 Hello, it's Rachel Lawson here again. Community liaison from the Drupal Association and the next of our Drupal Association election 2020 candidate chats. And this time I'm with Pedro. Hello, Pedro, how are you doing? Hi Rachel, I'm all right. All right, how are you? Yeah, yeah, really good, really good. It's a nice day. Can't complain. It's a Friday. What can we complain about? See whether they... This video probably won't get published on Monday though, so we'll see. Well, it's only three days from now, just... Yeah, give me a chance to... Give me a chance to edit it. Okay, right. Well, I wanted to chat a little bit about your candidacy for 2020, which is great. I'm really, really pleased to see some amazing candidates, yourself included. We've got 10 incredible candidates. So I'm really pleased. The fact that we've got this great community of people is why we get good candidates. And one of the things that we've been asking candidates is around community. What does that mean to you? What does building community mean to you? I mean, I've been around Drupal for... Yeah. Long while. How many years? Probably 15 years or something. And Drupal doesn't make sense to me without the community. It's like such a fundamental part. There are other technologies that are built, like maybe you are... I don't want to drop names, maybe you work with some technologies, you're not part of any community. And being part of an open source community where everything is shared, like you can even see companies sharing strategies publicly or with each other through the Drupal community, which would probably... I mean, if you look at it like from my external perspective, it's like, what are you doing? It's not a good thing to do. Or even like developers sharing like they're all they do. Like I used to have a blog in the Spanish community was like very popular at the time. And I share everything I did. And it was like very reassuring. And I think that's part of the process of building everything. Like this trust that is between all the parties on the community. Like I trust other companies to actually help me. I trust other people to actually help me. I go to events. And then maybe I go to a event in a country I've never been to. And I still build community there. And yeah, I've been in so many people events that in so many countries and you always find someone that, hey, I used to work on that or this module I also use. And maybe you were the one that helped me that time. That's a very nice group to belong to. And even if there's like discrepancies and I'm like, sorry, that's my cat looking the camera. Your new cat, yeah. She's here and she's biting me. Don't bite me. And yeah, that was struggling. So yeah, that's the that's the great thing. You can even if there are discrepancies, there's always some common ground to come to most of it. That's great. Yeah. It was really interesting when I was in Lagos at a conference and there was a guy, Stephen, Stephen Wally, that was there on stage from Microsoft. You know, this amazing person from Microsoft. What was the example of good community he was talking about? Drupal. So yeah, it was really good. It was good for people outside of the community to hear that message. And I wonder how you see advocating for Drupal. What does that mean to you? Does how do we go about advocating for Drupal as a project now? And maybe in the future, when you could possibly have a little more influence over that? I think there's so many layers to that. Like advocating for Drupal is like, what does that mean? Is this promoting Drupal? Is this, I don't know, defending Drupal? I was in an event in Barcelona many years ago. There was this, there used to do this like Jumla versus Drupal or whatever. And the Jumla guy actually showed up in a boxing outfit. And that was like, well, I didn't, I mean, I maybe didn't like the kind of argumentation that he was doing, but it was a very good show off. It was like a very good way to show compromise, right? And it is promoting Drupal. It is working with Drupal. It is like there are many ways like selling, like you get maybe an opportunity to sell a website and then you sell Drupal. And I've been, I don't know, I've been doing many, I've been wearing many, many different outfits of this advocating for Drupal thing. I was, when I started doing PHP in a company, we started with Drupal. And then months after I was like organizing Drupal and beers and many people came and it was like surprising. And then I got involved and then I started like speaking events, which is a very nice way to allocate Drupal. Helping organizing Drupal comes more user groups. That's a fantastic way, even though it's more difficult now. It still can be somehow done. And I think there are really good examples of online Drupal camps. And I think bad camp is going to go online. And of course, obviously Drupal is going to go online as well for the Drupal in Europe. And there's so many ways that you can advocate for Drupal, even if you're not like a hardcore community person, not a core developer or something. There's always opportunity to do so, right? There, I think there's some transformation in what Drupal is becoming. And I think it's something that we need to manage. So many people of the community got into Drupal as a hobby. Like they were hobbyists. Myself, I built like a very small website for something I was doing in Drupal before working like a full time for just too long. We are kind of losing the hobbyists. And I think this is something that we probably as a community need to recognize and work with. Like it needs to be like this. There was this funny like graph of the Drupal learning. And that was the cliff and the cliff was in Drupal 7. And we look back in Drupal 7 and it was like, well, Drupal 7 was so much like a smaller beast to tame. I think we're gaining in the other side, we're gaining like other PHP communities to actually recognize us as a first class citizen. So that's also good. But I think advocating is also caring about Drupal. And care and take responsibility in whatever role you're taking. If you're helping the UCQs, maybe if you're just a user, that's okay. I think there was a time where being as a user and not contribute back. It was like getting kind of like frowned upon. And I think that we should lose that. And if people don't get engaged because they are obligated to, they get engaged because they care. And they are, they have it in them or they do have time. Because life changes. And maybe a lot of people that we've grown all the way through Drupal. And then a lot of people are having kids and having like other responsibilities. They can't contribute in the same way. And some people are taking it to the core. And there's some burnout in the community. And that's something that you need to recognize as a community member. You can get burnout and we need to find mechanisms to bring that back. And bring the spirit of contribution and try to be kind to each other. And that's sometimes all it takes, isn't it? Very much so, yeah. Bearing in mind all of the things, especially at the moment, people have lots going on. And when we are working with each other, collaborating together, just being kind is a very powerful thing. It's an incredible thing we can all do just to help each other, just that tiny bit to make a difference. So, moving on, because I'm trying to keep these knots too long. One of the things that I do remember from your past is actually you were a Drupal Association board member in its very early days. So, I think it was the second election, so I think maybe. Yeah, maybe so. Goodness me, yeah, it could be. He was having the first, second, something like that. Yeah, and I was just wondering if you could tell us, so you've been Drupal Association board member once. So you will have got some experience from that on boards and board experience. Have you managed to pick any similar experience of anywhere else in the meantime? Oh, it helped me so much, like understanding how boards mean, because when I was electing in 2012, I did not know. I did absolutely didn't know how boards work. And Donna and Steve Parkes were elected before me. And Donna has been such a great influence in the Drupal community. And she helped me a lot, a lot through the board process. And I remember also Vesa helped me a lot in that. And it seems like it's been forever, because it's been forever since that, right? But I do have that experience. And I've translated that experience in my life. And I'm act as an advisor to a small company in Spain. It's called Imbra. And we treat the board and my experience in the board from the Drupal Association has helped me to that as well. It's also helped me to, since then, I made a kind of a transformation in my career on, it was something I can't remember when, on, this says something in one of the keynotes probably saying, doing well, doing well, something like that. Oh yeah. I don't remember the exact phrase. But since like my board experience, I know the influence. And I know that you can make a difference in other places. And I've never seen like transforming my career to work over. My clients now are more in the nonprofit slash institutions, slash government area, more than I used to do a lot of e-commerce, you know, more than that. I still do that. I still do that. But most of my clients are now for institutions to do good for the community as a whole. That must be a nice feeling. Yeah. And I don't, I don't see, I don't see myself doing anything else right now at this point. I don't, I don't, everyone can choose what they, what they do, obviously. But I, I do feel that you have one, you have skills and you choose how to use them. And I chose this way. And I think it's, it's a good thing. And I hope, if I'm elected, I hope I can start not from zero, but from some experience that I had in the board, even though probably suddenly three in the board since I was there. I don't think anyone else, all the seats, all the things have been renovated, which is good. The, the decision needs to hear different voices. And that's why I didn't run on 2015 because I felt that the board needs to be renovated. But now I feel it's a, it's a good time for me to maybe come back because I do feel that I do have a very different voice now that I have. I'm much less naive than I was in terms of, oh, and that, that's, this is true. Yeah. I mean, it's, it applies to so much say we were talking about things like burnout before in the community, when people sometimes take time out from our community, that can actually be a good thing. Like taking time out from the board because you go away and you come back with so much more. So that also applies to the board coming back. You will be coming back with so much more experience with the standing. Yeah, it would be really interesting. I don't know if we've had any returnees before. I don't know. Well, Morten won the 2013 election. So he was twice elected. I don't know if that's a return, but I'm not sure if someone from the other, like the 13 elected seats have been elected twice. Well, I know some people get elected twice. Yeah. Yeah, some seats are continued and that's the way it should be because one of the things that I proposed in my term that wasn't carried in my term, but wasn't carried was carried over was these two year staggered terms for board members. And I think that I haven't seen it, but one of the feelings I have is that haven't been because Donna was elected as community seat, but then she was ratified from the board as a permanent one, not permanent, but one of the regular. As a different class, yeah. Yeah, hadn't Donna been there for my term, it would have been like so much difficult. So I thought there should be someone that kind of emborts the board member because it's difficult, it's a difficult experience. Well, yeah. I mean whoever is elected this time will be very lucky because they will have Leslie Glenn to help them in because she would have been there a year by then. So it works out really well. It was a good proposal. I think it was absolutely the right thing to do. So I didn't know that was you actually. Well, I proposed it and it was kind of like not considered or put in the back burner, but it was approved later on. Yeah. So I am not sure who pushed back again for it. I know I proposed it. I put it on the table. Things can take a time. That is true. I am aware of that. It does. I remember I remember my proposals for our term was to make the Drupal Association less dependent for DrupalCon. And I think we're still struggling with that. And I think that's still a topic. And I think that's. Yeah, it's definitely something we're doing more about. So things like the Drupal Steward, which is kind of coming online now. We're starting to see clients on that. That will help, etc. So diversifying our income streams is absolutely a big deal. Yeah. And the more we can do for that, the better. So looking back at this long history that you have, are there any particular favorite moments that stand out that make you think, yeah, this is special? I think, yeah, I think one of my, I have a lot. But one of my top, definitely in top, was the Drupal Compass for 2015. I actually have the sticker right here, may not be. I have the sticker on my laptop, that same sticker. And I have actually, I have somewhere around here, the vinyl with the logo that the company that designed the website gave us Christina and I. And that's one of my favorite things I own, really. And it's there. I don't want to, I want to like put it somewhere in the room. Definitely was so, it was great from the beginning. The person that was managing Drupal Con events back then was Stephanie. And I remember that she called me to announce that the Con persona was a thing that it was like she called me and said, do you want to be like that? I wasn't even in Barcelona. Told me and told me, well, can you do like the community, the community part of Drupal Con and say, yeah, but I will need someone local for that as well. So then Amanda took over and it was, it was a great Drupal Con. Amanda was such a good, such a good person to be with. It was great. I loved every minute. Yeah, and the Drupal Con turned out great. And it was one of my, definitely one of my favorite moments because I've pushed for the Barcelona community so much. I lived there for 10 years. I started doing Drupal there. And there was a Drupal Con, I was beginning doing Drupal, but I didn't want to that one. I didn't go to that one. That's made a thing. So it was an opportunity to actually have a Drupal Con at my second home. Yeah, fantastic. So I really should ask you if you have anything else that you want to bring up to support your candid, candid, well, I can't say the word, candidacy. Yeah, there you go. Okay. So yeah, there's, there's a topic that's been, is being around. And I think I can't, I can't ignore it because some of the, most of the candidacy are great, as you said. But I wanted to move a little bit from the person, move away from the person in my candidacy and have something to talk about. And I think the, the issue is having with the voting rights. It's, it was important enough for me to move me to, to, to run for, for the Borsig again. And I think it's an important issue. And I think that personally, I don't think it's right that the voting rights have been involved from the community at large. Even thought, even though the Drupal Association is doing, doing work for someone like to request a membership and being able to vote. And just this morning, I received an email saying, as you are a Drupal Care supporter, you can get free memberships for your company. And I did that right away. Like some of my, I requested a membership for my business partner and someone who is working with us because I think it's right. As many people has the right to vote as possible that they're engaged with the, with the Drupal community. And I think a engagement doesn't necessarily mean being a member of the Drupal Association because disagreement. There are some people that are not members because they disagree with some things, but they're still engaged with the Drupal community. And I think this should be, this should be a way for them to actually engage. If they want to have a voice, they should be able to have a voice even if they don't agree with the current direction or whatever their reasons are, not to be a member. And I think I want to, in my candidacy, I want to get as much information as possible out to the public on why this decision has been made, exactly the data, exactly what's the context, what's everything happened, and maybe, maybe from my small little seat out of 15, trying to win some minds and souls and saying, let's do something to fix it. Let's do something to fix the relationship between all these people in the Drupal ecosystem that don't feel, that feel that this is not right. This doesn't sound right in the current climate, something to do. So I think that's my whole theme for the candidacy, trying to bring some clarity on this issue and maybe more transparency because there's an issue there on whenever there's a relationship within two parties. If there's no total transparency, the other party tends to, it's just natural, tends to fill the gaps. And they fill the gaps, maybe, and I do it as well, with the things that I may think that have happened because I don't know exactly. So I fill the gaps. And that, that drives to maybe misunderstandings, that drives to maybe suspicion, that drives to maybe lack of trust. So I think if we are transparent in all the decisions and things that happen, and people have all the facts and all the data, they don't need to fill these gaps. So I want to build a circle of, circle is not the right word, aura, what will be like? A layer of trust around the Drupal Association that can be shared with, it's impossible to share with everyone, but that's most people as we come within the community. Well, I shall feed that back. And obviously everyone will be able to watch this video. So everyone will understand how you, what you're saying there and so on. And at this point, I wish you the best of luck with your election. I know whoever wins will be fantastic. So we shall see one very soon actually. I actually want people to vote. I'm actually not asking them to vote for me necessarily, but I want people to vote to show their opinion. It's very important that people do vote, regardless of who it's for, vote. And it'll be turning up in their inboxes of their email soon. Thank you very much. Thank you.