 So how's everybody doing after lunch? Excited to be an in-person Drupal con Talking to people remember you kind of forget like You're like bike. I don't know about anybody else. You're like Tuesday. You were like my throat feels a little weird It's not anything bad. It just oh right. I've been talking to people for two days straight like all right getting used to that again Thank y'all for coming before we dive in I'd like to start with a little background on this talk It was first given as a keynote at Drupal gov con in 2021 Myself and my co-host of the Talking Drupal podcast originally presented this as a show The three of us plan to adopt this into a presentation for Drupal con and present it unfortunately due to the pandemic and important life events Nick and Stephen couldn't join us here today However, they both contributed greatly to this talk and I'd like to take a minute to thank Nick Laughlin and Stephen Cross for what I hope Will be a great presentation. I Also hope that as we go You'll see not only their non-code contributions, but the contributions of many folks both within and outside the Drupal community I'd like to welcome you to non-code contribution using your passion and skills to power open source So a little bit about me. My name is John Pocosi. I'm a solutions architect at EPAM I'm a co-organizer of the New England Drupal camp an organizer of the Drupal Providence meetup and if you didn't Confer get from my previous statement co-host on the Talking Drupal podcast Throughout this talk, we're gonna use each of these My non-code contributions to highlight the importance of non-code contrib and hopefully Give you all ideas on how you can contribute To not only the Drupal community, but open source in general. So today we're talking about non-code contribution and We're gonna start with a question. What is non-code contribution? Well like any good person in our industry I went to Google and I asked Google what is non-code contribution and dug a little bit, but It said any contribution that helps an open-source project that does not involve writing code. I Kind of said well, thanks Google. I kind of figured that out You know, it's really about providing your time your skills or Resources to benefit the project So we're gonna continue on talking about non-code contribution and you know, I'm gonna use that term a lot today You know and the reason why is early on Contribution was considered writing code. I think even Dries said it on Monday in a panel that Originally, you know Drupal's motto was built by developers for developers Right over the years the Drupal community has has shifted from that Over time we've learned that non-code contribution is just as important as code contribution It's interesting when we first were talking about this and it came up with this idea Nick Laughlin had said rather than defining non-code contribution by what it is not not code we need a term that defines what it is and We talked about it for like half an hour and decided we were we were not gonna be able to come to a reasonable conclusion to be able to brand rebrands non-code contribution, but at its heart at its core Contribution is contribution whether it's code contribution or non-code contribution So let's talk a little bit about where open source is built It's built in meet-ups camps cons By the community right Matter of fact if you think about it a majority of contribution has very little to do with coding at those events so In order to have those events we need to think about all the other stuff right and events don't get me wrong events have Contribution sprints there are people writing code, but if we think of events as a whole people attending are contributing Speakers are contributing Training in this picture here in the blue right there. You'll see Leslie Glenn who runs a lot of trainings at camps Organizing the events the events don't just happen out of the blue right Mike Miles right there in the in the shirt upfront Is the organizer of the Boston meet-up and this is a picture from from that meet-up Everyone in this room Yes, you are contributing to the Drupal project right now. You are a contributor By sharing your ideas asking questions You're helping to improve the project so let's dive into camp organization a little bit because There's a ton of non-code contribution that happens at camps Number of opportunities to get involved so this is a picture of the New England Drupal camp organizing team and All of these folks work with Drupal in one way or another either they build it or they sell it But when it comes to a Drupal camp, they don't necessarily have to Work with Drupal or work on the code of a camp website, right? So Stephen Cross he works with sponsorship and he was the lead of the camp for many years Nick Laughlin Does actually work with Drupal because he builds our website But he also handles signage for the camp and making sure people know where they're going Myself, I'm currently leading the camp and working on day of logistics and working with our vendors and our venue To make sure that we can have a camp Rick Hood's working on sending emails DJs working on social media Leslie's working on volunteering and training Mike's doing session submissions and selection at the end of the day. There are so many volunteer opportunities for non-code contribution at camps That it's a great starting point there are plenty of other examples of non-code contribution out there and This list is not exhaustive. We could go on for hours about all of the possible ways mentorship I'm sure all of you know Amy June Amy June's driving mentorship here at Drupal con and and that's it's super important documentation again training we've already talked about that summits Being on a committee or board myself. I'm on the event organizers working group Even answering questions in the issue queue or in slack None of this involves writing code, but they're still super important to the community. So who is a contributor? Is it a self designation? I'm a contributor. Is it a community designation? You're a contributor Hopefully we can we can shed some light on that Surprise everyone is a contributor Everyone has something to contribute to open source so Let's think of a couple of those scenarios, right a designer Can create UI for a module? They can create a module logo, right? marketing folks Modules need help marketing camps need help marketing, right? You know even your accountant could be a contributor Drupal events have budgets and those budgets need people that are good with numbers to manage them. I was in a talk just this morning about modic and Ruth was saying that they have five different different groups of contributors and She's the only one in the legal and accounting section so That's an area where somebody can help it doesn't necessarily involve writing code, but it helps the project and You don't have to wait for somebody to say hey, you're a contributor You can get involved and tell people I'm a contributor So Let's dive into why do people contribute? You can ask everybody in this room that question, right and Everybody would give you a different answer There may be some common responses, but I think you you'd get a wide variety of answers I like to think of Contribution as a relationship, you know, it could be a give-and-take relationship And some people just do it because it makes them feel good Let's dive into some other reasons so contributing helps to build skills Right you have the ability to improve technical understanding better communication or You could learn something new Let's dive into those a little bit in detail and and I can give you some maybe some examples so a Project manager maybe for their job. They're learning a new technology. They need a better understanding better technical understanding They can get that through non-code contrib An account manager that needs to understand a little bit better, you know complex workflows Let's take it from the other side. What about a back-end developer that Wants to improve their project management skills or front-end developer that wants to learn some new event planning skills If you have skills you want to improve You can bring that skill to an open-source project to build it career improvement Visibility building personal networks networking at events. Let's dive into those visibility I'm pretty visible up here talking to all you fine folks, right? One thing that I look at when Hiring somebody is their Drupal.org profile Contribution of the community is important to me. I want to know How people are contributing when I'm interviewing them the d.do profile is a great way to do that Even now they recently added Contribution roles to Drupal.org so you can go to a Drupal.org profile and understand how somebody is contributing Both project wise code wise and non-code wise Building your personal network everyone look at the person next to you You guys are building your personal network right now Good job, and then networking at events. I mean there are 1,100 ish people here at Drupal con if you get to know every single one of them That's awesome. You know, I think every job that I've gotten right has been from a Personal connection or somebody in my network Open source is about making connections So this one might be a little less popular, but compensation is a part of contribution Financial compensation time and sometimes goods and services you can be can be types of compensation So financial compensation Some people get paid to contribute There are I get paid to contribute I know people from other companies get paid to contribute Contribution isn't always free It also doesn't have to be nights and weekends you don't have to say like oh, I love to contribute, but I Need to do it, you know on my nights and weekends Every job that I've had during the interview process. I've asked about open-source contribution What are the policies? What's what's the approach? Because it's important to me time Some people may not get Paid to contribute, but their company has something where they can get extra time off if they contribute to open-source or other perks And then there's always goods and services Maybe it's outside of your job You contribute to a project project sends you a free t-shirt or they give you a month free of their service The bottom line here is compensation isn't a bad thing. It's not wrong to get something in return for contributing so We talked a little bit about in the previous slide it being part of your job. We're gonna dive into that a little bit deeper here, right? Contribution is part of your job is good for your employee good for the employee as well as the employer The government has been contributing for a very long time and you know what if it's not part of your job Maybe you should start the dialogue. Let's dig into those a little bit So employers are openly supporting open-source We're all here we've been on the expo floor. There are a lot of companies supporting open-source and they're finding that it's benefiting both the company as well as their employees Some companies even go as far as to write it into their contracts with their clients that hey We're working on open-source. We're gonna contribute to the community In talking Drupal 315 we actually learned from the WordPress community that WordPress launched in 2014 the five for the future Campaign which encourages organizations to contribute five percent of their resources to WordPress development That's awesome If we turn this into look at the government the federal government in 2016 had the federal source code policy and that basically supported open-source and Encouraged agencies to share Information as well as as well as their code 20% of created code has to be open-source and publicly available That could be one reason my Drupal so popular in government at the end of the day if contribution To open-source isn't part of your job and you'd like it to be have a conversation with your employer Figure out how you can work it into your day-to-day Why do we contribute? So you might be thinking hey John you just talked about this Well, this is gonna be a more personal look at open-source So when we did this show for Drupal Govcom we asked each host this question and Stephen responded by saying that he loves sharing and learning I piggybacked on that by saying like I love Education and you know knowledge sharing with people I also like helping people solve Really tricky technical problems At its core. I like helping people I also felt like I Like supporting something larger than myself You know, I want to make the world a better place and I want to do that through open-source software so For this talk, I took it a little wider and I asked this question to a couple of slack channels that I'm part of To get more of a community response So if we look at this Kevin Tholl said that he uses Drupal to make a living and wanted to give back So he started the recording. He started recording sessions and volunteering at camps Matthew Saunders Said he was willing to help. He's like I only made four code contributions But anytime you ask Matthew to do something. He's always there willing to help and happy to do it Martin wanted to pay it forward Nick Laughlin said that the gift the community gave him so much he wanted to give back Leslie likes to help people learn It's Robbie said that it helped her to advance her career to volunteer Let's talk about something else another non-code contribution the Talking Drupal podcast For those of you don't know Talking Drupal is a weekly chat about web design development by a group of people with one thing in common we love Drupal and in the beginning Steven Kross first got the idea for Talking Drupal back in 2013 After experimenting with podcasting with his daughter They had a smaller podcast about another subject for I think they did five episodes or so Steven pitched the idea to a few friends from the Drupal community And I like to think from that point on the rest is podcast history You'll see here. This is actually a screenshot of our our first podcast recording Back in yeah 2013 So what did we learn from this we learned how the mechanics of podcasting? the work involved with pre and post production and guess what None of this really has anything to do with building Drupal websites. It was a passion. We wanted to share information and and We like to learn we had similar Drupal journeys and We thought it might make an interesting podcast The other great thing was we just got to talk about Drupal every week. So that was a plus We're still learning today. We're still taking those learnings and improving the show This is actually from a couple weeks ago. You'll see Amy June and Mike and Ella there We're talking about mentoring right here at Drupal con You can see it's a it's a vast it's vastly different from our from our first show Today we bring on other Drupal contributors to spread the word about projects. They're working on and we feel like it's really giving back to the community now Question might be coming up Well, when did you guys start considering talking Drupal as a as a non-code contribution? Well truth be told We didn't we didn't start Drupal as a non-code contribution as I just said we we simply were a bunch of tech guys I wanted to talk about Drupal So how did it come to be a non-code contribution? Well We actually realized one day that it had always been a non-code contribution We just didn't consider it that way at first because the community was very code focused so in November of 2020 we decided to create a community project and Go back and give everyone that had ever been at that point seven years of of talking Drupal on the show credit for their contribution and When we did this we were a little bit worried. We were like somebody's gonna yell at us We're gonna get a letter from trees. He's not gonna be happy about this but Then the exact opposite happened People started getting credit and they started reaching out going. This is great. This is awesome. Like great job. Thank you for doing this It was amazing. So I just talked about community projects and Some of you may be wondering what that is So don't worry. I have a slide for that When you go to Drupal.org and you go to create a new module page project page There is an option for a community project and it says a Community project is a non-code project used to manage a group or initiative within the Drupal community Such as a Drupal camp or working group You should use this if you want a project page and an issue queue But do not have code that needs to be packaged right This page is being used for camps groups and Actually recently at EPAM. We created a community page community project for all of the Community work that we're doing within EPAM. We have internal contribution days So we're giving our employees credit for those for those days So you might be asking why is this important? Well Here's just some of the community projects that you can find on on Drupal.org the Drupal coffee exchange The Drupal swag shop the camp recording initiative that I talked about with Kevin Drupal camp Asheville Drupal Govcon Discover Drupal. We've all heard about that Right all of which don't have a lot to do with the code, but they're driving the community forward so Why are non-code contributions important? You know what as valuable to the health of the project as code contributions are Non-code contributions are just as valuable. There are non-code requirements for all projects and Not everyone is a developer or a coder Right gets more people with a variety of skills involved in the community Everyone has something to offer Everyone has a skill to bring to the community different points of view are brought in By different people a Marketing person can have different experiences and perspectives than a developer overall it helps move open-source forward That's why non-code contribution is important So you may be sitting here and like Okay, I'm feeling you non-code contribution is important But there are still challenges I mean contribution in general has challenges, right? So contribution imposter syndrome. This is actually something that I feel like I suffer from Thinking like hey my contribution isn't going to be valuable You know, maybe my can might maybe you know, I shouldn't do this because it's not going to be helpful to anybody You can combat that by focusing on your skills and your passions I personally know enough code to be dangerous. I'm perfectly willing to admit that So I focused on event organizing and sharing information work-life balance We all struggle with that right we have jobs. We have not contributions that we want to make we have we have families Contribution should be enjoyable It shouldn't be another job Work it into your work. We already talked about this build a career based on contribution Again contribution doesn't have to be nights and weekends something. I like to do is my work day I sandwich it between two 30 minute blocks of contribution time You also if you do have to work on it on a night or a weekend Tackle one thing a night There are many many weeks that I'll say okay Monday is going to be talking Drupal night and Tuesday is going to be You know New England Drupal Camp night and Friday might be might be Drupal Providence night Again, if you can provide contribute during your work day Doesn't take any time at all to reply to an issue on it in the issue queue or a slack comment Right build it into your work So if you've ever talked to Jacob Brockowitz about module sustainability, he's he's a wealth of of knowledge You know It's easy to get excited about a project when you're first starting out you're first getting into it You're like oh, I'm excited about this energy is high You know, it's new Sometimes that that Dwindles after over time Right, and that's okay As projects go on Your interests may change. That's all right Just be honest with yourself You have to see value in contribution and Want to contribute so hopefully at this point you're like, okay, I'm ready to go. What do I do put me in coach? How do you get involved? Well? Just do it ask in the issue queue or in slack as a starting point read documentation Update the documentation if you find a problem You can also reach out to most camp organizers for recommendations pretty friendly people will give you some ideas There's a whole community out there waiting to support you remember stick to your skills your interests You have something to contribute you have skills you have interests use them Also could contribution doesn't have to be related to your job You know it you could decide to contribute to something that you know very little about or that you want to know more about It could be as I said a new skill Something you want to improve upon at the end of the day just talk to people Again, we're here 11 and roughly 1,100 people right just start a conversation Again comment in the issue queue ask a question go to a camp or a meet-up. So as I get ready to wrap this up I'd like to share a quote with you from Margaret Mead Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world Indeed it is the only thing that ever has Dr. Mead doesn't say a small group of code writers or developers. She says a thoughtful committed group of citizens Citizens with great passion and Many different skills That's what powers open-source That's what powers Drupal. Here's a QR code to Some helpful resources some things I've mentioned throughout my talk If you have questions, I'll be more than happy to take them now and After this I will be at the EPAM booth happy to answer more questions there and If you haven't gotten a pair of our socks yet, feel free to stop on by we have a couple left Thank you everyone for your time Question in the back That's a great question So the question is are there topic-specific meet-ups for for things like environmental issues, right so So, you know, I think Nothing comes to mind, but I think the best place to kind of get that conversation started is Is in slack, you know jump into Drupal slack see if anybody is out there That has has the same, you know the same passion and you know Maybe even take it as far as if there are a couple of people in your kind of geographic area or or maybe not even They don't even have to be now with with zoom, right? You know, if there are a couple of people maybe you start a meet-up that's specific to that topic You know, I think that's that's a that's a great idea. Would you say Chris one more time? Yeah Yeah, so I mean I think Drupal slack is your first is your first go-to there, right? because it'll it'll allow for For more eyes on the on that on that question and kind of get you Get you to people that be able to help you out Nicole, what can I do for you? Oh, man, that's a great question. So You can reach out to me and that's that's what I do I schedule people to come talk on talking Drupal. So let's try the Alright, if anybody else has a oh wait, I knew it. Good. So that's a great question and repeat it one more time for the recording Organizational support for for contribution whether non-code or code contribution so I don't have any resources off the top of my head other than other community members and You know, that's something where I've struggled with that myself in the past like hey, we need to be more involved We need to do more things and you know the big the big why like why do we need to do that? it's not bringing in any money matter of fact, it's probably costing us money, right and At the end of the day it comes down to You know being a good citizen of open source, right? Everybody gets Drupal for free Everybody can go to Drupal.org downloaded install it build a website with it at no cost to them, right? agencies do that and you know They should they should give back. So, you know, I would say try to Try to try to hammer on that that Idea that as a as an agency using using an open source piece of software It's important to give back and as a good community member. It's important to give back That's a lot of why people are here That's a lot of why the companies are here that you see here, right? Because they want to give back to open source They believe in open source You know, I think there are plenty of people doing great things with Drupal and other open source projects And you know, I think it's worth having you know having a conversation with your leadership to say like Hey, we want to be more involved. Like how do we how do we do that? I'm gonna go to you and then Nate That's actually an awesome point and I actually just had a conversation with somebody yesterday That that said that same exact thing like oh, we have an RFP that we want to send out But we want to we want to send it out to Community contributors we want to send it out to people that are that are giving back to the Drupal community So I mean that's that's one way you can bring it back to like the the financial growth and the the business growth is like Hey, you know people are out there and they are looking for Drupal practitioners and and community supporters to work on these projects God, Nate. Hey listen, it starts it starts with you I've talked to I've talked to many CEOs throughout my career and been like listen We need to we need to do this and they're same thing. Why? Absolutely just like curiosity do you guys do other work than Drupal work or is it just Drupal work? Okay, sure. I mean you can I mean, they're they're probably a couple of people at this conference It would love to talk to me tonight. I answered your question Yeah, sure Yeah Yeah, I mean I think I think it's kind of like double double edge, right? So if you're just getting started and you're feeling feeling the imposter syndrome Start small, you know start answering a question in in the issue queue starts by You know Maybe maybe delivering a talk at a meet-up or something like that start start small and and build up You know as I said in my talk like I know enough code to be dangerous Other Nate can can back me up on that that I'm not much of a coder But yeah, yeah, but I'm you know, I'm a solutions architect. I'm a fairly decent site builder So like there are other skills that I have that I can I can share with people. That's the other thing like knowledge transfer Showing people the things like hey, I did this wrong like six times, but then I did it right and here's how I did it, right? like That's a great contribution and something that is literally could be one-on-one right, so I think you have to start small and you have to know that Your contribution just showing up is valuable Because without everybody showing up without everybody flying to Portland or jumping on slack or getting into the issue queue community doesn't work the community withers and dies and That's not good for any of us You'll be fine. All right. Well again, I appreciate everybody's time. If any other questions hit me up on Twitter