[consulting] Drupal Professions Shop Conference Call

[Gerhard Killesreiter]

Gregory Heller wrote:

Hi Gregory!

>I can understand why you might think that my sudden burst of involvement
>is "a bit strange". 
>

Good.

> I am not a coder, at all,
>

Just to get that right from the start: I am not of the opinion that only 
coders can contribute to the Drupal project. Best examples are Charlie 
Lowe and Steven Peck who have done a lot of invaluable work on 
documentation.

> I am a fierce advocate
>and evangelist for Drupal and CiviCRM, I am a project manager with my
>firm, and do client relations.  At CivicActions, we do CiviCRM and
>Drupal.  I am working to contribute in ways that I can.  The community
>talks alot about getting people like me to contribute, and having my
>motivation or sincerity questioned isn't the best encouragement.
>  
>

I am not questioning your motivation or sincerity, I am questioning the 
way you approach the way to contribute.

What I am seeing is that you jump in head first into the project where 
it would maybe have been wiser to get in feet first.

>CivicActions is actively working to increase our participation (writ
>large) in the Drupal Community.  That includes code, documentation,
>community organizing, event organizing. 
>  
>

I hope that, since all I am seeing right now is this:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/roland/97322179/

>Right now, coming off of Vancouver, there was a sense that organizing
>the Drupal professional community was something that could help the
>community at large.  We are biting off low hanging fruit.  Conference
>Calls, Drupal Professionals Directory, etc....
>  
>

After the way you approached the conf calls I can only hope you do the 
directory a little bit better.

>There are issues that effect Drupal shops.  I am trying to get shops
>together because the shops I have spoken to have all expressed interest
>in working more collaboratively to address the problems/challenges that
>we face.  One of those big problems is training and developing new
>talent, not just so there can be more lone cowboys out there, but so
>that Drupal shops can take on bigger projects, and scale.
>  
>

I don't recall Drupal shops doing any mentoring of Summer of Code 
students. In fact, all this mentoring was done by freelancers.

>We are trying to have a focused conference call to address the issues
>that shops are facing.
>  
>

Why did you chose Jason's answer to remind him that he is not the 
intended audience and not the other answers who weren't exactly from 
Drupal shops?

>I am sure that sole contractors have a set of issues that they face,
>maybe some of them overlap with those facing shops, others don't.  I
>  
>

 From your original mail:

This call is specifically geared to firms/shops that are doing drupal
deployments to talk about things like:
    Drupal Pros Directory
    Client Funded Module Development
    DrupalCamp training sessions


None of the three topics seems to be very much geared at Drupal shops.

>don't know because I have spent my time talking to other shops and not
>sole contractors.  Maybe someone should set up a monthly conference call
>for sole contractors to talk.
>

I don't believe in conference calls. Everything that is said there can 
probably be done through email. OTOH, I am not that experienced wrt them.

>  This is sort of happening as more Drupal
>"user" or "developer" groups form and meet, like the one in NY that we
>helped organize last week and the Bay Area group.
>  
>

Oh, yeah, I remember reading the minutes of the first Bay Area user 
group meeting...


Cheers,
    Gerhard