Building Successful Local Communities: Insights and Best Practices Ivo Radulovski (segments) Austrian and Bulgarian Communities João Ventura (jcnventura) Portuguese Community Christefano (christefano) LA Drupal Jeffrey A. “jam” McGuire (horncologne) Germany / Italy

What does a strategic plan look like for a local community? • The People • Objectives • Organization / Legal Entity • Roles & Responsibilities

The People • Individuals • Service Providers • Clients

Objectives • Have fun • Meet people that share your Drupal passion • Share knowledge (Drupal, but not only) • Network • Cooperate • Have fun (again)

Organization / Legal Entity • Why is it important? • Handling Money • Signing Contracts • Local Branding & Marketing • Dealing with Contacts • Define a Team • Having Partnerships & Memberships

Roles & Responsibilities • Marketing • Event Organization & Logistics • Sponsorship Management • Website Development • Graphic Design • Translation Team • Social Coordination • Drupal Public Training Coordinator • Communication

Marketing • Universities • Press Releases • Media Partners

Drupal in Bulgaria in 6 months from zero to… • Drupal Meetup • 7 Sessions at the Sofia University • 3 Expos with Drupal Panels in 3 Cities • Drupal 7 Release Party • Drupal Camp • Coding for a Cause • Drupal Party • Weekly User Group Meetings

Drupal in Bulgaria metrics (6 months) • 25 volunteers at the camp* • 80 members in groups.drupal.org • +200 posts about Drupalcamp Sofia • 250 active members • 300 registered on drupalcamp.bg • 2000 registered users at drupal.org (+60% growth) • 20.000 Unique visitors in 2 months with ~5mins and ~6 pages per visitor on drupalcamp.bg

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Déjà vu – Portuguese style • The community had to be restarted in September 2009, because it had been abandoned • These early members are still around, and some are now active members. • A community is a group of people with individual agendas – conflict is a certainty, given enough time. • Deal with it early, before it snowballs

Drupal in Portugal in 18 months • Monthly meetings • 3 Drupal sessions in 3 university / cities • Drupal 7 release party • 1st Drupalcamp in Lisbon: March 26, 2011

Drupal in Portugal metrics • 30 active members • 119 attendants registered in Drupalcamp • 158 members in groups.drupal.org • 3300 registered users at drupal.org

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Get out! • Meet often, meet regularly • Monthly at least • Different types of meetups: • Meet in a bar (scalability problems) • Barcamp • ½ day DrupalCamps

Community channels • Usual channels: • groups.drupal.org • #drupal-* IRC channel on freenode • Your website • Other channels (not recommended): • Mailing lists • groups.google.com • Facebook • Twitter

Eat your own dog food • Create a website • Nice tool to create websites: Drupal

However… • You all know how to make GREAT websites • You have all this neat stuff that you can use But… • KISS • Get it done , and then grow it slowly • Because it will be created, managed and maintained by volunteers • It only needs to tell who you are, what you’ve done and what you’ll do • Don’t make existing channels obsolete

Strength in numbers • Establish ties with neighboring communities • Encourage the creation of new communities • Meta-communities • In Europe, there’s a continent-level group of communities organizing vertical Camps • The Drupal Hispano community gathers all the distinct Spanish-speaking communities

What did you think? Locate this session on the DCC website: http://chicago2011.drupal.org/sessions Click the “Take the Survey” link. Thanks!