Steering Committee Panel / Julia Topliss, Chris Burgess, Margery Tongway, Vladimir Roudakov

Um, we're going to do a quick review of what the committee has done over the last year. Um, we're then going to talk about what are the upcoming activities, and then we're finishing off with an announcement about the next two locations >> Two locations? >> I know. I know. We're ambitious. >> At the same time. >> We're about 3 minutes early. We are, but we're going to keep up anyway. Going with the flow, guys. So, we we are the Drupal South committee. There's five of us. Um, Ashley is not able to be present at this conference, but we've got Chris Burgess here. I'm Julia Topliss. Margie Tookway, and Vladimir Rudakov. Um, so, uh, Chris and I have been on committee for 3 and 1/2 years, I think. >> Something like that. >> Oh, and Margie as well. Um, and Vladimir joined in November of last year, would you say? Is that right? Was it the year before? >> Year before. >> Year before, okay. Okay, so, the things that we've been doing over the last year. Um, we we had the Melbourne conference, uh, which was a lot of fun at ACMI. We ran the Splash Awards there, and we also had our first marketing off session, um, which was actually very interesting and valuable. We ended up doing a whole lot of activities. Thank you. A whole lot of activities, um, out of that, which, uh, kind of came out with a marketing sub-committee panel of about four agencies that participated. Uh, we wrote, co-designed, and co-wrote a whole lot of, um, articles about why Drupal is a good solution, uh, for enterprise architecture. Uh, we published about five of them. It was 10 or what? Um, and then we stopped publishing them because we realized we didn't have sort of marketing cut through to really be able to leverage them properly. So, we won't be doing that up again after this conference with a better plan on how we can get better exposure to our communications. I will talk at the end that we we will be doing another marketing boss session at this conference as well. So, if you want to attend and find out more about how you can get involved, please come to that session tomorrow. Uh July and October to October, we did a whole of our planning for the June South Community Day. Uh we started our Wellington conference planning. Uh we nominated a New Zealand sub-committee to help us run this event, which was a bit of a change to previous events that we've been involved in. It's been the steering committee running the conference. So, this is the first conference where we've had a sub-committee doing a lot of the work for us. Um and then there's the marketing after books, uh which we kind of what Tridge has mentioned before. November, we had a fabulous community day. Uh it's easily becoming my favorite event. It's uh relaxed and fun and collaborative. Um so, I would encourage if you haven't been to a community day, I'm encouraging you to consider coming to the one that we've got planned for later this year. Okay, and then December, uh still more Wellington conference planning. And then we had a community booth at uh on Asia, which was in Nara, Japan. And then January to May, obviously planning for this conference. We're here. We're having this fabulous conference. We'll have Splash Awards this afternoon. Um and we've also got our community awards happening this afternoon. And the one big new thing that we launched um this year, like probably about a month ago, was the web app store. We're very keen to get some feedback on how that's gone and how people have ordered from it. How they felt about the quality, the delivery, whether it's working, whether it's not working, so that we can iterate on that for for future events. Okay, so coming up in September, we've got the committee elections. All positions will be up for re-election. We've got three seats which are turning over in November. And two seats that are turning over in May. So, I'm on a two-year May. And I think is Chrissy you May, or no? You don't remember. Okay, it's on the website, so you can check out when people are rolling off. I really wanted to do a call out for anyone here who would be interested in putting their hand up for the next committee. But I wanted to just do a reality check on what the responsibility is of being on the committee, because it is quite a quite a responsibility and burden. And I I want to give you credit to the guys that are here today on the committee, because when you tally it up, it is quite a lot of time and effort. So, we we have 11 committee meetings a year, which go for about 1 hour. But we also have weekly event planning meetings. And this year we did most of them with the New New New Zealand sub committee. And then obviously, you know, there I think there is a requirement for committee members to actually attend the events. So, obviously, you can't be there all the time, but we should be making best efforts. I think one of the big benefits of coming onto a committee and volunteering is learning new skills, and obviously making new friends. So, I've just outlined here some of the some of the activities that we do. And some of the things that we do. So, if you want to upskill, have the opportunity to try out new things, new ways of doing things, then I recommend that you consider joining us on the committee. Okay, so before I play this, I've got to say the decision of where the next uh location is was a really difficult one. Uh we we had two locations and it's like we were even debating it up 2 hours ago out in the cold uh really outside whether we made the right decision or not. Um so we we had decided that where we chose the next year, the following year we would use go to the other location. So, thanks to Maisie and Nicole and Sterling Marketing, we've got a little video. So, there you go. That was uh put together today uh like 2 hours ago. Good job. Uh Oh, okay. So, this is the plan coming up. Uh we will do Canberra Community Day this year um and it'll be somewhere between September and November, probably. Yeah, did I probably October. Do you want to talk a bit more to Mel about it? >> Um I think it's each year's getting better and better. There's more people um turning up and I think um the first two years we relied quite I thought we relied on the GovCMS um like a meetup to get all the people coming along, but we found out last year is when they had cancelled their in-person events um that we still got the same numbers. So, it's got sort of its own um following now. And what And because it's Canberra's so GovCMS are heavy with just clients, um they didn't get their in-person events, so they came to ours instead. So, um there's ones that have come, come, a lot didn't, and lot of people who would turn up to one of the days um and they definitely used to use hours and then they'd turn up. Um so, it's really good to see. It was um amazing. I think it's I'm just really happy with how it panned out this year. Um the moment that GovCMS announced it wasn't going to be in person, um I was pretty upset um cuz there's I was I was physically supporting existing with them. Uh and there was no like let's work together. There's none of that. Um so, yeah, it was a bit concerned, but then yeah, it worked out really well. So, yeah, we'll do it again. >> Amazing. Thank you. So, as you've just found out, um we will be going to the Gold Coast next year and having a celebration together. And then um the poor runner-up is Canberra. So, Canberra will be 2028. So, if you would like to get involved uh with our the events or considering um coming onto the committee, uh here are some ways that you can interact with us. Uh we've got some both sessions tomorrow, so um Brian is running a Drupal marketing buff at 10:10. Um then at 11:40 I I want to do a co-design workshop uh with a vendor checklist. This is a specific pain point that I've seen, especially in the Australian market, where we have got, um, inexperienced, um um, agencies that are not really engaging with the community and they're they're undercutting us and they're winning work and they're doing a shitty job. Um, what really concerns me about that is that we then begin to hear clients or, you know, potential clients say that Drupal is a bad CMS. So, I want to really nip that in the bud really, really early. Um, I've already had some initial, uh, discussions with GovCMS about the DSP refresh. Um, and getting them to start thinking about including a vendor checklist, um, when they put out their contract orders. So, we've got a direct marketing opportunity there, but I'd really like to spend, you know, 14 or 20 minutes, uh, tomorrow starting to design what that checklist would look like. Um, and then the plan from there would be to share it with, um, the Drupal Association because they're doing similar activity, uh, at the moment as well. And my my kind of, um, I guess my my vision is that we have one that's a a general one for the general public that's non-government, but then we have a a government or a GovCMS specific one for the Australian market. Um, and hopefully, um, our Kiwi friends can also leverage that in in the New Zealand market. Um, then at, uh, 10:12, uh, I'm going to run a buff about future plans and that's really talking about some of the activities that we can do moving forward over the next year or two just to support our ecosystem as we go through this massive disruption that we're facing. Um, so, if you've got any ideas, thoughts, um, contributions, please come along cuz I'm going to want to hear everyone's voices and get some kind of ideas on on how, um, the committee and Drupal self can can support all of us, um, so that we do make it to 2028 in Canberra. Um, the only thing you can do, um, if you're very serious about coming on to the committee, um, actually come and observe a committee meeting. Our next one is at 1:00 p.m. Tuesday, the 9th of June. So, just let us know if you would like to come in as a guest. Word of warning is that if we are discussing any sensitive information, so we'll be doing a deep brief of the conference of that session. There is such a thing as a naughty list, so we have to bring out the naughty list and talk about that, we'll ask you to exit the meeting. The other thing that you can do, particularly probably after Splash Awards, is approach any one of us and have a conversation. So, that is all I have to say. Does anyone have any questions of us? >> How do we get on the naughty list? >> Lifetime member. Um, I I do have one comment on timing of the event, and it's probably too late. >> Yeah. >> Um, this time of year is quite tricky for a lot of agencies that are in that push towards >> June 30? >> end of financial year. >> Yeah. >> And um, >> It's a really good point. >> typically we bring our entire team and I open up budget for it, and our project managers were like, "Absolutely not. >> Okay. >> We've got too much work on." >> So, I think my question then is is it The reason why we've got it here is that we don't conflict with Chicago well, with US or Europe. Does that matter? >> No. >> Okay. >> The three people that go to those events three and a half. >> Hm? >> Three and a half. >> Three and a half. Yeah. So, that that's the reason cuz this was the slot where we felt we had enough buffer between the Drupal cons to actually, you know, have a space in in the agenda. But I've been been thinking we don't see many people from US or Europe. Okay. >> Just Sorry. Just to add to it, I'm organizing other conferences so there is always end of financial year, student exams, other conferences, too cold in Queensland, things like it all piles up very quick very very quickly and it's always hard to pick the date cuz you won't get 100% satisfaction. But if it's like if it comes from the majority, I think there was a conversation about possibly August if that works for people or October. >> We'll put a poll out and we'll ask the community. >> Melbourne was in March. >> Yes. So March was tricky because it's really hard to organize a conference over Christmas, you know, because you have the December cut off and then people aren't back till early February and then it's 4 weeks until the conference and it just it it's stressful and it freaks us out which is why we pushed it back to May this year and that's been easier for us but obviously not easier for you guys so. Yeah. So maybe we'll we'll think about August September like everything I should have just put a tentative on that, right? So yeah. Any other questions? >> And then you just said becomes too cold in Queensland. >> Well, I had the comments that July I organized conference July last June last year and people said always too cold in Queensland to come. >> Yeah, when when it's like >> That's right. It goes below 20 degrees that's a Queenslanders don't go to the beach that's >> Okay. Any other questions? >> I can put a topic up for discussion is about Drupal camps and cuz we haven't had camps since 2019 where we had Byron Bay and Sydney, I think. Um so, how does community feel about the camps? Uh usually involves cheaper pricing for both sponsorship and tickets, if not free, smaller venues, more focused discussions, things like that. So, if anyone has any ideas or proposals or interest or something they saw at the different conferences, >> Canberra is going to be in person this year? >> Yeah. >> Just considering travel and stuff like that. >> Yep. Yep, and I know that that's an issue as well because that's >> Mine just might also end. I've been running Drupal meetups, Melbourne meetups, online. We tried to do uh in-person Drupal meetups two or three times. So, it's Melbourne, and we put it in the CBD Melbourne meetup. So, in-person attendance I don't know what's with the community, but people are not very keen on the meetups, or maybe our content wasn't good enough, or maybe our content wasn't good enough. I don't know. >> I would disagree on that conversation of Melbourne, but the meetups in Canberra we only hold them maybe three or four times a year, but we still get such good attendance that we keep them in person. Um we do a lot online as well. Um we usually get like up to five, maybe 10 people online at a time, but often we get 25, 30 people um showing up. So, >> Canberra is a bit unique because of its >> It's not me. >> Yeah, I know. But I mean, you you can't be unique with a lot of people, right? Relatively to most of the cities. >> Oh, no, definitely. And Canberra's new. It's small. Yeah, people can drive for 20 minutes and get there. So, it is okay. It is definitely. >> So, Canberra is unique as in Brisbane, I'm running WordPress meetups now just because we have more than five people turning up. Last meetups, which we had in 2023 for Drupal, had three people literally at the meetup. And I'm not saying other meetups are not collapsing, the WordPress is collapsing, JavaScript is collapsing. Like there's less and less people. People are interested in AI. So, AI meetup comes in. Even if they put slow ball presentation, I still get 70 people RSVP'd. Half of that will come, 45. So, that's the reality of Queensland and Brisbane. Um saying that, another thing I was thinking about the camp is if you know don't know, WordPress community was in quite despair in the last couple of years. They had massive dramas. Uh legal fights and all of that. So, the community is a bit battered as well there. So, few of the proposals, cuz I've been running meetup for the last 3 years and kind of got a bit of an insider information and got bit familiar face. People do consider maybe running something joint like a PHP conference with Drupal and WordPress streams or running some sort of kind of um something in the middle. Um so, it's not just Drupal, but maybe PHP or other CMS other open source CMSs to be specific or CMS conference, something like that. So, if you have any ideas there again, ping us later or if you saw something that you think might work. Like because some of the conferences are doing really great job. Like if you look at the DDD conferences, which are $50 to $100, very cheap attendance fee. They are in all major cities around Australia. People vote for the agendas, which I guess can be a bit icky, but they are they are having a pretty good presence in terms of the new people coming in, different businesses. And because it's not it's technology agnostic, like it is Microsoft oriented, but they don't really like they bring some random Java or Python talk as well, you know, or some system. So, I I I like how they how they run. It's kind of poor man's web directions kind of thing. But at web directions you get the same talks as there. That's so I don't see why would you pay $1,500 when you can pay $100 or maybe get a booth at the DDD. So, I found those kind of events with cheaper entrance fees quite an attractive opportunity. But that's again technology agnostic. >> Okay. Um if Stephen can hear me. >> No, I think I think timing's hard though. Um there's a shorter window of fine weather here. Um and we've had challenges with like March before the end of the financial year in New Zealand is a challenge as well, but yeah. Just turned up at dates. >> Right. >> Um given your amazing upsell of joining the community >> Yeah. >> What have been the big challenges more broadly over the last couple of years? >> Um So, I think this is a discussion for tomorrow, right? But I think that we we're growing as an organization. We want to support the community more and do I feel like we should be doing more. Like we need to be working harder to sustain our ecosystem, our jobs, our staff, our employers, all of that. Um and I think that you know that that that I think one of the topics that you know I would like to talk about tomorrow is like are we ready to become an incorporated association ourselves? I think that's the big one. Um because at the moment we're not empowered to to be doing the activities that we want to be doing. So, we we we If you don't know, we're governed by Linux Australia. Um so, we're a subcommittee that sits under Linux Australia. Linux Australia has um the responsibility of governance over us. Um so, they basically um they've got the tough job of managing many organizations like us, making sure that we're spending the money in a the right way, um that it's trackable, and it's ethical. Um but, the kind of the downside of that is that when we start to come up with creative ideas, we want to take some risks, we want to try some new things, um we're we're not getting cut through, and we're not getting permission to spend that budget. Um and I think that that's sort of probably okay when everything's fine, but everything is not fine. We're in a really disruptive uh landscape, and we need to be much more creative, and we need to be able to take risks, um and try new or different things. Um because if we just sit here and do nothing, then we've already lost. So, I think that that's That's just a test of being, you know, trying to build an innovative culture, and I think that that's the biggest challenge that I've felt in the last sort of 3 years that I've been involved. Yeah. Apart from that, it's lovely. It's lovely Well, you know, we've we've got a great community. Um I really have loved working with the committee over the last few years. We've made a really good team. We've done some awesome events together. Um yeah. I mean, every conference has a unique flavor. There's always issues that come up, but that's part of learning, right? >> That is an event that has been exceptional. >> So far. >> Yeah. >> There's still time. >> Yeah, just wait. >> Um and just as a commentary for those of you that know me on Owen was on the committee previously, um there's always this sense of how we fare in terms of the broader market that's in event. Um I think the numbers here are on par with what we've always been able to do in NZ. >> Yeah. >> 30 more in Auckland a decade ago or something like that? >> Yeah, I think it was like there was >> 167 people >> Anyway. >> 2017, you know, a couple of years. I think we had 100 in Sydney in 2023. So, yeah. >> So, we're we're pretty close, right? Like I think that we've we've done pretty good. >> And then the other context is it's not all the same faces, is it? >> Right, yeah. >> Um I think there was always a concern of as an aging cohort of Drupal diehards, um but the diversity of the types of organizations that are now working with Drupal is >> Yeah, and I think it's expanded. Yeah, and I think it's a testament too to the uh New Zealand subcommittee and the work that they've done. You know, so they've they've they've come up with ideas of how to engage um students and government in this conference. Um so and you know, we've we've trialed that and so you you've you've seen some new faces as a consequence of those activities. So, I think um for me observing from the outside, I feel like the the New Zealand committee really dug deep and committed to having this conference. Um and they've worked really hard to try and engage outside of the immediate network and known faces to to that happen. So, yeah. So, if you see any of them around, I should have gone and pulled out earlier, but Dave Sparks is here. He was leading it out. And is there Cherry Cherry, have you got any of your other team here with you? Okay. Here you go. But, yeah, certainly, you know, Alex Matthews, Chris you are the committee. Nicole Ritchie's done an amazing job. Josh Ford. So, if you see them around, please congratulate them cuz they've done a really amazing job. >> We argue a lot. We argue a lot, in particular. And there's a there's a there's a desire for growth and renewal on But, it's really hard to do revolutionary change. And the opportunity is for incremental change. >> Yeah. >> And I feel like there's new agencies who have never participated before here. And there's new audiences. We're slowly growing the end user client market. And I feel like this is going to sustain the effort. You know, the people who came along today will talk to their friends and they'll come along to the next one. It's about incremental growth. And I have just one of the other comments that we are really really strong about is the, you know, Nicole has done an amazing job as the the track chair following the given talks. New people submitting, new people coming into the community, and the variety of talks we've got is really pleasing. We have new topics. Obviously, there's there's some new stuff going on. I don't know if I can remember what it was called. We had a whole bunch of different talks. But, there is an incremental renewal going on and I think we shouldn't I don't think anyone wants wholesale change. But, just committing to 10, 12, 15, 20% of change in topics and instead there's new people coming along. It's incremental. >> And the quality of the talks today been phenomenal. Absolute world class. I even went up to the last session and seen It's one of the best talks I've ever heard. Hands down. So, it's great. >> Amazing. I'm glad glad you're happy, Owen. I'm excited for you. >> Owen can never say no to us. >> Just Yeah, just coming from outside and kind of on the periphery of the Drupal community, like we really appreciate that the Drupal community is one of the few and the groups of people that are still putting on in-person events. And it's actually one of the few places where we can come and talk about our stuff. Yeah. Um because, you know, people are like, you know, with Web Directions and they've really scaled down. Um it's becoming really hard economically to put on a conference. I don't know how you guys can still do it, but um so, that's that's really appreciated. And yeah, and what you can spread the message that you're open to talks that aren't, you know, might not seem to be directly Drupal related. Um yeah. Um uh Is UX Australia still going? >> UX >> UX Australia is now run by Web Directions. >> Right. >> Yeah. But UX Australia is a very different type of conference. It's much more It's a single track. All the talks are like super polished, so you kind of feel like you have to be must see the start and the end of the talk. >> Mhm. >> Which um with respect, um it's this place is is Yeah, more of a space. >> Yeah, that's not our vibe, right? You know, we we talk about this a bit at Drupal South that, you know, it it needs to be a safe and inclusive space. And it's it's not it's not a Drupal con. You know, for us, it's a space also to be able to provide first-time speakers to come and try things out. Like, you know, that's We should be a bit experimental about that. But Angus, I I do want to thank you and the Weave team for coming. Like, you came to the community day. You gave amazing talks, uh Maggie and Emma, at the community day and then you have two talks today and gives more kind of breath and context when we have specific talks about content strategy and new ex because it's so important now in terms of AI and and driven design. So, yeah, thank you. >> Just to give a bit of a perspective. I was on a take Queensland panel for development and there were few people from SAP which is multi-billion dollar organization and the issues they were raising about the conference are exactly the same. Aging aging developers same faces, you know, it's it's interesting to see how they basically works exactly the same way for multi-billion dollar corporation as in for open source community where they actually struggling with the same issues as we are when they're doing big event together. >> There was about 10,000 people at the AWS summit in Sydney today. Someone's still going big. >> Um The only other thing that we mentioned last night is it does seem to be a bit of a Drupal renaissance in NZ. >> Yeah. >> There's a good opportunity here. >> Yeah. >> Oh, no, actually no. No, there's no there's no Drupal in New Zealand no one wants to No, it's actually quite good. Yeah. But there's only one person does it really, No, it's um there's a good opportunity here but Like like Drupal's bringing the renaissance. Like I'm really excited that Drupal is it's aggressively moving forward and addressing needs that it's anticipating. I think there's a massive change in what we're seeing here. Um and clients are slowly catching on to what they're doing. The the new job ways that are coming up here. They realize that 80% of their traffic is not human now. And so, you know, it's not just a buzzword. >> How do you measure success now? How do you How do you cater for that market? What do you do? So, yeah. This This cycle is open. Drupal stayed there for a little bit, but it has has been spurred to innovate really aggressively and we'll be at the front of the pack for a while, so. >> I know it's an upwards. Okay.