 So welcome everyone to my session who cares about Drupal how to win the hearts and minds of businesses I'm excited to be here actually my name is in the middle of my wing. My name is totally not Dutch, but I am I'm it's it's a privilege actually to be here I did session at Drupal con Helsinki a couple of weeks ago and tried it out there I want to share with you today Some of the insights that I've I've been gathering over the past few years when I came across Several smaller and several larger companies that were adopting Drupal For reasons that might not seem obvious to many of us, right so For me, I started UX development quite some time ago rolled into Drupal at version 4 Did some development, but I've been talking about it ever since last ten years so I've not been into development, but I do have the background and Lay the link between the the technical folk and and the project as well as the client's needs and demands and I've I've had some To me astounding insights of what clients have been looking for Recently and and to my mind are looking for more and more So I've been with Clemson before which is now with the crowd as you may know Currently, I'm with lime green Sustainable websites Sustainable for us means websites that are still perfectly usable five years from now for our clients I'm also involved in the Dutch Drupal community At the board of the Dutch Drupal foundation and I've been doing Drupal Jam our sort of local Drupal con for the past four years It's very fun to do very learnful intense, but also very rewarding So for me on a personal level Drupal has has many upsides that I've been Thankful for over the past few years I've been involved in in projects for IKEA World Food Program Port of Rotterdam amongst others that and it's it's from those projects that I'll be sharing some insights with you so Growing the Drupal pie Before I talk about that I have two questions for you who who who of you in the room is Involved in sales pre-sales consultancy raise your hand. Okay. Good. Good. So And and who is who's not into developing raise hands? Okay, right, so just I know I'm Do have the right presentation with me? Growing the Drupal pie Please has been talking about that in the past few years Which all means getting more business on Drupal, right? So When it comes to Drupal, we want more projects more clients adopting Drupal Getting new clients on board getting different clients on board, right? And as much as I'd like to see open-source spread among other types of clients among bigger clients what I see is that the values of Community code right which we are about is is not not longer the predominant factor of choice for many clients Especially clients that have been there for a couple of times, right? They have done their website for two or three times and they've evolved to some Next stage where they've they have seen the functionality They have seen what the code does and it is remarkably well But if they've started to think in a broader sense and they are seeking help in in the area of Return on investment right measurable KPIs digital strategy and all sorts of online ambitions that that they Get to the table with that they seek help with right even from us as as shops And I believe if we can somehow hook on to those sort of newer needs to us It's it's there where we actually win the hearts and minds more and more of businesses that we get it to our tables So when it's about growing the Drupal pie, I believe that we had we need to include those topics into the conversations that we are having with our clients So what I observe It's not just about the community. I mean it's wonderful, right and it is Fortunately on many occasions, it's a good factor of choice But it's it's mean the community is unknown to certain clients that we get to the table It's also no longer about good code. It still is but not just good code, right? It's not longer about just functionalities, but it's they need more they require a different type of help They require other expertise. It's also rational heads talking. I mean, we're all very rational people Especially when you're dealing with code. It's it's it's very binary sometimes But that's not where we always strike our potential clients in their hearts, right? That's not always a Predominant factor for for choosing us really an assumption is the model of all fuck ups I believe that there's many assumptions that we still do that clients still do right But also when we talk to clients and do projects with them We assume that they see the beauty of our community. They see the beauty of the code They understand the agile values and so forth So I think there's many love and attention that needs to be going there and it's these observations that I will be trying to Sort of give you some insights in today Hopefully inspire you and I'm very interested to hear from you how you experience those in your projects Okay, so I'm gonna back up a little a little philosophy philosophical spiritual truth that I've come to hold dear Comes from a book that I've been reading about a few years ago Reading the book called a conversation with God by Neil Donald waltz It's not a religious book, but it has some very interesting Perspectives on some very traditional religious beliefs and The dichotomy between light and dark is fear and love Where there is different types of energy on the fear side that's very much about control About contract about scheme about hide right where the love energy allow and expand and are based on trust and so forth And I started to recognize This dichotomy and started to recognize the various types of energies in that balance in all sorts of well personal scenarios as well as business Where I noticed that fortunately more and more people Even the business people and management that you get to the table They have done it a couple of times of they they do have good contracts You should always have good contracts, but they just don't rely only on that side of the balance So if you look at successful brands You see that loyalty loyalty leaders they grow faster than their competitor average and you read when you read about them It's interesting to see that those brands have come to to gradually adopt the The love elements and the love energies on the on the dichotomy and where tools are no longer a prime Criteria of choice, but also other things like trust and cooperation and mutual success Committing to mutual success right and they demand help from agencies much like ourselves Not only building great functionality, but also offering Services in the field where we can help them create their success Where we offer services or people skills experts whatnot In achieving their online ambitions, whatever they need to be and I believe I think that if we want to stay relevant in our Business It's perfectly all right. We have we're very good at delivering these kick-ass websites We have specialties. We have niches that's that's all right, and we can stay at that because focus is good Well, I think we should also find people or gather them around us that are able to help us with other areas of expertise So if you can create a slightly broader package in in really understanding the online ambitions and needs of our clients That's where we start to innovate service right service innovation or service design Which is about creating a great customer experience where the physical performance is is as much as about the product and the website and the tools that we are Set to create for them right which we do very well We touch the senses with all sorts of additional cool stuff new technologies AR Virtuality and whatnot, but if we can really raise the hairs on the arms of people not just our clients But also their users and their customers That's where we touch them in their hearts, and we raise emotions on all the touch points from the outside in as at least was mentioning so Where we've been years and years sitting on the chairs of our customers looking outward We are gradually bringing in people these days that are willing to go out there stand in that line Experience what are you know what the users of our clients are actually experiencing and bring that outside experience in with us So how do you create? How do you create that? How do you go about that? First there is the performance Which is the rational bit right where we create a kick-ass performance that exceeds expectations Obviously we do things very well on our clients. They say to us. Yeah, it works great And by the way that extra feature that you threw in that's awesome, right? That's very much about product features. That's about quality That's about price and all the criteria that we've come, you know, we're used to when we do in our fees and pitches and Bring in new clients onto onto Drupal Whereas the emotional focus is about the heart and we delight customers in a personal way Not just our customers, but also their customers, right? And their customers and create an experience where somehow we get to know that they say they know me They listen to me and they actually have the same values where people will say wow, that's amazing, right? We all come across certain websites that we say, oh, wow, that's amazing what they did there, right? This is not just good, but they inspire us as well And that's that's the area that I see we need to be in more and more That clients see other experiences see other projects see other Things on the web that they come to us and say well, I want that experience as well. Help me create that So the key question is are you striving to be meaningful for people? Are you're just trying to get that website done? Well, or if I sit down with clients I asked in the first time are you trying to be meaningful? You're just trying to sell products, right? Just just trying to get your thing across And this is an important question that we need to convince clients that we can think along the lines in Helping them ask these this question, right? So does anyone know the example on the background? Have you seen that? That's Tesco's, right? So Tesco in Korea Apparently Koreans are among the they have among the longest working days in the world So they found a way where people can scan Products with their phones and even while they wait the the order is being prepped and such That's a wonderful way how they're really, you know improve the lives of people and Uplifted a thing that they have in their culture into a good thing So how do we know if the client is ready? This is a maturity map It all by the way all the The sources are at the bottom of the slides if we put them online later I really urge you to take a look at Altimeter. They have some wonderful templates for this This is the social business governance maturity map But they you have many maturity maps, but they all sort of cover the same things, right? When there is where you can map the state of evolution of your clients onto where they're at start with ad hoc Where there's they have a website But it's just it runs they have analytics, but they don't know the login Onto a more sort of planning state where they way plan things and they have some form of governance But there's no coherence and there's no mandate for the people doing doing the actual work, right onto formalize and so forth And it does does it does not just involve the product involves people false policy and so forth And this is a great way to to discern your different clients to know where they are at You know in their in their digital lifespan if you will So if you get a client onto the table says well, we have a website Well, we don't do anything with analytics and by the way, do you know if we have it? They're very much in that early stage, right? We see that a lot Many clients are still in stage one or two and I believe that for us as digital agencies It's our job to you know to help them understand that they're there and help them make that next step So I get many well many but sometimes clients that have wonderful plans, right online ambitions all sorts of things that we we get happy from right Seems like well thought Maybe found someplace else doesn't matter, but it's okay if you want to be at that stage If you want to really realize these online online ambitions that you put here We need to get you to that Second stage right and it involves not just a kick-ass website But you also need to do some other things about people about policy about processes and so forth So Getting into the client's State of need, you know understanding even though it's not your core business Even though it's not your specialty, but understanding that they're actually at that stage will you know will actually help form a proper answer for them and help Increase the chances of getting their success online because it will involve a different type of proposal for them You need other things to be in there So if we talk about success, what is success? I I'm involved in pre-sales consultancy as well and I share my experience with the the people that I'm that we That we invite and welcome And the key question I always ask them is what is success have you thought about what is success going to be for you in regards to the website When will you be happy right not just at go live but a year from now have you thought about that? Where is it hanging on the wall and if not I urge them to take that exercise to think about success in a way That's measurable in a way that you can hang on your wall and people will understand not just management But also the team right because all the small decisions as starting at the design phase will need to serve The KPIs that you'll you'll be defining the measurable KPIs key performance indicators the goals that you can measure and What I call definition of success. I mean of course we can build a multi-site of course we can build a great Community with all sorts of users and rights and all functionalities right, but what people will be looking at the site Do you do you know them? Do are there different target groups? Have you spotted them already? Do you have some data there? Do you know what they need right? Have you have you? Investigated that Because ultimately that's what the site will be doing and that's what we need to measure if it's actually working a Year from now or half a year right? So this is a model that we sometimes use the ADA model. They have several templates there that you can use in download Where a stands for attention obviously, you know the traffic Interest is the long-tilt traffic where you can actually see people Sort of taking the right path on the website Desire is getting them into some funnel right and obviously action is Like converting from anonymous to non-anonymous There's always data there right that you can sort of measure What's already there even even the thinnest of data sets? Will help you? Get some benchmark of where you're applying is that but there's different types as well obviously I've seen actually the Very measurable call where we had to decrease the number of defects from 47 to 12 per month Others include the time to market right how long it takes to Actually create a new user or deploy new functionality and believe it or not There are still clients small and large that will it will take for them a week to get a new for them for One of a client of theirs to create one one new user for their clients So that's an incredible time to market really that you're out there to improve So if you can you know not just If you understand that this is what it's about but also can bring in the help or or maybe even from your own agency help your your clients and in Determining the KPIs that you need hang it out on your wall many things But these are one of the keys that need to be out there that everyone understands and that your team members are also able to explain to others That's that's where I see the glimmering the eyes of clients that they think that they see okay This agency builds websites. They do well, but I understand that I need additional help there, right? And that's why we are we're while we're not actually having people on staff doing this Necessarily we bring in other people that are able to do the conversation with our clients So this is an example of a customer journey, right? Sometimes a scary word because it sounds complex it is sometimes there's many templates About mapping journeys not just online, but journeys that that clients do You know when they think over their website and they go to a real store and they then just you know turn away or Cancel whatever and you can map all the soft points and the touch points and everything that they run into So that you can actually show to your client This is where we need to improve. I was looking at this and we did in previous lives get this for for in some projects I found the research keynote from awesome, Texas And his analogy remarkably helpful where he is telling about the user's journey for making a photo Which essentially over the years just just became simpler right steps were taken out it got shorter shorter and simplified obviously Now only two steps and I literally showed this example to a relatively large scale enterprise project, which we want on Drupal that Converted to the to the webmasters analogy because larger companies will have people on staff that need to be doing things themselves right with Drupal so They they used to be doing all sorts of things. They needed to do all sorts of things to get stuff done online or on their website which you know with the latest increment of Drupal has become just simplified or This disintermediated or just the middleman is taken out right whether it's some technical people Whether it's an external vendor I've had business owners and stakeholders come to me and say okay, so I'll be able to actually create my own users or business rules Yes, I'm going to show you in three weeks right and this is where you're actually not only Get the rational arguments, but also touch them in their hearts because that's that's where they get happy, right? so here's another example more daily day-to-day thing About drag-and-drop right and this is a video reel that we show when we do pitches And I was in a meeting a couple of weeks ago, and there were about seven people Like you know the marketing manager and people from marketing and people who were actually doing the content and there was this Lady in the back and she was very quiet and all of a sudden she said well So I'll be finally able to you know rearrange my own menu and drag-and-drop my the items in my view I said yes, this is how it's done right and this is just this is an example of one of her other projects They requested a real-life example at the time which we gave on the spot a demo on the spot, but She said well, I'm used to WordPress and it works remarkably well Now we have Drupal 6 and it's been a pain for so long and when we when you actually show how it how it's done And how you relieve also their pains, you know even from the seemingly well People that are you know just doing the content three days a week if you improve their lives You're also going to make The lives of their managers the content managers and the marketing managers happy because there will be less people complaining about how they go about with CMS so Ultimately all success hinges on people working together right In human relationships, and I I find that on boarding them in our ways of thinking is a great way of Winning the you know not only the minds But also the hearts of the business people because they'll understand that they found a party that's that's you know That will take them by their hand even though it takes a lot of time even though we assume, you know, they yes We've done agile a couple of times This is a great video by the way. We also have the the image as a template and we show that to them on the remarkable Responsibility of the product owner right which is a very important role as you probably know That worked for for them, and I had the privilege at that time to work with a An agile coach that was helping us out there who had no vested interest in the project But if not I always urge our clients in our projects to at least do some sort of onboarding with us To understand our ways of thinking even though they have been you know having some experience with agile, so This is about onboarding a little bit about agile MVP minimal viable product, right? It's always nice to have a client that understands what agile is about or at least, you know the basic principles even though they haven't Had the experience if they know what MVP stands for if they do have a backlog That's that's just you know the very first step Still we see a lot of tendency to clients having say, okay We want to work at agile, but we still need to have it all in there, right, which is basically not agile so This is one of the hardest discussions that we have about minimal viable product about you know But what you essentially need to get in business That's very nice feature right the frequently asked questions, but you will do with a page for now, right? we can get online and This is a lot of the discussion that we this this is probably you know one of the single most Often taken off the walls Slides that I have that we bring down onto the table in the conversation. There's a side note there, right because There's many increments of this many versions of this image I haven't had a client that came for a car and went out happy with a skateboard But that's not what it's about really right I just want to make them understand What do you need to get in business, you know you need to get that conversation rolling So if you can get your client to overcome the fear of losing scope because squeezing in all in ultimately lose lose a scope anyway because we can't do it all right in the time or budget frame so That works remarkably well. So this you know you bring this to the table. It sounds like a good story about the real pain comes when you do your projects Gradually into their experience, which is you know where the the hearts and minds are Hubspot is an American I think American vendor of digital marketing software I haven't used it, but I've looked at it I got the cold culture and there were some remarkable values in there that really well Resonate it with me and one of them is that they are radically and uncomfortably Transparent and I'm a great advocate for transparency and you know openness And be clear about everything. So if you have something in your project That has meaning I I hang it on the wall, right? I take it out hanging on the wall for everyone to see not just upper management Not just a team but everyone right because if it does something why not take it out there? And I tell this to clients even at our first meeting, you know that we want to we want to be transparent We don't hold anything back in some sort of risk management documentation or whatnot If it has meaning we take it out there and it seems uncomfortable at the beginning But you know, I've seen projects where actually, you know, the upper management of clients as well That's very interesting. We should do that more often right even in a way where the actual team who it needs to resolve everything understands it as well a little bit about agile values and about agile I'm a strong believer in agile because many of the values on the on the on the left side of the economy like like trust and Cooperation are embedded in there, right? When I was young I was with the Boy Scouts and there was the Boy Scout rule even though it's it's well Obviously based on you know, I'm sort of military traditions. They're also very some very strong values in there The Boy Scout rule essentially says everything that you touch or pick up you need to leave at a you know as it was or preferably in a better state and I this an image like this was also on the wall because I Found it working remarkably well where you know, not just our team, but also the client team come to us say look You have the scrum board, but why isn't anything moving? You know, it's not clear to me Well, it's clear for us people say right the team says well we understand it Yes, but it's not just for you. It's also for your client your product on your stakeholders, right? So you need to leave everything, you know, it's it's it's for your peers really And I find you know, it doesn't necessarily have to be this rule But I find that you know getting out your your core values that that that are really as a human Work for you. Well have worked for you. Well and illustrate on how you want to deal with others Take it out there express it and hang it on your wall And I tell clients that we do this Which is different than what they're used to and it works for them, right and their hearts and minds So proper product development is perfectly okay, because that's what we at line green do as well, right? We have a very strong specialty and we can have a very good business for that years to come all of us, right? But consider that you may need more to stay relevant and win the hearts and minds of businesses so to sum up Expand to service design Combine great performance with customer experience to add value to people's lives, right? You don't have to do that yourself. You can form unions with people around you people that you can trust We've brought in some remarkable people that we formed partnerships with that are helping us Not just you know create a kick-ass website But to actually set a great customer experience and in so doing help grow the Drupal pie really, right? So build on trust not just contracts and the contracts need to be there I mean, I'm not saying we should abandon the contracts, but also focus on trust and find Recognize the clients that are willing to to grow there, right? Even though they're very sort of risk and compliance traditional Contract regulated clients if you can find clients that say okay But we also want to make success together if you if you can feel that they're the values are there Try to help them focus on the team not the terms Okay, so ensure definition of success so with measurable KPIs Everyone is able to understand, right? So not just your client not just management, but also your team Your clients will come to demand more and more of you Not just help with with a good product, but also achieving, you know, their online goals their online revenue and so forth There's there's you may have a good Drupal sponsor in your client But there's people around them that will demand at least some return on investment that will demand to know How will we return the our investment a year from now? You know, when is the site going to be successful? Align that with digital maturity, right? So know where your client is at. So if you come You know with customer experience and personas and journeys and so forth to a client. That's not already there Still you're gonna miss that mark Show don't tell So go out there and meet the people Live through their stories Stand in those lines and and show the examples on how you did that, you know Show examples on how you're going to make the lives of people easier. Say, okay, don't worry The people from marketing or the people from IT I'm actually going to help your content people and I'm doing it like this And there's so many stuff out there that will help you illustrate there So understand what is needed and use what's already there and there's so much Live through projects as you live through life, right? So don't be afraid to express your core values, you know, not just as a company But also as as human beings forming a team, you know among yourselves We have many sort of these things hanging on our wall But if I if I get the chance and get to a to a client premise and we do a project there I hang it on their walls as well Right because that's our lives. So we express that that's what we live through right, so Oh That's isn't That's away Actually, that was my last slide. Anyway, that was my last slide. So that was my rep Thank you Are there any questions yet? Yes Thanks, but before too much time goes by there was a slide number three where you had some little logos of five minutes fifteen minutes fifty-five minutes. I Honest I'm maybe I'm just slow, but I can't figure out what what that meant. Could you please explain the slide? Oh Yeah, this one That is a good. Yeah, this is actually it says It says it meant as an illustration On on where you have like the more properties that you define the more granular Definition of success that you have actually I was trying to say make sure that you have thought about some measurable numbers But maybe the visual doesn't work very well in this one Thank you Anyone else? Oh, yes, sir Well, I'm not sure if this I'm be able to answer that but It's because we're a Drupal shop ourselves, right? so We're biased I tell them that fortunately, we have a lot of business from From companies that are either on Drupal or are considering it I also have experience and in the field where where we weren't a Drupal shop per se There were other technologies as well The right tool for the job. What I can tell you is we came across a Request from a client two months ago. That was totally not our thing and totally not Drupal And I tell them that I say well, I will consider it but I respectfully decline ultimately right because Drupal is not the right tool And and we can make we can make it into Drupal We can force it in there, but it's going to be so much harder a campaign for our people which I don't I don't want to really Is does that help help answer your question? Okay? Anyone else? Yep, yeah, it's a good question also There is there is there is many occasion that we're just further down the line and we just need to build according to specification, right? Still I asked them about okay very nice But what's the bigger scheme of things? Where is the online plan for that? Do you have the KPIs there? But what does it need to do right? I? Ask about that even though we're just five steps down and need to build according to technical specification and Quite well occasionally they have that Occasionally they don't I say well we still can't build this for you It's gonna cost that right which is to do the proposal But I'd also be very interested to to you know to know about how you're going to make this into success Obviously I can help you can find others that that are able to help, but I do want to open up that conversation still Yeah, anyone yes Yeah, I'm just if you're allowed to talk about it. I'm dying a curiosity. What was that client spec that would not have worked in Drupal? Yeah, that was a Municipal website that we built in Holland So the website is there on Drupal There's a Drupal distribution for Dutch municipalities and it works great But then there was another division of the municipality that came to us and wanted to hook on to some ESB and an archive system and They said well, you know the Guys from from communication and marketing they have some great experience with you guys We have this need can you also fit it into Drupal because we need to stay within you know a limited number of platforms So really the question was sort of steered to us by the fact that they want wanted it in Drupal as a sort of mandate So keep keep everything within one framework as much as possible So yeah, we need to to Build a repository that would disclose all sorts of digital digital scan documents really for the public That was it Yeah Yes And also there were there were many technical aspects involved that they wanted to fix price And we just didn't know about that at that time So, you know as it goes with fixed price if you need to involve that much risk You need to increase the price and so forth. So so that didn't work out for us Yes, sir Yeah, as a as a as a Drupal agency we have several partnerships With design agencies where agencies that do that so we don't do it ourselves But we understand the value you say this is this is so so yeah We we talk about that but we bring in other people because we we see the value and we see the that the actual the benefit for the client There are some some Google design sprints that you know that they do in a week with rapid prototyping and such I've witnessed it myself At one point so so not our people we don't do it, but our design partners do that's an interesting question Often where we are at there is you know, there's a design clients want to see, you know, what's in the design When it's about the you know the backhand on the CMS Obviously, sometimes we do a demo But it's already a quite functional demo But I wouldn't Quite yet prototype a website just based on functionality because the most clients just can't see through what's there You know and visualize the design in front of that. They want to see the design clickable design Now we do we do have had some requests where we had to set up a demo, but we don't do that a lot. Yeah Yeah, that's true Yeah, yeah If Yeah, if you have the scenario of the of the business owner That's used to SharePoint and need and needs to be doing his stuff there for the past seven years And you show Drupal say this is how it how you will be doing it this way that will help. Yeah, absolutely Yeah, yeah, I see your point. It's interesting. Yeah, that's interesting Yeah, we should do a discussion on that further One more. Okay I That I wouldn't dare to answer I Definitely have a lot of more questions for that to answer but If it's about content, I am we talk about content migration We would talk about content Pre-production or content staging right and setting up an environment where where your client is able to do things with their content Halfway the project for example, right because if you're if you're if you're Putting in content from place a to place b you need to start early with that because quite often it's not just a New website with the same structure but the structure is different as well So you need to map that content. It's it's it's actually a sub project in itself really I'm Not sure if that answers your question, but Right Yeah But I'm happy to think with you on life in the in the whole way later on if you will yeah One more. Yeah Because Well, some of the keywords I I don't know about Asia's that much really but it might be Time to market. So we have a platform that we can rule out new functionalities real quick, right with modules with content So you help those clients, you know, not just Purchase like like Expensive modules for expensive frameworks, but it's actually out there as open source But you still need to pay like like, you know good people who will implement it, but you will be there quite fast That helps. So obviously the licensing costs, right? It's it's it's cost wise easy easier to step in What also helps is There's there's the no vendor lock-in deal So especially well, that's that's one of the things that I always say. Well, if you're not happy, I mean, I'm not gonna hold you There's no point in holding a relationship where either of one of us is unhappy So if you want to leave, that's fine. Obviously, we do our best to have you stay but the vendor lock-in is a good buzzword for that Yeah Yeah And I also I think it helps because because people will understand we're passionate about what we do That there's people at the table that are very passionate about their product But you need also need to convince them that you're as passionate about Drupal as you are about helping them achieve their goals online You know sell their stuff online and that know that you understand what needs to be done That's basically my message Right. Yeah, the why exactly I See that we still have 15 minutes of the hour if there are still our questions Yeah, we need to go to lunch. Thank you for listening everyone. See you later