DrupalCon Minneapolis Program Committee is 🔥

This year’s DrupalCon program committee was bigger, and perhaps more ambitious, than ever before! This was my (betalister) first time wrangling this project and I'm grateful to have had the honor of their company and support while on this big adventure.

Together we’ve built a stronger foundation on which we can continually build and experiment for years to come. Please be sure to give committee volunteers a hearty thank you and high five when you see them online and in person at the Con.

Below are some of the tasks and outputs from their work. Future posts on process and outcomes to come.

  • Reviewed approximately 750 sessions and 650 speakers
  • Engaged 93 volunteers over the course of the project
  • Implemented a conference-wide volunteer contribution recognition project
  • Published four blog posts full of topic ideas, tips to help proposals shine, and messages of cheerleading and support: Topic idea roundup, Session proposal tips, Program committee support, You've got this! Notes about impostor syndrome
  • Revamped policies around proposal submission limits (three per person) and the maximum number of speakers per session (four)
  • Developed new policies to increase the number of speakers from communities traditionally underrepresented in tech: Sessions with three or more speakers must include one or more speakers who do not identify as a man, and sessions with multiple speakers are encouraged to include at least one speaker who belongs to a traditionally underrepresented group(s)
  • Refreshed content track names and descriptions and updated the session tagging taxonomy
  • Asynchronously answered questions and provided session feedback to numerous potential speakers via #session-help on the public Drupal Slack before the submission deadline
  • Hosted at least three office hours sessions via Slack and Zoom for real-time support
  • Collaborated on a robust call for proposals page
  • Participated in more than 40 meetings: Committee meetings were held a twice a week at two different times in order to reach a greater number of committee members across various time zones