Ah, the spring. So many things happen in the spring. Snow melts. Flowers bloom. The Easter Bunny sells cheap chocolate. People set their clocks ahead in an attempt to confuse their pets. It is also the start of conference season in the northern hemisphere, which means flying about the country talking about Drupal. This year is especially busy, with 10 presentations in 4 cities so far. (Possibly more to come.)
Here's where you'll be able to stalk Crell in the coming weeks:
DrupalJam Chicago: Saturday 27 March
We start off in beautiful Chicago with DrupalJam, a one day intensive training by CDMUG. I'm slated for two sessions: A user-centric introduction to Drupal 7 and a developer-centric crash course in Drupal 7's many API improvements. As I understand it there will also be space for code sprinting in the evening if anyone is so inclined. Tickets are only $50, and several of the speakers will be going on to speak at DrupalCon San Francisco, so if you're in the area it's the cheapest way to get your Drupal fix from the professionals.
Museums and the Web: Wednesday 14 April
Then it's off to Denver for Museums and the Web, the annual conference on, er, museums and the web. (Ironic, isn't it?) Last year Tiffany Farriss and I tag-teamed a 4 hour workshop on remote data handling in Drupal. This year, George DeMet and I will be co-presenting an all-afternoon introduction to Drupal for museum staff. What Drupal is, why it works so well for museums, and how to knock museum sites out of the park with it. If museums are your thing, this is the place to start. As I understand it there are several other Drupal-related sessions at the conference as well.
DrupalCon San Francisco: 17 April - 24 April
There's no rest for the weary, though. George and I will be flying straight from Denver to San Francisco just in time for the Core Developers Summit attached to DrupalCon San Francisco. I've submitted a proposal for the Dev Summit, but we don't know yet who will actually be presenting. (Hint: It's not quite Panels in core, but it's pretty darned close.)
Then there's the main conference itself, of course. I'll be presenting each day, it looks like (which is better than Drupalcon Paris, where I had two sessions literally back to back). Monday kicks off with Objectifying PHP, a gentle introduction to the world of classes, objects, interfaces, and other modern PHP tools that Drupal 7 will be leveraging. Tuesday is an encore presentation of Views for Developers, which will most likely feature the still-shiny Views 3 (assuming Earl says it's safe to talk about by then; stay tuned). And Wednesday sees what will likely be the last public performance of the ever popular Databases: The Next Generation. If you haven't seen the most gratuitously geeky DrupalCon presentation to date, this is your chance! And oh yeah, see how you can leverage the new database API in your own modules.
Besides my solo sessions, though, I will also be part of the Palantir Symphony Orchestra, bringing most of the Palantir team on stage together to talk about how we're planning to take over the non-profit world using Drupal 7, and of course the Drupal Association panel. If you ever wondered what happens over at http://association.drupal.org/ to keep the Drupal community safe from server outages and analyst firms, come on by to see the other side of Drupal at work.
That's just me, though. The rest of Palantir isn't slacking either, and you'll be hard pressed to avoid the Palantir track.
After the conference, I'll also be sticking around for the code sprint on Thursday and a Drupal Association all-day planning meeting Friday, leaving around midnight because I'm just that crazy.
CMS Expo: 3 May - 5 May
After only a week's rest, it's back home to Evanston for the CMS Expo. I will be part of the dedicated all-star Drupal track<?a> along with fellow Drupal luminaries Jeff Eaton, Emma Jane Hogbin, Ryan Szrama, Matt Butcher and fellow Palantiri Colleen Carroll and Steve Fisher, plus many more. And oh yeah, some guy named Dries Buytaert will be a keynote speaker.
Last year I gave two sessions on Drupal site building, but this year I'll be doing a two-part series on developing for Drupal while Colleen takes over the building sub-track.
Nap time
Assuming I live through the next month, I think I'll have earned a nap. I probably won't get it, though. Besides the exciting work going on at Palantir (we have some really slick stuff in the pipeline), there will be work left to push Drupal 7 out the door and then open the flood gates again for Drupal 8. And then DrupalCon Copenhagen is only a few months away...
See you on the circuit.