 Yeah, we should be good to go. Excellent. Well, welcome to our second meet the candidate session for the 2013 at-large board of director seats for the Drupal Association I'm Holly Ross. I'm the executive director over at the Drupal Association and I'm really excited to Moderate today's convening. It's really fun to talk to folks about why they're so passionate about Drupal and how they want to make a change So I want to thank everyone for being here and give you a few notes about how things will work today So first of all if you are not a candidate you are on mute right now And that helps us keep the background noise to a minimum if you are a candidate You might want to avoid making a smoothie while we do this just as a reminder But that does not mean that we don't want to hear from folks who are listening in in fact just the opposite So, you know, we want you to ask a lot of questions throughout the process today You'll note that you have a questions module in your little Panel feel free to use that throughout the session today to Share the questions that you have for candidates And you can ask a question of all the candidates or if you want you can direct a question of a particular candidate Just be sure to note that in your question and I'll be sharing your questions with candidates when we get to the Q&A section So that's how to ask questions a couple of notes about how the format will work The first thing we're going to do is hear statements from the candidates and while they're speaking I'll go ahead and share their profile on the screen Other than that, there's really no video to today's session So if you see the web page up for a very long time and it's not moving, that's fine Things are not broken. Just want to point that out And when all the candidate statements are complete, we will switch to the question and answer format again I'll share your questions. We're going to give candidates a minute or so to answer So we can keep things moving along Also want to note that we are recording this session today So if you miss anything or want to share this with colleagues, we'll have that available to you If the technology gods could please bless me one time this week We'll have that available to you this evening And I'll be updating the meet the candidates blog posts with the recording and with the transcript when it's ready So special shout out to Steph al-Hajj for typing like a maniac today in IRC Which reminds me you can also Hang out there in the Drupal association chat room on IRC Drupal hyphen association Last last thing about candidates just a reminder that your interactions don't have to end here today We're going to keep the meet the candidates pages up for the next couple of days for your questions and answers So go to association dot Drupal dot org forward slash nominations. You can see the list of candidates You should see them there now You can click through to individual candidates ask them questions to see what they have to say And then we're going to open voting on sunday So look for that I'm not going to specify time but some point on sunday. It will open wherever you are in the world It will open So please do vote and encourage your fellow community members to do the same And I think that's the end of the housekeeping. So Let's meet the candidates that we have with us here today. We have Morton Morton, I still don't have any clue how to say your last name. So I keep calling you morton dk I hope you can live with that Uh morton uh pagea eugenio We have two mathews mathew saunders and mathew tipped with us. Uh, and hopefully we'll have a jared smith at some point Because I can see him on the line Uh, so we're gonna start with candidate statements. Uh, so I will turn things over to you morton And morton, I just want you to know that you I cannot hear you. I don't know if you muted yourself Okay Yep, that's right more than I cannot hear you any of the other candidates you want to hop in and make sure that I can hear you Hey, this is jared smith. Can you hear me? Ah jared we do hear you. No, excellent Matthew tipped. Can I still hear you? Can you hear me? Yeah, I can Morton it might just be you you may want to try to reconnect. Uh, and let's just move forward to pagea Hopefully pagea I can still hear you since we finally got that working. Good times. This is all going very well What about eugenio eugenio? Can I can you uh, can you Speak I think you're muted right now, but I can try. Do you hear me? Great Let's start with eugenio and I will uh, I'll help morton and uh, and pagea see if they can reconnect Thanks pagea Hi everybody My name is eugenio. I'm from Italy. I work in a droopa shop at enterprise level I'm involved with the community for about three years And I do like communities and I do like active communities such as droopa one and I would want More involvement in some minor community such probably the italian one is not so active as I would wish And my joining is a way to to try to to support these and to to change these kind of things This is more introduction. I I would prefer more question and answers. Uh, we can confront. All right. Well, thanks. Thanks so much Uh Matthew Saunders, are you still online? I see you there. All right. What about Matthew tift? I'm here. All right. We're gonna move on to you while we sort out what's going on with everyone else Sure Well, my name is Matthew tift. I live in minnesota, uh in the twin cities in the united states I work for, uh, wisconsin public radio, which is in a neighboring state um, and I have been A developer at wisconsin public radio for the past seven years or so and I helped to Lead the effort to relaunch all of wpr's or wisconsin public radio's web properties on droople I am also fairly active in the droople community um in especially in The public media area in droople camp twin cities and I recently I have been doing a lot more Contributions to core and I'm currently one of the co-maintainers for the droople eight's new configuration system um, I am very interested in helping to support the board and its mission and to help with the Help support where the community wants to go with droople org Help promote promoting events. I've been very involved with the twin cities droople camp. So I know as an event organizer Um, some of the challenges there and I think there's some opportunities for the association to continue in its support It's already very helpful. I know um providing for example, um Economic channels for camps to Collect money and I think there's just um, a few more things In a few more ways that the association can help promote that among camps because I know some other camps weren't aware of those types of things so I think there's all kinds of things that um, I'd like to help out with and support many of the current initiatives with the droople association. I think are great. So I think in in um In some some extent. I'm just very interested in helping do more with them and doing more of the great things that they've been doing Fantastic. Thanks. Matthew Sure. All right. I'm gonna try this now Hey, Morton, are you there? I should be there. All right All right Morton tell us about yourself Okay. Well, um I've been uh, my name's Morton. I've been in the droople community since 4.7, which is about seven years now. I'm the current uh, I've been on the board for the last year I'm the current chairman of the danish droople community, which we could see by the last uh At the the droople conference and practice year We're going to be actually the biggest community now in the world based per person per Country size, which we of course take great pride in um So the last year I've been sitting on the droople board A droople association board and that's been a pride of a ride. It's been um, I think it's gone quite from from Very complicated to being coming very easy and I was kind of feeling that my mission last year is It's almost done. It's still me. I'm still missing the last couple of things that I set up to do last year And it's a ski point of getting a more international focus building on the chart organization around droople association um Now and make sure that the communication gets gets way better At the board and and also becomes still keeping this Deep contact with our roots because I think it's in the community Which of course is a very easy work to use because so basically everybody works with rules in the community but that that also means to having your Kind of having a contact network a lot around the world all the time And that's the thing I've been blessed with the last year to be able to do so My my mission kind of for the next year is is To to keep on pushing for this more international focus and keep on pushing for Forgetting a chart organization built around the droople association. Um, I do hope that we can at the same time build up this whole helping Helping helping tools for droople camps around the world. So new people coming in who's not like Me and probably the rest of the Of us who's running for the board now have done camps a ton of times There are new people coming in. How do we make sure that they get easier tools to work with? And that's kind of one of the things I hope we can do And also keeping this community focus where I've been Kind of blessed this time to be so so deep into the board and knowing so many people that I've actually been able to To build up the the community summit, which is going to be the next week at the droople camp Before droople camp and and that's the thing I really look forward to To actually be able to work on these community things that we all talk about but That's phases where we do bigger conferences Those kind of get forgotten and and that's a format that we're at the droople association I've had because to change this year and and I hope for more of those kind of things in the future. So My my main reason I want to run is to actually get my job to get the job I promised to do last year to get that done One year was not enough for me to my my revolutionizing organization So it I kind of need a year more than I should be done So I think that's kind of it Awesome. Thanks Morton Okay Let's see who looks connected here Hey Jared, why don't we Why don't we try to talk with you? Let's see if this works. All right, Jared. Looks like you are muted I'm muted I think There you go. And uh, you may want to get really close to your mic Okay, can you hear me better now? Perfect So, uh, hello everyone, my name is Jared Smith. I'm an open source geek I currently work for Bluehost, a web host company and I've had a long history of involvement with open source community Um, obviously I'm involved in the Drupal community that's been involved in the Fedora project The Fedora project we worked with years ago as well as the Community Relations Manager for the Aftos Voice of IT project My motivation for wanting to join the board is to really help grow the Drupal community I've had a lot of experience in helping to grow and foster different open source communities over the last seven or eight years And I want to take my expertise and apply it to the Drupal community as well You know, I've taken part in from the Drupal comms And it's in the Drupal camps. I'm giving a keynote at Drupal Camp Guatemala Maybe next month and and really I want to focus on And how do we how do we keep up? How do we make sure that the development community keeps up with the growth of the user community? How do we make sure that uh developers don't get burned out if they're They're doing their best to try to make Drupal the new best DNS in the world How do we how do we grow the governance so that it's a help and not a hindrance to Excited to be actively involved in the Drupal community and helps make it better Thanks, Jared. Appreciate that sounds like you might be somewhere doing something for Drupal right now All right, and let's see if we can get Matthew Saunders going. Here we go and Matthew are there Oh, so close I thought we had you that time. I cannot hear you. I don't know if you have a mute button somewhere, Matthew Can you hear me? Aha success You can hear me. Yep. Yes. Yeah, awesome Hi everybody, um, my name is Matthew Saunders and I'm the director of client services at at design group Um, I've been working in and around and with the nonprofit sector since about 1995 Um, this is included board work on both sides of the of the aisle. So to speak both as an employee of of nonprofit organizations, but also Um on a couple of of boards I've been working in the technology space since about 1999 And I've been working with Drupal. I entered the Drupal community on or around 2007 I think the first con that I went to was This was in Barcelona. In fact, that's where he met Morton He was one of the first people that that I met in the community and it was it was quite a Quite a colorful experience and a whole lot of fun. It really made me feel Welcome I'm a process geek. I'm not a coder. I'm not a developer. I'm not femur I've made my living around looking at processes project project and process management And and I've engaged those those tools in a lot of different projects ranging from small projects and boutique shops to working as the as the lead manager in the migration of examiner.com from coal fusion to dribble seven I've been deeply involved in the community almost from the get-go I've been helping organize Drupal camps in colorado since the second one which had 13 people in it I think We apex somewhere around 400 A couple of years ago I've presented at many many camps and cons including doing keynote a keynote for for Drupal camp Austin And I was one of the organizers for for Drupal Drupal con Denver My motivations behind behind wanting to to pitch in with the association is Simply that the community embraced me in 2007 and it's fed me Not just not just from a from a financial standpoint, but from a personal standpoint Some of my deepest connections and and deepest Relationships have have have come from this community and every single time I've needed something from the community It's pulled through and and and provided for me and I'm unbelievably grateful for that So I've spent the last six years giving and receiving but I feel like I've received more than I've given And I want to give back more So last year when the when the Board announcements came up. I ran as as many people know and I was asked in back channels whether I'd Consider running again and and I was happy to do so And part of the reason that I think that I'd be helpful is that I've got board experience I'm currently on a non-profit board similar size to the association And and I've got deep roots in the community. I've got the academic training to support this kind of work my my Two of my my professional professional degrees are in are in organizational management nonprofits And I think the most important Aspect to this is that my my deep affection for the people that constitute the Drupal community Really really becomes a a lens for how I I would view participating on the board Um my my main focus if if I'm elected will be good governance to begin with and looking at at supporting the association and holly specifically Through through the through the art of good governance and um as I as I get my get my My Balance so to speak what I would like to do is start looking at uh at youth a little bit more and And how we continue to how we continue to Bring bring young people into the community Because open source projects like ours often can suffer from what's the equivalent of hr attrition And attrition can kill An organization that can kill a project can kill a community So I think that it's going to be really important for us to be looking At people who are younger bringing them in and helping them um achieve the The the the skills that they need to be leaders in our community moving forward So thank you very much for allowing me time to to comment. I appreciate it. Looking forward to the rest of the conversation Thanks and our do you do you prefer Matthew or Matt? Matthew please. Okay. All right Excellent. Now we have one more candidate on the line Peja, but we are just having a terrible time getting Peja connected to the audio Peja what I'd like to invite you to do now uh is to Include your candidate statement in the irc channel And we'll hopefully we'll keep working on the audio and we'll get you connected and you can participate in the q&a But I don't want to miss your Candidate statement. So you can include it in the irc channel. We can make sure that we get that included in the summaries that go up Uh, so thanks to the candidates for their statements. We're going to move over into the q&a section So this is a reminder for all the folks that are connected to the call right now That you can participate now by asking questions of the candidates You should have a question section in your control panel for the meeting so you can type your questions right in there But I will start out with a question for all the candidates And you guys should feel free to jump in in whatever order make sense, so See if we get your muting stuff worked out here So here's the question which is what do you want to see more of from the Drupal Association? And what would you like to see less of from the Drupal Association? This is Matthew Saunders I'd like to see The da continue its outreach efforts I I feel like we're starting to really really Have have a sense that that's gaining traction people are getting better better They're understanding what the da is about a little bit more and I think that people are starting to make use of da Resources a bit better for things like camps and so forth Again, I think that I've mentioned youth I'd like to see the da really Be reaching out to younger people So those younger people in the community can take up a mantle of leadership ultimately I don't want there to be sort of this whole where we've got young people who aren't ready to take on leadership and and sort of the old guard that that Are are leaving through attrition or or or whatever other reason Um, I think the da should be looking to strengthen the Drupal brand Um brand is brand recognition is a form of currency that we can capitalize on So even as we see Drupal being adopted by Um, you know bloggers all the way up to governments Okay, I can't do anything now. Am I the only one? I hear you sir. I'm either Hello Um Seems that we lost hi guys and holly. No, I was muted. I was talking to myself here in my kitchen Sorry Yeah, we did lose matthew's audio. It looks like we got him to reconnect. Let's give him let me get one second here and matthew Are you there? All right. All right. We lost you for a second there. You hear me? Yeah. Why don't you finish up your thought? Uh, where did my thought drop? Oh, are you opening up that door? Oh I have to do it I think you were talking about reaching out to to newer to to younger programmers Um, not just programmers. I think it's important for us to to uh to widen that squat I think that we should be looking at not just programmers, but but also project managers and and uh, and uh Uh people who are who are more focused on business Um, you know, this comes from a guy that isn't a programmer. So, um, you know, that that that brings a that brings a different Uh a different perspective. I think but um, I think that it's uh, it's really important for us to to widen Uh the base of people who are supporting ripple and really try to try to um I I think I distance is the wrong word But I think that be highly inclusive of people of professionals who are engaged in the use of ripple And are engaged in the community who aren't necessarily necessarily programmers not that there's anything wrong with being a programmer Um, I I couldn't do my job without uh without that portion of the community for sure Great, um, and I'll leave it at that Great. I'm I think that we actually have Peja on the line now Hello Brilliant After switching four offices, I finally get one that wants to connect me every 30 seconds Well, I really appreciate your uh, value effort there. Do you want to share a little bit about yourself and then maybe answer the question? Uh, sure. Um, my name is Peja Grugick. I'm a director of technology and new target, uh, washington dc based open source shop Uh, our cms of choice, which uh is Drupal and we work with a variety of clients including governments non-profits as well as small businesses My primary focus for running for d8 board is to strengthen the quality and the size of the drupal community From femur to developers to designer and beyond because these are the guides who Keep the community going as well as the project going strong and taking over more and more of the market share I've been working with my colleagues here a new target to Bring growth to the drupal community locally by seeking out dc area colleges community colleges universities to find interns In a computer science or it related fields and expose them not only to drupal, but open source community at large I want to bring these ideas and programs Implemented with success a new target to the drupal association To contribute what work and what doesn't My plan is for this initiative In partnership with colleges universities To introduce more and more students to drupal and open source community One of the biggest challenges that currently is facing drupal community is the number of skilled Developers and a limited talent pool. Um, I just read uh like two days ago up posed by drief And he basically points out the same thing which is the basis of me running that The biggest challenge is shooting drupal currently is that organizations the whole sizes can't find drupal talent Now that being the biggest uh problem. It's not, you know, don't get me wrong It's it's a good problem to have it means that you know drupal project community are growing at a great pace And we're taking up more and more of the market But we need to increase the supply to meet the higher demand of drupal developers side builders and themas My primary focus would be to expand the reach Of the drupal project by growing those programs which help new users get involved and learn drupal Uh, I believe that my unique blend of business strategy and technical vision Together with how close I am to the code and actual development efforts in drupal Will be about to ask it to the strategic direction of the drupal association Uh, association does a great job promoting drupal and I believe that is one of the reasons drupal has become such a strong player Among other uh, platforms Thank you for the opportunity and I hope we can work together to strengthen drupal project and the community Brian, thank you, pecha and and do you want to say a little bit about what you might want to see more of from the drupal association and and What's up? Yeah, I think uh, you know as the base is what I would like to see more is more Um, not to say recruiting But more promotion of you know Because you always hear people like for example, I'll use uh, some work for developers and we convert those quite often to drupal there's a Selection that drupal is so harder to learn, you know, and and I've actually met developers who, you know Don't even realize that wordpress and drupal build on the same language. So I think what I'd like to see more is kind of You know, uh bridging that gap between, you know, uh other open source project developers and drupal to bring them on board Which I think we're we're going to be doing more and more with drupal age um So I think that would be a big push that I would Initiate is to kind of open up drupal for Everybody and it's not just specific to people who already work with drupal great Thanks pa jeff Who else has something to share on that question? Oh, I always have something to say It's more than um So I think that the most important thing for the da for the next year is actually to make um To look at the tools that we are providing For our developers and for the for the whole community to work with and that means that that d.o needs a ton of love And uh, we don't got to get that done. We're going to be a major problem. Whatever year We've seen that the whole last year of not being able to upgrade our own site Not getting any space with tools We have a whole bunch of people now who scream so hard to move to github. I'm not I don't Right now I don't have a direct opinion on that but I do know as being Frontend developer that the tools that we have right now is not a success. It could be There's a lot of things on here that could be better. And if that doesn't get better, we will be in In trouble. So for my perspective, there's no doubt that that should be our top priority for the next year The next thing I would I'm going to bang the doors in for the da either. I'm on the board or not Is actually to provide more help and more Uh more tools for people doing camps and events Whatever it's major means like frontends night is also death days or what happened or it's a small need of stress The strength of two is not built on business. It's not built on the codes building the people comes in And and that's kind of it's kind of a paradox or it's a nice paradox that we have this Kind of hippie go go dog a feeling in one side that makes it think around We have an ice cold business on the other side that Things in the muddy and that's kind of the synergy that we have been growing on and I think that's they certainly keep going on but There's no doubt that we need to think about what are we going to do in the future because None of us is getting We need of course, we need more dog. We need more developers and we need new first perspectives and And for that is kind of where do we get these people in and we don't have to put tools People to develop it and we don't have a good place where people can start out by learning people and Me and many others have How many students that was kind of where we got forget because you had that community feeling You had that feeling of actually being with a bunch of kids who all wanted to build this Amazing thing and also oh have a good time with it and If we're not enough you can live by it, then it's even better And that's kind of a thing that we need to keep I think we need to keep on The business part and those things I think will come by itself with us. Well, you know where the money is the business will go I should believe that the da is most important open next year is to make sure our developers Has the best tools they can get so we can get da outdoor And and the other open the place where we actually I know can find stuff enough to be and not get frustrated over some things So that's kind of me That's kind of my two top priorities brilliant Jared or matthew tiffed or eugenio quickly, this is jerry The one thing I would love to see that people Help make sure that we have lots of events around the world and not just in America and Western Europe that's kind of on the way to make events work in another part of the world Maybe need a little harder from a from a Project standpoint to pull out an event that where we really need to reach out to Emerging markets and hope to make a little less discretionary and to be able to travel around the room to attend events And I know that's not a big challenge for the company The fun challenge to try to tackle And I also Thanks Jared Matt tiffed. I want to make sure you're still with us Yes, I am great And I guess the way I would answer that question is I I think one of them The main things I would like to see the Drupal Association do is to continue to grow its membership And I think there are lots of tools available that maybe aren't being Taking advantage of right now. So, uh, for example, I think the way that people Can you know become a member of the Drupal Association? I think that for example that that process like the default process for that would be to maybe To become a sustaining member and other nonprofit organizations have found that to be a successful Tool where where rather than the default being I'm going to become a member for one year The default is I'm going to become a member until I Want to stop becoming a member and maybe transform people to you know, giving a small amount every month or something like that So I I I am sure these types of conversations are going on But those are the kinds of questions I would like to ask And and find out if there's more that we could do Um, just things on the website about for example You know, why do why why is the button green to become a member? Have other colors been tested. Why is it placed in that place on the website? Because I think um, these types of Sort of targeted marketing to help people become a member or if they become a member and they They're they're a member for one year. I I don't think the member the Drupal association as far as I recall. I don't I don't see you. I remember recall Recall getting something like a renewal notice to say hey your membership is about to expire And and I know that you know again other nonprofit organizations will send out those renewal notices and a targeted Points, you know three months before you about to expire one month before you expire And then the the whole goal of raising the revenue and continuing to grow the membership I think would be to help do a lot of these initiatives that folks have talked about before Helping camps helping improve d.o because from from my perspective And in looking over the the information on association dot drupal dot org And in the mission statement and that type of thing is that some of the some of these things some of these programs are already in place, but It just takes people to run them It takes people to reach out to all of the different camps all around the world to say hey we can provide We can be your fiduciary and we can accept money for you Which makes it a lot easier for camps or to say hey, here's some here's some marketing materials that you can put on your registration booth at your camp and help The association that way So I think that is one area where I think the association could certainly do more And the part about doing less I I haven't um I feel like there's there's so many other things that the association could be doing I haven't seen a lot of things that I would say I'd like to see less of um, although the one comment I would make is it seems like a lot of the A lot of the times I see the association or see things associated with the association It's it's a sponsored message a sponsored tweet a sponsored blog post or a Sponsored, you know keynote introduction and I wonder if there are other ways that the association can raise some of this Money and and and maybe have maybe not have to do less of these which I'm sure are very lucrative relationships where We have we have these different sponsored things. So I'm not going to say we should do less of that That is one thing I would ask about Brilliant and Jenny are you still with us? I see that you are muted. So you would have to unmute yourself. Aha. Yeah, maybe it's better good My opinion the the reason what I want to see more and less It's uh connected to the same thing because the community is getting more structure and with more structure Is more intimidating to people to approach to the community So we should make it more accessible to to people because not everybody does things the same way So it will be fine to to help and support those Which would want to get closer, but they They still cannot or they don't know how to do So it's all about the pros and cons there about the structure and the organization which is getting bigger Great. Thank you guys Ah, I think we're on a roll here. Are you ready for the next one? Here's here's what we're gonna ask next Um from your vantage point right now and some of you addressed this a little bit What do you think is the single most important thing for the community to focus on for the Drupal project to succeed? I will not take that. Well Um The good part is to see right now Well, we have a d8 launch coming up at some point and I think the most important thing is that we get people Up to speed what's going on and that needs a ton of education This is one of the fears that's been been going on at this point and that means at time of community members out there helping out other community members and that kind of Require us to have some kind of structure on on everything that goes out so we can actually to provide Go with the right resource. So when you do a meet up, it's actually going to be hey This is how we're going to get this done that we that we make a plan Worldwide how to how to help people up into speed now I don't think that d8 is going to come out like within a month or two months Especially not with a noise we have right now, but it won't be a thing. So for to make the project move on I do think that's um A very very important thing we need to look into um And that require a whole bunch of structure for the community based and that's is in my opinion A very good chance for the Google association to get even more needed in with the Google community So, uh, so that's kind of the big thing. Uh, I see and I will I will find my little handle Thanks Martin other people want to tackle that There's a chair. It's nice. I'll jump in you know, I much want the same line so I I biggest challenge in the community right now is keeping up the growth whether that's keeping Making sure that we have all the features that are end users and developers wanted a modern cms whether making sure that the group of developers are able to keep up with the changes in the code which is particularly applicable to new digital aid making sure that our end users can keep up with the releases of the group and hopefully I don't have a too painful experience because they upgrade from one version to the next whether Keeping up, you know, making sure that the group's development community can keep up with the growth of the community in general whether And making sure that the governance and the working groups and most of the things in the digital association itself Continue to go at the way that it needs to You know to make sure that the whatever governance You know grows grows doesn't have to enter our growth Jared we lost your audio for a second So i'm gonna go ahead and move on and let let that reconnect for you other folks want to answer that question Peja, can you still hear me? Yeah, hi Peja Hey You know, I think With Drupal, you know, I think what everybody else said You know, we do have to keep the developer community updated and where the project is going But uh, you know what we've seen with the Drupal seven We have we had a kind of a snowball effect white house adopted it And it went from there. We've gotten more market share We have a lot more people using Drupal seven than they use Drupal six We want this continue into Drupal eight, of course So I think one of the single most important points to focus on is going to be to meet that demand from the market The more of the market we take Uh more resources will be needed not just for Drupal project for Drupal community, but for organizations to use Drupal, um, I recently worked on a As a consultant on a project for one of the largest government entities in the United States And uh, we were putting Drupal versus a SharePoint and Drupal beat SharePoint and everything except when it came down to the talents One of the biggest concerns for this particular agency was for them to be able to staff these positions with Drupal developers because And I'm sure a lot of a lot of you already know that it's hard to find quality developers skilled temers site builders and everything because The talent pool is getting smaller and smaller as the market share grows. So I think focusing on growing the community and growing the number of skill developers Uh, temers and uh site builders should be one of the focuses for the association to introduce Drupal to other projects to introduce uh Basically how well Well, number one, they can find a job in this economy with Drupal alone, which you know Couldn't happen three four years ago But today if you have Drupal in your resume, you'll get a call from 10 recruiters a day So I think focusing on pulling people in creating more resources for the community and for the project should be Number one focus is that will also increase the amount of members we have in Drupal association Thanks, Pat Jaffee. This is Matthew Saunders. Um, I I want to echo What others have said um and and put a little bit of a twist on it I agree that we need to grow our community In order to keep up with demand the demand just keeps getting Larger and larger and larger and this this is manifest by situations Like for example myself when I've looked for a job It hasn't taken me much more than a couple of weeks since I since I entered the Drupal community to find one And I feel really blessed because of that But what I've noticed is over the last number of years it seems like When I attended Drupal in Barcelona the average age of the convention gore was somewhere around 26 27 28 years old And there were some people who were a bit older there were some that That were a bit younger But it seemed like that was about the average If the last Drupal that I went to which was Portland Um, it seems like the average age has has increased to Somewhere around 36 37 38 years old And again, there's some younger and some older and some very obvious younger younger members in the community Which is cool and awesome, but I do worry about that doughnut hole between between the up and comers and the folks that uh that are uh that are uh are leading at this point who are a little bit older It seems to me like when you're when you're uh when you're working with older people You might have a little bit more wisdom a little bit more experience, but it's the job of us To bring in attract younger people in the community and help them help them build themselves up to to positions of of Of leadership and it's critical in my opinion for the sustainability of the project as a whole For us to engage in those kinds of those kinds of recruiting activities And I don't think that this is just something for the the da to do I think that this is a this is a a task that needs to be Shared amongst every single member of the the active community Great. Thank you This is Matthew tift And I'll just say that it would seem quite obvious that the The challenge with the community is not finding good people to run for the board because those are a lot of very good answers so I I would I guess The way I would the way I would phrase it is it seems like uh Dealing with the growth of the community You could be the single biggest single biggest challenge Because then if you say that then I can say all kinds of other things related to that with the drupal.org And the the complexity of drupal core growing with drupal 8 Training people all these types of things. I do think that Uh the complexity of drupal core moving forward Is going to become more and more of an issue and yesterday was obviously a big Day in that front with this people finding out about this fork of drupal And so I'll be very interested to see how that um How that pans out, but I think that uh As the complexity of drupal core grows and Core development can no longer be something that people can easily just jump in and do That one of the challenge is certainly going to be finding ways to fund people to work on drupal core and I understand that you know the association Their their mission is not to affect the code Or not to write the code for that, but it seems like uh one of the things that they could do to help with that issue is to help uh promote organization Sponsoring developers to work on core or finding Some methods there there have been some innovative ones coming forward recently, but finding other methods to help fund the core development because I mean drupal core is at the core of drupal and If if too many people continue to get burned out and leave and not want to do core development That seems like that could have some pretty serious consequences Great, and you genio, did you have any thoughts? Yeah, I agree pretty much with the Matthew and I see a problem with the complexity of the core in drupal aid Since the code is becoming also more structured and more Like more clean, let's say It's required more developer to be uh to have knowledge and this can be more difficult and also Uh, the community expect to have all the same functionality they had before with drupal seven or with the previous So this can be hard work to to give back all what they had already Great. Well, let's let's go on that thing for a moment. Um, as genio and Matthew pointed out It is it is not in the drupal association mission to touch the code that belongs to the community But it is in our mission to help the project succeed Right, so to help mark help drupal gain market share and and make it make it a dominant player in the cms market So obviously those two are intertwined, right? You have to have good code to have a product that people are going to want to use So how you know, how do you see the drupal association helping to create the best Possible drupal product without overstepping our bounds and getting engaged in in the code itself I will I will repeat myself that we need the right tools to get the job done That means that d.do means needs a ton of love and that we should provide a good entry point as I've been mentioned before that a people are getting older or more experienced. How do we get new people in? Well, we have a whole You have to hold user group go jupacamp meetup jupacamp kind of thing We have the issue to you to have to mentoring programs all these programs. We need to have more More focus on and the da should I think should use way more energy on that But especially d.do needs a ton of love We can see some of the issues right now if you really want to do folks We can just get the da to begin to take the session on the code and then we'll have all the fun in the world And that will never ever ever happen Discussion Thanks, and that was Morton for folks who don't know his voice This is Matthew Saunders You know the association is the 501c 300 irs code and this speaks to an educational mandate and to my mind that really means that that the that the Work that the da does around building Around raising money and so forth should be should be highly focused on providing providing educational opportunities Engaging in outrage engaging in in activities that that support people to Learn and insert themselves in the in the Community so they can they can be better participants so they can be better stewards of the code themselves So they can be better stewards of the resources that we've got So, I mean, I believe that the the the da really Has a has a has a mandate around education Are the folks want to jump in there? This is a general I think it's to work a lot on branding In order to make people to want to learn and at the same time to to offer educational service and probably involvement with the university and Training workshop and all what can support great Peja or Jared or Matthew tift This is Matthew tift. I guess I would say that Related to what I had said before about growing the membership it would seem to me that the association could take a bit more of A role in doing some of the things that Other companies right now. Well, that's aquia for the most part have been doing with trying to grow more core contributors It seems like that could be the type of activity that the that the triple association could do more of they I mean, I don't from what I understand There's nothing from stopping the association from hosting a code sprint and inviting people that are working on the initiative to lead it or that When there is a camp or something like that that perhaps the association You know, again, if if you raise more funds have more money from members have more sustaining members Maybe one of the positions is somebody from the association going to camps Where they're speaking about the importance of Contributing to the code where they're helping with the registration booth and they're bringing promotional materials for the Drupal association and then maybe they're hosting or they're They're helping with the planning for these events for these camps for the code sprints And and then maybe, you know, again, if if there is the funds available sort of along the lines of some of these Community funds that I think I forgot that's probably never not the community cultivation grants helping with the those Sprints and you know, maybe flying in again the initiative lead or something like that for for different areas working on The Drupal core. So that that I think is one way That's not one. That's a whole bunch of ways that the Association could get involved and from what I understand those wouldn't be in conflict of its the organizations charge Great Jared or ketchup Yeah Yeah, I kind of have to say that, you know, the Drupal association really shouldn't be Or they don't get involved with the code, which is a good thing They should be the kind of a separate third party And instead provide developer developers and project support And work with member organizations to support core and module development If you look at, you know, a lot of modules are either sponsored by or maintained by local shops I think that's a program that can be grown that, you know, certain developers who are who are more and more becoming part of the core like get either You know support from the member organizations or, you know, member organizations Support certain modules, whether it's financially or providing other benefits You know, I think da Can really help with the Drupal education and outreach strategy Which will both help grow the membership and grow the market share, which ultimately is what the da should be doing Instead of trying to decide which modules should be used and, you know, where the code goes the code belongs to the Drupal community and I think The way we're handling changes now is working really well because everybody gets their voice voice in instead of Da or somebody making the final decisions or ruling Great And Jared are you still on the line with us? Oh, I needed you. I forgot about that. Hold please Jared Let's try it again Sorry There we go, Jared. I think if you unmute yourself now, there we go There we go. Um, I don't have much other to add then Maybe maybe focus a little bit on the on the working groups that They put in place from a from a governance perspective over the past year or so I was involved early on in those discussions about, you know, what makes sense and The improvement government's perspective and some of the things that I've seen in other open-source communities that have worked well and the concept of Working groups is something that I that I talked to you about More than a year ago, but I want to I want to see that that idea continue and make sure that the working groups have no, you know After tools, they need to be able to do their jobs and continue to get to focus on On what they're they're working on and get to get recognition for the hard work that they are doing Thanks Jared Good. So, um, our next question is actually from one of our candidates, but Doug Kales nicely with something I would have asked anyway, uh, which is about the process of governance um, so One of the exciting things is that all of the candidates come to the table with Certain things that you want to see happen at the Drupal association Um, and yet the role of the board is not necessarily to step into the operations of the association Determine, you know every little program move that it makes and what you know Etc. So I think um, I'd be really curious to hear about, you know, what you think you bring To the table as a board member from a governance perspective and where you see that line Between governance and operations in other words, where's the line between board and staff and what do you hope? What do you think you bring to the table as a as a board member? So, um, I'm going to answer but this is Matthew Saunders. I'm going to answer the question, I guess Because it seemed like there's some silence there. That was my question So, um, obviously I've got some thoughts on that I'll start by talking about what I what I bring to the table. Um, and that is Um, quite a bit of board experience myself I was the board vice president, um, and secretary for a educational nonprofit that that that Governs a charter school in Colorado Its budget is roughly the same size as as the Drupal Association's budget um, although the although the the specific the specific Group of people that that particular nonprofit serves it is is rather smaller Still the same kind of governance governance challenges exist um, regardless of what what You know the the number of constituents that you've got in your in your particular in your particular community um, from my standpoint when i'm looking at uh, when i'm looking at board responsibilities, um, the board is responsible for things like mission values goals Organizational health and viability survival of the organization making sure that the organization has the uh resources that it needs in order to operate um, and then there's this sort of area, um, which seems to me to be shared, um between the board and between leadership at the uh at the uh organization itself and that's stuff like strategic planning and organizational evaluation looking at that things like finance policies membership um and uh to a certain extent employment terms although employment sits it sits um, um directly in the executive directors Lab And then we've got operational kinds of things which the board should never ever ever get involved in because if they if they are it means that that they that there's dysfunction in the organization in ways that are pretty frightening. That's things like staffing specific Management of programs internal systems things like that and it's it it it behooves the executive director to Ask for advice is needed from board members. Um, uh, who have expertise in these areas But um, the the board should never be making making making decisions in this uh in this area So I mean from my standpoint what I think I bring is The depth of uh of knowledge of uh of nonprofits and boards, but also the breadth of Of my involvement in the community over the last six seven years Thanks, Matthew. Other folks want to try to tackle that? More than that. I can take a stab at well, um I bring what I would say from a grass wood grass wood perspective. I don't experience. I've been doing this since I was 13 I'm 39 now. So that gives me what say 26 years of organizing and talking and making people move in some way or the other um, and of course well Seven years in the community and knowing a ton of people and as this is a community Chair I think that while I bring here is actually huge knowledge about the community people basically I have an idea if people know who I am and they know they can always come and talk to me shout at me Get drunk with me. Say dumb things to me without me. Well, maybe I get mad, but we're gonna we're gonna make fix that up later um And and I have a great I had this whole um It's great to work with people and figure out what can make this thing go better and how we can think those kind of tactics I do see it as And another thing I also bring by the way is this whole international perspective that if we want to go to International we need to have people sitting on the board who's not rooted Uh, there's really all over the world. Um, and not so much based on what you're right It's it's not a criteria or class like that But it's it's a thing that I do bring another perspective. It has changed my perspective Some somehow the last year by going so much back and forth to between europe and and the states and that's been a very great learning experience um When you look at tactics, uh, I do see that that um, what is the board? Uh, we get the we figure out what what is it that we need to get done. We put out um You know basically our strategy and then figure out also with the staff as to how we're going to do this um In some way by being grassroots, uh, it would be a hard for a person like me to keep myself away from actually ending up in new Because if I'm out of the camp and I can see people having a need for something I want to have help or something whatever it is. I will of course always It's so deep you know, I thought that I cannot keep my way from it. Um And the thing about kind of leadership, uh, is it's also the and that's kind of the thing I've been shouting all about at least the da for the last years is the lack of leadership I think we saw like two years ago. It was kind of the da was kind of invincible and always kind of an organization that kind of Metal things up and that's the thing that's been changed greatly the last year. Um, which I'm very happy to see But they're also required that we have people who believe in themselves have a clear vision of what they want to do And is able to roll with the punches when they come because of course they don't And again, especially in and I guess what we're going to see the next day or the next part next year with with that initiative became obviously And that's that's kind of how I see I'm way more than the grassroots So I'm not so much up on rules and what we should do and should not do I'm maybe I kind of like still to just get dirty when that's these and just go the punches and get stuff done Thanks morning This is matthew tift I guess I think The way I understand the board Is I mean for me it seems like one of the main Responsibilities is regarding fundraising and with Financial oversight It seems like the the board can do a lot to try and Help the Drupal Association staff Um and Specifically the board seems like a good place where they can kind of you know The board members are the ones who are trying to always keep in mind the mission and looking at the what the staff are doing And in essentially asking questions. I think maybe rather not telling them but saying so how does this program Relate to the board's mission or the Drupal Association's mission You know, why are we doing this this way? in sort of asking questions representing the the members of the association and Maybe to me it seems a little bit, you know, like a politician representing their their people to To ask questions sort of on on behalf to be in the room to be paying attention to be saying So what's going on with this? So like what I mentioned before like the fundraising and the membership and so I guess You know, I was talking about specific things like choosing a button and that kind of thing But I think in that particular instance, that's something where you know, I've had a lot of experience with um in my other roles Um raising money online. So that's not something where I feel like I would you know, tell A board member what or the staff what to do but to maybe just ask questions Have you considered this this is an area where I've done some work or to maybe offered Like Morton was suggesting, you know, that's sometimes where you might want it to say, well, you know I've I've done a be testing on this type of thing before and this you know, this software works and maybe Maybe offering to help out. I don't know if that is again, you know um Cool or not, but it seems like there might be certain places where if you are uh knowledgeable about a particular area to speak up and Maybe maybe if it's in the form of a question rather than the form of this is what you people need to do because that definitely does not seem Like a good role of a board member more about asking questions about how does the activities connect to the mission and And and how and then also, you know revising the mission statement as needed And sort of the strategic planning looking to the long term. Maybe the things that Somebody who works at the association they're they're You know that when they're doing this day-to-day, they're not necessarily Regularly other than maybe they're you know, annual review or something thinking about What's going to happen five years from now, but that's something that a board member might ask So how you know, how how is this leading us toward our long-term goals our short-term goals? Thanks Matthew This is Gerard Smith. I've been briefly here. Um, you know, some a couple of things I bring one is an outside perspective You know, like I said earlier that involved with open source communities around the world We're not the only open source community here trying to solve some of the issues we're we're dealing with So running an outside perspective Somebody who understands the difference between the strategic and the tactical and knowing that the boat board really needs to focus on the strategic decisions and the tactical to other folks and then You know, I guess the other perspective I bring is that I don't think the best use of my time is to dive into the code Right now and start coding module. I think there's many things I can do inside Thanks, Gerard Eugenia or Peja Hi, this is Peja um We you know over 12 years working in various open source Um Systems and as Matthew said, you know, we are the only one and most open source projects face similar Problems, uh, I can for one say, you know, Linux and Ubuntu communities have a lot of the similar Issues of having worked with a variety of different clients and federal governments I I really bring to the board the unique insight into the Challenges facing those markets. I've worked a lot with a member driven non-profits And I think what I bring is that unique insight that I've seen member driven organizations with you know, half a million to six million members And how they use whether it's Drupal another system To build that membership and I'm not saying that I bring the coding level I bring the strategy and the thinking of how to promote Drupal association how to support our mission How to do fundraising in a way that I've seen all these other larger associations do it You know as far as where the difference is between What the board and what the staff do? I mean, I think that's pretty clear But uh, you know as a board member we're there to support the mission Participate with any of the policies that drive the association You know, one of the most important thing is I think fundraising as well as new You know priorities and new initiatives that we can help with great New genio, I think you are muted There you go Okay And I think from my experience as I said, it's 34 years that I'm contributing to Drupal community But in the last two years in 2011 I contributed the organization of Drupal day Italy and in 2012 I was the main organizer And it's a large event with more than 200 people with streaming and also the streaming it's more than 12 people connected So I'm quick in getting things and giving a response I can see how the community behave and what they need to be involved So in Italy it's not so easy to have such a large number of attendees So I could I could understand what they want and to decide the strategy for for the people I'm dealing with Okay Great All right you guys um, I have I think is our final question Probably we'll see something else comes in if you guys have more questions out there feel free to ask them But that's the last one in our queue today, which is basically You know, I think it'd be great to share some of your inspiration for Uh, you know wanting to embark on this journey So, um, I think it'd be great to hear from each of you your favorite moment from the Drupal community um that maybe Inspired you to want to do this and make sure that we create more of them Um, I can say my my favorite moment is still um three years ago. I had a dollar and I was three months premature and the amount of Support I got from the community was completely overwhelming And um, how to put it About a year and a half ago. I was frustrated beyond believe about the project and where the code was Going based on the funding developer and you know, people who knows the front in the Drupal world probably Well, um, at least know my point about I think it's very wrong I think everything should be done in another way and a year and a half ago It didn't seem like we were going that way and I was kind of a little bit like do I really want to use my time on this and um Then you figure out what kind of people is that is um in this community and then you go, okay I kind of owe it to give it one more chance and um So I think that thing had kind of that dragged myself back in To the community because you know, it is it is kind of true when three says, you know, come for the coach day for the community um And that that whole experience of of seeing how many people were those suddenly aware of my situation and and They'll keep kept my spirit up. That was pretty incredible and that has nothing to do with the code is nothing to do anything but the people and So I kind of think I kind of owe it to everybody to push a year and a half and um That's maybe why I'm this Still this angry biking type. We cannot cannot slow down. So That's the that's my most remarkable story in this community My uh, my moment, uh, my favorite moment sort of spread across a year and a half And can we just get you to remind us who you are? Oh, this is Matthew Saunders. Okay, and thanks for working for that first one My my favorite moment kind of spread over a year and a half when quietly in a in a in a back IRC channel um, there was uh whispering in our local community about how it looks like Denver is going to get Drupal Khan and that started up a a uh an 18 month journey Which at times felt like I had taken on a second job um, and at times it felt like a second full-time job as um our community rallied together and and and and uh, and I think put on a pretty amazing Wonderful, uh event and I know that all of our events are wonderful But when you when you participate in the organization of one of these events It's uh, it's a really it's a really amazing And and fabulous experience And that all culminated on the last day of of uh, of the convention when our our team was standing up on on on the stage and um It was it was an enormous relief but also at the same time a little bit of sadness that uh, that uh, that it had Come to an end and a whole lot of pride And this all comes right back to what Morton just said. It's all about the people um, and you know as I mentioned earlier in in in uh in our conversation um The people in this community have always found their way To supporting me when I needed to be supportive And I feel like I've reciprocated and supported others when they needed to be supported some of my deepest and uh, and most rewarding relationships over the last six years have have been have been have have have uh Grown from from this this amazing group of people And I truly believe that if Drupal were to disappear tomorrow those relationships would continue on and those friendships would uh, would uh, would uh, would not Just go away. They they would uh, continue continue to deepen as they have over the last um over the last six years Here is Evgenia My favorite moment was probably last year in Monique where uh, for the first time after working on contributed modules supporting community and so Uh, I got to know many people that uh, I knew one forum or chat And even uh, uh, chicks came to to ask for us because we contributed the modules that it was interesting also for him so It was fine to find that People important for the community also notice us sometime And this was a bit of reward This is Matthew tift great Hi, I was gonna say that there is a lot of favorite moments I could choose from Uh, what one that stands out in my mind was last year at the Twin Cities Drupal camp and we we had Take Decided over the path. I mean we've run the camp for the past three years and I've been involved each year And we've always made it a priority to try and bring people in that can help Uh new contributors that can run sprints and do things like that And in last year we seem like we just got lucky and all these uh, Really fantastic Drupal developers showed up at our camp and Chick stayed at my house and I was driving back and forth each day and in learning quite a lot in the car rides And but I remember uh, we were we were at a sprint and um I I asked uh, Earl Miles was there as well and I asked him what are you doing and he said I can't tell you it's secret And I thought oh, okay and Well, it turns out that that day was At that sprint was when views in Drupal core Came about and that Tim Plunkett and xjam and Earl Miles and some other folks were sort of meeting in secret and then As a result of that After all of this planning and all in bringing in people from all around the world and that kind of thing And then you know something Really big to me that had seemed like a no-brainer for so long putting views in core Was sort of born at Drupal camp twin cities and that it was really through The the foresight of the other people on the twin cities Drupal camp to make that of a priority to try and And help grow our community that way by bringing in these other folks leading sprints and and having other community Oriented growing events Thanks, Matthew and patch. Are you still with us? Yeah, I'm here. Um Well, I think it's hard to pick a favorite moment um over At least with the Drupal community over past six years. There's been plenty of those I have to say some of my favorite moments are uh, either getting to a Drupal con registration or uh, you know a camp or You know a capital camp bad camp Any type of Drupal camp or a Drupal meet-up and especially when you're getting there for the first time You know or to register and you just see the amount of people You know just everybody getting together. It just showcases the strength of the Drupal project in community And it's you know, it won't go five minutes goes by that you don't see somebody you know or somebody you've actually Worked on some code with or chatted on irc that you've kind of said, oh, you know, let's meet up for the first time and hang out And um, you know a couple of months ago. I went back to europe for Uh vacation and I was able to go to three different cities Sarajevo Bosnia Zagreb Croatia and Belgrade Serbia And I was able to actually meet up with some Drupal folks who you know, I've met through Drupal.org and through various webinars So that was a great experience. And I think that's one of the really great strengths about Drupal community is that It's very very both I'd say my favorite moment Any kind of Drupal get-together Thank you Well, all right, you guys I think we made it through our list of questions here So I just want to say thank you again for taking the time to share with us today As well as be part of this process Means a lot to know that there are so many community members out there that want to contribute in this way and a board contribution certainly is significant so Thank you very much for that And so just as a reminder for everyone out there our next steps from here We have a couple more days of the candidate profiles being available at association dot Drupal.org Board slash nominations. So if you have questions for individual candidates, you can go in and do so ask those questions And candidates just a reminder to keep checking back for For new questions on your page So we'll keep that going for a couple of days and then on sunday. We will be opening up the voting the 15th of september so Look for that announcement on the association homepage on the Drupal homepage And basically Everywhere you go, you should be followed by a please vote tag starting sunday on But but keep that in mind and then we will be ratifying the election results on the 22nd of september at the Drupal association board retreat And making the announcements public on on wednesday of the following week so That's our process from here and again. I just want to thank everyone for taking part and again a huge. Thank you to South al hajj. I hope her fingers still work when this is over Uh, and that she's able to continue to eat and type So I appreciate everyone's time. I'm going to go ahead and uh end our recording now and we'll talk to you all soon