The first Drupal Executives Meetup in Brussels

Last weekend (Oct. 9./10.) the first Drupal Executives Meetup (DrupalCXO) took place in Brussels. DrupalCXO is a business event specifically for Drupal Executives and was held in in a venue provided to us by Microsoft. Microsoft also sponsored lunch and drinks.

The Executive Meetup was the first of an entire series, that are going to be organized collaboratively by European Drupal organizations. The plans were made at a meetup at Drupalcon Copenhagen, when representatives of these organizations met for the first time. The goal is to organize bigger and more international events specifically in Europe. This is meant to strenghten the European Drupal community, and also to give the opportunity to single countries to organize an international event. The events specialize in the most important topics: design, development and business. The plan is to provide at least one event per year for any of those topic blocks, but more is better.

At this first meetup there was space for 60 participants, the event "sold out" (it was free to attend) in only a few days. There were no scheduled talks, we used the Open Space concept to plan and hold sessions. Each of the two days started with planning talks together. The talks were then held more in the form of collaborative discussions instead of one speaker giving a presentation. This was the main reason there was relatively little tweeting and documenting - everybody was very involved with their entire attention. Favorite topics were how Drupal shops can collaborate better, how to build some kind of "Drupal Business Association" to have an official single point of communication. Furthermore improving the reputation of the Drupal brand for customers, certification and finding new Drupal talents were popular. Some of these ideas will be continued in future business camps. During the event it became clear how important the business aspect of Drupal has become, and that there is a lot of need for exchange.