Virtual Drupal Camps
Drupal events have a lot of positive things for Drupal users. We highlighted them in the previous blog post. available Drupal Camps With that, they are automatically deprived for knowledge about Drupal. And that knowledge may come in hand for them, especially if they professionally work with Drupal. Luckily, organizers came up with one of the solutions. It's online or virtual Drupal Camp.
Global Drupal Sprint Weekend took place last week. In our office as well. Besides Sprints happening all over the world, there were, in the past, ones which had happened online as well. They had connected people all around the world and had helped developers in writing code, even if they were not in the same room. That will not be the case just for sprint anymore, because camps are also stepping forward. And with that, the ideas of evolving Drupal forward will come in a »larger portion«.
The Slovenian mastermind in Drupal and its connection with media Janez Urevc, said in our interview over time that »Drupal events, especially DrupalCons, are, because everything is large and on a professional level, losing the personal contact between the attendees«. That being said, virtual camps can only grow in its popularity, so organizing them in a greater extent will cross some important minds in Drupal Community sooner rather than later.
The best example of Virtual Drupal Camps and the problems they create
One of the earliest attempts of organizing a virtual Drupal Camp was DrupalCamp24x7.org. But the greatest example of virtual Drupal camps was Drupal 8 Day, which was a completely free, online Drupal Camp, which took place on 19th November last year. It was dedicated to Drupal 8's first birthday. It had 17 sessions with direct stream on YouTube, defining on which hour they were streamed on a specific place on earth. One of the topic was SEO for Drupal 8 Sites, by Ben Finklea, who recently published a book on that subject. All presentations were later accessible again on YouTube.
But despite all the positive things, such events rose a lot of question as well. The most important one is, that virtual events will only increase the lack of personal contact and everything will become distant, far from in personal contact and conversation. People won't be connecting on a personal level (anymore), which can result in a lack of business opportunities and even friendships. Moreover, almost all Drupal Camps, which are not virtual, later publish sessions on social media. That means that virtual Drupal Camps don’t have an advantage in this case, because the content is, no matter how you put it, accessible for all users at the end.
Doing things virtually brings Drupalistas some pros and some cons. That’s completely normal. But since virtual events present the possibilities in today’s digital world, keeping them in mind will eventually become a necessity. All in all, it will once again come to the individuals to decide, whether they will support, organize and attend such virtual events.
