Clever, Clever Girl
Media, Economics, Culture, BarCamp!
Stuff
The title is not a cop-out, this is a post about stuff. My stuff, specifically.
I’m getting a bit introspective and over-caffeinated, starting in on the pre-moving process. Again. I’ve learned that there is a major difference between moves where you see your stuff the next day, moves where you see your stuff the next week, and moves where you throw everything in a portable box and hedge your bets before getting on a plane.
I’m prepping for that last type again, though there’s going to be a truck involved. I have a reasonable (or unreasonable) amount of experience with this already, but it’s still not easy or worry free. I was 25 the last time I did this, and honestly, the only large item I’ve acquired since then (not counting my car) is one (1) Ikea bookcase (the large, chunky - could also be a bench model). I have still yet to muster the will/acceptance of terms to buy a couch. Couches are symbols of sedentary lifestyles to me. I’m more in the hot-swapping countries camp.
So the process goes something like this:
- Sort everything into “need on a weekly basis”, “comfort items I want to keep”, and “purge”
- Pack, Clean, Pack, repeat as necessary
- Take care of every last lingering piece of paper, to-do item, to-mail item, etc. (This step sucks, btw)
- Freak out a bit, grasp tightly at LA a bit, remember WHY I’m doing this and move forward
- Spend a much caffeinated couple of hours in front of computer changing address on EVERYTHING
- Party with friends I’m going to miss
- Give things away or sell them until it’s just me and the boxes
- Put things in truck, hope for the best
- Put me on plane, ditto
I’ll be traveling up to Seattle via Foo Camp. So if you see me there and think “man, that chick REALLY overpacks” you’ll please understand. We fly up to Seattle on Sunday night and start work again Monday. Last couple of weeks of July will be work-heavy, first couple of weeks of August are owned by Black Hat, Defcon, and some sort of decompression post-con. The plan is to move into a guest-room-enabled place after that, retrieve my stuff, and proceed with a life devoid of 7am Monday morning flights. imagine!
I’ve grown less and less attached to ’stuff’ in general. My books (by replacement cost) are by and large the most expensive thing I own. My bought-for-$200 stainless steel dining table is by far the heaviest, but it’s so solid and versatile (look ma, no coasters!) that I keep moving it. I’ve opted for plastic stacking drawers instead of a dresser. I haven’t owned a couch or a bedframe since 2004. I don’t collect anything but books and plants. (and the plants can’t be moved.) There’s a lot that I keep/move not because the replacement cost, but simply because I don’t like unnecessary buying.
Here’s to starting fresh.
Big Changes and a Bigger Move
My parents have long learned to, if not worry, at least be curious when I suddenly fall off the radar. It’s true, when I stop pushing photos to flickr, calling every other day, writing here, twittering… it usually means periods of extremely high stress, major projects, and at times, mulling life-sweeping changes.
It’s been radio silence from me for a couple of months now, but decisions are made now and it’s time to come out with it. July 2nd will be my last day at Warner Bros. Records and I’ll be moving to Seattle, WA on July 10th.
These last few months in the Music Industry have been a fantastic learning experience and I’ve gotten to work closely with some truly amazing people. I’ve worked on web promotions for Madonna, the Raconteurs, Disturbed, and V.I.C., and ran point on Mission:Metallica.com. There are some amazing people in the WBR building, and I will miss them, as well as the artist management I’ve worked closely with, terribly.
The move is partly a personal one. As many of you know, my partner, Dan, lives in Seattle and we’ve been commuting over the past year. This is an incredibly exciting and happy time for both of us. I’ve had the chance over the past few years to get to know Seattle like a 2nd home and have already forged bonds with a few barristas up and down Pike St. who don’t know I don’t live there already. Please extend your condolences to Alaska Airlines.
Seattle is also home to a bustling tech scene (more than Microsoft and Amazon), some really fantastic live music, great weather (almost 3 months out of the year!). I attended the first BarCamp Seattle just a couple of weeks ago and met loads of interesting individuals from Microsoft, MySQL, and quite a few entrepreneurs. I hear they also have coffee there.
I’d like to take a wee bit of breather to get settled and attack some long-patient personal projects, but consulting opportunities are already in the works and my schedule is starting to fill out. I do plan to transition to Consulting full time, so if you know anyone looking for some major project management help, CMS implementation/planning, event production, or new media centric brand outreach, I’ll be available for new projects in September.
I will miss Los Angeles like no other. This city has become a true home for me over the last nine years. I know it as well as I think most people ever know it, and adore its layers upon layers of language, culture, and peoples. I hereby commit to a 10 (or maybe 20) favorite things about Los Angeles post here in the near future.
But most of all, I’m going to miss my friends and the community here. It’s no secret anymore that the LA tech scene is buzzing. We’ve seen BarCampLA grow from 100 to 300 attendees since Fall of 2006 when I came back from my stint in Vancouver. Some weeks, you can go geek out with lovely people over drinks 3-4 nights of the week. The start-up scene is firing up. VCs, Journalists, and top talent are taking notice, and LA is really carving out a niche as the rightful home of media-centric technology. New companies like Mahalo, Hulu, Topspin, Gigya, as well as creative branches of many of the media giants are right at home here.
I’m really proud of what we’ve built together. I’m still dedicated to planning DrupalCampLA 2008, and BarCampLA-6 (omg really, 6?) looks like it already has a great crew of new and veteran un-organizers to take it on (but don’t think I’d miss it for the world). Geek Dinner is going strong after 2+ years, Mindshare is all fired up, LA Drupal is becoming a force to be reckoned with, and The Hollywood Hill is doing some amazing events lately… I really hope to make it down soon and often to stay in touch with everything going on here. I <3 LA, indeed.
And most of all, to my friends… everyone I’ve danced all night with, invited out to dinner last minute, dressed up with, cooked for, picnic’d with at Hollywood Forever, brunched with at Millie’s or Lazy Daisy, hiked Runyon Canyon with, drank whiskey with at Seven Grand, seen movies with at the Arclight, wandered Santee Alley or LACMA with, or just taken a minute on a gorgeous day in LA and said “wow.. we actually live here…”… I’m going to miss you all terribly. You know who you are. :)
The good thing is that travel is imminent. I will see you in Seattle (we’ll have a spare room - come see us), Berlin, San Francisco, Tokyo, New York, Mexico, Tennesee, or right back here in Los Angeles. I promise to visit if you do the same.
And lastly, I don’t plan to leave without saying goodbye (for now), so save July 5th. I don’t have details yet, but I’ll be throwing something casual so people can come and go, hang out, chill and have a good time. I’d love if you’d please stop by.
Much love Angelenos,
Crystal
BarCampLA-5 Wrap Up
You know, we keep thinking that at some point, people are going to get tired of this whole “BarCampLA” thing. Apparently that point hasn’t come yet. *phew!*
This past weekend, about 220 of you joined us at the AOL offices in Beverly Hills for the fifth BarCamp in Los Angeles. We talked about Wordpress, hacking, the Internet Backbone, Computers that may/will take over the world, Ninjas, Zombies, and sandwiches. We played fake guitars (and real ones). We danced with inflatable robots. We rickrolled each other. We ate, we laughed, we talked, and hopefully, we learned some cool stuff in the process.
One of the best feelings I get at these events is when I’ve poked my head into the room to give a 5 minute time warning, and I get a dozen people shooing me away. That happened more than a few times this past weekend, and I can think of no better validation that we’re doing something right here. So thanks, everyone, for showing up, sharing what you know, and soaking up the knowledge and ideas of your peers. It’s always amazing to see what people bring to this.
Ok, enough with the sap, let’s start thanking people.
Travis Savo and Marie Maxey, our in-house hosts from AOL went above and beyond the call of HALP!. When we decided to abandon our potential downtown LA venue because of complications from the LA Marathon (it would have been ugly, folks), Mike Macadaan from AOL answered the call and got this space arranged in under a week. Since Mike couldn’t join us for the weekend, Travis and Marie, veteran BarCampers, volunteered to be our hosts. We couldn’t ask for two nicer people in the world, and much of the credit for the event running as smoothly as it did goes to these guys. Thanks again!
Geoff Emery (Dude, what’s your url?) also jumped into the fray of organizing this time by handling all of our food arrangements, catering orders, etc. If you enjoyed eating, you should thank this man. We did! (Thanks!)
James Cooper was there before I was on Saturday and already had half the chairs moved into rooms. Much, much thanks. We’ll work on that hat, ok? :-)
Jane Lee once again swooped in and picked up the monster load of Saturday’s lunch and the lion’s share of the sodas. The necessary Saturday morning Costco run is one of the biggest logistics “can’t be in two places at once” problems, and twice in a row now, Jane has made that a non-issue. Thank you!
Chris Darbro ensured we all had coffee. Both days. Deserves a medal in some cultures, but isn’t coffee its own reward? (thanks, good sir!)
Eric Hammond - Somewhere a few weeks back, I just started getting a flood of people interested in giving us money to do this. It turns out, Eric sent them our way. Funding these things is always one of the hardest parts. (It’s a what-camp? Bar-what?) I don’t know what you did, man, but thanks! It worked!
Chef JoAnna continues to guide our fooding, even when the catering orders come in looking a little too small to feed the mob outside the kitchen. That woman can wield a knife better than I hope to in a hundred years. Thank you!
A shout-out to the incomparable C.Nelson for bringing you the SMS and flickr projection walls (written on-site!) and the DJ/sound gear. Mucho entertainment. Props to Substandard!
Big thanks to Woody Pewitt, Andy Sternberg, and Mr. Michael Lambie for the kegs, without which, Rock Band would have been better performed and far less popular.
And to Vaughn Hannon, Michael Dorausch, Bronwyn Lewis, and Chris Gagne for just being darn helpful with a bunch of various things. If I’ve forgotten you, please ping me. No slights intended, all help greatly appreciated, and no notes taken (by me). :-)
And finally, there’s this “Jason” character I keep hearing about. Dude… It doesn’t feel right to thank you here, because this is equal sweat, blood, and lolcats. (ok, the LOLcats are *all* Cosper. Actually, if it was spontaneous and glinting of awesome, it was almost surely Cosper) But holyFSM, we did it. Again! BarCampLA-5 was sustained awesome, and I’m so glad we’re on the same team. (psst, folks, the Scoops Ice Cream on Sunday? That was ALL Jason - go mob him with your thanks).
But wait, there’s more!
Sponsors!
A Giant thanks to all of you. You make this event happen!
Venue
AOL - Again, thank you! You guys really came through for us last minute, and it was fantastic.
Sponsors ++
- 3Jane IndieClick
- SpeakTECH
- Qtask zomg.. Cupcakes! Thanks again!
- CyberCoders
- Yahoo Developer Network
- MatchCraft
- Planet Chiropractic
- Oddica
- Ticketmaster
- Streamy
Sponsors
Party Sponsor
Media Circus
I am totally going to cheat right now and just post in the slideshow of all photos from the camp here:
photos tagged barcampla5 in flickr
I’ll put up some personal faves soon. Go check out the main page of BarCampLA-5 for links to talk notes, PPTs, audio, video, etc. And add your’s if you’ve got ‘em!
Looking Forward
Yes, we’ll be doing another one of these. Yes, we’re open to new faces getting involved (and old ones taking on bigger roles. We’ve already started some great discussions on the google group about that and also started a Suggestions Page while the ideas are fresh. Lots of good points there already.
Ok, As the pig says, That’s All, Folks. This community continues to impress me as it grows. Tag your photos, keep up the conversation, go out and learn more cool stuff to share, and we’ll see you for the next time.
Downtown LA, I still love you
Ok, so I’m moving up to North Hollywood tomorrow (which means I really should be, uh, packing now), but Downtown Los Angeles still owns my LA-loving heart. If nothing else, the sheer capacity for strange is just stronger there, and I dig it.
So we were down there last night to participate in the monthly Downtown LA Art Walk (second Thursday of every month, folks). We started out at one of my favorite Vietnamese joints in LA, Blossom before proceeding to check out Dave Bullock’s show at Niche Gallery and then on to others.
As if Weenez, a hot dog (and..cupcakes?) place attached to Red Dot Gallery wasn’t strange enough on it’s own, while we were there, a makeshift parade of clarinets, saxophones, drums, and accordians marched past us, accompanied by a guy wearing nothing but a diaper and shooting toy arrows at people (Cupid, Valentines day… I get it, still odd). The group turned out to be LA Experimental Jazz Troup KillSonic (Warning, sound.. and it’s experimental jazz at that).
It was too fun to pass up, so we joined their parade around downtown LA, basically circling the gallery district, invading the Hive Gallery, missing the shuttle, walking some more, and then finally boarding the bus with the entire band, all of us followers, and a very amused (no, really) bus driver. The band jammed on, we picked up more people at every stop, and it was a damn fine time of “wait, is this really happening?”And yes, that’s when I love this town the most.
Some pics from the evening:
Redesigning
While I was upgrading to WP 2.3.3 this weekend, I decided to ditch my tired old theme while I was at it. A redesign was more than overdue, since I hadn’t really changed things up since October 2006. *cringe*
So consider this a work in progress, I do intend to add some minor graphics to this, but at the moment that is falling in the priority list somewhere behind beginning new job, moving to and decorating new apartment, planning BarCampLA-5, starting a new diet, and this little thing called “sleep” that I’ve been meaning to try. :-)
Comments still welcome and please tell me if something is horrifically broken (and not just ‘plain’).
Hello WBR - Big Changes for 2008
2007 was one hell of a ride, 2008 might even surpass. I don’t even know where to begin with this, so out with it…
February 8th will be my last day at Sisu.
February 12th will be my first day as Director of Technology Projects for Warner Bros. Records..
This past year with Sisu has been fantastic. I’ve had the chance to work on some amazing projects for The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Myspace, Wasserman Media Group (creating sites for professional athletes such as Tracy McGrady, JJ Redick, and Freddy Adu), the Hallmark Channel, Fonality, Hearst Magazine Mobile sites, Sony, Veoh, Zannel, and Nonesuch Records. And I’ve had the opportunity to do it with 5 of the best coworkers imaginable. Guild, Coleen, Dave, Kevin, and Matt - thank you all. Seriously. I’m going to miss seeing all of you every day, there is no replacement for friday status meetings, and I’d better be invited to the 6th year Sisuversary party, punks.
Looking forward to my new life in Burbank, I’m really drawn to this position for a number of reasons. I’ll be joining up with a crack team of solidly cool geeks who have some great ideas about how to save the music industry. We like music, we’d like to keep it around. The technology team at WBR is super progressive, relying on open-source technologies wherever possible, and pushing for some innovative ways to keep money coming in and going to artists. All artist sites are being built on Drupal, an open-source content management system that I have some experience with.
As a music, econ, and tech geek with an unnatural interest in social networks and a nearly two-year history with the Drupal Community, this is a really exciting opportunity to combine my passions and go out and build something. It’s a challenging place to be right now, but that’s the way I like it.
I’m probably going to need bigger sunglasses, though.
BarCampLA-4 Wrap Up
It always takes me about a week to come to closure with a camp. Besides the obvious sleep debt to be paid, I also enjoy watching the pics and videos roll in, checking out the session media that gets posted, and listening to the conversations that originated at camp as they get taken out into the world. Especially the last one: I believe that’s what motivates me to keep working on these. Those conversations and connections are priceless, and it’s a pretty amazing feeling to get to see those shockwaves from the epicenter. So, really, thank you all for making good on all the promises we made that this would be an amazing group of people with things to share. We can only set the stage, but you guys put on one hell of a play.
By the Numbers
So, the breakdown looked something like this:
- About 200 Participants over two days (That’s almost double from March 2007)
- Close to 40 unique presentations
- 15 Sponsors
- $5400 Budget (Spent to the last $40 or so, so if anyone wants reimbursing for drinks or snacks, hit me up) Complete Expense details will be available on the wiki as soon as the last sponsor check gets processed.
- Two Gongs (Opening intros were MUCH shorter this time!)
- 113 BarCamper Portraits
- And the world’s first FooBar Mitzvah
I’m happy with that.
Thanks
There are more people to thank than I think I can fit into this space or possibly link to, so let me start off by saying thank you to every person who answered our call for help on Sunday morning and brought sodas, fruit, bread, yogurt, ice, etc. When you’re on a fixed budget for a free conference and then attendance doubles out of nowhere (as it did), you’re suddenly not sure whether to say “yay!” or “uh oh…” Those contributions, from cupcakes to sunflower seeds to sodas to fruit, kept us in the “yay!” category. So thank you all for stepping up and really being every bit the awesome community we love to brag about.
Sponsors
BarCamp simply could not be the free, accessible, community event it is without our sponsors. These companies make this event possible, pitch-free, no strings attached. They ‘get’ what we’re doing here, and so many of them were in active participation at the event, not as sponsors, but as BarCampers. So, thank you to:
- Little Radio Warehouse - There’s a reason we list these guys under both ‘Sponsors’ and ‘Hosts’ on the wiki. Not only do they give us such an awesome venue for free, Jimmy spends the weekend working just as hard as the organizers to make sure everything runs smoothly for the event. I don’t think we can say thanks enough, but we try.
- 3jane IndieClick - A big thanks to 3jane IndieClick for returning as sponsors this round.
- Belkin - Belkin has always been such a huge supporter of BarCamps in LA and elsewhere. Thanks so much to Jory and crew for sticking with us!
- crowdgather - Thanks Sanjay and crew for supporting BarCampLA!
- Disney - A big thanks to Mike and the team at Disney for continuing to support BarCamp in Los Angeles, even with the success of PoohCamp, their internal unconference. Also, I think Mike’s most excellent wi-fi shirt upstaged us all for supreme geek wear.
- DreamHost - Suuuuure, Dreamhost couldn’t just sponsor, they had to throw in a year’s free hosting for everyone at BarCamp as well. Sweet! Thanks, guys!
- Microsoft - Thanks again to Microsoft, always a huge help to us. They were kind enough this year to cover our insurance costs, one of our largest expenses, for us. Such a huge help. Also, a huge thanks to Woody Pewitt for working the registration desk for most of the day Saturday.
- ::search.labs -search labs specializes in placing top talent in the web 2.0 and new media sphere. Thanks for supporting BarCamp!
- Show-in-a-Box -How cool is it that a free software project wanted to be a BarCamp sponsor? Show in a Box is a video blogging platform built on Wordpress, and consisting of Wordpress, a custom set of plug-ins, and a custom theme. Check it out! It’s free!
- [Si]TV - [Si]Tv is a 24 hour, English-speaking Latino cable channel with a video-rich website. Tune over to www.sitv.com/ to see what they’ve got going on.
- Startup Schwag - Startup Schwag picks up where ValleySchwag left off, bringing the latest Web2.0 shirts and tchochkes to folks everywhere. Check them out!
- Qtask -A huge thanks to Reichart, Lisette, Emi, and the rest of the Qtask crew for the sponsorship, the help, and the cupcakes! (ok, and the pink t-shirt)
- twiistup- Next twiistup is Jan 16, 2008 in Vence. Deadline to apply to Showoff is November 15, so hurry! Thanks again, guys!
- Yahoo! Developer Network - A big thanks to the Yahoo! Developer Network for sponsoring lunch on Sunday. Cheers!
Special Thanks To:
Jason Cosper, my co-BarCamp Counselor (Lambie, did you coin that?). You know I can’t possibly name everything, but thanks for the moral support, the mad publicity and blog and twitter and sponsorship wrangling, Saturday and Sunday and all they entailed, and for that amazing yell of doom of yours that made it possible for my squawking to be heard. Beer doesn’t cut it, I owe you whiskey.
Dan Tentler, for running network ops and getting/keeping the wifi running. “What? There’s a muffin up here! How the hell?
JoAnna and her ninja-like reflexes where catering is involved made it possible to get food laid out for 150+ people in 10 mins or less not once, but THREE times. That plus the pre-ordering food consulting made a world of difference for us.
CJ Little, whose remarkably lifelike cardboard facsimile somehow managed to co-staff the registration booth for most of Saturday along with Woody Pewitt, ensuring that BarCampers were greeted, tagged, and signed in. Thanks!
Andy Sternberg, who wrangled us an awesome keg of Craftsman and the ice to cool it.
More thanks to Bino Gopal for the no-questions-asked instant office supply run.
Jane Lee, who volunteered herself and her vehicle to pick up EVERYTHING that wouldn’t fit in my car from Costco, plus Saturday’s lunch. (That was a lifesaver!)
Thanks to Chris Gagne for picking up Saturday morning’s coffee.
And lastly, a huge thanks to Darren Wong for not taking no for an answer and working in the middle of the night to give us a killer new BarCampLA logo. We love it!
Plus, a very special thanks to Richard M. Stallman (RMS) for joining us, hanging out, having fun, and for speaking. We don’t usually condone ‘keynotes’ for BarCamp, but if there were ever a case for an exception, this was most certainly the time.
And lastly, the Media…
If you haven’t already, go check out Noodle Scar’s On Location at BarCampLA-4 video. You can find other videos here, on YouTube, and linked off of the BarCampLA-4 Main Wiki. If you have videos you want the world to see, put them there!
There are also Tons of great pictures, of course, so check them out, help with tagging, and make sure your own are up and tagged so we can all enjoy them. Here are some of my personal favorites.
I’m going to treasure this one for a long time.
Photo by Daniel Hengeveld.
PowerPoint Karaoke
Photo by Lisa Brewster
FooBarMitzvah
Photo by Lisa Brewster
“What’s in your Not-Coming-Back-Bag.” I walked in to call time on this session and just lost it laughing. Thanks, guys!
Photo by Dan Tentler
The bus. Seriously, the bus was awesome. Go check out The 1 Second Film.
Photo by Dan Tentler
Thanks everyone. It was nothing short of surreal. Post your pics and comments here and/or to the wiki and we’ll see you for the next one!
-Crystal
When Bad UI Goes Good
So basically, if I have ever emailed with you at all, you’re in my gmail address book. And if you are in my gmail address book, all 600ish of you, around the first of September, you got a message that looked something like this:
“cleverclevergirl” would like you to join them on Zannel
Zannel is a mobile community where you can meet people, send messages and share photos and videos on your mobile phone. Share your life in real time.
Click here to join and accept the invitation.
And then if you also follow me on twitter, you shortly after received a few frantic, apologetic tweets from me explaining that some UI had malfunctioned and to please ignore the bother. I try to be exceedingly careful with my contacts and tend to never invite people to things unless I’m positive they want to be invited. I hate email, I assume you hate email too, and I try to avoid sending any unless it’s necessary or just purely pleasant.
So I was pretty devastated that this happened, especially since I generally consider myself savvier than that, but figured I’d done what I could and it was done with.
Until I got a message on the site from Zannel’s CTO the next day.
Hey there - I’m with Zannel, and I’ve heard some buzz about our friend invite feature - r u open to discussing?
Uh oh.
Chris Messina was amongst the unintentionally-invited. Chris, thankfully, has a pretty low tolerance for bad UI, so he made some screenshots
This was noted by Tantek Çelik, who asked Chris to submit screenshots to the wiki he’s been working on, documenting Social Network Anti-Patterns, something expecially useful in the wake of the Quechup disaster. (Incidentally, Chris has a whole collection of these screenshots here)
Zannel’s PR folks had picked up on the grumblings, traced it back to me, and now wanted to chat.
So we chatted. First off, they were genuinely apologetic. This was really an unintentional effect of the common mobile design strategy of reducing page length by having many small pages of information, and definitely not a ’strategy’ of any sort.
I explained that the problem had occurred while using their mobile interface. I had wanted to *check* if anyone I knew was already using this service, but only intended to invite one coworker. Unfortunately, the default state for “send invites to everyone” was set to TRUE, and that option was on a separate page than the main confirm screen. So by requesting and confirming to invite one friend, everyone else got dragged into it. They admitted that this was a problem and one that had been discussed internally.
They also agreed to fix it. Quickly.
And I’m very pleased to say that they did! The fix has been in place now for about a month and apparently now, users complain, if anything, that it is too difficult to add a bunch of friends at once. So far, though, everyone seems to agree that this is a better problem to have.
They were also kind enough to send me some screenshots of the new interface:
Congrats to Zannel for making this right, and a big thanks to Chris and Tantek for their zero-tolerance policies.
Go Check them out.They’re getting nods from the likes of TechCrunch, Mashable, and The LA Times.
DrupalCampLA Wrap Up
It’s been two weeks since DrupalCampLA and I think the dust has finally settled enough for me to write this.
As I said in my opening remarks, when I first started planning this event, I was really hoping for a small gathering of dedicated Drupal Developers, you know, just 40-60 people to kick things off…
Man, what the heck do I know?
DrupalCampLA saw a bit over 100 participants and about 25 unique session topics (not to mention 120 somewhat unique cupcakes) in two days at the AOL offices in Beverly Hills, and I really don’t think I could have asked for a better group of curious folks or a more supportive community.
From Project Management to Flex, Install Profiles to Podcast tools, we had some really fantastic presentations, and as always, hallway conversations that spark friendships, projects, and more than a few modules. While the attendance skewed heavily towards the developers (another surprise for me and others) we also had great participation from project managers, designers, admins, and the business development folks who are keeping these projects coming through the doors.
A big thanks to all who turned out and made this event such a success, and an even bigger thanks to our sponsors who made it possible to give an event like this to the community for free.
Sponsors
- AOL - Our venue sponsor, and close partner for this event. A huge thanks to Mike Macadaan, Bill Wetherell, Karl Dotter, and Daryl from AOL for being so amazingly supportive and ensuring that this event went off without a hitch. The space was great, the wi-fi was glorious, and we never had to worry about the projectors. Couldn’t have asked for more. Mike and Bill are also responsible for Twiistups 1 & 2, with #3 on the way. Go check them out.
- Warner Bros. Records - Giant thanks #2 goes to Ethan Kaplan and the rest of the team at WBR for not only being major sponsors of DrupalCampLA, but also for being a driving force in Drupal adoption amongst recording artists. How awesome is that?
- OurMedia - This event would not have happened if it weren’t for the support and encouragement of Markus Sandy at OurMedia. Back in June, when I was just starting to think about putting one of these together, I mentioned it to Markus and he immediately volunteered sponsorship. (Which meant, then, that I actually had to go through with this). Check out OurMedia, they’re doing some great things for independent online content.
- Sisu, Inc. - Another big thanks to my colleagues at Sisu for not only tolerating my crazy self in ‘organizer mode’ but even supporting it by serving as DrupalCampLA’s official cupcake sponsor. We’re currently hiring freelance art directors, designers, and web developers (especially drupallers), so if you’re interested, drop us a line at jobs@sisumedia.com.
- Achieve Internet not only brought a small, extremely Drupal-savvy army up from San Diego, they also sponsored Saturday night’s party at Islands. So if you’re looking for who to thank for that, look no further. They’re looking to hire great people, so if San Diego sounds like a good destination, give them a shout.
- WorkHabit may indeed take the prize for largest number of Drupal devs schlepped the furthest distance, bringing their core team all the way down from Sacramento to see how so-cal kicks it drupal-style. WorkHabit provides Drupal development, integration, strategy, deployment solutions, and training.They’re also looking to hire, so if Northern Cali is more your speed, Drop them a line.
- Another big thanks to Bryght for sending Chief Blogging Officer Roland Tanglao down for the weekend to speak on Install Profiles (definitely a hot topic lately).
- Also, thanks to the folks at CivicActions who couldn’t be there, but send their love in the form of Some really nifty Drupal pins. Thanks, guys!
- And lastly, thanks to Jen Simmons, who joined us all the way from Philadelphia, and Jacob Redding, organizer of DrupalCampNYC, who joined us on his victory lap around the U.S. before moving to China.
But wait, there’s more…
Not only were we lucky enough to have such great sponsors, but we also had the incredible support and participation of many of the top Drupal firms on the left coast. A huge thanks goes out to:
Other big thanks are due to Chris Charlton and everyone else who fetched ice, coffee, cupcakes, or napkins, or helped set-up, clean-up, or just generally keep the show running. It was all noticed and much appreciated.
And Now Time for the Media Frenzy…
Ok, not quite, but there was an amazing amount of recording done at this event. We’re still assembling it all, but stay tuned, we should have recordings of nearly every session available to the internet at large soon. For now, though, enjoy some glimpses of DrupalCampLA:
Video by Chris Charlton:
More video
A glimpse of the pre-opening craziness on Saturday from Mike Macadaan here That one opens with me saying “I can’t believe people are trying to email me to register this morning” (it was true), and later includes me answering “Hi Crystal” with “I need someone to go get the coffee.” This kind of sums up my morning there.
Pics
Drupal Deployment Solutions Session
By Roland Tanglao
Chris and Roland
By Me
Cupcakes from Sisu
By Me
Markus Sandy
By Roland Tanglao
Jonathan Lambert and Roland Tanglao
Photo from WorkHabit
Opening Session
Photo by Roland Tangalo
DrupalCampLA - It’s On!
Details:
September 8-9
(Saturday - 10am - 6pm, Sunday - 10am - 2pm)
AOL Beverly Hills - 331 N. Maple Dr., 90210
Registration - http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/221082
Organizer Notes:
a Drupal story
I originally got involved with Drupal about a year and a half ago when I moved up to Vancouver to work for Raincity Studios, a dedicated Drupal development shop. Since then, I’ve pretty much plunged head first into the world of open-source and content management systems, and it’s been a pretty major eye opener in how I think about web development.
When I moved back to LA last fall, I chose a technology agnostic design agency instead of a Drupal shop, but remained active in the Drupal community here in Southern California. When I started getting weekly, and then bi-weekly calls and emails looking for Drupal developers, I knew something was definitely afoot. When I ran out of non-swamped devs to refer people to, I knew it was time to do something.
I really do believe that Open Source projects and solid adherence to web standards are the way to a more secure, better designed, and more accessible web for everyone. And it’s fantastic that companies such as Yahoo! and Warner Bros. Records have recognized this as well and are deploying Drupal on a new scale. However, they are also flooding the market with more projects than we currently have people to handle, and we’ll all be in trouble if the party line becomes “Well, Drupal is great, but you can’t find developers for it…”
Los Angeles is also in a peculiar situation, having lots and lots of demand for Drupal, but being one of the only major US cities without a dedicated Drupal development shop here in town. Besides the obvious fact that LA based companies have to go elsewhere to find developers right now, this is also a problem because it means there has been no LA-based training initiative in LA. Yet.
So, here’s the idea. We’re bringing in some real Drupal rockstars from all over the US (and some from Canada) to teach two days of sessions, and in some instances, giving real world case studies in collaboration with their LA clients. Our goal is to jump start the Drupal community in Los Angeles, get people trained and interested, and see where we can push this from there. Sound good?
Read below for the official boilerplate and info on how you can get involved.
The LA Drupal Group presents DrupalCampLA, a free community learning conference focused on Drupal development, theming, deployment, and management. Experts and professionals in the field of Drupal development will be teaching two days of seminars on three tracks aimed at varying levels of technical knowledge, so whether you’re a seasoned developer, a frustrated newcomer, or just curious what all the hype is about, there will be sessions designed for you.
We’ll also have several sessions devoted to podcasting and media using Drupal, as well as several case studies featuring Drupal and Online Music promotion and distribution from Warner Bros. Records and Rhino Records.
We think Drupal is the best damn open source content management system period, and we’re not the only ones. Come learn how to develop, design, and create content for the the open source project that powers www.theonion.com, www.mtv.co.uk, and www.askaninja.com (and thousands more).
For more information, please visit http://barcamp.org/DrupalCampLA
Official sign-up is at http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/221082. Even though this is a free event, please register so we can plan accordingly.
You can also find us at
- Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=11701480390
- Organizer Google Group - http://groups.google.com/group/drupalcampLA
Details:
September 8-9
(Saturday - 10am - 6pm, Sunday - 10am - 2pm)
AOL Beverly Hills - 331 N. Maple Dr., 90210
