Chaotic Drupal Association?

Jacob Redding — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 19:20:21 +0000

Over a month ago I applied to be on the board of the Drupal association. Since being introduced to Drupal by the good folks at Openflows, while I was working at MNN, I have become heavily involved in the community. I have always been a big fan of OSS but watching the Drupal community interact is absolutely amazing. The more I watch(ed) the interaction the more I want(ed) to be involved.

When I lived in NYC I helped hold the monthly meetups and helped out with the Drupalcamps. I simply wanted people to get together to exchange knowledge, build a network and, most of all, get involved in their community. People told me that I was good at the organizing thing so I decided to go ahead and apply for an event organization position.

I'm not sure if the current members of the board read my application but it clearly states that I'm all for chaos. I love chaos, no I heart chaos. To be fair I did say "Organized Chaos" but its still chaos nonetheless. I don't think the association should impose or even attempt to place structure on the camps, meetups, cons, etc. People should do whatever the heck they want to do.

Well they voted and I got in. In fact I didn't just make it into a permanent member position I made it all the way into the board. They voted chaos onto the board. Wackos!

Its been about a week now and the one thing I can really say about this board and the elections is this: In an election one might normally say "I will fight for this or that". There is absolutely no fighting on this board despite there being disagreements. Everyone on this board has an ability to hear the different sides of an argument and work together for the betterment of the community. Its actually quite amazing.

I'm excited to work with these people!

Now getting back to my application and this idea of chaos you might ask "well what are you doing then"? In a nutshell I am going to do my best to provide the resources so that you can create your own meetup, your own camp, your own ????. Who knows what that is. I will not, however, tell you what to do. You run the meetups, camps, etc. its your show and you get to do it however you want. I'm just a guide.

The chaos comes from having no cookie cutter mold. We're not setting up a DrupalCamp franchise and you can't have fries with that. Drupal is what you make of it but if you need some guidance I'll do what I can to help you myself or get you in touch with those that can.

I'm excited to work with people like Robert Garrigos (of awesome DrupalCon Barcelona fame) whom applied but then revoked his application so that I would have a better chance. Honestly I think he was a better choice but I digress. I know him and I will work together on a lot of things and I'm excited to see what he does this year.
I'm excited to work with some great folks in the Philippines, China, Spain, France, Switzerland and, of course, throughout the U.S. Those are only the countries with Drupalers that I'm currently speaking with. I can't wait to work for that that I haven't spoken with yet.

2008 is going to incredibly exciting with a lot of great changes coming to Drupal. I hope to add my tiny part to the massive Drupal community.