DrupalCampNYC8
I know - it sounds crazy talking about technology. But really, it's all about the community of people supporting Drupal - 375 of them this past weekend (DrupalCampNYC -- July 24th - 25th, 2010) at NYU PolyTech in Brooklyn, NY. From professional developers, designers, implementers and CIO's to geek hobbyists and the curious - we had a blast learning cool stuff about Drupal and exchanging how-to's.
The entire weekend was almost all free - $10 to get in. Back in the day, software company's used to charge $1000's of bucks to see and learn about their products and services. Man, have things changed. Open source software and the communities that developed around them have created a new type of software paradigm. One that makes it easy to get engaged, motivated, and where ideas are openly and freely exchanged. This sparks innovation and creativity.
If you never heard of Drupal, well, it is a web application framework with a kick ass content management system attached to it. Go get some!
If you're a Drupalist and missed the camp, some of the cool stuff I attended was about the rules.module and features.module as well as a couple of sessions that helped developers understand business requirements and how-to implement Drupal applications that solve real world business problems.
The way I see it, there are three types of Drupal people - developers or back-end guys (writes code), themers or front-end guys(designs interfaces), and implementers (module selection and theme selection, business logic, configuration, some coding, some design). The implementer helps figure the right modules to use, when to write new ones, how to configure them, what goes in the theme as opposed to a module or a view, figures out roles and permissions, and workflows. An implementers role does not get enough credit, especially since Drupal is geting implemented across a wider section of web apps and industries.
My qualifications: I've been doing Drupal for six years. I've been in IT (development to manager) and business development for many more years so I cover both developer and implementer pretty well and I do a pretty decent job as a themer. Without a decent business understanding, it is hard to build and implement a site or application that serves a purpose. This applies to any organization, including non-profits.