The Drupalize.Me team is excited to be going to Germany in just two weeks, for DrupalCon Munich. DrupalCon is always an amazing event with thousands of Drupalers sharing ideas, having fun, and helping to make Drupal even better, both as software and as a community. For our part, we will be involved in several sessions, as well as doing everything we can to make the sprint day successful by providing free training on community tools. What is a "sprint day" you ask? Well let me explain what's going on and why we're so excited.
DrupalCons have always traditionally had an open space on the last day of the conference for sprinting. Everyone in the community comes together and simply works on tasks to make Drupal better, everything from coding for Drupal core, to writing better documentation, to helping out your favorite module or theme. It is a wonderful way to get plugged in to the community and make an immediate contribution. So many people are available to help guide you and bounce great ideas around. The biggest problem that often happens though, is that there are a lot of people working on lots of different things, and it can be very overwhelming for someone who is new to either the community as a whole, or even just new to the concept of a sprint. Another problem we often see that leads to lower attendance in the first place is that many people don't feel that they have the knowledge or tools to contribute. Everyone can contribute, whether you know how to code or not. Figuring out what you can contribute though is often daunting enough that most people stay away, instead of peeking in the door and seeing all the great fun going on that they could be a part of.
Recently the core mentoring team has been working hard to create better organization around working on core to make the on ramp that much smoother for new people, and give people better direction for how they can help. At the same time there is a new initiative called the Drupal Ladder that has been focusing very narrowly on creating step-by-step guides for people who want to contribute. Our team has been involved with both of these efforts in a number of ways. At CapitalCamp a few weeks ago we wanted to add our help in a new way. We created a new, free, half-day workshop to teach people our community's tools. (You can see the outline and resource links from the workshop.) We wanted to have a very relaxed and guided place for people to not just get exposed to the tools we use and how, but to also provide hands-on help and make sure people really felt comfortable. We had a huge turnout at the camp — more than we anticipated — and it was a blast! It was such a success that we're excited to provide the same training in Munich for the DrupalCon sprint. We're still working out the details of the when/where, but we will definitely update you here on our blog, as well as get the word out at DrupalCon. If you will be in Munich, we hope to see you on sprint day, and we'll be there to help you feel welcome and confident as you jump into the wonderful world of contributing to open source.
Oh! We also have some extra fancy, special, limited-edition sparkly pony stickers, just for DrupalCon Munich. We only printed 1000 of them, and they'll only be available at DrupalCon. Once they're gone, that's it. So, make sure you track down Addi, Kyle, or Joe during the conference to get 'em while you can!
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