Proposed Sessions

To be successful at creating things, we have to be able to solve the problems we introduce along the way. Let’s learn to troubleshoot and debug issues!

We'll organize our approach to a problem by analyzing it, simplifying it, splitting it into its component parts, and finding what part has the problem.

After dividing the problem, we'll use classic debugging techniques to pinpoint the error and find a solution:

• Use a debugger like XDebug paired with PhpStorm or VS Code to step over and through key sections.
• Set breakpoints where we suspect the problem may lie or where we can inspect variables and data.
• Inspect the contents of the database to see what is happening there.
• Use old-school techniques like printf-debugging and calling die() to find where problems happen.

For extra credit, we'll take a look at how to use git bisect to determine when a bug got introduced. We will talk about using tools and techniques, like version control and database snapshots, to assist in the problem-solving task. ChatGPT is bound to make a cameo as well.

We have all been there. We submit an article or technical content and the editorial team formats it in a way that changes the content or breaks accessibility.

Often, writers will submit their content in Google Docs. An editor then has to strip out all of Google's Gremlins to paste into the Drupal editor, so they end up with just a wall of text, left to add headings, links, bullets, and code blocks, and maybe in a way that changes the content.

Enter Markdown! 

Markdown is very popular for authors and developers. It's lightweight and straightforward to learn. Its open format allows it to be used across environments and tools, and you can keep control over your editorial experience. And guess what? It's in CKEditor 5.

In this talk, we'll learn about the benefits of Markdown and move through some of the basic syntax so you can start using Markdown immediately (live demo). We can also do a quick review of editors that have gentle learning curves.

Three takeaways

• Platforms can easily convert Markdown to HTML
• Markdown has a very gentle learning curve and is human-readable
• Drupal Core and contributed modules support Markdown
   

Are your Drupal updates a source of stress? Drawing from nearly a decade of experience as a Technical Account Manager, this session transforms the often-dreaded update process into a reliable, repeatable workflow that any team can implement. Through a combination of best practices, live demonstrations, and practical tools, attendees will learn how to confidently manage their Drupal updates, including how to prepare their custom code for version changes and avoid common API pitfalls.

Learning Objectives

This session will introduce attendees to:

• A structured approach for planning and executing Drupal updates
• Best practices for maintaining composer.json files
• Effective use of configuration management during updates
• Methods for tracking custom code dependencies and API usage
• Strategies for monitoring API changes that affect custom modules
• Practical use of the Upgrade Status module
• Real-world testing and deployment workflows

Drupal was launched in 2009! The era when Facebook was coming out of the shadows and Web2 was cementing itself in the world while Web1 was fading away.

If the folks would remember, those were the days of open protocol, open source advocacy. Microsoft vs Linux and proprietary was looked down upon.

Then proprietary won, open internet became a dream and Web2 cemented itself with monopolies. Web2 failed to achieve the vision of the founders of the internet.

What was missing was the monetization component of it. Web2 incentivized keeping the gates locked to make money. While projects like Drupal flourished slowly, hundreds of open source developers never saw the same returns as folks working in the proprietary world.

Web3 is changing that. With crypto at its core, Web3 is structured to incentivize the community, encourage contribution and ensure that the money & power is not within only a few people. Web3 would achieve what Web2 didn’t.

We would walk into a make believe world which would focus on:

--> What if Drupal was launched in Web3 world
How would the core contributors, module developers and agencies would make money
--> How Dries would’ve never needed to start Acquia :)
--> How the ecosystem would’ve taken platforms like SiteCore and Adobe.
--> And can we do this now! $DRUPAL coins! How would it work?

This is a fun thought experiment talk! No takeaways, but we can definitely explore the world of open source technology where the contribution motivation is driven by made up coins.

With what is happening in Wordpress world! This is great fun/thought experiment.

Picture this: It's February 2025, and while Drupal 7 was supposed to be having its final farewell tour, it's somehow still crowd-surfing through thousands of websites. Like the tech world's most persistent party guest, it just won't take "time to go home" for an answer, and honestly, that might be a good thing.

Welcome to the real world of post-EOL Drupal 7, where thousands of sites are doing the digital equivalent of running with scissors. But before you panic-migrate your way into next Tuesday, let's talk about how to turn this potential disaster into your next success story.

In this session, we'll cover:

• Why your Drupal 7 site is like that one friend who's still using a Hotmail address (functional but concerning)
• How to transform your "technical debt" into "technical dividends" (yes, we're making that a thing)
• The art of keeping your site secure when official support has left the building
• Why HeroDevs is basically your site's designated driver through the afterparty

Perfect for: digital strategists putting off difficult conversations, developers tired of explaining why "just migrate it" isn't always the answer, managers wondering why their weekend plans keep involving security patches, and anyone who's ever had to make legacy software work well past its expiration date.

Leave knowing not just why your Drupal 7 site can survive, but how to make it thrive. Because sometimes the best parties happen after the lights are supposed to go out.

Warning: This talk may contain excessive metaphors, actual solutions, and at least one reference to how supporting Drupal 7 is like keeping a Tamagotchi alive in 2025—surprisingly possible and weirdly satisfying.

For the past few years, an internal revolution has been brewing in Drupal. The more I see of how our initiatives are evolving the more I'm convince that the way we build Drupal sites are about to fundamentally change.  Let's me make the case for:

• How you and your team should rethink how you make Drupal sites
• What you can do today to being the shift to a new way of working
• The benefits for clients if you do

In my day job, I provide long term support for Drupal sites built many different ways.  I support sites built with Acquia Site Studio, Layout Builder, Paragraphs and a couple of unique builds.  I'm seeing a convergence of ideas on how best to build these sites.  Let me share with you a strategy for getting your sites ready for the future.

Learn how to propel your website's growth by implementing proven scaling strategies used by Fortune 500 companies right from the outset. This presentation will cover:

    •    Infrastructure choices for scalable architecture
    •    Techniques for robust performance optimization
    •    Do's and Don'ts with examples from Fortune 500 companies that use Drupal
    •    Best practices for load handling and traffic management
    •    Insights into industry leaders' scaling frameworks
    •    Steps to future-proof your website from day one

Discover how to lay a strong foundation for your site by adopting these tactics, ensuring your web presence is engineered for long-term success.

If you are maintaining a Drupal module or theme on drupal.org, did you know that you can get automated previews of any Merge Request? In this talk, we will walk through adding a Tugboat config.yml to a contrib module or theme. We should also have time to help a lucky member of the audience with their module or theme!

This session includes a quick intro to recipes and insights on improving the out-of-the-box experience on new themes. Rather than figure out how a site architecture fits together on our own we can reverse engineer a complete example.

In other words, the WordPress theming experience in Drupal.

We will follow the YAGNI (You Aren’t Gonna Need It) principle to improve our feedback loop and allow others to get started quickly.

Be ready for an interactive session, rich in examples and prompts that encourage attendees to wonder and think about the wide array of possibilities this might enable.

The contract is signed, the project team is defined, and goals are set. So you’re probably thinking, let’s kick the project off. Although it’s exciting to jump in and make progress on a new project, there’s a lot to think about before getting started.

Successful projects are a result of great partnerships, and it’s important to establish a strong project team and be on the same page from the start. In this session, we’ll cover the importance of:

• Business and client team building
• Encouraging Trust through transparency and delivery
• Empowering decision-makers with a discovery-first approach
• Performing phased projects to deliver success when dealing with high-risk and uncertainty\

Synopsis

In the tech agency space, agencies may perform poorly because they act as a "middle man" instead of a "facilitator". Whether you’re an agency or work with one, join us to learn the best practices for successful project management and a successful agency partnership.

Learning objectives

At the end of this session, attendees will be able to host valuable and transparent team-building activities with their partner businesses and produce successful projects

For developers managing multiple Drupal projects across different hosting platforms, configuring separate GitHub Actions workflows for each host can be time-consuming and error-prone. This session presents a flexible, dynamic GitHub Actions setup that adapts automatically to various hosting environments, including Pantheon, Acquia, Platform.sh, and more.

We’ll explore how this solution auto-detects the hosting environment and dynamically configures key settings, such as Composer and Node.js build locations, etc.  The workflow manages host-specific tasks such as moving the document root for Acquia and PR-triggered MultiDev management for Pantheon.

You will leave with a ready-to-use GitHub Actions template, detailed instructions on how to customize it for your projects, and an understanding of how to use overrides to fit specific host and site needs. We’ll also explore handling Drupal settings per environment, avoiding unnecessary local rebuilds, and how this workflow simplifies deployments, saving teams time and effort.

Join us to hear the latest news on the Experience Builder initiative from the initiative leaders.

Experience Builder is set to revolutionize how websites are built with Drupal, making building Drupal sites faster and easier than ever before. Experience Builder will enable marketing teams without Drupal experience to easily theme and build their entire website using their browser, without the need to write code beyond basic HTML, CSS, and templating markup. It will also enable content creators to create and compose content on any part of the page without relying on developers.

In this session you'll:

• Understand the vision behind Experience Builder
• Gain practical knowledge on using Experience Builder and learn the key features and capabilities
• Identify use cases and benefits
• Explore upcoming opportunities for involvement

Did you know that around 1 in 68 people are diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder? People with autism and Asperger's are becoming a growing part of civilization, and a growing part of the tech workforce, yet in spite of their high intelligence and remarkable creativity and passion, they often go unemployed and underemployed within our society.

This presentation will attempt to debunk myths around autism and present autistic strengths and challenges, while also sharing why we believe it is important for Drupal firms and other employers to start considering accommodating potential employees with autism spectrum disorders.

The presentation will cover the following topics/issues:

1. Debunking the Myths surrounding the Autism diagnosis, which would include providing information about this diagnosis and how it might present in the workplace or in general, which would include providing statistics as to the percentage of autistic individuals who are in the tech field and what tech employers, including Microsoft, are offering them.

2. Covering the challenges and strengths of an individual on the spectrum and how his or her participation in the tech workforce could be a very good fit for this individual and the tech employer.

3. How does the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) impact the tech employer when it is considering employing an individual who is on the Autism Spectrum.

What are some examples of reasonable accommodations that an employer should legally offer an employee or potential employee with autism under the ADA?

What are potential modifications to the workplace that the individual with autism wants an employer to offer even if the employer is not legally required to do so under the ADA.

Presenters:

Lynne Knox, JD. As a retired Administrative Law Judge who headed the Employment Security Division of the Connecticut Labor Department, Attorney Knox specialized in labor law, including the Americans with Disabilities Act. She is also the mother of her co-presenter, Morgan Giosa, who has been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome and is a Drupal web developer.

Morgan Giosa. Morgan has studied extensively with Dr. Mark A. Friedman, who is a Drupal specialist who taught at both Trinity College and Central Connecticut State University. Morgan has also been employed as subcontractor for Redfin Solutions and has developed websites independently for his clients, including Andres Forero, who is currently drumming in the Broadway musical, Hamilton. He is also an accomplished blues guitarist and visual artist.

Speakers

Lynne Knox
Connecticut Department of Labor (Retired)
Retired Administrative Law Judge

Morgan Giosa
Tempera Solutions (www.temperasolutions.com)

Morgan Giosa has studied Drupal web development and computer science extensively with Dr. Mark A. Friedman, a Drupal specialist who taught at both Trinity College and Central Connecticut State University. Morgan has also been employed as subcontractor for Redfin Solutions and has developed websites independently for his clients using both Drupal and WordPress, including Andres Forero, who is currently drumming in the Broadway musical, Hamilton. He is also an accomplished blues guitarist and visual artist, who has recorded and released multiple albums of original music, his latest of which, “Feelin’ Fine Today”, has received airplay on college radio stations throughout New England including WESU 88.1 FM and WCNI 90.9 FM, and has performed at blues clubs throughout New England, including the prestigious Black-Eyed Sally’s in downtown Hartford, CT. He also produced and created an autobiographical documentary film, "Outside the Box", which has been screened in New Haven International Film Festival and Mystic Film Festival in 2019, and has exhibited his paintings and photographs in galleries throughout Connecticut.

For more information on Morgan or to see his work, please visit the following websites:

temperasolutions.com (partial Drupal/WordPress portfolio)

morgangiosa.com (visual art/music website)

What happens when the flexibility of Drupal meets the interactivity of Godot? In this session, we’ll dive into how you can harness the power of these two platforms to create dynamic, content-driven games. Whether it's trivia games, virtual worlds, or gamified experiences, the combination of Godot and Drupal opens new doors for interactive storytelling and user engagement.

Together, we'll walk through practical ways to connect Drupal and Godot using various APIs and authentication, while showcasing how content managed in Drupal can power in-game features like levels, quests, leaderboards, or dynamic puzzles. If you’ve ever wondered how to expand your Drupal skills into game development or bring game-like features to a Drupal project, this session will offer you inspiration and practical advice.

Site search was already challenging, and AI has only added layers of complexity. From deciding which fields to scan and in what format, to ensuring your search tool properly tokenizes content across languages, there’s no shortage of decisions to make. Prioritizing certain types of content or favoring recent updates? The options are endless. And then there are facets—those magical filters that help users refine their searches, provided you can get them right. But what if you need search to work seamlessly with Layout Builder or other page-building tools? It’s easy to get lost in the labyrinth of configurations, and now AI has introduced even more levels to the quest.

Fear not, brave Drupal adventurer! I’m an old hand at navigating the murky waters of Drupal site search, and have cleared a trail through the new AI options that have emerged. I'm here to serve as your guide through this narrow, treacherous path to success. Together, we’ll explore Search API, Solr, AI-powered tools, and other alternatives, showing you how to configure them effectively. Plus, I'll demonstrate how to get search running on your local environment just like it does in production. Take my hand, and together we’ll tame the search beast, ensuring your users can find exactly what they need—without falling into the abyss of overwhelming configurations.

Users and Admins and Developers, OH MY!  Have Drupal's increasing number of third party dependencies become too complicated for new users?  Are those dependencies breaking Drupal's more advanced features?

In this discussion, Drupal is going to be held up to a microscope, dissected, and analyzed from a historical user perspective.  Who builds, administers, and ultimately uses Drupal sites, and how has that changed over time?  Are all of these changes and added dependencies on outside technology actually for the better, or has Drupal jumped the proverbial shark and alienated its audience?  Are we now gatekeeping Drupal from new users?

Drupal is far more powerful than other CMS solutions.  That is its greatest strength.  But it is also its greatest weakness.  We will talk about the Drupal learning curves and how they're being steepened by the addition of technologies like Drush, Composer, etc. how it has been exacerbated even further by competitor website solutions such as WIX and Squarespace, that flatten their user experience learning curve.  Can we maintain the power of Drupal with a simpler, flatter learning curve?  Are those additional dependencies giving us enough benefit to justify the additional complications they bring?

Furthermore, we will discuss how some of these dependencies break some of Drupal's more advanced, but lesser known core functionalities.

Have we strayed from the yellow brick road by making the Drupal too complicated for anyone but hardcore developers to build and administer?

Discover how DrupalForge.org is changing the way developers create, showcase, and share Drupal applications. This practical session introduces a new game-changing platform that eliminates the complexities of local development while opening new opportunities for Drupal developers and agencies. 

Through live demonstrations, you'll see how DrupalForge.org enables you to:

• Launch new Drupal sites instantly with zero local setup
• Access powerful cloud development environments that are ready to use in 3 seconds
• Share development environments with clients and team members for real-time collaboration
• Create and distribute your own Drupal templates and recipes
• Deploy production-ready sites to any VPS provider
• Monetize your expertise through support and hosting services

Whether you're a solo developer looking to streamline your workflow, an agency seeking efficient client collaboration tools, or a Drupal expert wanting to share your solutions with the community, this session will show you how DrupalForge.org can transform your Drupal development journey.

Level: Beginner to Intermediate

Target Audience: Developers, Agency Teams, Site Builders, Technical Decision Makers

Prerequisites: Basic familiarity with Drupal

Join us and say hello to the future of Drupal development.

Security measures and accessibility don’t always play nice. Captchas, timed logins, alert pop-ups, gated content, and modals are often used for security, but not all users and assistive technology can get their users past the barriers.
We’ll look at practical and straightforward ways to implement open-source solutions that are both secure and accessible, keeping folks from abandoning ship.

Objectives

• You will learn how some security efforts can be barriers to those who use assistive technology
• Learn how different user agents interact with digital assets
• You will walk away with accessible solutions to generally inaccessible 3rd party options

We’ll look at practical and straightforward ways to implement solutions that are open source, secure and accessible, keeping folks from abandoning your digital assets.
 

The future of digital experiences will be driven by the intersection of content and context, with context taking the lead.

In this talk, we will explore how multi-experience marketing across web, mobile, wearables, voice, and digital displays becomes an integral part of a marketer's daily tasks and how AI is accelerating this trend.

Traditional content-building practices have transitioned from a focus on topics and keywords to a sophisticated, holistic approach where content and context are intertwined.

Consider this:
--> By 2026, it's predicted that 91.4 million American consumers will use voice-enabled smart speakers for inquiries.
--> Also by 2026, 38.8 million people in the U.S. will use smart speakers for shopping-related activities, accounting for 13.6% of the population.
--> The wearable market is expected to reach USD 265.4 billion by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 18.0%. By 2029, there will be 1.2 billion wearable devices in use.

The web as we know it today will quickly become a smaller subset of a much larger digital ecosystem. Marketers worldwide are recognizing this shift and are rushing to adapt their content strategies to incorporate more context.

What does this mean? How will it impact marketers globally? These questions are at the heart of this talk!

Here are some key takeaways:
--> Why a contextual content strategy is critical for marketers in today’s world
--> Examples of Multi Experience marketing in the enterprises
--> How the shape of content and marketing campaigns would change in the multi-experience world?
--> The basics of optimizing your campaigns & content for voice, wearables and digital displays
--> How and Why to make your content future proof
--> Why AI ready content should be your next strategic investment

With Drupal CMS 1.0 released in January, we're now well into development of the next version. 

So it's a great opportunity to explain which processes we’ve followed so far, provide updates on how we are tracking and discuss what we have planned next on the roadmap.

Some topics that will be covered:

• Features and areas we're working on now

• Plans for future versions ongoing

• What we're looking for from contributors

• How we defined the strategy and scope

• Which role research played on the product definition

• Using the strategy to define the roadmap and what it looks like now

• How the community has come together to work toward the same goal

• Highlights from the initial work tracks and what we learned from them

Often when embarking on a new technology project, your first attempt feels good when you deliver it, but you look at it later and think, that could have been done better. Sometimes, that means it ends up being rebuilt from scratch.

It helps to know what resources you can pull together to get started--to get off on the right foot. This session is perfect for those who have been through a Drupal In-One-Day training or other beginner trainings and are looking to begin their journey to a production deployed Drupal website.

Whether spinning up your first or wanting to do it better next, this session should help you lay the ground work for a more successful Drupal project launch in your near future. 

We'll go over 

• project initiation concerns, 
• local and remote development environment options,
• available production hosting resources, 
• content structure theory, and 
• theme selection considerations.

We'll also introduce resources for non-developers who want to realize their project without custom theming and development. My hope is, you launch a nice looking, functional, and productive CMS to production when you apply the opinions and follow the steps laid out in this session.

In an era where digital landscapes are ever-changing, SEO has transformed from a mere keyword-centric practice into a sophisticated, holistic strategy. This talk will explore how the digital marketing realm demands adaptable and forward-thinking approaches to remain relevant and effective.

In the talk, we'd look at the LLMO Framework:

Language: Discover the critical shift from focusing solely on keywords to understanding user intent and context. This change underscores the importance of creating content that is not only relevant but also highly useful to the audience.

Learning: Uncover the power of machine learning in dissecting user data, which provides deeper customer insights and enables personalized user experiences.

Modeling: Learn how predictive models can foresee user needs, allowing marketers to enhance their content targeting strategies effectively.

Optimization: Embrace continuous improvement through strategies like A/B testing and analytics, ensuring your digital marketing efforts are always at their peak performance.

Beyond SEO
As we conclude, it's crucial to recognize that SEO is no longer just about climbing search engine rankings. It's about crafting comprehensive, user-centric experiences. Businesses must adopt future-proofing strategies to stay competitive amidst these emerging trends. Join us as we navigate this exciting journey into the future of digital marketing.

Utilizing Schema.org: Attendees would understand the role of Schema.org in optimizing for AI lead search, including a demonstration of implementing Speakable schema and other vital schemas for Voice Search Optimization (VSO).

Case Studies: Analyze real-world examples of websites that excel in AI search rankings, providing practical insights into successful strategies.

Learn the LLMO framework and apply it on the projects they'll develop.

If you or someone you work with has ever asked you these types of questions:

• Why do we work to make things accessible?
• What's the point of making this change only to be accessible?
• Why can't I just make that accessibility fix later?

...or anything similar, this talk is right for you.

What is "the why" you may ask? It's knowing how and why our accessibility improvements make the web better for users with disabilities. It's always a good thing to understand why we do what we do to make things accessible. Let's explore how we can build empathy into our teams by showing them "the why". 

I'll do this with demos! We'll look at various Assistive Technologies (AT)  and Adaptive Strategies to explore what it's like for users with disabilities to navigate and experience the web. Not everyone has experienced a screen reader, screen magnifier, switch device, text-to-speech, TTY (phone communication), etc., and that's our challenge. Challenge accepted!

Managing dates and times is often complex: recurring events, timezones, daylight savings times, regional formatting conventions, and more. Add in additional presentation requirements like add-to-calendar links, registration links, and related content (like agendas, that change for each date instance) and the complexity can seem bewildering.

Fortunately Drupal offers a rich toolset for solving these challenges. In this session we'll explore the solutions, not only showing how they work, but also detailing the modules and the configuration needed.

During the session we'll take a fresh install of Drupal 11 and configure it to meet some advanced use cases, in real time. Along the way we'll use some readily available recipes and contrib modules that you can leverage in your own Drupal site.

You may have heard this before:

• I need a website, could you help me?
• How long will it take to build my website?
• What tech stack would you recommend for my website?
• What will a website cost me?

This session has different items one should consider when building a website.  Some that we will take into consideration are: 

• The type of websites:
  • Marketing landing page.
  • Family and friends website.
  • Small business
  • Medium size business.
• The requirements of their site: 
  • Number of editors
  • Number of pages
  • Average number of visitors. 
• The different forms a website can take:
  • Static websites
  • CRUD apps vs Websites.
  • CMS websites: WordPress and Drupal.
• Their budget, market, and long-term maintenance goals
  • 1k - portfolio project to play with new tech.
  • 3k-5k - Small websites, basic needs. Likely set it and forget it.
  • 10k - Includes one or more editors. Maybe a set it and forget it.
  • 50k - Includes multiple editors and likely includes ongoing maintenance and support.
  • 100k+ - Agency style websites. Multiple editors. 

This session aims to help answer those questions for them and help you as the developer find the fastest, simplest solution for each type of challenge.

Break free from the grip of big tech and take charge of your digital world. This session explores self-hosting services like Nextcloud (Google Drive/Dropbox/Contacts/Calendar replacement), Immich (a Google Photos alternative), Jellyfin (media server), Security Cameras, or anything you can dream up, using tools like Docker, NixOS, and Tailscale. With self hosting you can even run Home Assistant to orchestrate all your smart home devices and even keep using voice control without your data ever leaving your house. Beyond reclaiming your data, self-hosting is also a great way to dip your toe into server management, build skills, and even breathe new life into an old computer or that Raspberry Pi collecting dust. Whether you’re motivated by privacy, curiosity, or career growth, this talk will show you how to get started.