Check us out in person
If you’re coming to DrupalCon Baltimore and you’re curious about Acquia, there are a couple of ways to meet the company and see what we’re about beyond the marketing and sales efforts that get directed at potential clients. One great way is to come to our sessions! Looking at the breadth of topics covered, you begin to get a sense of how much is going on behind the scenes at the company. You can see and hear Acquia experts talking about everything from data-driven workplace improvement to the latest in Drupal 8 front ends to how and why Drupal is still changing rapidly during the conference. We’d obviously be very happy to talk with you at the Acquia Query Lounge in the exhibitors’ hall, in the Hallway Track, our industry meetup, or wherever you might meet us along the way, too! Oh and we’re Acquia Certification tests for $99 in Baltimore!
Live, real-time contribution
One of the things I’ve loved about working at Acquia has been the growing and changing--but consistently smart and motivated--microcosm of the Drupal community that is my colleagues at the company. There were about 20 of us--total--at the company when I attended DrupalCon Szeged in my second or third week on the job at Acquia in 2008.
The company is a lot bigger today; nearly 800 strong and spread around the globe. As part of our culture of contribution, a whole bunch of us will be at DrupalCon Baltimore this year; around 20 of us will be presenting something like 32 sessions across 16 tracks as well as sprinting, mentoring, and helping out!
What are we talking about in Baltimore?
Looking at this track by track, it’s an interesting mix …
General Sessions - Dries Buytaert and I are the only two Acquians to have DrupalCon “General Sessions”. I consider this quite a privilege for one of us ;-)
- Prenote - DrupalCon Balti-more Prenote: the Balti-most Fun at DrupalCon!
- with Jeffrey A. "jam" McGuire, Campbell Vertesi, Adam Juran, and a cast of Drupal community volunteers!
- Tuesday, April 25 8:00 AM Hall A 1
- Driesnote - Dries Buytaert’s DrupalCon keynote address
- Tuesday, April 25 9:00 AM Hall A
Media and Publishing Summit - Day-long summit with industry leaders from national and international organizations. "Drupal often finds itself in the sweet spot of these industries through its focus on content management and tackles many problems today's industry is facing."
- Chuck Fishman - The state of Drupal in the Media & Entertainment industry in 2017: new big wins and builds, current market opportunities and challenges, major integrations and modules.
- Monday, April 26 11:30 AM - 5 PM
Being Human - This is one of the newer tracks at DrupalCon and underscores the importance our community places on communication, mental- and physical health, working conditions, motivation, community, and all the other stuff that lets us produce, appreciate, and use Drupal code. As the Drupal Association puts it, “This track puts the software and tools aside to focus on the human beings behind it all.
- Jeff Geerling - Just Keep Swimming: Don't drown in your open source project!
- Thursday, April 27 1:00 PM Room 320, Floor 3
- Ron Northcutt - The Imposter Monologues, part II (panel)
- Wednesday, April 26 3:45 PM Room 320, Floor 3
Business - “The Business and Strategy track is aimed at attendees looking for actionable advice and ideas from business owners, executives, and project managers on how to manage a Drupal business successfully.”
- Jeffrey A. "jam" McGuire - Know your friends, pick the right fights.
- with Mathias Schreiber, TYPO3 GmbH
- Tuesday, April 25 3:45 PM Community Stage, Exhibit Hall
Coding & Development - I’d call this the staple material of technology communities and conferences: All the code, techniques, processes, and workflows that go into making Drupal, the technology.
- Ron Northcutt Entities 201: Creating Custom Entities
- Tuesday, April 25 5:00 PM Room 308, Floor 3
Core Conversations - These conversations are one place where the future of Drupal’s code takes shape. Short presentations about where Drupal could/should go, followed by 30 minutes of discussion.
- Tim Plunkett - The Continuing Saga of Layouts in Drupal 8
- Tuesday, April 25 10:45 AM Room 318, Floor 3
- Wim Leers - Backwards Compatibility: Burden & Benefit
- Tuesday, April 25 2:15 PM Room 318, Floor 3
- Naveen Valecha & Adam Hoenich - State of the Media Intiative
- with Sean Blommaert, Finalist IT
- Tuesday, April 25 3:45 PM Room 318, Floor 3
- Gábor Hojtsy - We have experimental modules, now what?
- Wednesday, April 26 1:00 PM Room 318, Floor 3
- Preston So & Matt Grill - Decoupled from the Inside Out
- with Sally Young, Lullabot
- Wednesday, April 26 5:00 PM Room 318, Floor 3
- Wim Leers API-First Initiative Core Conversations
- with Mateu Aguiló Bosch, Lullabot
- Thursday, April 27 10:45 AM Room 318, Floor 3
DevOps - Development plus operations, up one side of the stack and all the way down the other!
- Amin Astaneh - ¡Viva la Revolución!- How to Start a DevOps Transformation at your Workplace
- Thursday, April 27 10:45 AM Room 307, Floor 3
- Amin Astaneh (BoF): Q/A Session for “¡Viva la Revolución!- How to Start a DevOps Transformation at your Workplace”
- Thursday, April 27 2:15 PM Room 305, Floor 3
- Matthew Grasmick - Build & Launch Tools: Automating best practices for enterprise sites
- Thursday, April 27 2:15 PM Room 309, Floor 3
Drupal Showcase - Case studies, new solutions, business value delivered with Drupal.
- Stephen Skidmore - So you want to be a "Digital Platform" Rock Star?!
- with Lisa Bernhard, PWW; Kiel Frost, Flight Center; Brendan Janishefski, Carnegie Mellon University
- Tuesday, April 25 2:15 PM Room 317, Floor 3
Front End - Where the code meets the user; where the designer and the dev cooperate; and where there has been rapid, ongoing change and innovation in recent years. “The Front End track explores realizing the web’s full potential along with the expanded tool set for designers and developers in Drupal 8.”
- Preston So - Decoupled Drupal and Angular 2
- Tuesday, April 25 1:00 PM Room 307, Floor 3
Hands-On Lab - One of only three hands-on labs at DrupalCon, I will be welcoming first-time DrupalCon attendees (everyone is welcome, of course, no matter how many DrupalCons you’ve been to!) and sharing how I think you can get the most out of your first DrupalCon and our community!
- Jeffrey A. "jam" McGuire - Get the most out of DrupalCon!
- Tuesday, April 25 10:45 AM Room 321, Floor 3
Horizons - Drupal + emerging technologies == the DrupalCon Horizons track
- Adam Weingarten & Mike Madison - Beyond Websites: Using Drupal for Digital Signs Horizons
- Thursday, April 27 1:00 PM Room 314, Floor 3
PHP - An intermediate to advanced code-focused track, focusing on non-Drupal-specific coding in PHP and beyond.
- Kris Vanderwater - Plugins, Composer and PHP7 OH MY!
- Wednesday, April 26 2:15 PM Room 320, Floor 3
Project Management - Despite their best efforts, many of us don’t give project managers the credit they deserve. These are the folks that keep scheduling, resourcing, budgeting, and so much more off our plates, so we can get on with the good stuff ;-) … Thank you, project managers for everything you do!
- Chris Urban - Better Agile Drupal Sprints: leverage Jira for good
- Tuesday, April 25 12:00 PM Room 315, Floor 3
- Adam Weingarten & Sarah Thrasher - Style Guide Driven Development for Managers: Why you should care.
- Thursday, April 27 2:15 PM Room 315, Floor 3
Site Building - Drupal without the code! Click pride! Tools and techniques for creating Drupal websites using the administrative interface without needing to know how to code. People that should attend these sessions include current site builders and Drupal newcomers.”
- Ted Bowman - Drupal is Changing, Quickly: How and Why
- Tuesday, April 25 2:45 PM Room 310, Floor 3
- Tanay Sai & Jayakrishnan Jayabal - Beyond the Solr Eclipse - Building blazing fast Drupal 8 search with Solr and no code
- Wednesday, April 26 12:00 PM Room 316, Floor 3
Symfony - A technical track dedicated to the Symfony Framework and its ecosystem, key technologies in the creation of Drupal 8.
- Nida Ismail Shah - Events: The Object Oriented Hook System
- Wednesday, April 26 2:15 PM Room 315, Floor 3
UX/Content Strategy - Non-technical sessions in and around understanding users, their needs, and creating experiences that support their business goals.
- Junaid Masoodi - Content Strategy and relation to UX Design
- Wednesday, April 26 2:15 PM Room 308, Floor 3
BoFs - “Birds of a feather flock together.” BoF’s aren’t sessions or presentations. Come discuss a topic with others who share your interest. Here are some topics that Acquians want to talk about with you.
- Kevin Oleary - Themed features and components. Are they the last mile to the fully assembled web?
- Tuesday, April 25 12:00 PM Room 305, Floor 3
- 29 Jakob Perry Conference Organizing in Drupal 8
- with Emilie Nouveau, Adam Weingarten
- Tuesday April 25 1:00 PM Room 306, Floor 3
- Chris Hamper - Drupal Core's Frontend Future
- Wednesday, April 26 3:45 PM Room 304, Floor 3
- Jeff Geerling - Managing Drupal Sites with Composer
- Wednesday, April 26 3:45 PM Room 305, Floor 3
- Chris Urban - Managing Large Scale Projects
- Wednesday, April 26 3:45 PM Room 306, Floor 3
- Amin Astaneh (BoF): Q/A Session for “¡Viva la Revolución!- How to Start a DevOps Transformation at your Workplace"
- Thursday, April 27 10:45 AM Room 307, Floor 3