 Hello and welcome to the first of our election 2020 candidate interviews. I'm Rachel Lawson, Drupal Association Community Liaison. And today we are with Mike Herschel. Hi, Mike. Hey, how are you doing? Oh, I'm doing good. It's a good day. It's Friday, end of the week. Looking forward to a good weekend. Yes. In fact, it's a public holiday here on Monday. It's a public holiday. Yeah. I don't know if this is good for the thing, but anyway, go ahead. Okay, so I wanted to capture with you because you're standing in the election and run through a few of the things you've said for our people that will be voting. So I just wanted to really start at the top really and ask, you know, why are you here? Yeah, so I've been a member of the DA since like 2011 ish. And I'm passionate about the Drupal community. I believe that, you know, I'm very passionate about the Drupal Association and it's, it's rolled to take care and steward the community. And I think I can make a difference. I hope I can make a difference and pushing that forward to to where I'm closer to where I want it to be. Oh, that's great. You mentioned community there and I know that you've got involved in leadership positions in the community quite a lot recently with things like bringing together and working with various other people on the Oliveira theme, which I personally use on my on my own website. Thank you for that. So, you know, I'm really enjoying it and I'm watching not just the fact that you're creating it but how you and everyone else is creating that. So what tell me more about building community and what it means to you. Yeah, so I've, I've been involved with Florida Drupal camp since 2012. And, you know, back when I started using Drupal was probably like 2007 2000 I didn't even know there was a community. And when I found out there was a community I went to defer to Florida Drupal Camp 2010 and it just like my mind exploded it was it was just amazing and I was like this is this is it so I went 2011 I started sharing in 2012 and I took a leadership position and I've seen like firsthand about how building that community has like literally helped people and change their lives, including my life, you know, my life is better because of the community I would be doing something radically different if that Florida Drupal Camp never happened. And I know, and like I can think of several people who who you know in this community that have come to Florida Drupal Camp. And we have successfully onboarded them and, and, and now they are like such good friends for me you know and and these people are have jobs in the Drupal ecosystem, doing, doing web development type stuff and their lives are better. And these are just the people I know about like I'm a big believer in, and like, I believe Drupal can be a force for good and part of that is by by spreading the wealth and opportunity around to other people. I don't, I don't know if the answer to question good but I'm, yeah. I think what you're saying is that it's all about people it's not about building systems as such but actually working with people and creating. And I mean community is people you know, I had a conversation on on on on the web dev subreddit just a couple days ago, and the person had a negative experience with the Drupal community and I was I was just like where did this happen how did this happen this kind of I mean I agree and like to think things like that happened there. There are some people in the community that that maybe don't think before they say something and things like that, but it always comes down to people in the community and unfortunately you can't. It's not like you can please that but you know, I think friendly people can get out there and I believed in the power of in person events and and I'm kind of, I'm kind of bummed with this whole pandemic thing. Yeah, I think that goes for resolve, although it has been interesting because I've been in, I know I've been into communities via their local events virtually that I would never have been able to do otherwise say it has is difficult in some ways and opportunities in others. I was going to say like at a triple con global, you know, I started using that networking feature. And so like I talked to a person from like South Africa, and then from Rwanda. And, and then I was like holy cow I should like start keeping track so I kept a tally. And by the end of I had 22 countries people from 22 countries that I talked to. Holy cow you would have never have I would have never had the opportunity, you know, if it had been in Minneapolis. And so that was, that was a huge benefit but but that thinks I still miss people I miss people like hugging people, having a beer with people and just seeing people and the hallways. Yeah, I do. I completely agree. It's funny actually about they were talking about people on slightly on the edge of the community. I'm possibly outside and their view of us and one of the questions we were asking, I'm particularly a question that we expect of our board of directors is to very much advocate for the project so what can you tell me about that and what can you tell me about advocating for Drupal. Yeah, I don't like it. So, a little bit of backstory like I run our front end meet up here and where I live in Gainesville, Florida. So we have a group of about 20 odd people that meet every month, you know, assuming that there's no like pandemic going around. And you just talk with people and I also participate in like other like non Drupal conferences tried to speak at those and tend those and just talk and you know when I, there's been several times you say oh I work with Drupal people say oh I'm sorry. I'm like, well, you know, I really like it you know I like the community I like this and that and the other. And, you know, you know, people tend to have a negative, a negative perception of Drupal and that comes back to like I think it's it's overall learning curve, you know, and there's there's not enough, you know, guide rails in my opinion in the software itself, although that's kind of outside the scope of what I'm, you know what I'm running for. I believe that the Drupal Association can advocate to the wider web development community to talk about Drupal. One thing that we did at Florida Drupal camp this past year I'm going to give a give a shout out to Amy June Highline who was an organizer. She invited a number of people from from the local WordPress. She also invited a camp, the word camp to to attend and speak at Florida Drupal camp. And it was, it was a great success met met a met a wonderful woman and you know we did karaoke together and we just had fun and at the end of it you know I'm talking with her and she's like this was absolutely amazing. You know, and even if, if, if, if she or friends do not come to Drupal people, which is completely fine. You know they can take our thoughts and our, our, our wonderfulness back to their own open source communities and you know I'm a big believer that too. And then I ended up running into her word camp Miami, just a couple weeks later and it was kind of opposite where I was in the word camp and I'm a little bit I didn't know anybody except for them, you know so it was, it was really really interesting. Yeah. So I think we should do more of that I think the Drupal Association should reach out and give scholarships to to two people like WordPress developers, you know WordPress contributors hey come check out Drupal and see what you can learn and take it back to your own community. You know, and I think that we should do that locally I think camps should do that and I think that would be big. Yeah, I think that would be really amazing thing to see. And I mean I know, you know, we've done a lot with scholarships but actually targeting people to allow them to see other aspects the wider world is always a good idea. Absolutely. I think it's a good one. Yeah. So, all of those things have been really human and in person. Was there a particular favorite moment or Yeah, in Drupal in general. So, like, when I, when I first submitted the form I put down Drupalcom Bogota, because I had such a good time down in Columbia this is like in 2015 and men are really enthusiastic community down there was, which was amazing. But then I was thinking about at Drupalcom Portland, which was a couple years earlier was the first time I spoke at a triple con I had this amazing talk and I was awesome talk is called awesomeizing these just back in experience and, and it was like it was just like I remember walking in and it was like filled up. I was like holy shit. Yeah, holy, you know, and it's like wow and, and, and, but people ended up enjoying it and the, and a year later, they were this random guy came up like Mike and I'm like, Hey, you know, I like do I know you and he's like, No, but I remember seeing your presentation and it was amazing. Thank you for that. And I was like, Wow, this is so awesome. That's cool. Yeah. And that Drupalcom was also special. I prior to the con I actually organized off of groups that Drupal.org a like kind of a like, let's go get some cabins in the woods and go hiking trip and we had two cabins filled up with a with a good amount of people that I didn't know, you know, come from Europe and we did a bunch of hike in my back was kind of thrown out so I mostly just hung out but it was it was that whole system that whole that whole week was just amazing to me and awesome. So that was like, yeah, it's one of my possibilities. Yeah, that does sound amazing. I think it possibly is one of the most important things about in person events is when you're actually not at the event. Yeah, yes, you know, when you get away, you're seeing people in different different context, because what you're doing then is learning about the human, you're learning about how, how we work together as human beings and then obviously when it comes to Drupal benefits from that in the end as well. And it's also good fun. Yeah, and fun is important. You need to have fun while you're working or you're going to get burnt out, you know, and that's something that I that I don't know what the solution is but I want to figure out a way to address burnout into Drupal community and I think that makes things that involves making making things more sustainable, you know, and I know Jacob Rockowitz have as blogged about this a whole bunch. I wish he was running out with totally vote for him. I, but like I want to make, I want to make open source contribution in our community sustainable prevent burnout and I've been talking with a number of contributors are just about how they got burnt out and things like that and I don't know if I have a solution yet because it's not an easy problem Yeah, I agree. I know what you mean. There's so much there and yeah, it would be great to have Jacob, but you know, we actually have. I'm really, really happy because we have 10 fantastic candidates do several of who I will probably vote for And you are able to because you know, you'll literally be able to say yes or no to each individual and that will mean that you'll be able to say yes to several and then we'll see how that works out in the end. Yep. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, you're over there in Florida and we've got people from all over we've got people from Europe, Africa, Asia. Yes, I'm really pleased to say that's really good. That's really good. Okay, I think I'm good to keep it short. Okay. Have you have you anything specific you would like to add at the end any messages to everyone. Yeah, I'm a big believer in more transparency for the Drupal Association and I'm going to I'm going to work to make that happen. I want to, you know, I believe that money makes everything possible. And so I want to find different ways to fund the DA. And I would love if we could like somehow work for increasing and better documentation I know there's been a lot of work on this but like just so much I think that's one of the one of the one of the things that holds a Drupal as a platform back. Yeah. Well, thank you very much, Mike. I shall let you get back to it for your Friday. Yes. Good luck. And we will see what happens very soon. Yeah, that's exciting. Thank you.