Our trip to Amsterdam started really exciting. We bumped into a traffic jam caused by a car crash, that we could hardly leave so we almost delayed the check-in at the airport... Luckily we reached the flight, the engine was turned on and we sank into the seat while we were flying towards the sky. I was thinking about what to expect from this year’s Drupalcon.
Integral Vision
Our trip to Amsterdam started exciting. We bumped into a traffic jam caused by a car crash that we could hardly leave, so we almost delayed the check-in at the airport. Luckily we reached the flight, and we sank into the seat while we were flying towards the sky. I was thinking about what to expect from this year’s Drupalcon. Four of us attend at the conference, Marci participates in code sprints, Tamás helps the attendees as a mentor, István visits the presentations, and I’m mainly focusing on business relationships. All of us are here because we are interested in the present and future of Drupal.
Amsterdam, the two-face siren
We approached the hotel with an apathetic taxi driver, after taking up the rooms we decided to hop on a tram and take a look around the downtown.
Amsterdam has at least two faces: one of them is the environment-friendly, conscious and free, the other one is like a (pervert) hippie who has just got high. Dozens of pubs and coffee shops are waiting for the adventurers, thousands of people use a bicycle for everyday transportation, just a couple of cars pollute the air, which makes the whole city much more relaxed and livable.
Going along the red light district after a couple of beers is like participating in a utopia. It was like lucid dreaming.
This year’s Drupalcon
More than 2000 drupalists was interested in Drupalcon 2014.; there are twice more stands, than it was last year, more and more companies start to take a more active part in community events. Last year in Prague, I had a feeling that we stumbled a bit, as even the approximate launch date of D8 was unsure that generated doubt in people. With the announcement of the D8 beta launch, everything seems brighter, feels like we managed to get over the ‘deadlock.’
The keynote
We were listening to Dries' presentation from the back row. He came in, started his speech with continuous hawking, and amid frequent apologies, he told, that he won’t say even a word about Acquia.
His meta-communication and verbal expressions were not that we accustomed to during the previous years; the story just didn’t hold together. I began to suspect; something just wasn’t right. Is it possible that a leader like Dries can be such powerless? A little later, when the speaker started to talk about Wunderkraut, I realized that this trick is a well-elaborated Sponsor hack, an imitator took Dries’ place, and from that distance, I didn’t perceive.
Finally, Dies arrived, the imitator left, and he started to tell a short story about his trip to Japan and China, then presented the topic of the keynote. It was a delicate presentation with a couple of wimples, the concept and the main idea dragged my attention. The keynote was about the power of Drupal and other open-source products that the improvement of them is a common interest of the community. I highly recommended reading his blog post about the topic.
Driesasmus program
The events of the last three days provided an excellent opportunity to build new relationships, maintain the old ones, and just be around. One of the evenings, we were at a pub, having a beer with a few Dutch guys and talking enthusiastically about my great idea about ‘Driesasmus’ scholarship. According to my idea, the main point would be to ‘change’ developers among the community companies for -let’s say- one year, thereby providing the possibility for the participants to improve themselves. It would also be great for the companies on the one hand because of ‘experience-change,’ language learning and cultural aspects, moreover, it would strengthen the cooperation of the companies. According to them, it was not that great, no matter how enthusiastically I tried to introduce the attractions of Budapest nightlife.
Later I had a conversation with another company about Agile methods, after a while the other party declared that Agile methods are dead, the success of it is just recrudescence, a kind of hype that won’t last too long. I was like, “Come on, then we -at Integral Vision have been dead for five years…” I expected to hear something new and exciting on this topic, but it hasn’t happened so far.
Photos: https://www.flickr.com/groups/drupalconamsterdam/
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