Acquia Inc. podcasts

Vladimir Roudakov and I sat down at DrupalCon New Orleans to talk about an event close to my heart: the 2016 edition of Drupal South. This year, it'll be held in Australia's Gold Coast. Knowing the Australasian Drupal community, this will be a very high quality event in terms of what you'll be able to get out of it. And knowing the location, right by the world famous "Surfers' Paradise" beach, if you're into sun, fun and Drupal, you'll be in for a treat! Below is a little information about the event and Vlad, plus video, audio, and a text transcription of our conversation. Drupal South 2016 Website: goldcoast2016.drupal.org.au When: 27-28 October, 2016 Where: Q1 Resort, Gold Coast, Australia What: 300-400 Drupal friends and experts sharing and learning Call for Papers: Submit sessions! Call for Sponsors: Become a sponsor! Meet Vlad Name: Vladimir Roudakov Work affiliation: Senior Engineer, Educator, Social Engagement - Technocrat Drupal.org: VladimirAus Twitter: @handle LinkedIn: Vladimir Roudakov Interview video - 14 min. jam: So Vladimir and I are in glamorous downtown New Orleans at DrupalCon 2016 in North America. How’s your Con been so far, Vlad? Vlad: It was pretty overwhelming. It’s my second Con in the US and third Con altogether and it’s been amazing. Everyone should try it. Everyone should try at least one DrupalCon in their life. jam: As you can hear from his accent, Vlad is from Australia. Vlad: Gidday! jam: You work for Technocrat, right? Vlad: That’s correct. Yes, I work for a company based in Sydney called Technocrat. Vlad meets Drupal jam: How long have you been doing Drupal? Vlad: I’ve been doing Drupal since 2009. I actually kind of gave up on enterprise back in the day and went to a small company that was run from a basement. The owner came to me with a pile of paper like that and said, “Do you know Drupal?” I said, “I worked with Joomla! before” and he said, “Well, here are all the passwords of my clients. Can you fix the sites?” It was a few Drupal 5 sites and majority of them were Drupal 6 sites. So that’s how I met Drupal. In the basement of the Queensland – well, it’s actually called “Queensland” there – the house. So it’s like in a basement of the house back in Australia. jam: So your introduction to Drupal was a hundred rescue projects. Vlad: About 50, yes - not a hundred. jam: So what did you think about Drupal after opening those up? Vlad: Well, I don’t think I had time to think about it. I was actually trying to learn it for quite a bit. So just doing it all myself. Yes, it took quite a while and again, was overwhelming but the interest and bit--and still today ... So it was – I guess almost seven years to-date. I keep learning every day, which is – I guess – the most exciting part. jam: Have you been paying attention to Drupal 8? Have you been excited about that? Vlad: Yes, I actually just certified as Drupal 8 Acquia certified developer and we just released two projects as a part of Technocrat with at least two Drupal 8 projects into the wild. jam: Wow! So what are you most excited about, technically in Drupal 8? How is it going to make your job better? Vlad: Well, it’s already doing it. The fact that it packages a lot of stull than before – we used to use as the modules. So making it more stable is one thing. The second – and I guess the most exciting bit that it kind of comes with hidden gems like a backbone frontend library and Symfony. It’s invisible for a naked eye – for a person who starts doing Drupal 8 or just get introduced for Drupal, but for us as the developers, that brings enormous amount of stuff hidden that we actually can leverage and use. So that’s very, very exciting. jam: What would you say your favorite thing about Drupal is in...

I met 15-year-old serial entrepreneur--CEO of goCreative--and budding Drupalist Brandon Relph at the inaugural ThinkNation event in Canterbury, in December 2015. In this podcast, we talk about how he got to know Drupal 8 and what he thought of it. And I was surprised to learn that there is a world of professional Minecraft out there, in which Brandon runs two professional ventures and employs a couple dozen people around the world. Brandon met Drupal when he began building the ThinkNation website in Drupal 8 as part of a work-experience week with the UK Agency Miggle. From an interview with Brandon on the ThinkNation website, Putting young people at the heart of ThinkNation: “Working on the ThinkNation site seemed a daunting process at first. I had just arrived to the Miggle office for my work experience and was given the task of converting the pre-made designs of ThinkNation into HTML/CSS that afternoon!” Miggle founder, Alick Mighall talks about Brandon and ThinkNation in this post: Young Thinking. Interview video - 10 min. Guest dossier Name: Brandon Relph Work affiliation: CEO goCreative - “We create awesome Minecraft creations” Block Arts - “The new way to share all things Minecraft” Twitter: @brandonrelph 1st version of Drupal: Drupal 8! jam: Right. We – this guy and I have just spent the whole day at this thing called ThinkNation and ThinkNation – what did you think of the day? Brandon Relph: It was very well put together. It was very interesting and engaging. jam: If you had to describe it to someone else who wasn’t here, how would you describe this event? Brandon Relph: Something to almost answer those big questions that you may have. jam: Right. So the format was roughly five big questions involving human life at the deepest level. Should we invest in technology to extend it, should we invest in space flights, questions about mortality, really kind of serious stuff. And it was put together ... So there were a series of experts, speakers and artists and a poet and some dancers and everybody addressing these questions in different ways. I found it incredibly rich and I was pretty excited and the plan is to have more of these. Would you come back? Brandon Relph: For sure. jam: So please introduce yourself. Brandon Relph: My name is Brandon Relph. I’m from Bishop Bell School in Eastbourne. I did my work experience with the company Miggle, which helped design the website for this event. jam: That’s our secret Drupal connection of the day. So what did you do on your work experience? Brandon Relph: I was the first person to start the ThinkNation site. jam: Which was built in...? Brandon Relph: Drupal 8. jam: Oh, lovely! Brandon Relph: This was back in June time. So it was when - before it had even been released. Yes, I built lots of the front end and I also got to use Drupal 8, which I’ve never used before. jam: So what’s your development, IT, web sort of background? Brandon Relph: In school, I study computer science. Outside the school, I do lots of computer-related activities. I also own my own company, which ... we do stuff on the computer and everyday internet. jam: So you’re an entrepreneur. Brandon Relph: Yes, you could call me that. jam: In geek terms, Alick Mighall said, “Go make a Drupal 8 site,” and just set you loose, right? How was it to open up Drupal for the first time and...? Brandon Relph: It was a challenge. I have to say it’s very easy to install it and when we were doing – on the first day, I basically got told, “Oh yes, we use Drupal.” I got talked through what it was. I got left a bit to decide and get to know it and they were like, “Oh, here’s the site. We want you to start.” So I started. I think pretty much in the first afternoon...

I met 15-year-old serial entrepreneur--CEO of goCreative--and budding Drupalist Brandon Relph at the inaugural ThinkNation event in Canterbury, in December 2015. In this podcast, we talk about how he got to know Drupal 8 and what he thought of it. And I was surprised to learn that there is a world of professional Minecraft out there, in which Brandon runs two professional ventures and employs a couple dozen people around the world. Brandon met Drupal when he began building the ThinkNation website in Drupal 8 as part of a work-experience week with the UK Agency Miggle. From an interview with Brandon on the ThinkNation website, Putting young people at the heart of ThinkNation: “Working on the ThinkNation site seemed a daunting process at first. I had just arrived to the Miggle office for my work experience and was given the task of converting the pre-made designs of ThinkNation into HTML/CSS that afternoon!” Miggle founder, Alick Mighall talks about Brandon and ThinkNation in this post: Young Thinking. Interview video - 10 min. Guest dossier Name: Brandon Relph Work affiliation: CEO goCreative - “We create awesome Minecraft creations” Block Arts - “The new way to share all things Minecraft” Twitter: @brandonrelph 1st version of Drupal: Drupal 8! jam: Right. We – this guy and I have just spent the whole day at this thing called ThinkNation and ThinkNation – what did you think of the day? Brandon Relph: It was very well put together. It was very interesting and engaging. jam: If you had to describe it to someone else who wasn’t here, how would you describe this event? Brandon Relph: Something to almost answer those big questions that you may have. jam: Right. So the format was roughly five big questions involving human life at the deepest level. Should we invest in technology to extend it, should we invest in space flights, questions about mortality, really kind of serious stuff. And it was put together ... So there were a series of experts, speakers and artists and a poet and some dancers and everybody addressing these questions in different ways. I found it incredibly rich and I was pretty excited and the plan is to have more of these. Would you come back? Brandon Relph: For sure. jam: So please introduce yourself. Brandon Relph: My name is Brandon Relph. I’m from Bishop Bell School in Eastbourne. I did my work experience with the company Miggle, which helped design the website for this event. jam: That’s our secret Drupal connection of the day. So what did you do on your work experience? Brandon Relph: I was the first person to start the ThinkNation site. jam: Which was built in...? Brandon Relph: Drupal 8. jam: Oh, lovely! Brandon Relph: This was back in June time. So it was when - before it had even been released. Yes, I built lots of the front end and I also got to use Drupal 8, which I’ve never used before. jam: So what’s your development, IT, web sort of background? Brandon Relph: In school, I study computer science. Outside the school, I do lots of computer-related activities. I also own my own company, which ... we do stuff on the computer and everyday internet. jam: So you’re an entrepreneur. Brandon Relph: Yes, you could call me that. jam: In geek terms, Alick Mighall said, “Go make a Drupal 8 site,” and just set you loose, right? How was it to open up Drupal for the first time and...? Brandon Relph: It was a challenge. I have to say it’s very easy to install it and when we were doing – on the first day, I basically got told, “Oh yes, we use Drupal.” I got talked through what it was. I got left a bit to decide and get to know it and they were like, “Oh, here’s the site. We want you to start.” So I started. I think pretty much in the first afternoon...

Acquia U and career changers - meet Doris Wong Doris Wong and I sat down at Acquia's Boston HQ to talk about her interesting journey through HTML and frontend work, to UX, to fitness, and finally to Drupal and Acquia, and how even at Acquia it took time, Acquia U and three jobs (!) to really settle in. Here, we talk about that path and what she got out of Acquia U. Read this blog post on Doris's website for a wonderful, clear introduction to who Doris is and how she got to Acquia and Drupal development. "Not all [my] experiences were a success, but the one thing I didn’t stop doing was learning. Learning is one of the greatest tools you can have in your arsenal. I first came to Acquia as a UX intern with the goal of finding my next career. When I came to the realization that my heart was in web development, the Acquia U program came into fruition. When the program was finally announced, I hesitated to apply. I didn’t know enough about Drupal to make an educated decision but then I thought, well, why stop learning now?" - Doris Wong Interview video - 10 min. Guest dossier Name: Doris Wong Work affiliation: Digital Marketer, Acquia Acquia U profile: To the Front and Back Blog/Website: http://dorismwong.com Interview transcription Meet Doris jam: We are sitting here at Acquia’s headquarters. How many days have you been working here so far? Doris: I would have to break it down three ways. I have been here for a year with three different departments. I started as a UX Intern--User Experience--with the engineering team. That was for the summer ... No actually, I extended summer. Then from there ... Backtrack: I was a frontend developer. I teach fitness on the side, and I was kind of looking for a change. Thinking I was going to do fitness, and then I worked at a company for frontend development because I wanted to get back into it who is focused on UX. Then, I got connected to the UX team here. Then I thought, “Alright, what’s next? I want to try something else”. Then, I met Amy Parker. She kind of convinced me to sign up for Acquia U. I got in. I was at Acquia U, then I was kind of like, “Alright. Let’s see what’s next”. Then I kind of found a role within Marketing, which was not really part of the curriculum, but I developed an interest in them. Right now, I am at Acquia as a Digital Marketer. jam: Wow. I think we can draw two conclusions from this. The first conclusion we can draw is that you have trouble making up your mind. Doris: Yes! jam: The second conclusion we can draw is that three departments in a year at Acquia ... Acquia is a gold mine of opportunities for people who want to try stuff out. Doris: Definitely. You see that a lot here. You see a lot of people who learn. It is not that I didn’t learn much from the UX or with Acquia U. All of that experience has really helped me with my current role in Marketing, which is focusing on conversion for Acquia.com. So having the User Experience and the Drupal skillset to be able to use certain products on Acquia.com has really helped. In the end, actually surprisingly, all tied in together. jam: Introduce yourself and tell us something non-Drupal-ly about you. Doris: Alright. My name is Doris Wong. The non-Drupal-ly thing about me is that I currently teach a dance fitness class called BollyX. It is a Bollywood-inspired dance fitness program. So for those of you who have taken other dance fitness programs, this one introduces the mainstream folks to the world of Bollywood in a fitness format. It’s a lot of fun. jam: Wow, that’s a cool non-Drupal-ly thing. You had this odd path into Acquia U where you had already touched Acquia - but before you came to Acquia, had you heard of Drupal? Doris: No. jam: How did you find out about that UX internship that you applied for? Doris: This is where the...

Michael Schmid, Group CTO at Amazee, sat down in my Cologne office in March 2016 with the idea of comparing the promise of Drupal 8 to the real life experience of him and his teams. The conclusion? It's already great and will keep getting better. With so many Drupal 8 projects now underway, I expect to be hearing a lot more of this sentiment in the near future! Below is a full transcript of our conversation. Interview video - 41 min. Guest dossier Name: Michael Schmid Work affiliation: Group CTO at Amazee Drupal.org: schnitzel Twitter: @schnitzel LinkedIn: Michael Schmid Facebook: Michael Schmid Blog/Website: http://schnitzel.io/ 1st version of Drupal: Drupal 5 Transcript Section headers: Welcome to my Cologne Office! The history of Amazee Labs Too many features is too many features From Drupal product to Drupal services April Fools Drupal 8 Delivery Boot Camp Boiling it down: Focus Drupal 8, the product Less contrib, more core And it all comes together ... Working with Drupal 8 now and in the future More devs, more community, out-of-the-box Welcome to my Cologne Office! jam: We are sitting in my office in Cologne, the office that I share with the Coder-Themer wonder twins, Campbell Vertesi and Adam Juran. Michael: Do they actually fight like during the days sometimes? jam: So, I’m kind of like the office dad and I literally used to walk-in and catch them practicing Kung Fu, karate fighting stuff, and I got really upset with them, and so, they never do it when I’m around. Michael: So, they have a Jam-Signal somewhere? jam: I don’t know, but it was – I literally walked to the office sometime. They’d be like So, yes. I don’t know. I wasn’t cool with it. Anyway, this couch in the office is kind of turning into the podcast couch. I’ve spoken with a few people here. Campbell and I did a podcast with the PHP Unit maintainer, Sebastian Bergmann, who doesn’t live too far away. I had the HR vice president from Hootsuite here which was really, really cool talking about putting open source methodologies in thinking into HR which is really very interesting. The history of Amazee Labs Now, I have Michael Schmid, CTO of the Amazee group. Michael: Correct. jam: Which today comprises three global offices. Zurich, Austin, Cape Town plus a company called Amazee Metrics. How many people worked for Amazee Labs nowadays? Michael: Altogether, I think it’s 34/35, something like that. jam: Okay. That’s an interesting size. Michael: It’s a good size, yes. So, one of the things that we say is that we don’t want to grow too big in each location. So, we want to keep the locations rather smaller. So there’s like number of 18/19 people because we feel that’s a really nice size that is still the team. Everybody knows each other, we can sit together at the table, but again, we want to grow as a whole company so that’s why we have different locations. So in total, we have more than 18 people. We have like 33 all over the world. jam: Right, and if you have three locations, then these locations can grow to 60 people and then you’re going to have to open more offices. Michael: Correct, yes. jam: Cool. Now, Amazee amazingly has been around for just about 10 years. Michael: Correct. Next year is it’s 10-year anniversary, yes. jam: And you didn’t start as a digital agency at all. Michael: Not at all. Too many features is too many features jam: Back when I first heard of you, somebody told me there is this Drupal site called amazee.com and you can use it for fundraising or something. Now, cast your minds back 10 years ago, that there wasn’t Kickstarter and there wasn’t IndieGoGo, right? Michael: No. jam: What was Amazee....

I sat down with Ally Gonthier the first time I visited Acquia's then-new downtown Boston headquarters in mid-2015. At the time, she was preparing to leave her job as Support Coordinator at Acquia to enter Acquia's Drupal/tech bootcamp, known as Acquia U. When I returned to Boston in the spring of 2016, I took the chance to talk with her again about her experiences at Acquia U and what had become of her in the meantime. Below is a transcript of our before and after conversations. Before and after on video More with Ally For a nice introduction to one of my happiest colleagues in her own words, read Ally's Acquia U profile, "Always Smiling." Check out Ally's alter-ego as Acquia "Support Goddess" with Lanette Miller Blog:"Who Ya Gonna Call? Tips and Tricks for Troubleshooting Drupal Websites." Presentation: Drupal 101: Tips and Tricks for Troubleshooting Drupal Before Acquia U: Mid 2015 jam: Hey. We are at Acquia’s brand-spanking-new headquarters. It’s been barely any time. This is only my third day here ever and we’re in downtown Boston, and it’s kind of exciting. I am with a current and future colleague, right? Why don’t you introduce yourself and tell us something about you. Ally Gonthier: Something? jam: Yes, whatever you like. Maybe something non-Drupaly. Ally Gonthier: Okay. My name is Ally. My last name is pronounced differently depending on where you are in the world. In America, it’s Gonthier [read in American accent]. In France, it’s Gonthier [read in beautiful French accent], which is way better. jam: Way better, okay. So I’m with Ally Gonthier. What’s your job at Acquia right now? Ally Gonthier: I am a senior customer support coordinator, which is sort of a complicated-ish but not really. jam: Interestingly, you’re about to be a "Ubie". So you’re changing from this job and going into Acquia’s Drupal training program. Ally Gonthier: Yes. jam: Why are you doing that? Ally Gonthier: So I’m in support right now and it’s a very entry level position. There’s a lot to do, a lot of tasks to be done. To get me to the next level, I need to learn a lot more about Drupal and as intensely as I can, so ... jam: And you’re excited about Drupal and you want ... ? Ally Gonthier: Yes. jam: You’re all about the Drupal now? Ally Gonthier: That’s why I’m here. jam: Okay. So this sounds kind of silly in context, but how did you hear about the Acquia U program? Ally Gonthier: I literally met Amy who’s running the program at a Drupal camp last September and I bumped into her. We worked together but I didn’t even know who she was and we – she introduced herself to me and I was like fly paper. I didn’t leave her alone. jam: Wow! Okay, okay. And had you heard of Drupal before you came to Acquia? Ally Gonthier: Yes, yes. So I have been ... a “Supportian” for a while now. I had other jobs in life but when I went into sort of a technical land I found support really fit my personality well because not only do I enjoy learning and doing technical things, but I’m also really empathetic for customers. I really want to help people, and help them understand and ... I’m not necessarily a people person but I care if that makes sense, you know? jam: No, it does. I think support, it’s actually such a great fit for people steeped in the open source mentality because you really do help people succeed and it’s all about transparency and sharing, right? And then I’ve also been told by other people from Acquia support that the difference between working in a support role and working in some company building website ... Ally Gonthier: Like a help desk, right? jam: Right. Well, you get to look at a different code base every day. Ally Gonthier: Yes, absolutely. jam: You’re not just working on the one thing for...

I sat down with Ally Gonthier the first time I visited Acquia's then-new downtown Boston headquarters in mid-2015. At the time, she was preparing to leave her job as Support Coordinator at Acquia to enter Acquia's Drupal/tech bootcamp, known as Acquia U. When I returned to Boston in the spring of 2016, I took the chance to talk with her again about her experiences at Acquia U and what had become of her in the meantime. Below is a transcript of our before and after conversations. Before and after on video More with Ally For a nice introduction to one of my happiest colleagues in her own words, read Ally's Acquia U profile, "Always Smiling." Check out Ally's alter-ego as Acquia "Support Goddess" with Lanette Miller Blog:"Who Ya Gonna Call? Tips and Tricks for Troubleshooting Drupal Websites." Presentation: Drupal 101: Tips and Tricks for Troubleshooting Drupal Before Acquia U: Mid 2015 jam: Hey. We are at Acquia’s brand-spanking-new headquarters. It’s been barely any time. This is only my third day here ever and we’re in downtown Boston, and it’s kind of exciting. I am with a current and future colleague, right? Why don’t you introduce yourself and tell us something about you. Ally Gonthier: Something? jam: Yes, whatever you like. Maybe something non-Drupaly. Ally Gonthier: Okay. My name is Ally. My last name is pronounced differently depending on where you are in the world. In America, it’s Gonthier [read in American accent]. In France, it’s Gonthier [read in beautiful French accent], which is way better. jam: Way better, okay. So I’m with Ally Gonthier. What’s your job at Acquia right now? Ally Gonthier: I am a senior customer support coordinator, which is sort of a complicated-ish but not really. jam: Interestingly, you’re about to be a "Ubie". So you’re changing from this job and going into Acquia’s Drupal training program. Ally Gonthier: Yes. jam: Why are you doing that? Ally Gonthier: So I’m in support right now and it’s a very entry level position. There’s a lot to do, a lot of tasks to be done. To get me to the next level, I need to learn a lot more about Drupal and as intensely as I can, so ... jam: And you’re excited about Drupal and you want ... ? Ally Gonthier: Yes. jam: You’re all about the Drupal now? Ally Gonthier: That’s why I’m here. jam: Okay. So this sounds kind of silly in context, but how did you hear about the Acquia U program? Ally Gonthier: I literally met Amy who’s running the program at a Drupal camp last September and I bumped into her. We worked together but I didn’t even know who she was and we – she introduced herself to me and I was like fly paper. I didn’t leave her alone. jam: Wow! Okay, okay. And had you heard of Drupal before you came to Acquia? Ally Gonthier: Yes, yes. So I have been ... a “Supportian” for a while now. I had other jobs in life but when I went into sort of a technical land I found support really fit my personality well because not only do I enjoy learning and doing technical things, but I’m also really empathetic for customers. I really want to help people, and help them understand and ... I’m not necessarily a people person but I care if that makes sense, you know? jam: No, it does. I think support, it’s actually such a great fit for people steeped in the open source mentality because you really do help people succeed and it’s all about transparency and sharing, right? And then I’ve also been told by other people from Acquia support that the difference between working in a support role and working in some company building website ... Ally Gonthier: Like a help desk, right? jam: Right. Well, you get to look at a different code base every day. Ally Gonthier: Yes, absolutely. jam: You’re not just working on the one thing for...

Wim Leers, Senior Software Engineer in the Acquia Office of the CTO (aka “OCTO”), has been busy in the last few years making Drupal 8 amazing! His contributions include working with Fabian Franz on aspects of Drupal’s new caching and rendering systems to make Drupal 8 performant. Today’s podcast is a conversation he and I had about who he is and what he’s been up to following our own collaboration preparing my own post on BigPipe. Below is a transcript of parts of the conversation you can hear in full in the audio and video versions of this podcast. In the audio and video versions, we also touch on: aspects of contribution and the professionalization of contribution in open source, especially in the light of Wim being paid by Acquia to be a full-time contributor to Drupal. how even small contributions, like a well-written bug report, add up to making a big difference ... and my daughter’s commit credit in Drupal 8 :-) Hierarchical Select module Many hands making light work in open source Plus everything below about caching, BigPipe, performance, and more in the transcript! Learn more about BigPipe in Drupal 8 Watch Wim’s webinar with Fabien Potencier, Best Practices for Drupal Performance Tuning. It covers BigPipe, caching, profiling, and more at a high level. Wim goes into a lot more detail about Drupal 8 and BigPipe in his webinar, BigPipe: The Architecture Behind the Fastest Version of Drupal Yet. Wim and Fabian gave two sessions on caching and BigPipe at DrupalCon Barcelona: Caching at the Edge: CDNs for everyone Making Drupal fly - The fastest Drupal ever is here! Check out my post about BigPipe in the Drupal 8 Module of the Week series. Interview video - 41 minutes BigPipe in a nutshell: “What matters in the end is not the number of requests, but how fast it actually feels for the end-user because that's what you care about and that's where BigPipe makes a huge difference." - Wim Leers Guest dossier Name: Wim Leers Work affiliation: Senior Software Engineer, Acquia Office of the CTO Drupal.org: wim-leers Twitter: @wimleers LinkedIn: Wim Leers GitHub: wimleers Blog/Website: http://wimleers.com/ - "Hello! My name is Wim and I’m interested in WPO, Drupal and data mining. I’ve worked on Facebook’s Site Speed team. And I love llamas." Drupal/FOSS role: Drupal core contributor 1st version of Drupal: Drupal 5 beta Partial Transcript How did you discover Drupal? Wim: I was going to build this website – or I needed to build a website but I was looking for a way that will allow me to set up a website that was maintainable, that didn’t require too much digging around in code, and that looks like it would be a good choice for the long run. I looked at WordPress, at Joomla, at Drupal, and I think a few others maybe, but Drupal stood above the rest like it was the obvious better choice back then, I believe. It was the time of Drupal 5.0 being in active beta. 4.7 was I think the active version. I never used that. I jumped straight to the beta because it looked much better. jam: I had the joy of installing 4.6 and 4.7. The good old days. Wow. Drupal 5.0 was such a massive leap at that time. Why did you stick with it now for nine years? Wim: Yes. I got kind of rolled deeper into the community as I think is the story for many of us. That was 2006 - the end of 2006. It was the Christmas break at my first year of University. I was trying to actually do less work on this Open-source project that I was working on before by building a website so that others could maintain it. So it’s kind of funny that I used Drupal 4 and other Open-source projects. In doing so, I needed a few things to be built myself in order for this website to really function well. So I started working on that and...

John Kennedy and I spoke about two exciting Drupal 8 projects he's running at Acquia in 2016. He's the Program Manager of the $500,000 US dollars Acquia is investing to upgrade important modules from Drupal 7 to 8 as part of the Drupal 8 Module Acceleration Program. He's also the Product Manager of Acquia's Enterprise Authoring Drupal 8 distribution, Lightning. "I think Drupal is great at a lot of things ... and if we want to create a world where regular people can create great experiences, not just developers, Drupal is a fantastic application for that." - John Kennedy Interview video - 25 min. - Transcript Below Guest dossier Name: John Kennedy Work affiliation: Acquia Program Manager Drupal 8 Module Acceleration Program - Product Manager, Drupal Lightning Drupal.org: johnkennedy Twitter: @commercejohn LinkedIn: John Kennedy Blog/Website: http://site.com 1st version of Drupal: A Drupal 4.7 site he immediately migrated to Plone :-( How did you discover Drupal? John Kennedy: Well, I was doing a little bit of work for a nonprofit organization called Vibewire maybe back in 2006 and they said to me, “We’ve got this website, it keeps going down and we really need to have you look at it for us.” I looked at it, it was on Drupal 4.7, loaded up to the brim with modules and I said “This is awful” and promptly migrated them to Plone. jam: Thank you, have a nice day. John Kennedy: Since then, I’ve had some better experiences with Drupal. I ended up running my own Drupal shop for a while and I then came out to the UK to actually start the UK operation of the Commerce Guys and I did that for a little while, and then Acquia brought me on to be head of solutions architecture for Europe and now they’ve brought me over here. jam: Fill in the blank here between 2006 and 2016, from being a big Plone fan to actually sticking with Drupal all these years. What changed for you? John Kennedy: I don’t know that I was a big Plone fan. I was a big open source fan. I’d been a systems administrator and I’d been using the range of tools on top of Linux for a long time. Plone at the time seemed more mature. I had some developers who I could use for Plone, but what happened was that I found a couple of projects that were really suitable for Drupal and I worked out how to use it, nontrivial at the time, at least ... still ... and then once I was dug in, I found it more and more useful and I really got in touch with the community. I started coming to DrupalCons. The first DrupalCon I came to was Chicago and I hadn’t missed any since until I had my son 17 months ago and then I’ve missed a couple. The power of the Drupal Site-Builder John Kennedy: Absolutely. Drupal creates this role that exists in other ecosystems, but it’s really clear in Drupal of site-builder, and it’s someone who can be, but is not necessarily a developer, and can be, but is not necessarily an author, and they actually create experiences by assembling modules, assembling functionality, and that could be layouts with Panels or it could be business logic with Rules or it could be a range of other functionality bringing it in through the module ecosystem. I think that role is incredibly powerful because it allows little organizations and large organizations to much better leverage their expertise to build great experiences, to build complicated functionality. It also facilitates this amazing ecosystem of people who scratch their own itch, but also contribute to a wider modular functionality and it’s a lot more, I would say, sophisticated than the module ecosystems you see in things like with Ruby Gems or necessarily just the wider Composer or PHP ecosystem because it actually takes into account that there’s an end user that needs an administration interface and needs guidance on how to implement this. It’s not just a piece of code that you plug...

Laura Caraker's journey at Acquia is remarkable. In this podcast, she and I talk through how she joined Acquia Sales, wanted to know more about Drupal and ended up joining the technical side of the house via her stint at Acquia U, Acquia's Drupal and tech boot camp. Her advice for others interested in technology? "Don’t be afraid to get involved." Interview video - 12' 30" Early days: Acquia Sales jam: So why don’t you introduce yourself? Tell us who you are and what you do now. Laura Caraker: Sure. So my name is Laura Caraker. I am currently on the Solutions Architecture Team as an associate solutions architect. I have been here for a little bit over two years now. jam: I remember meeting you in Acquia’s old office a couple of times because your desk was positioned in a place that I would always walk through the office, and you and your deskmate at that time seem to be having far too much fun. Laura Caraker: Yes. Yes, we really did and it was a great place to sit too because I could see everybody coming through. So it was nice. jam: What was your job back then? Laura Caraker: I was a business development representative. I think that was close to when I first started. I remember you were wearing your mustache suit, full mustache suit. jam: Well, I mean, I have to keep up appearances, right? Laura Caraker: Yes, of course. jam: Now, what does a BDR do, a business development representative? Laura Caraker: So a BDR is an entry-level sales position within the company. So, it’s generally for people right out of college or looking to jumpstart their career. If they’re looking into the business side that’s the first-level role they would take. Love at first DrupalCon jam: But Laura, that’s a sales job and now you’re doing a Drupal job! :-) So this actually totally fascinated me. So here’s what I observed that really truly captivated me. I met Laura in this entry-level sales position and then at DrupalCon Portland, I ran into you. Laura Caraker: Austin. jam: Was it Austin? Laura Caraker: Austin. jam: At a DrupalCon I ran into you and I said, “Wow! You’re here!” because that’s – at a large company like we are, I thought it was a little bit unusual that a junior salesperson would be at DrupalCon. I said, “What are you doing here?” And you said, “We won this, you know? We made this number and our prize was to come to DrupalCon,” and I asked you about it. And how was your first DrupalCon? Laura Caraker: I loved it. It was also my first time in Austin, so that contributed to the positive experience too, but it was great having been here for just a few months at that point to go do a community event like that with coworkers you don’t usually talk to and see the community itself as well. jam: What was your tech experience before you came to Acquia? Laura Caraker: Slim to none. I know very basic or I knew very basic coding like HTML. It was more of a hobby. I had a WordPress blog before coming here so – but not far beyond that. jam: Do you have a first Drupal memory? Laura Caraker: Probably DrupalCon itself was the most prevalent Drupal memory itself. With the actual technology, the first time I used Drupal was Drupal Gardens. Teach me all the Drupal! jam: Okay. So what I’ve observed is you came in as a salesperson. You got excited about this thing and you’re now in a technical job. Of course, the piece in between that somehow was Acquia U, but describe working in this organization and what happened along the way, how your – what caught your attention, what got you excited. Laura Caraker: Sure. So I’d say what got me the most excited about working here was the people. So you always want to perform very well because you enjoy the people that you’re working with and you want to work hard for them. But every day in sales I found myself on phone...

Welcome to the first of six podcasts I recorded in Mumbai as DrupalCon Asia 2016! It pleasure to record this conversation with an old Drupal friend and Acquia podcast guest--Hussain Dehgamwala (aka Hussain Abbas)--and a new Drupal friend and guest--Parth Gohil--both from Axelerant. And it was my privilege to be the first guest on their new podcast, The Geek Voice! We’re releasing this conversation together. Be sure to go check out Episode Zero of their show to see what else they have up their sleeves ... and what they said about me when I wasn’t around ;-) In my part of the audio and video of this recording we touch on how Drupal and IT in India are evolving, and the many facets of contribution on today’s Drupal and open source landscape. When The Geek Voice takes over and turns the microphone on me, they ask me about my activities as Acquia’s Developer Relations Evangelist, we talk about the Drupal 8 Module Acceleration Program, and my Acquia origin story. Thank you, Indian Drupal Community I have been to a lot of DrupalCons in the last decade ... wow, yes, feels funny to say it, but I have actually been going to DrupalCons since 2006 ... and I’d honestly say DrupalCon Asia in Mumbai was my personal favorite. I was impressed with the Indian Drupal community and I see great things in the future of this group of young, diverse, and dynamic people. Thank you for everything you do, Drupal India people! Can I be on your team? :-) Interview video - 28 min. What’s going on with Drupal in India? jam: Can you talk about what’s going on in Drupal and Open Source in India a little bit? Hussain: Sure. For what you say about excitement definitely we have been waiting for this Con for years, actually years. We’re so happy it’s finally here. Well in India a lot of great things are happening in Drupal since forever, I think. I mean we had our first meet up in 2005 in Ahmedabad. Am I right? Parth: Yes. The first camp happened around 2009, but yes. Hussain: Yes. In Bangalore we have been having regular meet ups camps. We had a great camp last year and I know Deli, Mumbai, Hyderabad, they have been having camps since 2011. jam: So, in a lot in Europe and places in America, a great camp, has 80 people, 200 people, 300 people, right? There aren’t very many that are above 350. Let’s say BADCamp--the NYCamp in New York City. London, 600-700 people. What’s a normal average size of a camp in India? Parth: Five hundred plus :-D Hussain: Otherwise it’s not called a camp. It’s a big meet up. We had a mini camp and we saw about, what? We had about 100 registrations and I don’t remember how many turned up but--yes. Parth: I think about 80. jam: Eighty is a really nice size though. One of the reasons why I love going to camps--DrupalCon is very important and obviously, I like it but for me so much more of the grassroots stuff happens at the camps now. When you spend two or three days with 80 people, you get the chance to talk with so many more people directly and on a personal level and really spend time with people you want to talk to. Hussain: Yes. That’s why we pay a lot of attention to meet ups. We keep it--we treat it as a very important thing. We have it monthly at least we try to. A lot of companies sponsor it also. About the minicamp, yes, you’re completely right definitely. The last minicamp we had, like I said, around 80 people turned up. There’s this person who turned up and since then he has been a regular contributor to all the events. In fact he has pulled together the community like we have not been able to in a few years. He has created WhatsApp groups and he’s pulling people from different companies and like asking them to follow up. So, our WhatsApp Group is like around 200 people now. Code and beyond - All contribution counts jam: We were in a panel discussion yesterday about the transformation of Indian IT and Open Source and what have you. One thing came up and I think this is...

Thanks to everyone who put yourselves out there and ran in this election and congratulations to our newest board member, Shyamala Rajaram! I’m certain you will use this power for good :-) I sat down with Michael “Schnitzel” Schmid in my office in Cologne to talk about the 2016 election for a Director at Large Drupal Association Board position. Schnitzel was a candidate and the election had just concluded when we spoke. As I did last year, I once again found a couple of aspects of the election challenging: There were a lot of candidates. I wasn’t up to properly informing myself, much less interacting in a meaningful way, with 22 candidates. I cast six votes, ranking people I felt know well enough want them to represent me on the DA Board. I suspected I didn’t really understand the nuances of Instant Runoff Voting (hereafter: “IRV”). Our conversation (audio and video) covers three main areas: From 1:50 to 13:06 in the video (3:07 to 14:23 in the audio version) we get clear on what IRV is and how it works. From 13:07 to ca. 25:00 (14:24 to ca. 26:17 in the audio version) in the video we go through the 2016 DA Board election round for round. Following the process in action improved my understanding of it and gave me more insights into things like the importance and value of my 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and later votes in and IRV election. From roughly 22:00 to the end in the video (roughly 23:17 to the end in the audio version), armed with new insights, I think that understanding the system better should help me vote “better” in future IRV elections. However, being geeks, we can’t resist bike shedding! Schnitzel and I also talk about the specifics of how the DA elections have been set up and we propose a few potential improvements to DA/IRV elections. Our conversation - 33 min. Below, you'll find excerpts from the transcription of our conversation and some of our questions and other commentary. Congratulations, Shyamala! jam: Congratulations Shyamala Rajaram on winning the election. I’m really, really looking forward to finding out more about you and congratulations, and I know that you've got a lot of great ideas. I was personally extremely impressed by India and the Indian Drupal community when I was in DrupalCon Mumbai and if the Indian community is anything to go by, I think that we’re in for having a great board member. So, congratulations! Instant Runoff Voting - 1:50 to 13:06 in video jam: I, however, was one of many people who find the Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) system confusing and I had a bunch of questions and a lot of people were asking you questions during the election because you were promoting yourself as a candidate and promoting the election itself. What kind of questions were people asking you that essentially were way off the mark? "Do I have to vote for everybody?" Schnitzel: So, one of the biggest questions that I got is that when people went to the voting and they saw the voting ballot, the biggest question is, “Do I have to go to him for everybody?” jam: So, we had 22 candidates running and if you voted, you’ll know that you hit a ballot which allowed you to put 22 candidates in an order of one to 22. Schnitzel: Correct. jam: So, do I have to vote for everybody? In Drupal, in our system, no. Schnitzel: You don’t have to, no. jam: In the way that we’ve implemented it, you don’t have to vote for everyone, but your later votes up until a certain point, can have an effect. "Can I vote for you 22 times?" jam: People also asked you if they could vote for you 22 times. Schnitzel: Yes, I had people coming to me and say like, “So, I got 22 votes. How do I give you all of it?” The answer is no. jam: So, I can’t vote for you 22 times. Schnitzel: No. What are later votes good for? jam: My later votes can have an...

Thanks to everyone who put yourselves out there and ran in this election and congratulations to our newest board member, Shyamala Rajaram! I’m certain you will use this power for good :-) I sat down with Michael “Schnitzel” Schmid in my office in Cologne to talk about the 2016 election for a Director at Large Drupal Association Board position. Schnitzel was a candidate and the election had just concluded when we spoke. As I did last year, I once again found a couple of aspects of the election challenging: There were a lot of candidates. I wasn’t up to properly informing myself, much less interacting in a meaningful way, with 22 candidates. I cast six votes, ranking people I felt know well enough want them to represent me on the DA Board. I suspected I didn’t really understand the nuances of Instant Runoff Voting (hereafter: “IRV”). Our conversation (audio and video) covers three main areas: From 1:50 to 13:06 in the video (3:07 to 14:23 in the audio version) we get clear on what IRV is and how it works. From 13:07 to ca. 25:00 (14:24 to ca. 26:17 in the audio version) in the video we go through the 2016 DA Board election round for round. Following the process in action improved my understanding of it and gave me more insights into things like the importance and value of my 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and later votes in and IRV election. From roughly 22:00 to the end in the video (roughly 23:17 to the end in the audio version), armed with new insights, I think that understanding the system better should help me vote “better” in future IRV elections. However, being geeks, we can’t resist bike shedding! Schnitzel and I also talk about the specifics of how the DA elections have been set up and we propose a few potential improvements to DA/IRV elections. Our conversation - 33 min. Below, you'll find excerpts from the transcription of our conversation and some of our questions and other commentary. Congratulations, Shyamala! jam: Congratulations Shyamala Rajaram on winning the election. I’m really, really looking forward to finding out more about you and congratulations, and I know that you've got a lot of great ideas. I was personally extremely impressed by India and the Indian Drupal community when I was in DrupalCon Mumbai and if the Indian community is anything to go by, I think that we’re in for having a great board member. So, congratulations! Instant Runoff Voting - 1:50 to 13:06 in video jam: I, however, was one of many people who find the Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) system confusing and I had a bunch of questions and a lot of people were asking you questions during the election because you were promoting yourself as a candidate and promoting the election itself. What kind of questions were people asking you that essentially were way off the mark? "Do I have to vote for everybody?" Schnitzel: So, one of the biggest questions that I got is that when people went to the voting and they saw the voting ballot, the biggest question is, “Do I have to go to him for everybody?” jam: So, we had 22 candidates running and if you voted, you’ll know that you hit a ballot which allowed you to put 22 candidates in an order of one to 22. Schnitzel: Correct. jam: So, do I have to vote for everybody? In Drupal, in our system, no. Schnitzel: You don’t have to, no. jam: In the way that we’ve implemented it, you don’t have to vote for everyone, but your later votes up until a certain point, can have an effect. "Can I vote for you 22 times?" jam: People also asked you if they could vote for you 22 times. Schnitzel: Yes, I had people coming to me and say like, “So, I got 22 votes. How do I give you all of it?” The answer is no. jam: So, I can’t vote for you 22 times. Schnitzel: No. What are later votes good for? jam: My later votes can have an...

I spoke with Matt Dooley and Colin Packenham at Acquia headquarters in downtown Boston about Acquia's tech bootcamp program, Acquia U. Both are career changers and were more or less new to Drupal when they got started with the program and I was interested to see what motivated them to make the change and dive into Drupal headfirst. "Acquia U opened a very large door to a whole new career." - Matt Dooley. Interview video - 17 min. What were your expectations going in? Colin: I do know how I felt when I accepted, which was vaguely numb and extremely excited. I was on a job beforehand that didn’t have any growth. It was very comfortable and very stable and I was very good at it, but it wasn’t something that was engaging me. At that point, I had stopped learning. That was something that I’m very interested in for my career: just being able to do more, to learn more, to experience more, to be challenged more, rather than just sort of the day-to-day-finish-my-work-go-home. So, getting into Acquia U was--I thought--one of the best possible steps I could have taken at that stage in my career. Matt: Expectations were pretty well-laid out by Amy at that time. She had an initial call with me saying, "Don’t expect a job. Don’t expect to come and sit next to Dries and be buddies." When I found out I was accepted, I was crazy excited. I couldn’t believe ... I didn’t know what the level of competition was. So I was surprised, excited. And even if I wasn’t guaranteed at Acquia, I knew that just going through this training is gonna be a step to something else. So how was it? Colin: Overwhelming at first and then amazing. Thankfully, due to nature of it, how everyone was brought into Acquia U, we were all sort of overwhelmed together and were able to bond and grow out and experience the rest of the company. And then Acquia is such a collaborative arena where you can talk to anybody about more or less anything and you’ll get an answer or a redirection to somebody who does know the answer. And that helped immensely and it made a welcoming place and the place where, "Oh you don’t know the answer? Here, we’ll help you learn the answer and then you can tell somebody else who also doesn’t know it." Matt: It was awesome. It was way better than I thought it was gonna be. Day one was, "What is Drupal?" and then day two was like, "Here’s how you build a module." It was fast paced but it was great. We had an awesome instructor and an awesome group of people that were in the program with me and awesome resources within the company itself. Run us through a day at Acquia U. Matt: Most of the days were--from about nine to 'lunchish'--straight up classroom training with the instructor going over whatever the topic was of the day. Then typically we had lab hours in the afternoon. It’s where we worked on our personal sites or the Acquia U website. Sometimes we’d have some assignments that we would try to complete, if we were in need of extra help somewhere. Colin: The average day at Acquia U ... there’s two big average days. During the beginning we did a lot of study under Mike Anello, who runs the Drupal Easy Program. He was a big believer in having us learn for ourselves after he gave the explanation. So it was two to three hours of going through well thought-out – sort of a lecture setting and then we will be run off the range to learn more things. So we would spend the day [,for example,] learning about Views in Drupal and then the rest of the day we will be learning on Drupal with Views. We’d sort of the experimenting for ourselves. Usually, we would end up having one of the different – one of the various "Ubies" [ed: our affectionate, internal nickname for Acquia U students] do some sort presentation on it and then everyone would learn from each other rather than just straight through Mike. The other average day was more during the second half, which is when we...

I spoke with Matt Dooley and Colin Packenham at Acquia headquarters in downtown Boston about Acquia's tech bootcamp program, Acquia U. Both are career changers and were more or less new to Drupal when they got started with the program and I was interested to see what motivated them to make the change and dive into Drupal headfirst. "Acquia U opened a very large door to a whole new career." - Matt Dooley. Interview video - 17 min. What were your expectations going in? Colin: I do know how I felt when I accepted, which was vaguely numb and extremely excited. I was on a job beforehand that didn’t have any growth. It was very comfortable and very stable and I was very good at it, but it wasn’t something that was engaging me. At that point, I had stopped learning. That was something that I’m very interested in for my career: just being able to do more, to learn more, to experience more, to be challenged more, rather than just sort of the day-to-day-finish-my-work-go-home. So, getting into Acquia U was--I thought--one of the best possible steps I could have taken at that stage in my career. Matt: Expectations were pretty well-laid out by Amy at that time. She had an initial call with me saying, "Don’t expect a job. Don’t expect to come and sit next to Dries and be buddies." When I found out I was accepted, I was crazy excited. I couldn’t believe ... I didn’t know what the level of competition was. So I was surprised, excited. And even if I wasn’t guaranteed at Acquia, I knew that just going through this training is gonna be a step to something else. So how was it? Colin: Overwhelming at first and then amazing. Thankfully, due to nature of it, how everyone was brought into Acquia U, we were all sort of overwhelmed together and were able to bond and grow out and experience the rest of the company. And then Acquia is such a collaborative arena where you can talk to anybody about more or less anything and you’ll get an answer or a redirection to somebody who does know the answer. And that helped immensely and it made a welcoming place and the place where, "Oh you don’t know the answer? Here, we’ll help you learn the answer and then you can tell somebody else who also doesn’t know it." Matt: It was awesome. It was way better than I thought it was gonna be. Day one was, "What is Drupal?" and then day two was like, "Here’s how you build a module." It was fast paced but it was great. We had an awesome instructor and an awesome group of people that were in the program with me and awesome resources within the company itself. Run us through a day at Acquia U. Matt: Most of the days were--from about nine to 'lunchish'--straight up classroom training with the instructor going over whatever the topic was of the day. Then typically we had lab hours in the afternoon. It’s where we worked on our personal sites or the Acquia U website. Sometimes we’d have some assignments that we would try to complete, if we were in need of extra help somewhere. Colin: The average day at Acquia U ... there’s two big average days. During the beginning we did a lot of study under Mike Anello, who runs the Drupal Easy Program. He was a big believer in having us learn for ourselves after he gave the explanation. So it was two to three hours of going through well thought-out – sort of a lecture setting and then we will be run off the range to learn more things. So we would spend the day [,for example,] learning about Views in Drupal and then the rest of the day we will be learning on Drupal with Views. We’d sort of the experimenting for ourselves. Usually, we would end up having one of the different – one of the various "Ubies" [ed: our affectionate, internal nickname for Acquia U students] do some sort presentation on it and then everyone would learn from each other rather than just straight through Mike. The other average day was more during the second half, which is when we...