created on Mon, 2007-11-05 13:12

On the plane back north to Vangroovy - exhausted and brain filled with ideas and some enjoyable observations, here are a few:

Human 2.0 - This Dmitiri lad is the real deal. His themeing session was outstanding as he took the packed standing room only (really) crowd from "what is a theme" all the way through the basics and into crowd-suggested nuances (i.e. themeing per node or per view or per block etc.).

He's a keyboard shortcut wizard, has a great sense of humor, a natural public speaker (with just a wee-est quaver in his voice) and he knows this Drupal and php stuff solid and drives his Mac like a virtuoso. He doesn't post social media stuff anywhere and this was hist first real "meat space" interaction with his community.

Accordingly to my custom, I sat him down for a podcast which i can't wait to release - asked him about future plans, his module contributions, hobbies, and how he came into all this. With the quality and quantity of his contributions and the help he offers via the IRC channel, folks probably assumed he was (another) middle-aged, professional programmer or generous academic.

Age diversity adds spice - Great to see the pure enjoyment derived from sharing to the groups of all ages and experiences. Seeing young Dmitri interacting with the wise-cracking, grey-haired Maury, one could say that age ain't nothing but a number.

Friends everywhere - Fell into great conversations with the Californians who seemed excited we'd made the journey down to participate - Tao, Jasper and all the other folks who but it all together Dajo, Jen, Dan ... made the trip entirely worthwhile with their welcoming attitudes and radiant intelligence.

Quick California moment - Shrimp tacos and horchata aqua fresca lunch and far-ranging chatting with Oliver and others outside at a groovy Mexican cafe before strolling back across the stately Cal campus with lime trees and a clarion clock tower rolling away - ahhh.

Getting better all the time - Drupal can do most *anything* but Drupal needs to do more, more easily to satiate cleints' endless appetite for features. With the massive talent base of coders making it better, the next step is to make Drupal's power and potential easier to explain to those clients. This will result in better clients - ones who take it slow and understand the benefit of contributing back.

Vancouver Drupal Camp - I am spreading the rumour about a Drupal-ized pow wow in YVR - sometime in April perhaps. Bounced some ideas around and will get on a plan of action underway shortly. Probably make it a little bit longer event by making room for some touristy stuff too in order to encourage more out-of-towners to come up.

Likely a combo of a conference and a camp, defiantly space and time for small group "instant sessions," and probably a recruiting event/area of some kind too. Will be checking in with the BAD folks and RCS alum Crystal in LA for tips and best practices and drum up support and collaboration with Bryght, Donat, Social Signal, Element 80, Strutta, Tech Vibes, happyfrog and any other Drupal enthusiasts, entrepreneurs, and builders.

Podcasts galore - I'll edit and release the podcasts over the next couple of weeks. There is an episode with Scales recorded before this newest China trip and another with Michael Fergusson talking about Kinzin/Are you Normal creative marketing strategies etc. and Boris, Francis, Roland and I on Raincity's Drupal debugging day talking about work flow for internal and external work process, plus a Roland, Audrey and I talking about Open Moko (want one ready to go) and other next-gen mobile phone (Google, iPhone). Whew, lots of edu-tainment rolling down the tubes.

All airports are not equal - Alrighty, we're an hour from Seattle, an hour layover, then onto Vancouver, then onto the North Shore by bus and stroll and hopefully home before 2AM Note: Too bad not laying over in PDX - totally my fave US airport - clean, comfortable seating and lounging areas, fine beers and decent food available, Powell's bookstore rather than the usual John Grisham and Bill O'Reilly on display and FREE WI-FI! Ah yes, we got a few hours of productive time on the layover on the way down.

Geek Travel - BTW, is there a geek travel wiki somewhere? You know hotels which actually have proper Internet (for real, not just advertised), hip is nice, and close to the usual conference locations or at least an area with stuff to do close by. I seem to recall one called geekhotels - will check when back online. For the record, the Woodfin Suites in Emeryville was surprisingly decent with a warm outdoor pool and a Trader Joe's across the way.

Oh yeah - Big "cheers" to Francis and Erik - two great, easy-going, hard-working and smart guys - we managed plenty of laughs in lieu of much leisure time and I am pleased to be their linemate.