Every year DrupalCon brings the community together. This year we were fortunate enough to have eleven of our team come together in Baltimore! We had a ton of fun while Drupaling and want to share a few of our favorite moments!
Session / BoF / Training / Track / Summit:
Aimee's Favorite Session / BoF
I didn’t go to many other than my own due to being a good parent, but I did enjoy the engagement and feedback from the attendees of my View Modes session and the follow-up View Modes BoF. This was the first time I thought to book a BoF directly after my session to capture all the hard questions and “let’s test that” activities but everyone who came was engaged and I got great feedback about the scheduling.
AmyJune's Favorite Session / Track
Last year, I couldn’t get into some of my selected sessions because they were so full. So, this year, guaranteed my attendance volunteering to be a room monitor for several of the sessions, and helping the speakers with whatever they needed felt pretty good….even if a couple of them just needed someone in the corner giving them a thumbs up for support.
And, of course, I thoroughly enjoyed the after hours "Beer Track".
photo credit: AmyJune Hineline
Chris's Favorite Sessions
Building reusable websites on Drupal 8: lessons learned from transforming rednoseday.com - interesting to see the workflow, some useful ideas.
How we develop Organic Groups 8 after 2 years with Elm - still trying to figure out what Amitai is up to!!!
Darryl's Favorite Session / BoF
Pattern Lab BoF and Docksal: Better Than VMs. The Pattern Lab BoF covered a lot more nitty gritty than I am ready for, which is great because it got me excited to use it. I found Docksal from Google searching a few months ago, and after it just came up and worked on my dev environment, including supporting multiple images of PHP (we still have some work on Drupal 6!), switched everything over from VDD (Vagrant on VirtualBox). It’s faster and takes up a lot less RAM, and now I know how to do more with it!
Genevieve's Favorite Session / Track
For entertainment value (along with useful information) I think my favorite session was Content Strategy in Popular Culture, Part Deux.
I were to pick a favorite track, I would have to choose the Being Human track.
Kristin (K2)'s Favorite Session / BoF
My favorite session was 15+ Ways to Debug Drupal 8 (for Front-Enders). Zakiya is always great to watch and is a wonderful frontend developer. I’m a fan!
Kristen's Favorite Session / BoF
I loved K2's Setting Up a D8 Frontend Environment talk. She's so fun and cheerful and she made us stand up and stretch! I also really enjoyed Aimee's Harnessing the Power of View Modes session and that there was so much interest that the BoF afterwards had quite a few people in it. I learned a Display Suite setting I didn't know existed! :) I also became a Drupal 7 Certified "Grand Master" by taking 3 (!) exams at DrupalCon. Whew!
photo credit: @AcquiaAcademy
John's Favorite Summit
The Business Summit over-all was kick-ass. I am completely surprised at myself for liking the CPA Forecasting with Metrics best.
Idil's Favorite Summit / Session
The Business Summit was awesome. I walked away with lots of little nuggets about project management and team collaboration. Most entertaining you asked? Project Management: The Musical.
photo credit: Michael Cannon via flickr
Tom's Favorite Session
I think my favorite session was Extending your application to the edge: best practices for using a CDN. It is interesting that all the business logic can now be handled at the CDN-edge.
Social Events:
Aimee's Favorite Social Event
Women in Drupal and Lullabot + Pantheon party were great for different reasons. We had a great turnout for Ladies Night and who wouldn’t love playing with all the cool toys at the science museum?!
photo credit: Tom Baker
AmyJune's Favorite Social Event
Women In Drupal, for sure. I didn’t collect any names on my bingo card, but the card was great permission to go up and ask who had been to a Dead show. Watching Joseph eat a whole side of pig at dinner afterward was pretty entertaining too.
Chris's Favorite Social Event
Probably would have to be the Team Dinner, more relaxed than the big parties, and no worrying about offending anyone!
Darryl's Favorite Social Event
Pantheon Partner Dinner: It’s worth being a partner just for that! (It doesn’t hurt that Pantheon is a great partner, too.)
Genevieve's Favorite Social Event
Of course, the Lullabot + Pantheon party is always fun, but I think my favorite social event was actually just going out to dinner with all (or at least most) of the Hook 42 team every night!
K2's Favorite Social Event
It has to be me and AmyJune at the Sponsor Cocktail hour. We found out our founders Aimee and Kristen weren’t going to go to the sponsor cocktail hour so we crashed the party by going up and saying “We’re Kristin and Amy from Hook 42”. They bought it and we got our free Heineken!
Kristen's Favorite Social Event
The Lullabot + Pantheon party at the science museum was very cool. I skyped the event to my kids and the oldest was super jealous of the dinosaurs!
photo credit: Kristen Pol
John's Favorite Social Event
All the conversations.
Idil's Favorite Social Event
Lullabot + Pantheon party at the History Museum! Love the dinosaurs and the photo booth!
photo credit: photos.snapfiesta.com
Tom's Favorite Social Event
Women In Drupal at Luckie's Tavern.
Conversation:
Aimee's Favorite Conversation
Josh Koenig and Zach Rosen from Pantheon. 2 conversations. 2 different nights. 2 different topics. Both about babies, business, and badass tech. Love the family focus and support! :)
AmyJune's Favorite Conversation
Discussing the "real" reason why C batteries still exist.
Chris's Favorite Conversation
Why do they still sell C size batteries?
Darryl's Favorite Conversation
Practicing my labial fricatives with Ryan Maxwell. So much to learn!
K2's Favorite Conversation
Had to be every conversation I saw AmyJune have with all the wonderful random people. If they were next to us, she talked to them. So great to have an extrovert next to me :)
Kristen's Favorite Conversation
Discussing what the heck "lump crab" is with Idil, Chris, and Genevieve at lunch.
John's Favorite Conversation
Margarita fueled random talk during the team dinner at the Blue Agave.
photo credit: our gracious server at Blue Agave
Idil's Favorite Conversation
What on earth is “lump crab”?
Tom's Favorite Conversation
I couldn’t hear all the words, but it sure looked intense!
photo credit: Tom Baker
SWAG:
Aimee's Favorite SWAG
Oh, the Pantheon shirts. Always. My collection is growing and our team looks like we work there when we go out to lunch. It is quite fun!
AmyJune's Favorite SWAG
Does the free beer from EY count? I have Genevieve to thank for that; She was nice enough to fetch me a pilsner while I was room monitoring.
Chris's Favorite SWAG
Some great tshirts this year, Thinkshout had some nice ones! The Echidna that went to my cats.
photo credit: AmyJune Hineline
Darryl's Favorite SWAG
I’m swagged out! The only thing I picked up was a webcam sliding cover.
Genevieve's Favorite SWAG
The completionist in me has to choose the Pantheon t-shirt. Although it isn’t technically swag, I did enjoy all the booths that gave out candy or cookies ;)
K2's Favorite SWAG
Pantheon t-shirt (I’m a traditionalist).
Kristen's Favorite SWAG
My son's stickers turned out great and were fun to hand out. It was also super cool that Evolving Web was giving out carnations and encouraging people to give #drupalthanks.
sticker designs: Aaron Deutsch
John's Favorite SWAG
Mug, I’ll add it to the collection - though I like the quality of the Pantheon Tshirts.
Idil's Favorite Booth
Not SWAG - the ping-pong table and basketball hoop at the Four Kitchens' booth were very cool. Thanks for playing with me Chris!
Tom's Favorite Booth / SWAG
Was it Four Kitchens that had all the games?… like Connect Four.
photo credit: Tom Baker
Favorite SWAG? That little squishy robot thing that Ryan ate the foot off of from Distil Networks.
photo credit: Tom Baker
Baltimore:
Aimee's Favorite Thing About Baltimore
Mr. Trash Wheel, the trash eating harbor cleaning solar powered little guy.
Thank you for making such a lovely walking area around the harbor free of filth. :)
photo credit: http://baltimorewaterfront.com
AmyJune's Favorite Thing About Baltimore
I didn’t venture out too far from the convention center and hotel...but, I did find my most Eastern geocache: Med School Days - America's First Medical School with a couple of other suckers, oops, I mean Drupalers, who I recruited from the Convention Center.
Chris's Favorite Thing About Baltimore
Didn’t see much, but the aquarium was nice, apart from the dolphins they had there which was very sad.
Darryl's Favorite Thing About Baltimore
Visiting the Train Museum.
Genevieve's Favorite Thing About Baltimore
I didn’t get to see as much of the city as I had hoped, but I did get to check out the National Aquarium and see an Archer Fish so that was fun. If you haven’t seen one, go look it up on YouTube.
K2's Favorite Thing About Baltimore
The waterfront was just stunning, what a beautiful place to spend and evening.
photo credit: Kristen Pol
Kristen's Favorite Thing About Baltimore
Lump crab!
John's Favorite Thing About Baltimore
I thoroughly enjoyed the art displays at American Visionary Art Museum. We had a multi-layered conversation with the founder and director that designed the Matt Sesow gallery. She told us about her interactions with the artist, his art, and his life.
photo credit: John Carr
Idil's Favorite Thing About Baltimore
The waterfront / inner harbor is stunning!
Tom's Favorite Thing About Baltimore
The B&O Railroad Museum, the birthplace of American Railroading.
Overall:
Aimee's Favorite Overall DrupalCon Takeaway
At DrupalCon - The people. The community is why I got into Drupal and why I stay. This is the first year we traveled with a baby and were heavily engaged in DrupalCon speaking and organizing events. Everyone was so good to see and provided a helpful, happy, and loving environment.
photo credit: @drupaldiversity
AmyJune's Favorite Overall DrupalCon Takeaway
Spending so much time with the Hook 42 team! And being nefarious with K2 and “sneaking” into the sponsor party because Heineken tastes better when it’s free.
Chris's Favorite Overall DrupalCon Takeaway
Meeting up with people, getting a feeling of where things are at in the community, what is the upcoming technologies that focus is being placed on, feeling a bit more motivated to get interesting things done!!!
Darryl's Favorite Overall DrupalCon Takeaway
Getting to see the Air and Space Museum!
Genevieve's Favorite Overall DrupalCon Takeaway
I don’t know what my favorite thing was… I think each year I just enjoy the mixture of seeing the team, seeing a city, and learning a few new things.
K2's Favorite Overall DrupalCon Takeaway
Just spending time with my team from Hook 42! From our mascot Baby Ryan to all the catching up with the team, it was so great to spend time with everyone!
Kristen's Favorite Overall DrupalCon Takeaway
Hanging out with the team and seeing all the friendly Drupal faces I normally only see once or twice a year.
John's Favorite Overall DrupalCon Takeaway
I loved the long conversations with the team. It was an example of necessary connection we talked about in the business summit. And it was GENUINE. No one put on airs or fed anyone else corporate bullshit. It was “this is who I am” take it or leave it.
Idil's Favorite Overall DrupalCon Takeaway
Hanging out with the Hook 42 team! I feel lucky to be working with such smart and talented people.
Tom's Favorite Overall DrupalCon Takeaway
Ryan celebrating 9-months on the outside at DC.
photo credit: Tom Baker