The Journalist Inside Has a Place at DrupalCon

I would be all for helping with this. I can see where having an official “Press Booth” or “Office” would be good. Maybe have a NAS where people can dump off interview details, digital files, photos, video, etc and then automate the uploading process. Given much of the automation that exists for Flickr, YouTube and Slideshare, it seems like this would be a pretty simple process. Maybe have a few boxes setup kiosk style where users can select from a variety of content templates: session, interview, candids, etc. They fill in the details, upload to their favorite media site, Flickr, Youtube, slideshare, etc, and then post to the collective. All of the various assets are tracked in one central location and have a common interface for access.

Give this information out as a one stop shop for people to grab conference details and pass them on to other outlets. This would have the added benefit of reducing bandwidth usage on the wireless network as a dedicated drop could be used to pipe the files out to the cloud.

I am not sure I have seen any other conf. do anything like this. Might get Drupal some buzz just for the fact that we are facilitating communication outside of the Con.

BTW, I have my Nikon D80 and MacBook ready as well (along with some portable pro recording gear if needed)

http://www.tmgstudio.com

This is an awesome idea. I had originally considered bringing my video camera and spending the conference taping sessions as well as going around and interviewing people. I think I’m leaning a bit more towards less video and more words, though, since.. well, I haven’t even used my video camera since I’ve bought it 3 years ago but once or twice. So, that said, very cool idea and I’d be interested in what comes of it. Either way, I’ll be ready to type out my observations and maybe even bring out my camera when there as I’ve also suffered from the lack of good and timely reporting when I missed previous cons.

I thought it might be helpful to sketch out the different types of content that we’d want to capture at DrupalCon. Assuming we want to create a media group that would be open to volunteers, this list is a start that could help us to be organized, divide up tasks, and help clarify what is “covered” and what we need.

Here is what came off the top of my head. Please add your comments:

1. The people of Drupalcon: lots of pics, face shots, small groups, maybe short, fun video interviews
2. Session summaries: reporter with memory stick goes up to presenter after presentation and says, “can I copy your Keynote/PPT for uploading to DrupalCon.” Reporter goes to session page on the drupalcon website and uploads the presentation doc. Optionally the reporter could provide a little “glue text.” The focus here is on getting any documentation the presenters have. Compliance of presenters uploading this kind of thing on there own is typically very low, mostly due to their own perfectionism. A “reporter” with memory stick in hand could significantly raise the compliance on this.
3. Session reviews: here the reporter writes an impression piece of what actually went on in the session. What questions did participants raise? Where did the discussion go? Was there some “wisdom-of-crowds” developing that was leading to some conclusions? Were there some clear philosophical divides that emerged? Was there any discussion of follow-up from what emerged? What was the “wow” factor like for presentations on new or upgraded modules?
4. Session videos: presumably, though not necessarily, this will only happen for a few sessions. I think it would be helpful for some folks to plan which sessions absolutely need to be video recorded. The most obvious is Dries’ state of Drupal. (Is Acquia or the Association thinking of taping that session with higher production values?)
5. Session audio: there are high quality/low cost digital recording devices out there. Again, with just a little planning, we could capture a lot of what goes on. Audio combined with presentation slides is often a much better user experience then video, IMHO.
6. Conference buzz: What are people talking about? Is it weird for the conference to be more professionally run? Do old-timers feel the loss of intimacy? Do newcomers feel welcomed? Is there grumbling about the increase in the fee? Is there any synergy with the other CMS conference going on? (I noticed Dries was not on their speaker list, which seemed weird). How are the local bars? Hotels? Do developers and site managers/other non-programmers actually talk to each other? Etc…
7. Synthesis: Thought pieces on meta-topics. Pointing to specific conversations and/or sessions at DrupalCon, writers might provide analysis on key topics like:
   • How is the progress going on improving Drupal’s UI?
   • Analysis of the process/pacing of the Drupal development cycle.
   • How do module developers feel about the D6 process? Is the roadmap set for D7?
   • What needs to be done for D6 an D7 to be successful for key stake-holders?
   • What is the state of Drupal’s economic ecosystem?
   • How does Acquia fit in to everything?

These are all just off the top-of-my head. I think with a little bit of planning and a core-group of volunteers, we can do a lot.

content2zero

Great thread! If anyone writes up short summaries of sessions they attend, I’d love to include them on the download pages for each session video that I upload. Or excerpt and link at least. So let’s make sure to coordinate. p.s. I started a thread to find more video volunteers.