Intermediate

This will not be a deep technical talk about how to make your site fast, nor will it be a marketing piece. I will take an in-depth look at the technologies that help Drupal perform and scale to the masses.

I will point you to the technologies and best practices that have been going on lately in the Drupal community, give you a rundown of where we came from and show you where we are going and how to get involved. I would suggest that you have at least a basic understanding of LAMP stack and basic Drupal tuning to get the most from this talk.

Strict juridical agreements can direct the development into predetermined narrow fixed path instead of encouraging agile approach, hence compromising achievement of the best possible results. At our company we have managed to negotiate project contracts that have resulted projects complished in time, below budget and with high client satisfaction. The basis for a great contract is to appreciate the nature of the modern way of constructing a complex website. You must dig into the business goals and abstract the main components of the desired big picture.

"The Cloud" is more than just hyper-hand-waving. There is a monumental shift under way in the global software industry. In the last fifty years software innovation has moved from the mainframe, to the desktop, and now to the internet, aka "The Cloud". This move will upend entire segments of the industry and will have a huge impact on the Drupal project. In the near future, the majority of Drupal sites will be hosted on cloud services and an increasing number of cloud based services will be available to enhance the Drupal platform.

We will cover:

• What is page load speed? – Tools used to measure performance of your pages and site – Six Key Improvements to make Drupal “run fast”
  ++ Performance Module settings and how they work
  ++ Caching – biggest gainer and how to implement Boost
  ++ Other quick hits: off loading search, tweaking settings & why running crons is important
  ++ Ask your host about APC and how to make sure its set up correctly
  ++ Dare we look at the database? Easy changes that will help a lot!

Come learn strategies for geo-targetting content to users of your Drupal sites. This session will cover the tools used for achieving geo-targetted content. Case studies will be presented on how these tools can be used to selectively present content based on where they are in the world.

Leon Tong, Director of BrightLemon, describes why, who and how to build your own online community using Drupal. This is a strategic presentation focusing on the planning, strategy and implementation of a 120,000 user community by discussing the principles that enabled the successful delivery of a number of large Drupal based social networks.

By specific case studies and examples this presentation will explain how to build your own 120,000+ community.

Questions answered will be:

Why build your own online community?
Who else is building their own online community?

Drupal 7 is upon us and, like so many things, this release makes some significant changes in the way you need to optimize your site for Google and the other search engines. But D6 is still alive and kicking! Come to one session and learn both. Ben Finklea, author of Drupal 6 Search Engine Optimization (and its forthcoming sequel), and Ivo Radulovski, a leading SEO consultant in Austria, will show you what needs to be done, what is changing, and how to get on top of the awesomeness that is Drupal SEO.

Get the design specifics on taking your site to a higher level of sales effectiveness in 2010, with an inspirational, interactive talk with Ben Finklea. Ben is CEO of Volacci and author of Drupal 6 Search Engine Optimization. He describes how to get 40-50% improvements in conversion from conversion-rate-focused design adjustments to a exisitng, well-executed SEO initiatives. Ben offers results from Volacci clients, such as an online retailer in health and wellness. Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) efforts yield big results with relatively minor changes.

Running a Drupal consulting firm requires much more than Drupal development or design skills. You need excellent customer service, sales, project management, operations, accounting, recruiting, human resources — the list is huge! So how do successful Drupal firms make it all work?

We'll look past Drupal for an hour and focus on what it takes to run a successful consulting firm. We've assembled a top-notch panel of Drupal firm owners and managers to discuss what works for them and why. Addison Berry of Lullabot will moderate the discussion, and the floor will be open for questions.