TL;DR—DrupalCon Seattle Recap

After Uhaul-ing from Phase2’s office in Portland, the marketing team paused at a statue of Seattle’s native son, Ivar Haglund (somewhat aghast at the size of these gulls (but more aghast at their true-to-life scale)), getting settled in for DrupalCon 2019.

We didn’t know it at that moment, but these large birds (read: dinosaurs) would be harbingers of the conference’s largest year, ever.

Between keynotes, sessions & summits, booth-happenings, team bonding and client bonding, here are our laconic takeaways from an Ivar-feeding-the-gulls-sized-DrupalCon:

Themed

• Phase2’s 2019 DrupalCon theme was Engineering The Invisible.
• The theme was a nod to the—often invisible—work accomplished through code, but also the complex machinations that it takes to deliver seamless brand experiences for audiences--whether they’re citizens, customers, fans, or patients.
• And, through new creative work, we demonstrated different takes on “engineering” as a modern term for creating compelling stories, future-forward technologies, context, interactions, and transactions—from digital clipboards in healthcare to advanced machine learning for help centers—we’re meeting people at the moments that matter most to them, in valuable and dynamic ways.
• This was brought to life through the (now eponymous) radiance orb by Light at Play and a custom Twitter API that allowed attendees to directly interact via conference-related hashtags, retweets, and a touchpad (tying physical booth and digital experiences together):
• Built using open source technology
• 4’ geodesic sphere comprised of 320 edge-lit light transmissive acrylic panels
• Containing ~3,000 individually-addressable LEDs
• Governed by three internal computers
• Featured at UNESCO in Paris in 2015 as part of the Interactional Year of Light, and at the National Academy of Science

Recognized

• At this year’s International Splash Awards (recognizing the best Drupal projects on the web), Phase2 & Pinterest took home the trophy in the best Social/Community site category for the new Pinterest Help Center.
• Also in recognition of the Help Center, we were nominated for a Webby (our second year in a row).

Lead

• Our intrepid Vice President of Product and Strategy, Kellye Rogers, led the first-ever #DrupalHealth (Healthcare) summit.
• Keynote was delivered by Emily Kagan Trenchard of Northwell Health, with a profoundly impactful speech on the culture of tech for patients, caregivers, doctors, donors, and systems, "Science is the original open source project; and healthcare is the ultimate platform."
• Our Accessibility (#A11y) Lead, Catharine McNally, received a standing ovation for sharing her story and an Empathy Training session that had attendees in slings and modified glasses--illustrating how quickly a change in capabilities can affect usage—and subsequently your interactions with the modern, digital world

Demoed

• Hail to our devs and product/project team members for executing multiple sessions of two awesomely-attended demos (hosted by Caroline Casals, Tobby Hagler, Chris Bloom, and Kira Cypers) on Layout Builder & Modern Commerce with engines and tools from our partners, Acquia and Elastic Path.
• Virtual versions of these demos will be available soon; contact us to get a concierge walk-through.

Presented

• CEO & Co-Founder of Phase2, Jeff Walpole, delivered an Agency Track talk on Future-Proofing.
• Mike Morris led a panel on bridging the gap between Marketing & IT in this year’s Executive Summit.
• In a packed room, Mike Potter gave an update to the Configuration Management Initiative 2.0.
• Tobby Hagler spoke about Custom Compound Fields in Drupal 8 [slides].
• David Lanier presented an Introduction to Migrate QA [slides].
• Jordan Hirsch, Karina Scheulke, and Frank Febbraro hosted a closed-door Personalization At-Scale presentation.