We sponsored this year’s NYC Drupal Camp, and Sean, Jeff, Justin, and myself packed up and headed down for an extended weekend in NYC. The trip started on a Thursday so I could be there on time for my presentation on Friday morning. On Saturday I was presenter at two more sessions, and we left Sunday after participating in some code sprints. It was a great camp and a great trip! Upon arrival Thursday, and after settling in, we went out for snacks and drinks. We stumbled upon a Jazz club around the corner from our hotel.
This was perfect! Good drinks, good music, good seats, and a good time. Very relaxing first night. We turned in at a decent hour and got a good amount of rest for the next day. The presentation that I gave on Friday morning, Thinking in Drupal, was one I had given a few times before, but this was by far the best time yet. The room was packed with a very inquisitive and eager audience.
One of my goals for this presentation is that it be very approachable and interactive. My audience was a major partner in the big success of this goal. Slides in PDF form here. Friday was a great success for the camp as well. The intentions of the Friday sessions were for them to function as a beginners’ bootcamp. From feedback on my session and what I heard from many other attendees about other sessions, Friday was a hit.
On Saturday morning we set up our sponsor table. We had prepared an interactive way to demo one of our modules and exchange swag, prizes and information with passing attendees. People could “purchase” our swag using an iPad and our Commerce POS module. We had a receipt printer connected via AirPrint for the receipt to print on, creating a cool take away with our info on it. We also had a payment type where they could pay with their email address, test out our signature field (Canvas Field integration), and be entered to win a Starbucks Gift Card. (Winners announced at the end of the article)*
I did a presentation later in the day on Commerce POS and its roots and future in Drupal. Despite the most number of surprise A/V technical difficulties I’ve ever experienced in a single presentation, there were some very productive discussions toward the end of the session which made it all well worth it. After presenting as part of an agile roundtable, I joined the rest of the crew and headed to the keynotes. I particularly enjoyed Larry Garfield’s presentation and was relieved to hear his very compelling rationale for pushing Drupal into further alignment with the future of PHP in general.
On Sunday, Jeff put in some hours sprinting while Sean and I networked with the other sponsors and developers in the sponsor area before settling in to work in our own local environments. Sean had some Drupal 7 bugs to square away, while I checked in on the Drupal 8 progress. Having not really checked in on it in some time, I was totally impressed. It installs without issue and I only experienced very minor bugs when running through tasks from my Thinking in Drupal presentation.
After some downtime in Washington Square Park, we caught our bus home. The camp continued the next day with a number of successful summit which I tracked via Twitter while reflecting on what a great experience it was for me. A huge thanks and congratulations to the organizers! Great job!
* For the winners of the Starbucks Gift Cards, I used http://www.random.org to get these winners by order number: 22 and 32. We will contact you shortly with how to claim your prize. Congrats!
