The Best of DrupalCon New Orleans

Account Manager and Podcaster extraordinaire chatted with dozens of folks at DrupalCon in New Orleans last week to get a sense of what made the show special for them. This week's Secret Sauce is a collection of those highlights. Some shared specifics on something they learned at a session they attended, otherwise talked about the community or trends in the Drupal marketplace, and much more. With DrupalCon last week, we missed our long-form, but stay tuned for that and more short-form podcasts in the weeks to come. And as always, thanks for listening! TRANSCRIPT Allison Manley [AM]: Hi, and welcome to the Secret Sauce, brought to you by Palantir.net. This is our short weekly podcast where we offer a quick tip on some small thing you can do to help your business run better.  But . . . today we’re going to switch up a little bit. Last week, a number of us from Palantir and a larger number of all of us from the Drupal community were in New Orleans last week for DrupalCon 2016. So we decided to go around the room and ask everyone that they thought the best takeaway or the best thing from DrupalCon 2016 was for them. So this is a compilation of all the people I ran into randomly and got them to tell me what they thought was the best thing about DrupalCon 2016 Allison Manley [AM]: Alright, Justin McGregor of Rhodes College . . . what is your favorite thing about this year’s DrupalCon? Justin McGregor: Oh my goodness. I was actually just in a wonderful session on personalization, about an hour ago. Personalization in Drupal, and specifically they covered a lot of modules in Drupal 7. And that’s been a goal for us early on was to work some content personalization into the site. But the great thing about a Con like this as opposed to some of the other conferences I’ve been to is just how approachable the speakers are after the fact. People go up, grab somebody as they’re coming off stage, or see them at the booth later, and really talk through the implications of some of what I’m working on . . . because everybody’s use case is different, right? And so to be able to talk through with somebody a problem like that based on a presentation you’ve just heard . . . it’s a fantastic thing to be able to do, and not all conferences allow you to do that.  Dave: My name’s Dave from Glendale Community College in Arizona. And my favorite thing about DrupalCon so far is I like interacting with all the vendors, and getting to meet all the cool people, and see all the neat things that they offer. David: I’m David from Pantheon. My favorite thing about DrupalCon this year was all the amazing people, and the amazing parties The Pantheon party was amazing. I’m saying amazing a lot, and I’m aware of that. But that’s amazing too.  Shelley Hutchins: My name is Shelley Hutchins from MediaCurrent. My favorite thing about DrupalCon is just being on the exhibition floor and getting to talk to so many members of the Drupal community. Chaz Chumley: Chaz Chumley, Technical Architect for ForumOne, author for Packt Publishing “Drupal 8 Theming with Twig” book. My favorite thing is this gentleman right here, who is one of the most awesome pre-keynote putter-together singers, dancers, and who looks really sexy in lamé and tights and whatever else he decides to put on for the keynote.  Campbell Vertesi: I don’t know whether to be flattered or feel awkward about that [laughs]. But I’ll be in the bar later.  My name is Campbell Vertesi “ohthehugemanatee,” and every DrupalCon I get to get up and sing, and dance and wear gold lamé. So that one’s not special about this DrupalCon, I think my favorite thing about this DrupalCon is how much more visible the Indian community is. Because the Indian Drupal community are “jump in with both feet” kind of people . . . if there’s a party, if there is a dance, if there is something to code, if there is a totally new API . . . every single one of them that I’ve met will just leap in with both feet an