Ximo | Joakim Stai

It's been a few days since I got back from Szeged, but it does take a couple of days to get back into everyday modus, to digest all the impressions. The overall impression is that it was a great Drupalcon! Barcelona (my previous and first Con) was also great, but this one was even better.

First, big ups to the organizers! The venue was excellent -- I can't put a finger on anything that bugged me. Except maybe the impossible-to-eat sandwiches, wich I noticed some people carefully disassembled before eating in chunks.

Szeged really was turned into DrupalTown (which would've been difficult in Barcelona or Boston). It was so cool to see geeks with Drupal t-shirts around every corner, and when the sun set and the locals were over at the festival, we Drupalers owned the nightlife.

Speaking of which, I've realized how important nights like those are for the community. I don't go to many conferences, but I have a feeling we're more outgoing in the Drupal camp than in most other open source communities? The nights on town are important because we get to know eachother at a more personal, non-tech level (although we do talk a lot about Drupal when drunk) than when we meet at the venue. This is where the community bonding reaches new heights. I'm glad we have someone like Morten.dk to say "Tonight.. we are going to get shitfaced!" :D

We didn't only drink overpriced, but still cheap, beer though. After waaay too little sleep, there were some hours filled with (more or less) interesting talks. I didn't plan my day at all. Knowing that most talks would probably be taped, I could choose talks based on my gut feeling, knowing I would be able to see the ones I missed later anyway. Which was cool, because I went to some talks I'd otherwise not go to. (Thanks a million to the volunteers for the filming!)

I've seen a couple talks already on archive.org, but I had to start with the one I participated in - the presentation of this year's Summer of Code projects. Being not too fond of talking in front of a room of people, I was nervous, but from the video it looks like I did OK presenting the Icon module.

It's worth mentioning that right before it was my turn, my mentor Nate (quicksketch) and I were working hard to get the demo running on his laptop. I was originally going to present it on my MacBook, and as I had noticed most presenters used Mac, I thought the venue supported them well. Not ordinary MacBooks though, which I had totally forgotten requires a mini-DVI to DVI converter. Thanks a lot to Nate for helping me out, and for the great introduction to the module! He's a great guy, it was really cool to meet him in real life.

Apart from the talks, I participated in the Usability sprint. I was pleased to see so many people show up, and I'm much more optimistic about usability in D7 now. First of all, Angie (webchick) is the perfect core maintainer (congratulations!). She's very involved in the community, and obviously sincerely concerned about usability, and is the kind of person that we've needed to convert all the talk into action. It was also great to meet Jeff Noyes from Acquia. Having a usability expert that comes from outside the Drupal sphere is a great resource, and I hope Acquia will give him a lot of time to spend on Drupal 7.

It was also great to meet the guys I know from the Usability group and IRC, some of whom I met in Barcelona (eigentor, Jan, elv, gaele, bertboerland) and some I only knew as an avatar. My other maintainer, Roy (yoroy), turned out to be nothing like his avatar (a cartoon drawing of a small guy holding a pencil), but just as friendly and cool as my impression of him from mails and IRC. Then again, I think some were shocked to find out I actually wasn't a laid-back chimp. Maybe it's time to use an IRL photo of me on the web, so that people can actually recognize me.

I also met some other Scandinavian Drupalers. I had a great time hanging out with the Swedes and my fellow Norwegians. We proved once and for all who are the true vikings. The viking meetup (planned by The King of Denmark) started with a lot of Swedes and Danes, but ended up with 8 Norwegians drinking mjød (viking for beer) at the bar.

I also went to Drupalcon looking for work, as I'm fed up with the accounting part of working freelance (actually yes), and I really want to gain experience from working in a team. I met a bunch of people from interesting companies, and look forward to getting in touch with them again. It will be interesting to see where the future takes me. One thing is pretty much settled, it won't be in Norway. Experiencing another country and culture while working with Drupal is much more tempting.

Next DrupalCon will be held in the states. Not sure whether I'll be able to attend, but I really hope so! A Drupalcon is not to be missed. I almost can't wait to hear Morten say once more "Everybody.. Tonight, we are going to get sooo shitfaced!" :D