For those in the greater Boston area I wanted to pass along this Drupal design event,

    http://boston2012.design4drupal.org/

which will take place July 14-15 at MIT.

As part of my personal mission I've been engaging with the diverse tech community within Rhode Island, USA including those within the Drupal, WordPress, ... communities here in our small state. I have several reasons for doing this. First has to do with community, which I will define more broadly than Paul did in his PSE2012 Keynote [1]. During a CMS Smackdown event held in Providence, RI it was asked of the panelist "If you weren't using your CMS which other one would you be using and why?". One person noted another panelist's CMS and his reason was noteworthy; it was due to the people within that community. Not primarily due to technical superiority or ease of use but for the community behind that CMS. And that has stuck in my head.

Second has to do with advancing Plone. This happens in a few different ways. A) By simply getting the Plone name out there when other CMSes are being discussed, i.e. marketing Plone. B) By seeing how others solve problems which we the Plone community are addressing like accessability or TinyMCE intergration. C) By showing off the real strengths of Plone which sounds like marketing Plone (A) but is marketing with more passion and from one's strengths.

My third and final reason has to do with practicality. Being in a smaller state and relatively far away from any other Plone communities I attend the tech/social events which are in my neighborhood. So this involves engaging those who use Drupal, WordPress, etc. And please don't think I am out there every week, at every event within Rhode Island promoting Plone. I get out there when I can (which is about once every four months) and engage others sometimes on topics other than CMSes. This is a long term mission with small incremental steps of engagement.

So if anyone can attend the Design4Drupal event this July at MIT I think it would greater benefit the Plone community. (I had planned to attend D4DBoston but the date got changed to a weekend in which I have a previous engagment that can't be rescheduled.)

Ed

1. http://weblion.psu.edu/symposium/paul-roeland-to-keynote-at-plone-symposium-east-2012 - Paul narrowly defined community as a tight nit group of people that is focused on a mission with passion. Even though I agree with Paul's use of the word I simply don't have a better word to describe larger "communities" so I use communities.
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