Gravity Works Has Large Presence at DrupalCon Europe 2023
Gravity Works had the pleasure of attending DrupalCon Europe from October 17–20, 2023 at the Lille Grand Palais in Lille, France. It was the largest group of team members that we’ve ever had attend a conference abroad!
Drupal is an open source platform for building amazing digital experiences made by a dedicated community, including some of our team members here at Gravity Works. Each year, DrupalCon hosts these conferences as an international educational event that brings together people who use, develop, design and support the Drupal platform, such as ourselves.
Throughout these four days, our team attended a variety of workshops, lectures, speaker series, fun activities, and discussions about a range of topics from technology, to culture, to food. With over 100 sessions and four impactful keynote speakers, there was no shortage of learning and improving not only our individual skills but also Gravity Works as a whole.
Best of DrupalCon Europe
Being In-Person with the Team
Being a fully remote company, Gravity Works team members greatly valued and thoroughly enjoyed the time they were able to see their peers in-person. With team members from all across the United States, this event was an opportunity for some peers to meet one another in-person for the first time. For others, it was a much-needed time for socialization and connection. DrupalCon provided a space for team members to come together and share experiences in and outside of the conference itself. Our team was able to grow our skills and our connections with one another.
Memorable Experiences
From the morning ritual breakfasts at La P’tite Boulangerie, to competitive trivia nights, participating in individual competitions throughout the conference, Bollywood dancing, late night gelato runs, and brainstorming ways to implement lessons learned from the conference into our company, this four day experience was very memorable and valuable in many ways.
The morning breakfast ritual helped recap events from the previous day and hype our team up for the next day of events, as well as delight our taste buds with the deliciousness of a French breakfast. Tying for second place in trivia was a fun way to refresh our seasoned Drupal team members and help educate our team members who are newer to the Drupal community. The individual competitions inspired one of our own team members to participate so enthusiastically throughout the whole conference that they took first place. The Bollywood dance class was not only an exhilarating physical activity but also a unique opportunity to learn more about Indian culture. Late night gelato runs brought to life the dreamy city of Lille.
And lastly, the discussions that happened during dinners together with the team sparked inspiration and motivation to make improvements not only in individual skills but also long-term improved processes across the company.
Diversity and Inclusion
Our team was happy to see how welcoming, inviting, inclusive, and approachable the DrupalCon community and its attendees were to one another. With attendees being from all around the globe, this conference was extremely diverse not only in culture but also in roles in the tech industry. We were able to foster strong connections with other members of different international companies as well as those heavily involved in the DrupalCon community itself.
The support, enduring passion, and celebration of Drupal within this vibrant community was overwhelming. People genuinely wanted to share, learn, and grow together. Our team felt DrupalCon did a great job of creating a positive atmosphere for facilitating meaningful connections.
Keynote Speaker/Session/Workshop Highlights
Sarah Furness on Living Fearlessly
The most inspiring session was titled “Fly Higher — How to Lead Fearlessly,” by Sarah Furness. The most important takeaway from her session was that the biggest thing that will get in your way is yourself. She talked about how to get out of your own way to reach your full potential and then get out of others’ way to allow them to reach their fullest potential.
Her experience as a fighter pilot provided a few insights into what helped her become a leader in that field. Not only did she forgive herself for being human, she learned to own up to the mistakes that she needed to forgive herself, take ownership of those mistakes, and share the mistakes she made to multiply the learning.
Being self aware and mindful are two of the biggest things she does to get out of her own way. She also talked about the qualities that make a good leader and to always be yourself because imposter syndrome is real, but the mask will slip and your authentic self will always come out eventually!
Dries Butaert on Future of Drupal 10
Some of the notable improvements mentioned in this talk dealt with User Experience, displays, and content integration. Improving the mini-teaser/preview that users see when building out content is in the works of being revamped for improved User Experience. Reusable entities that display more pertinent information was also a notable feature that will be implemented in Drupal 10.
Other notable improvements included faster machine name generation and content type entities being more visually distinct and personalized. These updates will help us improve our training guides and templates we provide to our clients.
Accessibility Session
The Accessibility session provided new resources to help find accessibility errors. The session also provided tips regarding what to remember when entering accessible content like establishing a clear heading, opt for actual text instead of text embedded images, and ensure one provides recognizable links (e.g. “Submit” button). The overarching theme of the session was the importance of prioritizing accessibility.
Accessibility is not just an added feature but a fundamental aspect of user experience design. By ensuring that our content is accessible, we can significantly enhance user satisfaction, thereby continuing to uphold and promote a positive brand image. In today’s digital age, providing an inclusive and accessible digital experience is not just a nice-to-have, but a must-have.
Board Game Session
The game session was a Bof (Birds of a Feather) session which is an informal gathering surrounding a specific topic that people share interest in. Often these BoF sessions were Drupal-related, but this was specifically to give attendees a chance to take a brain break from technical work and socialize.
A few of our team members attended and were the only people from the United States — everyone else was from different countries and one of the participants even translated all the instructions into French for one of the women there.
It was a fun challenge to play competitive games with people the team had never met that center around strategy and bluffing. It encouraged them all to talk, banter, and quickly get to know one another. Later that night, one of the guys from the board game sessions congratulated our team on our Trivia performance since he recognized us as we were walking up to get our reward.
Amy June on Drupal Contributor Workshop
Amy June’s First Time Contributors Workshop session was chock-full of useful information to help show that anyone, regardless of what their job or their skill level is, can help contribute and give back to the open source community. She went over reasons to contribute and why it is important to do so, the different types of contribution — whether it’s improving documentation, reviewing content or code, marketing, mentoring, etc. — and issue queue and merge request etiquette. Amy was a great speaker, and was very passionate about what she does. Her care for the community made our team want to strive to start helping out where we can.
What We Learned From DrupalCon
Documentation/Organization
Documentation was one of the topics our team thought about throughout the conference. Ways to improve our documentation process became a focal point. With constant changes and improvements throughout the project, keeping an organized record of the latest documentation is critical. We strive to keep everyone on our team and our clients informed and up to date on the project. New ideas, tips, and suggestions came about from the sessions and conversations beyond the conference.
Content Integration Improvements
With Drupal 10 in the making, one of the things to look forward to is its improvements in content integration. With changes like showing previews as a user builds out a page will vastly improve content integration by allowing users to see what they are building in real time and be informed on how things will look, giving them the ability to make quick decisions on whether to build a page this way or another way. Secondly, having the ability to build a component out once and replicate it on another page will also add to the efficiency of content integration. Our team is very excited to have these capabilities in the near future.
Peer Code Review
This is something that our team would like to implement soon. Having the opportunity to review others’ code and have one’s own code reviewed has many benefits. Being able to learn tips and tricks from one another as well as fix any mistakes and get past roadblocks. With a better understanding of each other’s unique code style, we would be better able to help out one another on projects as needed.
Leadership
Leadership expands beyond just the head of the company or project managers. The Mirriam-Webster definition of leadership is “the capacity to guide the actions of a person or group.” This definition highlights the ability to lead individuals or groups of people in any capacity. This includes developers leading clients through a training on how the website is integrating data and information, or designers leading developers through their design functionality, or our front end developers leading our content team in the effective ways to integrate content on the website. Leadership is another topic that was threaded throughout the conference and one that we wish to focus more on across the board.
Future of DrupalCon
DrupalCon’s future is very bright. With DrupalCon 2024 scheduled to take place in Barcelona, Spain, our team looks forward to attending again next year and continue improving our processes in security, documentation, general health and wellbeing,
The amount of women making strides in the tech industry was awe inspiring and we are excited to see them continue to prosper in the future.
As for improvements within Drupal itself, efforts have been made to improve the User Experience. Our own team was inspired to give back to the Drupal community by participating in open-source projects as well as other contributional work. We have actively been involved in responding to issues on drupal.org that need reviews or code updates.
In Summary
Gravity Works participated in DrupalCon Europe 2023, held in Lille, France. The in-person event allowed team members from across the United States to connect, share experiences, and enhance skills.
The conference featured diverse and inclusive interactions, fostering connections with professionals globally. Memorable activities, inspiring keynotes, and engaging sessions highlighted the four-day experience. Key takeaways included a focus on documentation, anticipation of content integration improvements with Drupal 10, the value of peer code review, and a broadened perspective on leadership.
Looking forward, Gravity Works is excited about DrupalCon’s future and is committed to contributing to the Drupal community through open-source projects. Overall, DrupalCon 2023 proved to be a transformative journey for Gravity Works, influencing our approach to website design and development.
