What gets you up in the morning at DrupalCon? The smell of fresh brewed coffee filling the conference halls? First shift of booth duty?
Or is it the keynotes?
On Wednesday and Thursday morning, DrupalCons typically feature technology thought leaders like Jared Spool, Karen McGrane, and Jeremy Keith to kick off the conference that day.
We’re in the process of selecting keynotes for DrupalCon Austin and Amsterdam, and before we go any further in the planning process, we want to hear from you!
What was the last great keynote you attended, and what made it great?
Who would you sacrifice an extra hour of sleep at DrupalCon to see?
What if we stopped having Wednesday and Thursday keynotes altogether?
I bet you have some great ideas, and I’d love to hear them! Share your thoughts in the comments below, or ping me directly via email.
Stephanie El-Hajj
Program Coordinator, DrupalCon
stephanie@association.drupal.org
Comments
A few favorites
The best keynotes are the ones that challenge Drupal to be better. Better at what can vary, but challenges us to be better.
Among my notable favorites are Jeremy Keith's HTML5 talk in CPH (I think I am far from alone in Drupal in "getting" HTML5 that day), Karen McGrane's superb session in Portland (not everyone liked her take on inline editing, I'm sure, but it's a message we need to hear), and Lisa Welchman's talk in Prague (how many of us have been saying we need to be thiking about structure and governance, and that "big pool of people" doesn't count?)
Sometimes we need a little tough love, well-delivered.
Don't you dare cancel they keynotes... It's DrupalCon. We need good keynotes more than we need the sleep. :-)
Thanks for the feedback Crell
Thanks for the feedback Crell - that's a good metric, something that challenges Drupal (and drupal users) to be better and do better.
The last few years I found
The last few years I found myself skipping more and more keynotes, there contents are more and more general - which makes it hard to see their practical use. Jared Spool his session was both thought provoking and pratical, having a good mix of that would be great to see.
I could personally go with one keynote less, if that means we can get a extrodinary speaker in. Core contributors will always lean towards keynotes that are on the product/architectual level and provokes thought on how we position and develop Drupal. However I am not sure how applicable that actually is to the larger audience of the keynotes.
There is one constant, and that is Dries his session. I have always loved his insperational sessions where he believes Drupal should go, however in the past few years we have gotten fewer of those. The feature list keynotes, are not really insperational - although undoubtfully interesting for some of the audience. I hope that can be mixed a little more.
Thanks Bojhan - I appreciate
Thanks Bojhan - I appreciate your historical perspective on keynotes at DrupalCon. Many of us who plan DrupalCon haven't been around as long.
Maybe you can help us better target the keynotes that you *would* go see. Who are some examples of people you enjoyed seeing recently, not at a DrupalCon?
I agree with Bojhan - they've
I agree with Bojhan - they've tended to be too general and it's hard to be motivated to go to them. Having one less would be fine if it meant the organizers could spend more effort recruiting or working with their top choice.
For example, Lisa Welchman's talk in Prague had the potential to have a lot of impact, but I felt like it wasn't informed enough by the current situation of Drupal governance to be useful.
Aral Balkan was enjoyable because of his high energy, but it felt in the end like a bit of a sales pitch.
As much as i am always fond of Dries, I think he's also not put the same level of prep and energy into his keynotes recently - perhaps he sometimes needs to give a keynote and sometimes just a "Drupal features & status" session.
For me, if hte keynote is leading off the day it needs to be high energy, and as Crell suggests it should challenge or provoke us to do better as a community or software project.
High-energy, inspiring, thought-provoking
Along the lines of what pwolanin said, a keynote should get you thinking and have some energy.
I've only been to the 2013 Portland Drupalcon, and really like McGrane's presentation. It was relevant without being insider-y and challenged the way we've been doing things. She made me think about my users and how to make Drupal easier for them, and made me think about how to keep the content creators/maintainers in mind.
It seems a good keynote speaker needs to only have a peripheral relationship with Drupal but can touch on issues that developers, site builders, content strategists, user experience folks and others care about. That may be touching on end-user issues and frustrations with interfaces or accessibility, or talking about trends in communications, technology or even law.
McGrane didn't know much about Drupal, but she did know how people use a CMS and she knows communications. It's hard to imagine anyone coming away from her talk without having something to think about.
I want my keynote speaker to give me a problem to solve, a new paradigm, or a challenge to the way we've always done things. Some inspiration, some razzle-dazzle, some left-field, out-of-the-box thinking.
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How about an open source futurist? . . .
Is it a given or would it be useful to get someone like Beth Simone Noveck (former US Deputy Chief Technology Officer) to talk about open government potential for Drupal . . . from "Howard Dean" to "Whitehouse.gov" to "what's next?"
Maybe she has insight on a future administration's demand for what will be D8, or untapped markets we could be scoping now, or in the the least a rubric for keeping our work indispensable.
By the way, it looks like she created http://cloud.cio.gov (a Drupal site) and is bookable through http://www.apbspeakers.com/speaker/beth-simone-noveck (a Drupal site).
re: having people that can talk about ...
We need strong motivators, visionaries and unique people to mark out territories and hidden realms that Drupal would flourish in moving forward. I, for one, would love to hear this speaker or others that can push the envelope of where Drupal can grow (hint: drupal as a framework - CRMs). Keynotes, imho, are supposed to be the edge pushers and the visionaries. We have had some excellent talks in the past and I don't always attend every keynote but I do attend keynotes I find relevant, fresh, educational and debate worthy. Thanks for asking.
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