Beyond the Drupal bubble: Building a cross-community ecosystem

This talk focuses on building a cross-community ecosystem for Drupal, led by Evolve Digital, which has been organizing events to promote collaboration and widen the audience for Drupal beyond traditional users. The speakers, Alex and Maya, share their experiences of engaging non-technical audiences and fostering community connections through innovative event strategies. They discuss the challenges and successes of their outreach, emphasizing the importance of strategic partnerships, targeted programming, and creating engaging content to attract a diverse audience, including marketers, designers, and decision-makers. The session highlights the evolution of their events over the past few years, showcasing their commitment to inclusivity and community growth in the Drupal landscape.

Hi everyone. >> Hi. >> Hi. Good to see you all. [snorts] Welcome to our presentation, Beyond the Drupal Bubble. Building a cross community ecosystem. Um before we get started, who discovered Drupal through a friend or a colleague? Hands up. Okay, half the people I would say. Good. Who works for an agency or a vendor here? Okay, half the people or more actually. And who here does write

code? Not that many people. Great. Okay. [laughter] >> Doesn't >> Oh, doesn't. Okay. Well, who doesn't write code? [laughter] >> Hey. >> Just to make sure you're not following. >> Apparently only this side of the room. >> No, I actually did that on purpose, you know, to check if you're focusing on the slides and only. Okay, good. So, why are we here? Um, we are here because

we want to show you what we've done over the last three years with Evolve Digital and how we've grown our events and inviting how we invited non-rupist nont u non Drupalist um non-technical people to the community and we hope that with whatever we share with you you can resonate with or you can use to grow your own network to grow your own events if you're event organizer

ers or grow, you know, your audience for webinars, whatever you want to do and with the main goal obviously to bring new people into the community to grow to connect with people outside the community to make Drupal fun again and to drive the Drupal product um adoption. So, we don't expect you to become event organizers after this. I'm really just saying this so that you can hopefully

have some insights and learnings that you want to bring back to your team or by yourself and you know figure out um how to maybe grow your own I'm sorry grow your own uh network. >> Of course if you become event organizers as a result of this we'd love to help. >> Yes. >> Go. >> So let's start with introducing ourselves. >> So yeah hi folks many

of you know me many of you work with me. [laughter] Uh my name is Alex Derkv. I founded evolving web alongside my wife Suzanne. Uh we I've been kind of playing many hats and I started as a Drupal developer and a CIS admin. Uh but these days I I look at more spreadsheets and resumes and and especially in the last two years I uh I'm somebody called

me an events guy. So [laughter] I didn't didn't realize that was the case but I said oh okay maybe and um thank you. One uh one thing I did uh in terms of events was uh we uh we when the war in Ukraine broke out and we had uh you know tens of thousands of Ukrainian refugees came came to Montreal uh I started a a series of

monthly meetups uh and they were free for everyone to come and in the summer there were picnics and in the uh in the winter we we booked a community oriented restaurant that had room for 300 people and we did about three years worth before this year we kind of slowed slow down and uh uh we would have between 180 and 350 people every single month and uh

and so that community building was essential for newcomers, right? And and so a lot of the lessons learned in evolve digital happened either in parallel or after uh this experience. >> Yeah. And who am I? I'm the community lead at evolving web. Been doing this for four years. Um, I'm also since November a on the board of directors of the Drupal Association. And as a fun fact,

I play ball hockey. I joined the world championship in Switzerland two years ago. So that's me in Switzerland. Um, I actually started as an office manager at evolving web four years ago and I don't know, I guess um made grew internally luckily and have become this community lead. And yeah, I'm very glad to also have joined the board and hopefully use what I've learned um and bring

this into the Drupal community and help the DA to get more non Drupalists and new users into the community. >> Um so many of you guys know Evolving Web. We we were founded in 2007 if you could believe it according to the DNS records. And uh since about 2008, we've been part of the Drupal community. My first Drupal Con was Drupalcon Sega uh and uh never looked

back. I think I've been to you know threequarters of both the European and the North American once ever since and uh probably another five camps a year. So there's no question that Evolving Web grew up in the Drupal community. It's in our DNA. And um we've aside from building great websites for uh large institutions and higher ed uh nonprofit and and government. Uh we we also have

a robust training program and we we've trained over the years thousands of people how to do Drupal site building and module development and theming and more niche topics. Uh and um you know as we've grown uh we we're no longer doing just Drupal. I mean that's what we were focused on when we had a team of you know 10 devs and we wanted to do it right.

But now that you know we it's not 10 but a lot more. We we we have the the benefit of of doing multiple technologies and therefore be part of multiple communities and so uh we've learned a lot from those other communities and we'd love to encourage uh you all to do the same. Um we um like I mentioned our first my first Drupalcon was Sega but my

first Drupal camp was I think in 2008 uh Drupal Camp Montreal and it was the inaugural one back then. Angie uh Web Chickik Byron was uh was living in Montreal and she's probably the reason that she wasn't the reason we discovered Drupal but she was certainly the reason we said wow this is amazing and and I have I have to be part of this. And um we

um uh so we've been organizing community events ever since uh at a sort of Drupal camp level. uh we've been sponsoring we've presenting as a team we've been presenting at them and um and so that went well especially in the in the first 10 years right when when just being a great a great Drupalist and coming up to events and doing a presentation about DevOps or about

like PHP code optimization and and then like a large enterprise client would come to you and say like tri velocity did at some point hey we need exactly this and so you know we were able to get like like six figure projects when we were 24 years old and Uh so so that was that was the the early phase in you know the the first 5 years

uh with covid uh you know like 10 12 I guess 15 years in 14 years in um our company grew rapidly. It wasn't clear what would happen to the economy. Nobody knew that the US and Canadian governments would start printing money like there's no tomorrow and instead of everything crashing instead everything grew especially in the digital space and um and so our company grew rapidly from you

know 20 to I think 70 people in in a year and a half uh maybe two years and um but at the same time there was tremendous burnout especially not just in our company but but as a whole right we all lived through the the horror that was co uh and and also from a from a digital communic unications perspective, everyone and their dog were making webinars

and white papers uh and were inviting people to Zoom things and and and so we all had horrible Zoom fatigue. We all got oversaturated with people, you know, marketing this way and and so, you know, even even our training program, which was which was quite, you know, quite wellreceived and and was, you know, was always growing kind of basically for a year and a half was put

on hold. And and so we were thinking, thank you, man. [laughter] I appreciate it. Uh we were thinking, you know, how can we do it better? what can we do that that'll uh be the signal that cuts through the noise? And um we uh we said you know what we've uh we think at 2023 2020 late 2022 people are ready to come back together again. Uh people

are are hungry for for interaction and uh some of the earlier camps like Drupal Camp New Jersey started and they made their own box fans with HEPA filters. So, you know, things things got going again, but it was very slow. And so, we said, "Hey, let's get the gang back together again." And um and we we decided though, we we wanted to to put all of our

all of Evolving Web's marketing efforts and muscle behind uh this event strategy. and and the thought was how can we you know do well for ourselves and invest the resources that we would by doing it with others by doing it with the community h how do we do well by doing well so uh we we started involved Drupal and uh we we said right away this was

going to be cross-disciplinary it's going to bring you know technologists and Drupalists with designers with marketers and communications folks and we um we also wanted not just to bring the existing people who for coming to Drupal event, Drupal camp after Drupal camp and Drupal con after Drupalcon but we wanted to tap into this giant Drupal alumni you know many people who were no longer working on Drupal

and but were amazing people who were like you know heads of digital large organizations and um of course we also wanted to bring new people so we we said uh we're going to have you know 15 or $30 tickets for job seekers um and um and at the end of the day we wanted the content and the programming to appeal to widely And and so it wasn't

just for people who were in the Drupal bubble. It was supposed to be exciting for everyone. And our our story so far is um it's been it's been very uh very wellreceived. I think there's an energy in the room at these events that for how many of you have been to one of them? About about half actually. Cool. Um and so the energy in the room is

is pretty amazing. I think this combination of people who know each other with people who uh who are just meeting for the first time with people who are just discovering all these worlds for the first time you can really feel it in the same way that actually I felt it last night at the gala. So thank you Maya. So uh we've uh it's been about two and

a half years almost three we've we've done 11 events so far and um we I think they've been unamiguously successful and unamiguously growing. You can see that uh many of them have been in Montreal, Toronto, and Ottawa, our home base. Uh but we've expanded also to Atlanta, New York, and Boston. Uh we are so kind of keeping to our geographic regions where we have clients and a

strong network. And uh as you as you can see, I mean, we we started at 110 and and we've been kind of averaging 200 to 250 for the last three. Uh I I have to tell you though out of the first 110 uh and don't tell this to our to our sponsors Pantheon and Aqua, but out of the first 110, 20 were from Evolving Web, uh 20

were from Hata Namont Royale, the Ukrainian organization that I gave free tickets to. Uh and 20 were job seekers that we gave almost free tickets to. So sh [laughter] but you know, that's that's how you see the community, right? That's how you get things started. And and we continue to kind of go full court press and we continue to doing it regularly and learn from our mistakes

and learn from the things that went well and and continue to iterate in an agile way and and and build on. >> Bless you. Um so the cool the cool thing is that by the by the last couple of events you know we we actually managed to get you know uh 50 I don't yeah I think you can see like right there we are about like 50

50 to 60% client side attendees which is kind of unheard of for a Drupal event and certainly for a Drupalcon. uh we we are hitting uh industries that you know Drupal is strong in higher ed government and nonprofit because if you think about it our mission was to go not just for the developers who who were writing Drupal code but for their whole digital team around them.

The idea wasn't just to bring in random people from random places but but to just grow organically from where we're strong. Um and and so also the role kind of highlights that yes we have 30% technical people but we also have lots of communications people a number of design people a lot of leadership in a in a way that that is exciting to see and um we

we also focus on kind of [laughter] I don't know to use a maybe not the best term like we're kind of brand horrors we we really purposely uh I apologize uh but we we really purposely wanted like make the event a little bit more prestigious And and first of all, Drupal Con and Drupal events already have brands like this, but we're really leaning into it and we're

telling people, hey, are you a young person who wants to work at amazing prestigious organizations and wants to know how they work and how they think? Well, they're here. And so that that uh that is a big part of what we've done and and a big accomplishment. Um I think Maya, I think this is maybe your your section. >> Yeah. So this is just a couple of

quotes what people say about the event to brag a little bit as well. Um no but I I think Alex summarized it really well like it is a community event of course with a lot of manpower behind it or women power but um yeah I will go now into depth on how we achieved it. So we will share a couple of strategies and I'd like to start

with a community collaboration of course. [laughter] Um, so we how do we really get people into the room? We collaborate with our partners, with other agencies, competitors. We're in the end all trying to be friendly competitors. We're bringing our clients into the room. We're asking our the agencies to bring their folks into the room, not just see each other's clients, but to, you know, grow the community

and learn from one another. That's our main goal. Like our slogan is connect, learn, inspire. So there's a reason behind that. So we have digital polygon who's sponsored many times. John, thank you for that. Um and a few more uh Northern is always there. So thank you Fran for being a great great partner there. Um but also of course our hosting partners Pantheon and Acria. And the

goal is not to really just get their money like we we're looking for sponsors who can help us co-promote Evolve Digital or Evolve Drupal. and bring their network into the room so that we can grow these events together and really spread the word and achieve something that's that's special. >> Yeah. And and I would just add that if you look at at that list and there's many

many others. I mean like you can only fit a few names on the slide but uh you know Foster Interactive, Northern Commerce and Alitia, they weren't sponsored. These are people who have shown up at event after event who have brought their network who have encouraged us. Fran, how many events have you been to? >> Uh, Toronto was my fifth. >> Yeah. And I think you've spoken at

four of them if I'm not mistaken. So, um, yeah. So, I I think the point being, right, is is we're reaching out to other agencies. We're reaching out to our allies in this community. And often, uh, people from the Drupal community are not speaking in in the Drupal track. I mean, Fran is speaking in our digital craftsmanship track and about accessibility, the a passion of yours. And

uh and so I really want to underscore that, you know, this this uh this is really about like people who want what's best for Drupal, who want what's best for themselves. Of course, I mean the incentives are very important to come together and do it in a community way. >> Yeah. And we also every because like Alex said, we are traveling around with our event, right? So

I always research what communities already exist and tap into them. So I reached out to the community organizers or event organizers of Drupalen NYC. Father Sean, you might know him. Drupalen NYC didn't really exist anymore after covert. He had a really hard time. So our incentive was also to help him grow the Drupal NYC community again. And I think we've spoken to him yesterday. We spoke to

him yesterday and it seems to work. So um but yeah so this is basically what we're trying what we're trying to say here is also use the existing communities if you want to tap into research what's there not just on the Drupal side right our goal is to bring new people into the community so design communities meetups um I use meetup.com we like all the platforms that

are out there I guess now you can even use AI and chatbt to find out more but dig collum >> [laughter] >> um we worked with them closely together and you know asking them to send out a mailing on behalf of us and we'll do the same for them using our network. So this is how we we generate buzz right around all the communities. So like I

said the co-promotion is important but also we want we always ask then to get them to also invite other What makes people come is obviously the program. I assume you also look at Drup's program and you're deciding like this is worth it for me to come will I learn something. So what we do is we will have 25 minute sessions which is very I think not very

normal for camps but uh and selected 60-minute sessions usually panels or keynotes but these 25 minute sessions allow us to have way more speakers meaning way more um people who can or speakers who can bring in people right and it allows us to just have a more and bigger variety of content. So people I love when people say I don't know where to go to which session

to go to because there's so much that I want to hear. So I think that means we're doing a good job. Um we do the recording like that's why we know these devices here so that people can go back as well. Um we focus also on a lot of networking time. So the sessions are short but because we have a lot of networking in between people can

go to the speaker later and talk to them and then build something and connect properly. Storytelling of course super important. Case studies people love hearing case studies and learn from what other organizations have done. So think about that. Um, especially those who are from agencies here, think about, ask your clients, bring them next time to Drupalcon. Now, I'm speaking on behalf of the DA, but bring them

to Drupalcon and co-present with them, give a case study. People love it. Of course, the variety of talks. Um, so we um we do focus on technical talks still like it's part of evolve Drupal. It's part of Drupal. We want the Drupal community come in. Um what we do differently is that we don't have talks where somebody is writing code life or shows coding. I wrote a

dash Drush plugin. Um we focus more on highlevel technical talks and if they want to go into depth they can do that later. So Martin Martin is great at that. Um like I mentioned shortly we also focus on panels. People really love it. fireside chats to change it up for to people to stay engaged, right? And not fall asleep, which is also, by the way, a plus

point for the 25 minute sessions. People move around more often. also in terms of AI, obviously a super important topic. Um, everyone loves AI. We've seen a huge increase over the last couple of years. Um, but what we try to do as well here is not to go into detail, but really [clears throat] keep it generic and target the AI topics to our audience. So, Brian Piper

used to work for Rochester University, so he has a huge higher ed um network. So, we love having him because he helps us bring higher ed folks into the room and he's a great speaker. Besides that, so just as an example, >> I would um on the subject of AI, I would add that we we never actually said this should be an AI conference, but I think

about 80% of our talk descriptions start with in the age of AI. So I I don't know if uh it's exactly the same proportion at Drupal Con, but I but I think that's that's what the people really want to talk about. And again, we kind of figure that out organically. And um and I think I I think we saw that in the in the summits. uh the

on Monday where by far the biggest summit was the AI AI summit. And so uh you know from the technology side of things we we want to uh you know talk about the the topics that people want to hear and we schedule accordingly. >> Yeah. And what I think makes it makes how we get this program is by finding the right speakers right and a variety of

speakers. So how do we do that? I invite speakers who I want there. Of course, we have a apply to speak form on our website. Um, but I'm the hard work is really going out there looking on LinkedIn, who's there, who has a great network, who who do I want, who's a great speaker, who's spoken at different events. So, I go to digital collegium. Why can I

not say the conference's name? um and look at their speakers and then reach out to them and ask them do you want to join us? So it is really helpful to put a little bit of effort into that because in the end of the day the program really really matters and you have a better way of making sure that you will create a good program and you

also create a program that speaks to the audience that you want to come. So one technique that I'm I've been using is that for example, Alex has a huge Drupal network and more. So I go into his LinkedIn, look at his network and see who I'm connected with, first degree, second degree, third degree, and I just reach out to them. In the beginning, I always poked him.

I was like, can you connect me? Now I just go in and click if I'm not connected with them, send a connection request and tell them very shortly because you have a 300 character limit. Hey, I'm Maya. I'm planning this event, Evolve Digital. Your profile looks interesting. Would love to talk to you about it once connected. And then I jump on a I asked them to jump

on a call with me. 15-minute call just to tell them more about it. That's so crucial. I was shy in the beginning. I didn't do it, but it's helped so much to just connect with them. And even if they don't want to speak in the end of the day, I have a new connection. maybe for the future it's going to be helpful or they know somebody else

who can who I can invite or who they can connect me with right and during a call you can say so much more than just I want you to speak please submit a proposal right like I tell them about the whole summit what else can be done so if you plan a webinar if you plan meetups if you want to just grow your network ask them to

go have a call even just a 50-minute coffee chat Just my recommendation. >> I uh I want to add that it's probably gotten easier for you to be credible when you connect with somebody and you have 50 connections in common. So they know that this isn't some random bisdev spam person, but really a somebody who is invested in their community. >> And also, by the way, I

don't know if anyone uses LinkedIn Sales Navigator or recruiter. Those emails never work. [laughter] So send a connection request. That works. Here's uh here are two examples. Uh one is with Alexandra. She's from Harvard uh communications director like we mentioned. We're trying to tap into the communications and marketing teams, digital teams. I found her uh on the hired web website now digital collegium um and invited her

and she accepted immediately jumped on a call with me and brought her Harvard team to our Boston event with Aaron that was actually at Karoki at higher ed web or digital collegium now they changed their name and I just saw her name badge and said NYU and I was like NYU oh my god I need her to come to my event, connected with her, we exchanged phone

numbers. She forgot that I messaged her in the middle of the night. So, I followed up with her and then she was like, "Oh my god, I'm so sorry." Yes, I'm in. >> And then how many people did she bring as well? >> Yes. So, you see the pattern. Um, don't be shy to ask for celebrities obviously. Um, we've had Dre unfortunately only come once so far

and well not come virtually [laughter] participate. He's always busy so plan ahead. Um, but yeah. How many how many times did you ask? >> 11. [laughter] >> Um, what we also do is we reach out, send personal invitations for meetups in advance that we do. Um, or we use that also to get people into the community to become a ripple maker, for example. So, and it's worked.

Anything else you want to add? Okay. in terms of marketing and invitations. I don't know why there's Okay. Um so we do send out of course the typical newsletters um using our database. I share the templates with our sponsors so they can use it and rewrite it and send it out as well. Um we created a media kit. I'm sorry it's cut off here. I'm not sure

why, but um for attendees, for speakers with links to our Google Drive where they can find attendee cards, social cards, to post about it, content, templates to make it as easy as possible for them to promote the event, to bring people um and that's really really crucial and has helped a lot. We do share also, you saw that a little bit earlier, we do share um promo

codes also 20% usually for speakers to share just on the on social media wherever. Um, sometimes if we don't see the numbers that we want, we think about giving out a friend, free friend, bring a friend ticket or so there's ways around it to really make sure the the audience comes and in the end hopefully you have already the audience that you want there but just want

to, you know, get more people into the room and then there's some additional t tips and tricks that you can use. Um, Alex was mentioning it earlier for job seekers and students, we either ask them to volunteer at the event to for and then they would get a free ticket or give them a reduced amount. What we've done in the past is also giving out free tickets.

I would not recommend that because then people don't necessarily show up, but you planned with the headcount. So, even if it's just a $30 ticket, people feel like they paid for it and they have to come. And we did since we haven't done that anymore. Um I think we've had a no-show rate of [snorts] >> like nothing like 10 people maybe >> 5% 10%. Yeah. >> So

um yeah and lastly again similar to what we talked about before send personal invitations. It really makes a difference. Um I used for example a I so there's this tool another tip here. I didn't put it in here, but there's a tool that's called Yam. Um it's the >> yet another mail merge >> merge. It merges with your Gmail and a spreadsheet and you can send personalized

emails through Gmail. So I used our um PC web which is a conference in Canada higher ed conference. I used that I looked through it obviously beforehand and sent a personalized email to all of them and told them about the event. It was literally a 30 minute task. Not even probably, but people got back to me and were interested and I got speakers out of that and

the days. So, >> yeah. And and uh just to add a little detail, uh this is not the case. It's like, you know, here's a spreadsheet of emails. Send them this email. Say, you know, hi Alex personalization. This is a every every row in that spreadsheet has a thing called message, right? And and you customize the message for each person very quickly. So, again, this these are

truly personalized email. It's just a semi-automated way of sending them so you don't have to click >> and I I think HubSpot can do that too and other tools. This was just for me the easiest way to quickly get it out of the door. Um so would recommend. Good. Then um video storytelling of course like everybody loves videos. Um I'll play this one at the same time.

Not just branded ones but also non-branded ones work really well. The left one, the screenshot shows a video that my colleague and I took when we were in New York setting up the the space the night before. People or a couple of nights before, people loved it, right? And the LinkedIn algorithm also really likes it. So, um but yeah, also promo videos of course um interviewing speakers.

We asked speakers to jump on a call with us to be interviewed and then we would record it, cut it and put it into a um template. So to make it a little bit branded or ask speakers to just record themselves for a minute and just ask them to publish it right away or if they want to brand it to send it back. So there's different ways

of um doing that. But using your speakers, treat your speakers as a champion. Uh here on the left, Nicole Rogers um she is a marketer and is the co-ound or CEO of her own agency as well. No >> chat chatbot company. >> Yes. Okay. She just recorded herself. We I didn't even ask her. I mean those speakers are obviously the best. Um it really like created a

buzz and yeah it works well. The speaker cards here on the right side also um show that you promote. You need to think about that whatever we put out on LinkedIn even if people don't come you promote Drupal, you promote the event, you promote what we're doing among so many more people than who's actually attending in the end of the day. So social media is very powerful

>> and uh yeah so I think I I think it's my way of thinking about it that our our speakers are our primary champions and that's why we jokingly call it like influencer marketing. There are our influencers and uh in fact the the previous video that you saw wasn't shot by somebody on on the organizing team. It was shot by an attendee. And um the other thing

I wanted to highlight is that when you invite uh when you select for speakers who have a strong network, who are very active on LinkedIn, who who like promote what they're doing, and then you give them that media kit and you give them all all of these tools, uh they will take it and run with it. And uh and so again, by targeting not just like hardcore

Drupal developers, but by people who like social networks and like to use them effectively, they're they're kind of doing the work for you and that's pretty amazing. What else do we do? We do these networking and community building events prior and after the summit. So we usually get together, go to the city and have two to three meetups in advance. Um a co-working day, just drinks at

night or dinner, different things. We had Evolve UX meetups where people were giving presentations, design presentations just to get people into the room in advance and for them to learn about each other, connect and stay in touch hopefully afterwards, but also for them to come to the event and already feel part of the community a little bit. Um, and knowing somebody at the event also is obviously

super nice. I mean, we met Tammy at Evolve Drupal and now she's here. So, >> first uh Drupal Con? Yes, for sure. >> So, it's amazing. >> Um, we also do pre-summit VIP dinners the night before for speakers, sponsors, selected guests for them for the same reason for them to appreciate, show them some appreciation. We treat our champ our speakers as champion as champions and often they

are also to be honest potential clients or prospects or just like great people in the community in the network. So we want to be closer to them and just have more networking time. So that's a great way to do that. Same for the reception that we have at the end of the day uh at the summit. Another one hour, two hour networking reception. Um yeah, we do

have a lunch of course. We also focus on giving by having a longer 1 hour 1 hour 15 minute lunch break. We serve it standing. Usually I think we only had one event where people sat down at roundts which was fine but the standing networking lunch is just so much better in a way to network really and you talk with more people, right? So that's what we've

done. >> Yeah. And it's not just even more people. It's it's that the level of energy is higher. The the noise in the room is higher and you so you really feel this this again like in that gala yesterday kind of energy. Um so we we at every single opportunity like that we we look for ways to tweak things to to make make the buzz. >> Focus

on brand of course. Um we started with Evolve Drupal. We always have backdrops. Um roll up banners in the room. We changed our brand over the three years a lot. Not just name wise, I'll get to that in a second, but also uh designwise. focus on also having our partners and sponsors to come and invite them to bring their banners, their rollups to what lanyard >> the

Pantheon lanyards. >> Pantheon lanyards. So we try to get everyone um in the room and um sorry the sponsors to have some recognition as well. So, it's not just the Evolve Drupal brand, Evolved Digital brand, which is obviously important. It looks great on photos, but also um brand recognition of our sponsors and partners and ourselves. Of course, >> I would I would also add that uh because

we want to attract communications people, they really care about brand more than Drupal developers do. And so by having such a strong focus of the event on branding and on video storytelling, you know, we can attract people who want to talk about branding and video storytelling. So just just keep in mind that, you know, the the way we do things is is very intentional and the investments

that we make uh are considerable, but it's paying off. >> Yeah. Um we also we moved from evolve Drupal to evolve digital for that reason as well to really make it bit more inclusive. the only the name change we kept evolved Drupal as a track uh in our program it's helped us so much to attract the nontechnical people the marketers you saw the slide earlier where we

showed the increase of attendance that was also due to the name change and it's it's just amazing to see how many marketers all of a sudden come without me having to explain them for five minutes that it's not just a Drupal event now I need to tell the Drupal developers that technically the event is not called Evolve Drupal but Evolved Digital anymore, but it doesn't matter. It's

still evolved Drupal to them. That's fine. >> It's still the same event. >> It's still the same event. We just really changed the name. We always had a technical design track, a marketing track, a communications track, but you see how important messaging is and the brand behind it. So, um yeah, and in the end of the day, we want to evolve the whole digital space, right? So,

one last thing. Here we go. >> I don't know if you can hear it. >> So, what we always do is at >> we had a wrap up after New York. >> We always try to have special moments. yeah anyways you get the point. We always try to um have a performance or something special in the end of the day or maybe sometimes during lunch too. So

we had an ac cappella group now in Toronto a couple of weeks ago. We've invited a comedian for 20 minutes to talk about a little bit the summit but also about what's going on in the world. we had other musicians. So, it really creates a memorable experience and people talk about it afterwards. So, investing in something like that always helps. I think this could also be related

to if you want to, you know, do something with uh your clients, take them take them out, go somewhere, create, you know, go bowling with them. But I'm [clears throat] sure a lot of you know that. Um but uh it really created this buzz and yeah >> karaoke. >> Karaoke my favorite. [laughter] lessons learned. Do you want to summarize it? >> well a lot of this is

um is a recap of what you you've kind of already heard. Uh but it was important to for us to to note that a lot of what we've done is intentional. A lot of what we've done was uh iterative and very intense and very frequent which is which which is key to getting to where we are in what seems like a very long time but actually a

very short time considering the the scale of the work. uh we are constantly focused on on the results both the number of attendees uh the community engagement the social media buzz around it the uh and also the the nature of attendees right is are the people in the room uh who we want to be there are the speakers uh at the level that we that we hope

um and is the community being activated and engaged is this just a a one-day conference or are we actually building friendships and connections and you know people you know there was there's probably 20 people who worked at Harvard University who came to our Boston event and many of them hadn't met. Uh and and so this is a way for for different communities to come together and and

connect the dots. Um are we succeeding in this multi- audience you know vision and uh are the keynotes you know that that we find do they resonate with everybody and uh is our branding uh carrying itself and is it is it achieving what we what we hope and um yeah and I I think I think we learned a lot from from the Drupal community and and in

fact I I just want to underscore that almost certainly Nothing that you saw here should be new to you. Everything that you've seen, you have seen at Drupal Cons and Drupal camps. That's because that's where we learned it. This is us just taking the same ingredients and combining it in this ratio with our effort, with our vision and and making sure that we focus on getting the

results that we want. So, um yeah, it's thanks to Drupal that we're doing this. I mean, and that's why this is in in our minds 110% a Drupal event. uh we've got we've got some points here about uh you know why we're doing this. Bring bring new people beyond the Drupal bubble and make make things fun, human, engaging. Obviously drive uh Drupal CMS adoption and growth and

expand our community uh while that means bringing in you know not just technical people or even not just designers but also decision makers uh and sharing real world impact and case studies. Um, but I think the the more, you know, universal points, right, like of of what we're doing is like why why does it work and why is it maybe a little bit different than other events

you've been to is, you know, we we try to do a lot with very little resources. I mean, I've been accused of being cheap uh so much. And it's weird, right? Because we spent like a million bucks US over the years on on this stuff if you include salaries. But but yet, you know, our lunches are not corporate catering lunches which kind of give you sandwiches for

$30 a person. Our lunches is we go to a empanada shop in Queens and we and we get them to give us two boxes to big ass boxes of empanadas at like $2 an empanada, right? And or the bani sandwiches, same same story. Um we also look for uh people who have clear ambition. We don't just invite everybody. You know, we mentioned LinkedIn influencers with big networks,

but not only, right? I mean, if you look at John Doyle in the back, uh he he runs Digital Polygon. I mean, when when we met him at Drupal events, he runs an agency and and we saw that he has the same ambition both in terms of quality, but in terms of community growth. And so, we said, "Hey, come you beyond just being a sponsor, let's let's

be coorganizers." Same thing with uh uh Pantheon. Thank you, Tiffen, for coming representing them here. Uh they've been our our main sponsor for pretty much day one. Uh I think they were giving us like for the last two events uh in New York and Boston, they gave us like 25,000 which is huge, right? I mean like they're they're kind of our gold championorganizing sponsor. And uh again,

if you if you see Pantheon events at Drupalcon, you see what they bring, right? And they and they didn't just bring this money. They brought that same energy and high level of sophistication in events and engagement. And we learned from that. Um >> thank you. We we can't forget that we're doing 30% of the work even though it's a tremendous amount of work. Uh the organizers and

it's not just like the evolving web team, but I just mean all the all the sponsors and volunteers. Uh at the end of the day, the hardest part of any any uh initiative like this is is getting speakers and getting sponsors and and getting this viral effect where just the word spreads and and uh the quality of interactions spread and increase and and so we always have

to remember that we're we're not just doing something, we're starting something, we're founding something. And um and of course the same thing with Drupalcon. I mean how much of there there's professionals running Drupalcon but how much of the actual work an organization is done by volunteers? If I had to guess if you count the hours 85%. Um just just don't forget like we like how how much

do we spend on programming alone? Like hundreds of hours and I don't think the Drupal Association does programming. It's all all the volunteers. Um we >> Yeah. And at the end of the day, what we're trying to do is we're trying to build a community and tell tell Drupal's story, bring Drupal to other communities and and do it in a way that that keeps growing and keeps

building and keeps inspiring people. And uh again, you were there last night and you felt that Drupal community is already doing this. We have it in us. So the question is how to how to channel it in such a way that it's not just for us but it goes wider and it brings people uh who want to be part of it. So uh thank you. Thank you

guys. And uh uh I just want to do a standard CTA. We're doing two more events this year in Boston and and New York City. Uh and of course there's a discount code. Please >> Well, it's not a discount code. It's our subscri Yeah. >> Yeah, >> there will be a discount code. So, if you subscribe through this QR code, you're going to get in your email

a discount code for for these two and and please spread the word. >> And um yeah, so thank thank you very much. We um we have I think a minute for questions or how how's that? >> Four minutes. >> Perfect. [snorts] >> Hey. I have a question. So, as someone who's um done a lot of time uh organizing and running a Drupal camp, um there's obviously similarities

there, Um and I can attest and I'm sure you know like the actual ton of work and and um um a mixed success at times for different people who I know people that run camps and they're they're tough, right? And so in some ways like I wonder if you if seeing how you're doing if it's sort of making the case that a different model for how to

run a camp is is in play here, right? Like instead of it's just a loose collection of volunteers, it's like you're owning it, you're steering it. And that might be a key difference [snorts] in in how camps are traditionally organized in >> Yeah. Thank you. Uh sorry, that was Dan. >> From Electric Citizen. Uh and which camp do you organize? >> Twin Cities. >> Twin Cities. Awesome.

So, so Dan was was saying is one of our takeaways that we didn't quite verbalize but hinted at. Is it that volunteers are not enough? And uh I think I I said the opposite, right? I said without the volunteers and without the community the who are doing 70% of the of the network effects and the outreach and obviously the speaking and the bringing bringing people uh nothing

would be possible but yeah absolutely having uh somebody who fully owns it for whom the success of this event is existential who will literally like not go home until until it's done I mean I don't know how many times I stayed up till midnight LinkedIn LinkedIn messaging people and I thought it was actually kind of awkward because you can't do a time send on LinkedIn connection request

and I'm like are they going to like it that they get a message from me at 1:00 a.m. But but yeah, I mean I think in every ambitious thing having somebody who owns it 110% and and goes beyond well it's just my job but that's it. Uh or that's my volunteer side thing but you know it's just about having fun and hanging out with people. Yeah, that's

not going to be enough. I would say though as well that maybe we can change people's mindset around it especially if you have people from agencies coming to that camp or volunteers who are working for organizations for them to take a little bit more ownership and inviting their clients inviting their teams if they work for organizations like I know that some Drupal cams have uh Drupalists as

part of vol as part of the volunteer group to organize these. So I think we just need to think a little bit bigger and get those people who are already coming for them to do a little bit of outreach. And if everybody of those 100 people reaches out to five people, you can do the math, right? So hopefully that could already help bringing in more people, other

people, and show them a little bit of a success there. >> Awesome. Another question. Joyce, >> I loved watching your events evolve, I think, in a very short period of time. And it it seems when I think back to the early events that I um went to compared to what they are now, there's so much there's so much more. And I'm wondering if there was a key

takeaway in particular that like that moment where you're like, "Yes, this is it. This is what's going to turn this into a success." if there was one thing in particular that that you thought of or a theme or an idea. >> Uh I think we'll have two different answers and and you mean aside from from the rapper who was going evolve digital evolve digital. Yeah. Um I

mean I think I think you know at the beginning uh we were using our own network and and that's why we did Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa. We invited we asked we flew in a bunch of our staff from you know all over. We uh we begged and pestered our clients to come and present with us and and it was slowgoing. Uh but at some point the momentum

was building on itself. People had a great experience and and people said, "Oh my goodness, like I haven't been to something like this." Uh and and they started coming back. We have a tremendous amount of people who are coming back. We have a bringing their co-workers uh for the second time around. That's why we mentioned the whole Boston Harvard team came uh the the like I think

there was 25 people from University of Toronto two two three weeks ago. Same thing with Princeton University. So people you know when we do it a second time around and things build on itself. Also we've we've uh at some point we started leaning very heavily into the PC web community that we're a big part of and well that's a big part of our existence and also the

digital collegium community. uh there's nothing specific about those communities aside from they're awesome but mostly we're part of them in a big way and so we're able to bring those together uh so I would say those are the two things from my perspective I would say changing the program a little bit I think if you remember in the beginning we did have longer sessions but and less

tracks we started with two tracks having so much more content to give and get people into the room really really helps So, it's not necessarily good to have too many tracks and sessions at the same time because it reduces obviously also the attendance um of each session. So, but what we learned as well is to just not have as many chairs in each room to not make

the room feel empty and give the speaker some more respect like rooms have empty here. No, I'm grateful you guys are here. >> Maya just wants everything perfect. [laughter] Anything else? >> Last question. >> Yeah, D. >> I if no one else has do you um do you compensate your keynote speakers? >> Usually no. >> Um sometimes we might cover their travel expenses but we are trying

not to. >> Sure. >> And it hasn't been necessary to be honest. >> Sure. I mean just for context like it's not typical right in the triple community triple camps or bookcon that you pay for speakers but in some professional conferences it is very common. So I was just curious since you're running you're making the rules if it that changes. >> We're we're running the event at

a loss. Uh you are yeah the the ticket the nominal ticket price is like 150 bucks but with all the speakers and their plus ones and then this and then that I think our average ticket prices and and of course those cheap cheap tickets the 15 volunteer tickets that we started giving away for people who will go and set up the you know the audio and whatever

and even help with the social. Uh I think we're getting an average of 70 $70 a person there. Uh so the ticket revenue is not enough to cover much. Uh the sponsorship is incredible. Like we're we're super grateful for it. Without it without it, there's no way we could pull it off. But that doesn't cover the expenses. I think six or seven or eight times we've paid

somebody $500 to uh to say, "Well, you don't have the funding from your organization. Maybe you can come uh we'll cover your airfare uh and then you get your own accommodation." So, we've we've done that a handful of times, but >> it was more to support to bring them into the community, not to >> get them to speak >> necessarily. >> All right. Thanks a lot, guys.

>> Thanks, guys. [applause]