future

We're just a few days away from DrupalCamp Colorado 2008 and things are becoming more and more tangible by the minute. Just now I got a package in the mail at the new offices.

The stickers just happen to be 2"x4" which is exactly the right size to emblazon them on the back of your iPhone. Ever since lijit gave it to me my phone has rocked a lijit sticker:

but now...at least for the next week...it's a DrupalCamp phone:

About quarter of the calls I get are organizing the camp so it seems only fitting.

If you're not convinced by these stickers that this will be a rocking weekend, here are the sessions.

Also, my best to the sticker's designer Don Hajicek and to the other logo designer amytremper.

Ah, it's that time again. Time to plan for summer concerts. A quick review of all the craptastic concert calendar sites shows me too many artists coming to town this summer. Who should I see?

• ColoradoInfo.com which is pretty disorganized...but seems decent.
• Westwords Concert Search which is just plain overwhelming
• DenverPost.com Summer Concert Calendar
• Boulder Daily Camera less complete, easier to digest, not Boulder focused (odd, that last bit)
• Denver Botanic Gardens Concerts which are, at least somewhat, already sold out!
• KBCO Concert List which should be awesome but, is kind of hard to navigate. What's up with the website, guys, 3 clicks to get to the concert list?

The coolest thing to stick on your blog this days (since the release of Drupal6) is a series of screencast videos about Drupal6. Below are some of the videos about Drupal6 and the HTML you need to embed them into your blog. This page should make it easy for you to help spread the word about the Drupal6: Just pick your favorite video (or 3) and post them to your blog.

Note that for the first three videos they are "cc-by-sa" which requires the attribution link be to MasteringDrupal.com while the third is by Addison Berry of Lullabot.

New Features in Drupal6

Whey even bother with an upgrade? Well, the New Features in Drupal6 video should help get you excited to upgrade.

Let's say that you live in Denver and you have an old bike that you're getting rid of. Or, let's say that you don't really like our petroleum-economy. Or, both! The solution is, frankly, quite simple: Derailer Bicycle Collective.

As you can read from their own website, the organization is based on the idea that

because bicycles are the most affordable, sustainable, efficient, healthy, environmentally friendly, FUN, and liberating form of transportation and recreation, the Derailer Bicycle Collective aims to teach and share knowledge about bikes and bike maintenance to anyone and everyone

Good enough for me!

What I couldn't believe was the feeling at the place. It felt like I was in the middle of the revolution. Working poor who need bikes to live their lives, bicycle aficionados, and a handful of folks in between all getting together to build a better world one spoke at a time. Literally. Before the doors even opened there were at least 30 people chatting about what they were going to do that day to get themselves rolling on a bike or help someone else build a life rolling on a bike.

At the DrupalCon Barcelona one of the panels I lead was about (Dis)Organizing Local User Group Events. I still haven't decided what to talk about at the upcoming Boston Drupalcon but I'm sure it will be Roxxorz. I've been roped pursuaded into discussing SEO in Drupal and Userpoints. Personally, I think Prediction Markets are interesting enough to merit their own presentation (now to see about getting them ready to demo).

Now, that plug out of the way, what I really want to discuss is a problem that faces most Drupal User Groups.

Local User Group Two Hump Problem

About 2 years ago I started reaching out to folks in Denver to start the Denver/Boulder Drupal User Group (DBUG for short). From the first meeting it seemed clear: the skill levels were grouped around two distinct and competing centers:

Lots of people were still trying to figure out how to pronounce Drupal - we knew them from the second they showed up "Is this the drooo-PAWL meeting?" And then there was a nother group at the other end, the "Yeah, I just patched the form.inc so I could thrombulate the widgetizer." There were relatively few people in the middle or at either extreme.

As we're on our year long trip Nikki and I have read a lot of books. We find that without as many friends, family, and normal recreational activities there's a lot more time for touristing but also more time for reading. This has been great. The last 5 months I've read more non-technical books than the past 5 years (seriously).

At that same time - we're fresh out of reading material! I (Greg) will be coming back to the states for a usability work session at the University of Minnesota and then for Drupalcon Boston. It's going to be great.

While I'm home I'll be bringing back books we finished down here (and some wine) and hope to make a big purchase of books to bring back down.

Recently the folks from the Democract Convention Committee were looking to hire a Web/Drupal savvy person in the Denver area. They posted to Craigslist, I added it to Groups.Drupal.org but what else can you do?

There are several good places in Denver to find tech-savvy employees (likewise, if you are looking for work, pay attention to these places that advertise jobs):

• Craigslist Denver Web Jobs is of course the 800 pound gorilla, massive listings and traffic, and free. Always a good place to post your ad.
• RMIUG (Rocky Mountain Internet User Group has probably the best email based job board via the rmiug-jobs Yahoo Group. Be sure to read the FAQ before posting.
• Groups.Drupal.org's job postings get a really targeted (Denver + Drupal) audience of folks.
• Colorado Startups Job Board which is pretty thinly trafficked, but I have hope for this one.
• Denver Webdesign Meetup Group has a message board that is pretty job friendly
• Boulder/Denver New Tech Meetup Group has a job announcements section at the beginning of the meetings.

And if emailing and posting on all of these fail, you might want to actually go to one or two of the meetings and get to know folks and mention your needs. That seems to work even better than just posting emails.

Did I miss any? What do you use?