Right now there is still the Drupal Association retreat in San Francisco going on. I, among other stranded members in the EU, participated via Skype thanks to Cary Gordon (Director or Events).
The main focus of this get together is to define the objectives and focuses and what the DA should really do. This includes writing a new mission statement that will capture the essence of who, what, why and how.
There have also been short discussions about the issue of the trademark, local events, local associations as well as marketing and how the DA is perceived in EU and US. In a previous post, I mentioned a questionnaire conceived especially for this retreat. It turns out, we are all not so far from each other and identified all the same issues, that need resolving step by step. I guess we cannot forget that change doesn't happen over night, but that this is a good first step in a new direction.
It was harder and harder to follow the brainstorming and discussions from a distance, so I hope that there will be a public summary of things that have been discussed and decided upon.
As the ash cloud prevented me from going to DrupalCon San Francisco, I decided to join the DrupalVolCon in Antwerp at Krimson's office.
I took this opportunity to do a BoF session on getting feedback from the community directly on the Drupal Association. I based my questions on a questionnaire, that was devised for the Drupal Association retreat taking place today.
A lot of people were interested in the session, around 12 people attended from a total of 30.
After reading the current mission statement to the attendees, I asked what, in their opinion, the DA should be/do.
Many said that the DA should be a formal representation of the informal Drupal community towards other communities, industries, businesses. It should provide a forum for discussion, provide financing and assistance for DrupalCons, centralise knowledge and funds for DrupalCons and then the community adds its local twist to it. The drupal.org redesign was also mentioned as a focus of the DA.
Trying to get lifestream of keynotes and possibly other sessions. As much as possible that is. Thanks to Brightcove and DrupalVolCon UK for collaboration.
Today, as part of the European education project E-trust, we went to a waste incineration company called IZAYDAS in Izmit, Turkey.
And this is, among many other things from cultural behaviour to governmental programmes, what I learned today:
IZAYDAS bought the facilities from a German company. (So there is a market for second hand waste incinerators.)
The Turkish export their waste to German waste incinerator factories as it is cheaper to export than to buy and/or build own factories.
German waste incinerator factories don't have enough waste!
Italians export their waste to Germany as well.
IZAYDAS is the first waste incineration company in Turkey. It is a pilot project and now Turkey wants to implement more factories like this one.
All data from the factory is available online publicly.
They do not accept radioactive or nuclear waste nor cadavers.
Men in Turkey retire after 22 years of working, women after 20 years. They get a lump sum plus monthly retirement money based on work income. But this might change soon.
First up, we, the European DrupalCon Selection Taskforce, apologize for the delay and lack of communication.
Consider this account of what has happened and what we discussed about, an attempt to improve the process, that we have started for the very first time.
2010 is the European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion in adult education. To start his year, the European Commission organised a conference in Brussels, Management Centre of Europe, over three days (26-28 January 2010).
It was the first time I attended a conference like this, and I wanted to take the opportunity to not only meet people and new potential partners, but also to promote eduate.eu. I was the first one to arrive at the Centre and, hence could see who was coming in, and who'd be my first target. :-)
Over the three days, I learned a lot about what those people would like to have and what they need. I questioned and listened to them in the plenary, in workshops and, of course, one on one.
I noticed what people want is a tool to disseminate their projects and outcomes, a tool to network and to see what others are up to, a tool that is simple and easy to use.
Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by their place and supplies it with the necessary regelialia. It is a paradisematic country, in which roasted parts of sentences fly into your mouth. Even the all-powerful Pointing has no control about the blind texts it is an almost unorthographic life. One day however a small line of blind text by the name of Lorem Ipsum decided to leave for the far World of Grammar. The Big Oxmox
Weit hinten, hinter den Wortbergen, fern der Länder Vokalien und Konsonantien leben die Blindtexte. Abgeschieden wohnen Sie in Buchstabhausen an der Küste des Semantik, eines großen Sprachozeans. Ein kleines Bächlein namens Duden fließt durch ihren Ort und versorgt sie mit den nötigen Regelialien. Es ist ein paradiesmatisches Land, in dem einem gebratene Satzteile in den Mund fliegen. Nicht einmal von der allmächtigen Interpunktion werden die Blindtexte beherrscht – ein geradezu unorthographisches Leben. Eines Tages aber beschloß eine kleine Zeile Blindtext, ihr Name war Lorem Ipsum, hinaus zu gehen in die weite Grammatik. Der große Oxmox
