right now today We were able to survive the last couple of years and we're really Able to cautiously, you know forge ahead and continue to do these awesome events So I don't know if there's anything y'all want to add but I mean I would just add if you were here this morning for the Drupal org panel you saw some new faces, right? Irina and Caleb in particular were up here with us and there were folks who were able to join We have we had four consultant folks join us on a sort of one-year basis to help give us capacity to do things like invest in the GitLab tooling initiative to do things like get our Drupal 9 migrations and all these sorts of things So when we thought we were going to have to kind of contract with our ambitions about how we were supporting the community While we weathered the storm like the extreme generosity of the community and that in that fundraiser really made it possible for us to actually in some ways do more and And we're thrilled with everyone who came because this is this is an event at the at a scale We were hoping we could achieve But I'm sure of and it's been wonderful to be together with everyone again, so Maybe to add something to that so thank you for it was at 25 25 Drupal cons like I counted it yesterday was 17 for me so huge respect for you in that sense Even like I'm wearing my first Drupal con t-shirt or a second But what I wanted to say so three weeks ago. We had Drupal developer days and I remember my my vibe or divide that I had from Drupal con second it's in coastal 400 500 people. I don't know how big that was And a Drupal developer days was postponed also for almost two years and a half something like that And I was also afraid in the sense that like with like less people show up But ultimately that they were almost like almost 400 people that showed up Which was our maximum capacity and there were like people like can I still buy a ticket that kind of stuff? And the vibe that I I remember and love about the Drupal community Coming from Saget and then 15 conferences later was still present And and like kind of like over achieved that's expectation for me personally obviously and I see he you were also there He was there So the love that I kind of like got from Saget still continues up until today And I hope we can keep going on that growing pot in that sense, but it was a good sign So I'm curious about the you know recently had a board member step down as well as You know how they're left. So I'm just wondering about the timeline or the plans to fill both the Open community elected board member position as well as the executive director position and what that looks like and timeline and stuff How do you should probably take this one? Yeah, so That was like what we were trying to figure out in this weekend together When we met it's like to look at the timelines and I think that normally what happens is that? We think about all these things and we talk about it and then we actually use Drupal come to just you know Observe what is happening? It was what are the needs and so for the It was also less time like this so for those who don't know we had Heather she resigned and see her last day was in the beginning of March and So she resigned in the middle of February as she was the ed and then there was immediately a plan That was set up and the plan is of course how you do it the board speaks then to the leadership team and then Angie was took over the acting ed role And like last time Tim did that last time when we did the same transition And I think it took six to nine months to actually go through the phase So the board is the one who then goes into the search process of finding a new ed And the same was with the succession plan in the board itself. We also have We had actually a succession plan for the board chair and for the for the secretary and all that it just happened a little bit quicker Because people are also allowed to step down and say like from these volunteering positions And I actually encourage everyone in open source to do that because we need to be able also to say I can't Participate as much as I could before so therefore I would like to step down And I want to give somebody else the opportunity to step up and that's what we did So therefore that happened really quickly now. We have another board member who also Resigned recently Also same, you know, we in all cases there has been an E a block sent out from either those persons or Or from us just about why that was or how we see that and in this case, it's a community elected board member that actually Resigned and his term was ending in the end of November So we have we had an official board meeting happening this weekend and we Are going to nuns Like the process of that just with a blog post just immediately when our People here are not working on Drupal con anymore to actually and I would like to do that formally together with that person Because we are just going through the formal process of speaking to that person We need to do the formal stuff Signing board agreements and all of that but that has all been talked about and agreed on and now It's you're just gonna hear about it in a couple of days So for the role of the two coming community elected board members, it will be to again It is actually agreed on but again that person needs to be in line of all these communication It takes a couple of days, so I hope that it answers the question I thought I'd throw up a follow-up question so we've done sort of a leadership search process before and That had involved obviously the board participation from the staff Community input and all those sorts of things And I know all these details are still being worked out But could you share maybe something of what you would like to see in the the person you're recruiting for the ED role Is there a particular quality that you feel is important for us as we're moving forward? That's a good question So we talked about it earlier. There are like a little bit of a lot of things that the Drupal Association is doing and I can't just say it is really difficult to find a person that can actually fit the Tech box like to take the tech box for everything that needs to happen. So it is a really You know a question of Should that person be more focused on fundraising should that person be a technology person who knows exactly how to build and and grow Open source communities. I don't have the answer and I certainly do not know the person who can fill all of these boxes So I can't say exactly, you know, I would love to hear from you how you see it But you know that is exactly what we need to find out here by listening to you So that's why we are trying to have all these conversations I know that Reese is for example as a project lead having conversations with the strategic initiatives He's meeting all the core committers, you know, he's speaking to the stakeholders yesterday We were talking to the agency owners and I think like that is exactly what we need. We need to hear it from you To be able also to figure it out Any other thoughts? Yeah, maybe I can add a little bit I'm not sure if if everybody's familiar with the process of finding an ED to that might be useful to explain in in one minute, but To find a new executive director, we will use called a search firm, you know executive search firm And so how it works is you have to kind of create the job description and and describe the attributes to use your words to him of the person that you're looking for and so The way we've approached this is one we put You know, we put the temporary leadership in place so to speak We you know, we elevated Angie's role and we feel very comfortable With Angie in that role like we're not worried about anything really and so that gives us the luxury of Taking our time to figure out What we are looking for and so this we've been talking about this actually every week with the executive committee And then last weekend here, we've had a lot of conversations about it with the entire board and we're trying to figure out What is going to be the strategic Focus if you want for the Drupal Association What does the Drupal Association needs the most to be successful the next couple of years and once we've figured that out? Not just with the help of the board that by listening and talking to other people We can really fine-tune and finalize the job description that we can then You know pass on to the search firm and work with the search firm on Finding that so we haven't finalized the job description yet as Betty explained But we've made progress in our thinking so That's kind of where we're at and Mike or Nick you said seemed like you had some thoughts. Yeah Thank you. So like like first of all, I want to say like getting to me in G has Has been wonderful like It's it's amazing like the amount of care that she's putting towards her staff and to the Drupal project in general even like coming in as a non-software kind of outsider and That that really impressed me. So that that made me really really happy about the state of where we currently are I Personally have thoughts in my pop my thoughts don't represent, you know, the whole board or anything I would love to see someone with like open-source experience in here that has From a from a another successful community like us, but at the same time like I want to I want to make sure that the DA doesn't continue to do stuff because it continues to do stuff, you know I want to make sure that we're thinking holistically about Why do we do things? How does this advance the project as a whole, you know, not to be self-serving? I don't want the DA to exist to support itself and We've had over this weekend. We've had tons of conversations regarding that and it was it was enlightening and wonderful and exhausting all at the same time and Like we had we had a person kind of facilitating conversations and and he said at the end He's like, I know your brain is full and I'm like mine is overflowing, you know But at the same time it was so exciting because you could tell that we all care so much about this Please come and ask a question if you want to join us. Yeah I want to say something we are unique in the sense of like we've been pioneering this like a lot of things So therefore like it is not so easy for us to say like let's replicate this so it's challenging But Susan you were a board member. Yeah, I have a hopefully provocative question So I think we can see that the Drupal Association staff puts a great deal of effort into Drupal con and we really see the value of this I'm wondering to what degree you think We should also be putting some of that energy into more External marketing Initiatives and if there's a way to maybe more effectively use some of those resources for that type of thing so we can have a broader reach Personally, I think that's spot-on Absolutely needed and I know you're part of promote Drupal lead leading it I think so I think building more Collaboration between the DA and promote Drupal. I know that it's kind of fluctuated maybe But I think it's super important and critical and I I mean I don't want to Tell you all the things that the board talked about but they but we did talk about Me along with the board the importance of marketing Drupal and how impactful that is and can be and what the potential is there. So I Strongly agree with the board's thinking on that and I personally think it's really important without Drupal then there is no DA. There's no Drupal con. There's none of this. So I Think it's really important that we continue to invest Time and effort into that and and I think everyone on stage probably agrees This is something I'm really passionate about And I I can I can tuck your ear out for a while. So There was a conversation we were talking about Drupal's perception in the wider community, you know And someone someone said something along the lines of like yes Oh, I heard and I heard a story where someone tried out Drupal and they were like, oh, yeah I remember Drupal from like 10 years ago. I use that and I and I think I interrupted and I said yeah and if you install it again, it looks the same and People judge the book by its cover and that's one of the reasons I've been I've been Working with you know doing the new themes and but but that also goes toward Drupal.org Drupal.org is a marketing tool and Like Drupal.org right now the reason that exists and and the way it does is because it has existed that way and I think the Move to GitLab will unburden Drupal out of work from that and I'm super super excited about that and that's gonna change things In addition to that there's tons of like really cool marketing ideas that I'm gonna float And most of these ideas I want to I want y'all to be aware of are very bad But I'm gonna float them and they're probably gonna get shut down and that's that's totally okay But I feel that we can do a good job and I know the people up here are passionate about I know the staff members are passionate about it And I have confidence in all of them Let me interject very briefly There's some collaborations that are currently going on that. I know you're aware of some of these Suzanne But and some others in terms of working with folks like community members in the promote Drupal initiative Which I'm sure they'd appreciate more members at DrupalCon to do things like revamp the Drupal for agency leaders the Drupal for developers The Drupal for marketers types of pages on Drupal.org We're also working with partners at Third and Grove to do a look and feel refresh as part of our Drupal line upgrade Which has some really cool things coming. I don't want to spoil we've but if there's some some things coming together That'll be really exciting that you'll be seeing pretty soon And I think that's a little bit of a launch pad But I also think there's room for amplifying a more coordinated effort around some of these things and around Introducing or reintroducing Drupal and getting people to take a fresh look And providing a place that is for the evaluator that gives them that instant experience That makes them want to take another step deeper in another step and become part of our community. So I Don't want to spoil the party. Yeah, I love marketing in that sense I think there's like a big big challenge out there that Drupal operates on a global scale So the localization effect is is massive, but it's also very challenging So how do you put the right energy into words like the maximum? Efficiency to maximum impact on a global scale Japan Asia Europe in that sense and US obviously or all of the Americas I think that's a question that we really have to think about Really hard. It's a really difficult question like how do you do branding across the globe? What is marketing in that sense like the fine marketing? Like if I ask any of you you will all give a different answer in mount outbound all these things conversion whatever So it's something that we need to solve as soon as possible. I think to understand like, okay What's the best approach for that investment for the the DA to go forward with? And and just sorry to follow up on that just one thing that promote Drupal has tried to do is to create a Committee around Drupal ambassadors that's kind of meant to address that and actually ask the local association leaders like what What are the needs and how can we do marketing and of course with no kind of event marketing? It was hard to do things like oh, let's go to a conference in this new market and but There's been some small effort of the seed of that effort to maybe do that to some degree in the community But I think there's a lot I think we can we can foster that and try and Blow on the kindling and make that grow. I think the the other thing is there's an ambition to bring more Multilingual functionality to Drupal dot org itself and I think that's going to be a key part of this effort and like you can't just turn on localization and suddenly it's an international site There's curation required editorial control and all those sorts of things and that's going to require the community We're not a big enough staff to do that But that's an opportunity as well. I don't want to add to that. So so I feel But everyone speaks English or not everyone but everyone that is here today and what we Tend to forget in the Drupal community is that yes, we do in code and in software We do speak English. We communicate in English our Documentation is in English, you know, we go on on all of these platforms to stack overflow. It's all in English you know and But the market doesn't work like that So and that is to the point that Nick was saying earlier like every single market speaks the language that they speak and therefore Would that work for the Drupal Association to be in charts of like all of these markets and like have people there because there would Nobody go on You know, there's nobody goes and searches for you know How can I do this with Drupal or how is Drupal best forever and ends up Drupal.org if you're searching for Germany in Germany in German? You know, so I think that these are Interesting things that we like these are exactly the conversations that we need to have and think about like how can that be done? You know, we are not the only people in the world that have had that issue But I know with a large organization if I was a if I was a company I would just you know higher than brand people in every single country and all that stuff And and that requires funding if you want to go and do that So that is also something that like we need to figure out too like okay So how are we gonna fund that activities? How are we gonna do it the local associations? I am president of the Icelandic local association and in Germany as well and here we have Nick as well You know, we would love to not have to do all that stuff ourselves You know because we don't have the time and the capacity to do it, but how are we gonna do it? I don't know and I think Suzanne in your promote Drupal, you know, I think we need to have that conversation Awesome, I'm gonna ask a final question of our panelists. We have a little bit of time left I'll go down the road starting with Angie But what is something in that for the future of the Drupal's Drupal Association an upcoming program a Commitment something that's talked about the board level any of those things being as specific as you can that you're excited about And you think people should be excited about as well It's really kind of difficult to pick one thing Before I say though, I also going back to the executive director conversation I also just wanted to say that the leadership team Ashley and Tim at the the organization are phenomenal and Tim did this role before and the board could have just as easily had him step in and he did such a great job but I feel like we have Such a strong leadership. So even though I have the title Tim and Ashley are like so critical and are such a support I feel like we are a fierce threesome We all work really closely together. So I just wanted to recognize that and Tim in particular is, you know All over the place at this conference talking about so much cool stuff and it's very impressive to me. So anyway You know, there's so many cool initiatives happening and I think We're at this exciting moment in time where we've come through a couple of difficult years and we've built up enough resilience financially and enough of a strong team that we can start doing some really cool things and investing in You know the work with Drupal.org. I think is really exciting get lab work is very exciting and then for me just honestly the best part of the day is Just selfishly working with the staff is really great. We've got a really awesome team So the thing that gets me the most excited every day is just to work Alongside the the staff and also alongside the board it I feel really lucky To be a part of that and I think it's a reflection of the broader community. So for me the people part is always Kind of the first thing but all the other stuff that's happening is so cool as well. So that was more than a few seconds Sorry, but it's all right. We'll take a little time over Betty. How about you? Yeah, so what I think it is really exciting is that Drupal is 20 years old right 21 years old and it started to be like a lot of People volunteers doing it in the free time hanging out of these events that you were talking about and now we have Teresa said it in his trees not many times that we have sponsored development We have actually people who are doing it for living many of us are actually working companies and we are contributing to Drupal So I feel like I'm excited about the Drupal Association and the Drupal product also like Becoming that and by that meaning like it is okay to to be you know highlighting the companies that are You know back in the days and sorry for coming a little bit over But you know it was not allowed to talk about the companies and you know It's not allowed to talk about that you can make money and open source like who you know But today like open source is just open source is running everything today And and it is totally okay to have a really awesome ecosystem And I'm really looking forward to see that Drupal Association play a part in that and help that to thrive in an open source environment So that's my thought I'm gonna be a bit more technical. Sorry No, but I'll make it very quick. I'm super excited About the transition to and I'm very biased since this week at the kid lab But not only about that because I remember a keynote of you addressing like getting off the island as in like crossing bridges Did it with composer with symphony with those things? Making sure that the DA is focusing on really creating that value that is specific for for the Drupal ecosystem And not building the pipelines yourself and then all of those like I'm really excited about like all the possibilities That is possible with that and then in effect Like increasing that amount of people that are able to contribute Somehow maybe with features that are added by get loud. I don't know but that makes me really excited How about you Mike? Echoing the get lab thing that's that's exciting from a contribution standpoint, but I am almost more excited to unburden the technical debt from your staff and allow allow Drupal.org to innovate faster and and that includes like a lot of the marketing like I would love to have Drupal.org to have the most beautiful website with documentation that you can actually find documentation that is a joy to contribute to I Want I want new contributors who go to Drupal.org to be able to figure things out to be able to install stuff and a lot of that will be enabled by By unburdening with that technical debt and just open up so many possibilities and I just that's just makes me happy Awesome, and how about you Dries? Honestly all the same things that have been said, but I think short term I'm very excited about good lap for all the reasons that were mentioned I think a little bit longer term. I'm very excited about the work. That's happening around the certified Drupal program and encouraging more organizations to Become makers in the Drupal project like have more organization take on meaningful amounts of work You know that leads to innovation in the project I think that could be a complete game changer in the long run for Drupal So I'm excited about all these things and obviously the marketing piece to like, you know, we have such an amazing project we have such an amazing product and we don't Actually celebrate that enough. We don't actually share that enough with the rest of the world And if we can do that we can show the world How great Drupal is how amazing the Drupal community is all the things you can do with Drupal I would be I would be wonderful, you know, like that would be really really nice. So I'm excited about all these things but again, it comes down to You know time and resources and funding. So anyway, you can help Yeah, you know would be much appreciated So to close us out your support is Drupal Association members supporting partners certified partners is what makes All of this possible everything that we do And it has that multiplier effect. I talked about earlier, right? Yeah, your donations your contributions You're volunteering let us do what we do and then in turn we put out more tools more resources to hopefully make your lives easier More efficient and more sustainable To create a more sustainable open-source community and a more equitable source community So join me in thanking all of our panelists and thank you also for all of your time