Announcing the Drupal Dojo
Posted on December 27, 2006 | Tags:
As we’ve posted about before, the past year has seen almost 100% growth in the Drupal economy. Several great new companies and several good coders have emerged, and a new ethic of training and local groups has taken hold, and yet there just aren’t enough savvy web developers to meet the demand for Drupal-related services.
Like every professional services shop that plays heavily — our in our case works almost exclusively — in the wonderful world of Drupal, we’re feeling that talent shortage. And it occurs to me that poaching talent from our “co-opetition” and/or headhunting people with existing IT jobs — two popular ways to build out a development team — isn’t a long-term solution to this problem.
It Has Begun!
To that end, I’m excited to announce the formation of The Drupal Dojo, a community group dedicated to increasing the proficiency of apprentice and journeyman-level developers. The Dojo will work through the groups.drupal.org forums, and an IRC channel.
A middle-tier developer community is good for the project as a whole (#drupal intimidates a lot of people), and for enterprising individuals like myself, the idea of being able to build stronger relationships with up-and-coming developers makes obvious business sense. Seems like a classic win-win. I’ll be posting on group progress as it evolves.
I’ve arbitrarily said we need five learners and at least one other “expert” to start out. If you’d like to participate, subscribe now and help me get the ball rolling.
UPDATE:
Well that’s a surprise! 72 hours after creation we have 175 subscribers. The ratio of “master” to “apprentice” may be a bit off, but I think with the number of participants we’re bound to have some good results.
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Good news for all of us in
Good news for all of us in Drupal community.
Profiles and distros should provide lots of learning and value
Pretty amazing how the Dojo has taken off. By far, the most popular Drupal Group.
I hope that install profiles and distros (such as the ones I proposed) will provide a fertile learning ground, bring value/attention to the community, and give apprentices a chance to become moneymaking ninjas.
Look forward to learning, giving back, and the adventure!
Gus
Learning Drupal...
Your post is certainly prescient in my world. (Sorry, by the way if no one cares other than Zack). Since a very positive trip to DC two weeks ago, I’ve been telling folks that aside from two very exciting but unlikely possibilities, I’ll be in DC come May. There are at least certain jobs waiting there. The question I’ve been wrestling with is deciding what I want to get done and how I should begin pursuing the, no a proper path.
I’ve waivered on putting the time into learning deeper technical skills. Though I certainly agree with the tangible and intangible benefits to, say, learning drupal or CSS or better html skills (I partly justified my all out and permanent switch of windows to linux by the intrinsic benefits to my POV), I still stick with devoting the bulk of my time to reading and exploring (much of it online).
I do keep returning to the thought that I may be erring in not forcing some time to be put aside for technical training.
Je ne sais pas…
Peace, fellers. Thanks for what you are doing and good luck. Zack, I hope I get to wish you a happy new year in person (rather via telephony) someday not so far away.
[PS, I fear that your robot detector may be broken. I placed first in a statewide math test a few years ago, but this is the second time I’ve been told that I can’t add two small numbers]
Gray Brooks!
Hey man! Great to hear from you! We actually met for a second in September 2003 when I spent a week in Burlington. I’m glad to be of service. Hope all is well.
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