Talking Drupal #559 - Marketing Drupal

[00:00:00] Nic: This is Talking Drupal, a weekly chat about web design and development from a group of people with one thing in common: we love Drupal. This is episode 559, Marketing Drupal. On today's show, we are talking about marketing, AI, and Drupal with our guest, Paul Johnson. We'll also cover Curated Colors as our module of the week.

Welcome to Talking Drupal. Our guest today is Paul Johnson. Paul has worked in Drupal for nearly 20 years, now at 1X Internet, who is sponsoring his time to lead the AI marketing, whilst also holding down his day job as managing director for UK business. You might have seen him at DrupalCon as a photographer, and he is also a keen cyclist and volunteers as a Scout leader.

Paul, welcome to the show, and thank you for joining us.

[00:00:50] Paul: Thank you for having me.

[00:00:52] Nic: I'm Nic Laflin, founder at nLightened Development, and today my co-hosts are, joining us for his final week, Scott Falconer, senior director of Drupal Applied AI and Agent Success at Acquia. Scott helps humans and machines think together.

He leads Applied AI at Acquia and serves on the Drupal AI Initiative leadership team and has authored Managing AI. Drawing on a background in cognitive science and enterprise-scale architecture, Scott focuses on the messy, practical mechanics of integrating AI directly into everyday workflows. Welcome back.

[00:01:24] Paul: Glad to be back.

[00:01:26] Nic: And also joining us for the full show today, Martin Anderson-Clutz, product marketing manager for Drupal at Acquia

Uh, you're muted. But he was saying hello.

[00:01:42] Martin: I was actually saying hello, internet friends

[00:01:45] Nic: There we go. And now let's turn it over to Martin to talk about Amazee of the Week. Uh, what do you have for us this week?

[00:01:54] Martin: Thanks, Nic. Have you ever wanted to allow editors on your Drupal site to choose styling from a brand-approved color palette? There's a module for that.

It's called Curated Colors, and it was created in April of 2026 by Kyle Einecker of True Summit. It has a 1.0.0 version available, which works with Drupal 10.3, 11, and 12. It is actively maintained and has both security and test coverage, as well as an in-depth README for documentation. There are two open issues, neither of which are bugs, and it is officially in use by 27 sites according to Drupal.org.

Now, Curated Colors enforces brand consistency by replacing generic color text inputs or wide-open color pickers with a curated visual swatch popover containing only pre-approved named options. It streamlines rebranding by storing abstract keys, such as brand primary instead of raw hex values, in the database.

That means updating a brand color in the future only requires a CSS or configuration change rather than a massive data migration. Curated Colors is also extensible beyond colors. It functions as a generic visual variant selector. Style builders or site builders can repurpose it to let editors pick card layouts, button styles like primary outline or danger, hero text alignments, or icon themes.

Editors can pick from neatly organized groups with human-readable labels and see a live preview swatch of their selection before saving. Palettes are managed as exportable Drupal configuration. Each entry maps a machine key to a label, administrative hex preview, and optional custom CSS. The module provides a curated color field type and an accompanying swatch-based popover widget that can be restricted to specific palette groups.

It also features a native curated color picker form API element and integrates with the Canvas module via SDC annotations. The field exposes properties like value, hex, style, and CSS, making it simple to output selections as classes, inline styles, or raw codes in Twig templates. Finally, Curated Colors also includes an example sub-module providing a working S- SDC component and sample palette templates, so you can see exactly how it's meant to be used.

So let's talk about Curated Colors.

[00:04:14] Nic: So I'm curious, do you know if it allows you to have multiple palettes per site? Because, uh, clients that, uh, I mean, th- this, out of the box, I think this solves an issue for most clients. But I have several clients that do, like, um, fundraisers and campaigns, and a, a campaign might have a slightly different palette, and they don't wanna make that palette available to the wider site, but they do wanna kinda keep that controlled.

Do you know, do you know if you can do kind of like curated sets, or is it just one set per site?

[00:04:47] Martin: That's an interesting question. So I'm, I'm pretty sure the way it works is that palettes are stored as configuration entities. So I don't, off the top of my head, know a reason why you couldn't create, um, more than one.

But at a minimum, it sounds like you can create, um, palette groups, so that's sort of like grouping of styles. Oh. And then you can sort of, uh, expose or restrict those for specific elements. So you could have, as an e- to your example- Right ... maybe at a minimum, a palette group that was specific to a campaign, and have that only available on, you know, under certain circumstances.

[00:05:23] Nic: This, this module seems pretty exciting. It, it also seems in line with one of the initiatives that Pieter's been working on with the tokens and styles APIs. Um, I think it solves one, one piece of that puzzle. So yeah, I'm, I'm excited to test this out actually.

[00:05:38] Martin: Yeah, it looks very cool. I haven't really had a chance to play around with it myself yet.

But, um, but yeah, the, the user experience that it creates in terms of, you know, particularly within Canvas, being able to in, you know, apply things in a more visual way and also have some of the deeper customization, not just colors, but gradients and some of the other things, uh, I think could be a game changer.

[00:05:59] Nic: Yeah. Uh, specifically if... I, I'd be interested to know, and I suspect you don't know the answer to this, but I'd be interested to know if we can also limit some of the, um, like the i- inline CSS. Uh, or I don't know if that's something that happens on the input side or if that's something that happens on the configuration side, because I, I feel like as a pure just color picker type thing, this is perfect.

Um, some clients will want the inline CSS, but a lot of my clients will be like, "We don't want them writing any code that gets injected anywhere."

[00:06:33] Martin: So I think if I recall correctly, the CSS is really more for like the in-browser or like the- Oh ... um, admin side simulation. The idea is that- Okay ... it really provides just the token, and then you'll pull that into your template.

So it's actually, you know, the site, what it displays is based on what- whatever is in your actual site

[00:06:53] Nic: CSS. Okay. Very cool.

[00:06:55] Martin: Yeah.

[00:06:57] Nic: Well, Martin, uh, I think you've found, uh, what is gonna become a classic, uh, module for maintaining things, especially since it integrates with Canvas like most new modules are doing.

If folks wanted to discuss the module of the week or provide a suggestion, what's the best way for them to do that?

[00:07:14] Martin: We're always happy to talk about the module of the week in the Talking Drupal channel of Drupal Slack, or, uh, you can do like Kyle did and reach out to me directly, uh, as mandclu on all of the Drupal and social channels.

[00:07:28] Nic: Awesome. Thank you. And we have Stephen here to tell us a little bit about NedCamp coming up.

[00:07:34] Stephen: Save the date for New England Drupal Camp 2026. Join us November 13th and 14th at Rhode Island College for two days of learning, connection, and community with Drupal professionals from across the region and beyond.

This year's conference features our popular Higher Ed Summit, a full lineup of speaker sessions, and both half and full day training opportunities designed to help you sharpen your skills, whether you're new to Drupal or a seasoned expert. And of course, it wouldn't be NedCamp without time to reconnect with friends and make new connections at our community social.

Visit nedcamp.org for more details, and mark your calendars for November 13th and 14th at Rhode Island College. We can't wait to see you at NedCamp 2026.

[00:08:23] Nic: Awesome. Thank you, Stephen. Okay, Paul, welcome to the show. Uh, so before we jump into kind of the primary topic, i- is there anything exciting you're working on? Anything new that you'd like to, to share?

[00:08:37] Paul: I think probably the most exciting thing that's happening at the moment is the, uh, Enterprise AI Summit we've got coming up in Rotterdam.

Um, that's, uh, I mean, the whole of Rotterdam's gonna be really amazing, I think. Um, I suppose there's two strands really. Uh, the whole idea of the, the, uh, Enterprise AI Summit is to cu- curate an event which is, uh, where we're gonna celebrate client success, um, in AI. Um, so, uh, get a room full of people, um, who are the sort of decision makers and the buyers.

Um, net new customers hopefully. Um, so, uh, the, uh, the entire, uh, marketing team are working towards that. Um, but also, um, you know, um, we, we're encouraging the AI partners to, to, to really sort of draw interest to that. Um, and it, it's already shaping up to be a, a, a really, really interesting event. Uh, we've got, um, uh, Peter Hinton as our, um, our...

He's an, um, a v- very experienced keynote speaker. Um, we, we're hiring a, um, a professional, uh, compare for the, for the event who's a, a, a radio and TV presenter. Uh, we've got World Cancer Day confirmed. Uh, somebody from the, uh, European Commission. Um, so, uh, Frederick Walters from, uh, Drop Solid is leading that event.

Um, and alongside that we've also got James Hall, uh, from Everyone TV coming, so that's a UK-based, um, organization. Um, it's, uh, funded by the major broadcasters in, in the UK, and he has a, a recording studio that he's bringing with him to DrupalCon, and he's gonna be both at the AI Summit and also DrupalCon and interviewing, um- Okay

speakers. Uh, so he's gonna, uh, walk out of the events, uh, with, um, a lot of content in the can, and he's, uh, gonna generate sort of 60-second, um, uh, interviews with people, um, that we'll be able to use to, uh, yeah, it, it'll be gold I think as far as, uh, telling the story to, to the wider audience. So I'm really excited about both those things.

[00:10:39] Nic: Yeah. Th- th-

[00:10:39] Scott: Anything interesting about the, the venue for that one?

[00:10:43] Paul: Well, the, the ve- the Enterprise AI Summit's gonna be on a, a really nice luxury cruise ship. Uh, so it's gonna be a, a first for Drupal. Um, but we're actually dropping the word Drupal from the event, um, so that, uh, we can, um, try and, uh, uh, appeal to just general AI, people with AI interest.

Um, so, uh, it, it, it's not sort of falling into the trap of, um, you know, being inside the, the Drupal bubble again.

[00:11:07] Nic: I, I, I wanna mention too for our listeners that that's gonna be on, um, Monday, September 28th. Uh, so if they're listening to this episode, there's still time to sign up.

[00:11:20] Martin: So Paul, you've spent years promoting Drupal to the outside world. What does marketing for the Drupal AI Initiative actually involve?

[00:11:28] Paul: Yeah. Well, uh, I mean, uh, for a long time I was involved in running the social media for Drupal and, and I got involved in, uh, Promote Drupal at the very start, but, um, working for the Drupal AI Initiative is, uh, is a different ballgame.

Um, we, we, we founded the initiative back, um, just over a year ago, um, uh, at Dev Days, um, in Belgium. And, uh, even at that moment, uh, when we were just a small number of us, about six people in the room with Dries, I knew that, uh, we were, uh, uh, at, at the bottom of a big mountain really. Um, I've always been very conscious that, uh, Drupal's not, not done such a great job of, um, reaching outside of the immediate audience that we have, people already using Drupal, and I suppose I, I set myself the, the, the goal that that's where we needed to be.

Um, so in terms of, uh, what are we actually doing, um, if you think of it as a bit of a, uh, like a, like classical, uh, marketing funnel, uh, a lot of the focus is on, um, things like media outreach, uh, trying to start to build relationships with people who own audiences, whether that be, you know, traditional media or podcasters.

Um, you know, anybody that, um, uh, the, the target customer is, is listening to. A- and, you know, we're, we're starting to start conversations with, uh, people like Reuters. Um, and you know, we're, we're, we're forming connections with, uh, analysts and, uh, people who assess platforms because that's really where, uh, people start to become aware of, um, you know, the, the solutions they might want to choose.

They don't s- spend any time on drupal.org or following us on LinkedIn, for example, following podcasts like this. We've gotta get out there. Um, so, um, uh, uh, uh, we've also invested quite heavily, uh, in going to events, uh, that are already organized. So not DrupalCon, but, uh, for example, uh, last week or the week before, I was at, um, alongside, uh, uh, Dropsolid, um, Acquia, Pantheon, uh, Freely Give, and Works Internet.

We had a, a booth at the, um, AI Summit, part of London Tech Week. So there was as many as 10,000 people coming to that event, and we had a booth that was representing Drupal, um, AI. Um, and, uh, so there was a combination of people who did already know about Drupal, but there was a majority of people who didn't, and I think that's how we're gonna win is, is by being in these places.

And then another- Mm-hmm ... uh, series of events that we've done is, um, uh, we've done AI summits in both New York City and Paris, and again, that's, uh, an event which is already happening, and we've been invited to sort of, uh, bring our audience to it and draw, uh, other people who are interested in, in our topics, uh, to their events.

[00:14:10] Nic: So i- speaking to those events, Bernardo asked, uh, about getting a booth at, uh, All Things Open. So if somebody's interested in having one of these shared booths- Both, how do they, uh, how, how would they kind of bring that up and create a partnership?

[00:14:27] Paul: Yeah. So one of the, the, the, the mantras that we've got with, uh, the initiative is to create materials so others can take them.

Um, so, uh, yeah, if you, you ... The first thing to do would be to reach out to us on, uh, AI minus initiative marketing, uh, which I'll, I'll, I'll provide a link later. Um, uh, and we can start a conversation, and we can perhaps either look to collaborate with you or, uh, provide you with the materials that we already have to kind of reduce the, the, the barriers for you and the challenges that you might face in, in actually being at an event like that.

And we definitely want to hear about, uh, as many of these types of events in, in your regions as, as, as, as we can. Uh, we do- Yeah ... because of the way that the initiative is, um, organized, we have the AI partners who are providing funding, but also contributing, um, staff members to both the development side and also the marketing.

Uh, we have resources that would be able to help people or even to, to come with you to those kind of events.

[00:15:29] Nic: Okay. Thank you very much.

[00:15:32] Scott: Um, earlier you had mentioned marketing to people outside Drupal, you know, which is, is ... It can be hard for us that are in Drupal and love Drupal and convinced about Drupal already to really understand it.

Um, what would you say, like, the kind of impression is outside of our island on when people hear Drupal? What do they think of? Have they heard of it? What are the impressions that we're up against?

[00:15:54] Paul: Yeah. Um, I mean, if, if you take the, um, uh, London Tech Week, uh, example, um, it was very interesting because, uh, we had a, a big, uh, booth, uh, with, uh, it- governance was prominently emblazoned on, on the, the s- the, the stand.

Um, uh, we'd done our research and, uh, we knew that that was a, a big topic for people, and, you know, Drupal has invested quite heavily in some of the tooling to start to be able to have, uh, content governance and, uh, context control center. Um, and, um, that's a topic that really resonated with people who came to speak to us.

Um, i- it's fair to say that, you know, there were people who, of the people who did know Drupal, some were already, uh, using it and still using and have been for, uh, quite a while, so government, um, and also, uh, charities, nonprofits. Um, but I would say the bulk of people didn't know what Drupal was, and, uh, it was a great opportunity to sort of educate them.

And they, they didn't have any false conceptions about Drupal, um, in the, in the, the greatest part. Um, so it was, um, really nice to be able to sort of explain how Drupal can be this, uh, really powerful harness for, for your AI. And we were trying to get across to them how, um, Drupal isn't just a, a content management system, it can be used for lots of different applications.

And over the past year, we've gathered quite a lot of really powerful, uh, case studies, uh, of how AI is being used in Drupal. Um, you know, such as the, in the UK, the delay repay system, where if your train is delayed you can submit your ticket, um, to, um, get a refund for, a partial refund for the delay, and that's being powered by Drupal AI.

So there was, uh, stories that resonated with, with our market. There were people coming to the booth that, you know, as, as, um, you know, it's common that, you know, people have this outdated idea about Drupal being really hard to use and perhaps a bit outdated. And, you know, there were a few people saying, "Oh, are you still on PHP?"

But, uh, once they got to learn about all the interesting things that we're doing and have got coming up, um, they, it got their attention. So, you know, it's- Yeah ... it was, uh, very positive.

[00:18:10] Nic: So what's something that's working right now in how kind of the community and the DA is marketing Drupal? Uh, like what are some of the success stories and, and how can we build on those?

[00:18:23] Paul: Yeah. Um, I mean, we've just come off the back of, um, uh, a webinar with, uh, Angie Forson from Southwark Council. Um, so we- we're always looking out for these, um, use cases that people are applying and, and then, um, looking to, um, drill into those, uh, and, and give it a, like, a platform for these stories to be told really to, uh- Okay

celebrate these successes. And, um, we had over 140 people attend the webinar, uh, which, you know, we're, we're seeing consistently high numbers of people. Uh, um, but also it's, it's an... Thinking about the conversion, um, uh, funnel, uh, we're, we're, we're getting to, uh, people are obviously identifying who they are, and we're able to then have follow-on conversations with them via email, uh, and kind of keep them interested with Drupal.

So I'd say that's a, a great success. Um, and, and I, I, another thing is, is that, um, I mean, we started off, it was just me and Frederick who were, uh, running the, the whole marketing side of things. Uh, but now we have a, a really quite vast team of people. Um, so we've got, um, uh, we've got Shruti Desai from Acquia working on the messaging positioning.

Uh, we've got Dan Stratton from ZOOCH and Scott Lawrence working on the brand and design. Uh, we've got Pritam, uh, Prasan from Open Sense Lab working on media relations. Amber, uh, Henry from Morphed is working on social media. Uh, we've got Matthew Saunders, uh, and James Hall working with webinars. On the event side, we've got Matthew, uh, Frederick, uh, Catalin Forgas, and myself.

Um, and then we've also got, uh, someone from 1X Internet, James Tillotson, who's working on sales enablement, so starting to produce these tools that people can... Uh, the things like battle cars and slide decks so that we can, um, uh, provide these to agencies so they've got, uh, really compelling stories to tell, uh, when they're going into this competitive, uh, market.

Rosie Gladden from ImageX is also, um, uh, scouting out for case studies and, uh, starting to work with the organizations that have delivered these projects. Uh, there are a pipeline for things like, you know, obviously Drupal.org, but also for webinars and for events. Um, so there's a huge opportunity for, uh, agencies and, and users to, um, you know, to, to get the word out about the good work they've done.

Uh, then we've got Duncan Worrall from ZOOCH, uh, working on existing capabilities, so he's creating a, a, a format where others can follow where, uh, we've got, um, demonstration videos and explainers on, uh, what you can actually do with Drupal right now. Um, and also the upcoming capabilities, uh, we all hop into from ZOOCH is working on that.

So as we've got this, um, roadmap now, um, it's very clear, um, where to... he can focus his attention to make sure we're prepared for, um, things like when Drupal come, comes along, there is a big announcement, and then hand in hand, we've got the demos that Dan Lemon is looking at with Amazee.io Um, and a real star is, uh, Maria, uh, Fernanda Silva.

Um, she's working on, uh, content and event organization. Uh, and finally we've got, um, Jeremy, uh, Ginquest, uh, from Genomics, um, who's helping to keep us all organized as, uh, the scrum master. So- Uh, so there's a lot of, a lot of moving parts going on ... when,

[00:21:38] Nic: when, when you said vast team, you weren't kidding. I mean, that was just like- Yeah, yeah, yeah

[00:21:45] Paul: 10 million

[00:21:45] Nic: people. That is

[00:21:46] Paul: impressive. Uh, but, but, uh, yeah, uh, it, it's not easy to, to, uh, um, organize such a, a globally distributed and, um, big team.

[00:21:56] Nic: Yeah.

[00:21:56] Paul: Um, but it, it does seem to be working. And, um, one nice thing that happened in Chicago was we were having conversations with the DA around, um, how we can replicate that success out into wider Drupal.

And I think a really significant step is that I've been speaking to Ryan and, and Dries about how we stop s- talking about marketing Drupal AI, and we just start talking about marketing Drupal. So some of the work that we're doing in the initiative is actually looking at how Drupal is positioned, uh, because we don't wanna create these two silos, and we wanna create a perception that Drupal just has AI and it really is, uh, integrated and, and works really nicely, rather than it being bolted along the side as it's not Drupal or AI.

Obviously you can use it without AI. Um, but, uh, from a marketing and positioning s- you know, situation, um, I think it's a very... It, it starts to simplify the, the journey for the user because one of the f- uh, issues that we have with marketing Drupal is that it's used by such a wide range of different, um, applications and different industries and different geographies.

And so y- you've got like a multi, multi problem there. And if you create another one with Drupal and AI, uh, the, the, the, the journey is really, really challenging from, um, the end user's perspective

[00:23:15] Scott: And one thing there I, I wanna call out, 'cause I think it, it's great how you mention that whole team, Paul. Um, when people think about contributing to Drupal, it can be very easy to think about code, but there are a lot of ways to contribute, and that's where I would encourage anyone who, you know, you wanna contribute, you want your company to contribute, like even on the marketing, the narrative side, there's a ton of work that can be done.

And we don't always see it within the community because we're not the ones being marketed to. So if you're looking for areas to, um-

[00:23:43] Nic: Yeah ...

[00:23:43] Scott: contribute or get involved, reach out to Paul or-

[00:23:45] Paul: Yeah ...

[00:23:45] Scott: Amazee.ai.

[00:23:46] Paul: Just- Yeah. I mean, in the Slack channel what we're trying to do is, is have these really, really easy tasks that you can do, um, just to get, yeah, get going and working with the team.

Um, so I don't think that you have to be like a, a master in marketing to be able to get involved. Yeah. And Maria's a good example of that, where, um, you know, we've given her a few easy tasks and she's just absolutely aced it and, and she's working on some really important stuff now. So it's a good way to sort of move up the ladder and, and really, uh, find, find your place.

And as you say, uh, most of these are non-technical tasks. It could be photography, it could be design, uh, it could be, uh, writing a, a blog article. It could even just be uploading one to Drupal.org. There's so many things we can offer.

[00:24:28] Martin: Well, f- from your perspective, how is the story we need to tell about Drupal different depending on whether we're talking to developers or marketers?

Do we have more ground to cover in either area?

[00:24:39] Paul: Um, so from the, from the start, what we did was, um, uh, we developed a, a bit of a, a strategy. One of the, the, the, the founding principles of that was is we have an outside in approach. Um, so, um, one of the tendencies with developers is to always try and, you know, s- sell a module or, um, sell a, a piece of functionality or a widget or, uh, maybe pull something off the shelf anyway, uh, and think that that's gonna, um, be something that someone wants to buy.

And, uh, so what we've always done from the start is to try and think of it from, uh, what is the, the organization trying to achieve? What are the challenges they face, or what are the goals they're trying to, to reach? And, uh, tell the story of Drupal from that perspective. Um, so it, it's a very different way of, uh, it's, it's, it's almost the opposite of the way that, uh, Drupal has been sold in, in the past.

Um, yeah, and ask- thinking about the questions that someone will be asking or expecting to find the answers to when they come to drupal.org. Um, and, and you've got to- Can you give- ... provide-

[00:25:43] Nic: Can you give an example of, of what you're talking about?

[00:25:47] Paul: Yeah. Um, I mean, you know, if we look at Southwark, for example, um, the, the challenge they had was they had a whole, uh, literally thousands of PDF documents that were inaccessible, and they needed to comply to the UK, um, accessibility regulations.

So it wasn't that they had a, a module for that, but that was the, the ask. And so, um, th- there were different ways in which Drupal was applied, um, to, you know, r- read those documents in using AI. Um, that meant that... And they didn't have the resources to pay someone to actually do that either, 'cause it was gonna take three or four hours per document.

It was gonna take thousands and thousands of hours. So that would, that would be an example where, uh, I think we can all imagine how we might do that with Drupal. Um, another example with World Cancer Day was, um, how, uh, it just happens on one day. Uh, and they have, they encourage, um, anyone from around the world to tell their cancer story, and these are really, really, uh, compelling and, you know, stories that resonate with the audience.

And if you submit something, you want it to have either at, at the same day or even within the same hour when you published it, so you can then tell people, "Oh, my God, I'm on, um, the, uh, uh, on the website, and I'm in the campaign." And, and, uh, that starts to catalyze the effects of the, the campaign. But they were overwhelmed with the number of stories coming in, um, so, uh, back in, you know, about this time last year, um, ahead of the campaign, they started to plan how they might use, um, AI and Drupal AI to, to moderate those, um, to, to, like, fast-track the ones that were obviously okay.

And then if there were any bad actors or there were any images that weren't appropriate, um, Drupal AI was able to, um, identify those. The workflows, uh, in, in the, uh, the system, uh, triaged the, the... so those humans could, uh, focus on, uh, quickly passing the ones that looked good. And so those are genuine business problems, not- Yeah, we didn't from the outset say, "We've got this thing in Drupal, do you want to buy it?"

It was more listening, so it's more of a consultative thing. And, and-

[00:27:46] Nic: Yeah, we, I, I just want to mention really quick that we had a, we had the team on from World Cancer Day, uh, on episode 544, if people want to go back and listen, uh, to Charles Andrew Revkin talking a little bit more detail about that.

[00:27:59] Paul: Yeah, absolutely.

And, and that's exactly the point, isn't it? That if we can allow them to tell Drupal's story from the organization's- Yeah ... perspective, there, there's nothing better than that because, uh, I mean, Charles is an absolute advocate of Drupal. And, um, what, no matter how, how, how hard we and our team work, there's nothing better than, um, somebody saying how good it is, uh, from the customer's perspective

[00:28:24] Nic: Awesome.

[00:28:25] Scott: Perfect. Um, I wanted to talk about the AI initiative a little bit. You know, for background for listeners, like, how I met Paul was being on part of AI initiative, which from my perspective is, is really great. Like, it is a collection of companies working together. Um, I've probably gotten to meet more people in Drupal in the last year than I did in the first 20, because it can be very insular working with your own company, right?

And it's really fun working with people who, they may be customers, they may be partners, they may be direct competitors, but we're all working together, um, which has been great. So ag- again, a shout-out for the AI initiative. If you wanna get involved, reach out to us. We'll always have more people, uh, participating.

But with that, Paul, um, how has the AI initiative changed the story we get to tell?

[00:29:09] Paul: That's a good question. Um, I- I suppose I was daunted at the start because, um, you know, honestly, and I suppose a lot of people were like this, maybe they still are now, I didn't know a lot about AI at the time. Um, so I felt like a bit of a, an imposter, but I suppose I'm a people person and, you know, I bring a different set of skills to the table.

Um, as far as how, uh, the initiative has, has helped is, um, there's been a lot more structure, um, around AI. S- previously there was a lot of amazing people, uh, working on incredible things in, in the contrib space. Um, but it was very difficult to, uh, actually work out which was the one module that ruled them all for any particular thing.

So you might end up marketing the wrong thing. Um, and also, um, the AI init- so there's been a, a, like, a conscious effort to sort of identify which are the, uh, the right ways to go, and also, uh, focus people's attention on that, which has been helpful from a marketing perspective because we know that we're working towards promoting the right thing.

We know who to go and speak to. But we've also got a roadmap that's been developed. Um, so you know, um, the leadership in the, uh, AI initiative and also, uh, Driss has been working, uh, behind the scenes, but also encouraging contributions, uh, from, um, uh, the partners and, and the wider community, um, to influence the roadmap.

What that's meant for me and the team is, is that we know what's coming, um, and therefore, uh, we can start to have a bit of a plan. So, you know, by Rotterdam we have a pretty good idea of what's going to ship, and we can start to work on that now. And that's, uh, really... You know, Chicago was a good example where we knew context control center was likely to go into beta.

Um, so, uh, we were speaking to the, to the people who are working on that, and we produced, um, videos to convey story. So on the day it got launched, on after the keynote, we could release, uh, nice materials on LinkedIn and YouTube and write, uh, publish, uh, news articles about it, which is, um, gonna help people to, uh, understand the importance of these kind of things.

And so I think it's been a real game changer. Um, and there's also, as I mentioned, the fact that we've got, uh, access to, um, people. Um, in the past, marketing hasn't always, uh, had the, the greatest attention. Um, you know, people haven't always been able to sort of volunteer their time, but now we have people who are, um, as part of their full-time day job, like myself and, and all the people I've mentioned earlier, and they're being sponsored by their company to actually work on marketing.

That, and that's massive because it means that you can start to get things done in a really, uh, really quickly in a, in a, in a structured way. And, and deadlines tend not to get slipped because, uh, they, they've got time, um, carved out so they can actually focus

[00:32:03] Scott: Perfect. Um, yeah, it's interesting you said about the, the imposters at the beginning.

One of the nice parts about AI is we're all imposters, right? So it, it, it's very freeing- Yeah ... once you realize nobody knows what they're doing- Yeah, yeah ... or talking about. So if, again, if people are looking to get involved, there's no right or wrong- No, no ... answer. Yeah. Go make

it up.

[00:32:18] Paul: And you probably bring in skills that we lack. Uh, I mean, Shruti from, from Acquia is a good example of that, where, um, we, we didn't really have someone who was, um, good, a, a specialist in, um, uh, brand positioning and, um, uh, understanding the audience and what resonates with them. And, uh, so you know, we've gone from, you know, maybe just muddling it along a bit and ha-having a good stab at it to having someone who's a true expert, and we're, we're...

That's true across, you know, multiple areas

[00:32:45] Martin: in marketing. Mm-hmm. Yep.

[00:32:53] Nic: Sorry, I'm, uh, it's me, it's me that's muted this time. One second. I accidentally Control + W'd on the wrong window. Uh, this is, as John would say, th- every time feels like the first time, right? Um, so you've mentioned a couple times that you're trying to understand a slightly different audience than most developers usually are, are marketing to.

Um, can you help... A- as, as one of those aforementioned developers, can you help me understand kind of where the new Drupal adopters are coming from? Like where, where should we be looking to... 'Cause, you know, going to DrupalCon, this is something I think the DA realized or the community realized a couple years ago, going to DrupalCon to find new Drupal customers, clients, evangelists, developers is, is not a great strategy because they're already Drupal people, right?

Yeah. So where, where should we be looking?

[00:33:55] Paul: Yeah. Uh, I mean, the sorts of people that we're targeting, um, they're, they're primarily in IT, so people like the CIO, the CTO, the CISO, um, the people that work in security and ops and support as well because, um, uh, with AI you, you kind of... You have to get it compliant before you can start to use it.

So whereas traditionally, uh, maybe we, we were with Drupal looking at the marketing department where, 'cause they're, they're heavily involved in the content side of things, um, IT is quite heavily involved. Uh, but then on the other opposite, you know, we have got marketing, so, uh, people like performance marketing, the chief marketing officer, the content creators themselves, and people that work in creative and brand.

Um, th- it's not just the decision-makers that we're trying to reach. We're trying to get the one layer level down. Quite often they're the people who are lobbying s- to their decision makers or actually getting, um, responsibility for, um, doing the work to, um, then present to the decision maker, the budget holder, um, uh, wh- what direction they should take.

And, you know, we, we, we can see that as an agency as a 1Xinternet where, and I'm sure that it's the same with a lot of agencies, where, um, you know, the people that we, we spend our time talking to, um, yeah, they're, they're not the, the C-level people. So, um, and it's, it's places, you know, uh, things like marketing conferences.

Um, yeah, at, at these, these events that we're going to. Uh, we've, we've formed a partnership with API Days, which, um, have got an event called Future of Software Technology, um, and they're running across the world. Uh, we've done one in New York City, uh, and we did one in December last year in Paris. Um, these are where, uh, these types of people are going to and, and actually doing their research.

And they- they- they're also turning to, you know, um, their trusted, um, you know, their trusted advisors. So it might be people like, um, uh, industry analysts, so, you know, the people like Gartner and Forrester and CMS Wire. So signing up for newsletters with them, uh, attending webinars, um, going to podcasts or sector-specific media.

So these, you know, uh, it's not necessarily... Uh, we, we, we spoke to some people from the motor manufacturing industry, um, a couple of weeks ago at, um, uh, the, uh, AI Summit in London, and, um, being able to have build relationships with th- these sort of membership-based organizations that all these people are going to.

Um, and, and, yeah, we need to find as many conferences that we can go to. Obviously, it takes, uh, a lot of money to go to these events, and that's partly why we've been, um- We're having a joint venture, I suppose, with, uh, multiple AI partners. So it hasn't been funded by the AI initiative. The, the partners have, um, contributed in addition to, to actually be at these events.

But, uh, I can say, you know, from firsthand experience that those types of events are, um, you know, where the, the customers that we wanna work with are.

[00:36:57] Nic: So Martin, you went to the... Did you go to that API, uh, 10 days event? I

[00:37:02] Martin: went... I was at the one in, in New York City. That's correct, yes.

[00:37:07] Nic: And, and did you do any Drupal marketing there?

How, how did that go? Were, were you part of the initiative?

[00:37:13] Martin: So actually the, the funny thing was they had a, uh, kind of a meet and greet session the night before of the, the actual conference kicked off. Okay. And, um, as part of just sort of the, like, an- announcements they were making at the start of that, you know, they mentioned Drupal and sort of, I kinda did a, like, "Woo-hoo!"

And then they- So they invited me up to, to actually give a Drupal pitch. So I gave, like- Oh, nice ... just an impromptu couple minute sort of, you know, elevator pitch to the, the crowd that was assembled there. So that was sort of my own little, um, you know, foray, I suppose, into the, uh, the AI initiative marketing for the assembled audience.

[00:37:48] Paul: I didn't know about that. That's amazing. Very cool. But I suppose, um-

[00:37:54] Scott: Real quick, what's the best-

[00:37:56] Paul: Go ahead.

[00:37:57] Scott: I'm sorry. Go ahead, Paul.

[00:37:57] Paul: No, you go ahead. I

[00:37:58] Scott: was gonna say, what's the best way, um, just thinking through this, like, where I'm at, Boise, uh, there are a lot of, like, random local events that, you know, I could go to.

Yeah. Um, anything from, like, weird music tech festivals to just, I think last week there was a giant, um, state and local government outdoor recreation conference. Like, how can people reach out or say like, "Hey, I'm here. I could go very easily. What could I do?"

[00:38:21] Paul: I, I'd love people to do that, absolutely. Um, I mean, we only have boots on the ground in so many places.

Um, but we really need to take, um, you know, make advantage of the fact the Drupal, uh, community is everywhere. You know, we've got agencies, we've got, you know, people like you guys who are in different, different parts of the US. Um, so I mean, just reach... If you've got an idea of going out to an event, um, or even hear about one, make us aware.

Um, we will help you. Um, and yeah, because a lot of these, these things are, are repeatable, and we can provide you materials. We've even got, um, templates for pull-up banners so that you could just send it to your local print shop and, um, so you don't need to have a designer. And you know, we've got leaflets that, you know, templates for those as well.

Um, all these things we, we can help with. And, and we can fill in the gaps as well. Um, a really nice thing about the initiative is, is that everyone is working in an unselfish way. Um, it sounds counterintuitive to perhaps, I mean, I helped to organize the event in New York City, but, uh, I, I didn't go. Um, but if we all do this, then we all win.

Um, so we just need to help each other.

[00:39:31] Stephen: Yep.

[00:39:32] Martin: So Paul, walk us through the funnel from awareness through eval- evaluation and eventually to for success. How can we improve that funnel?

[00:39:42] Paul: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I've touched on, you know, the, the, the areas where we're focusing on is, is trying to, uh, reach, um, journalists and people who are in audiences to s- sort of start at the top of the funnel and, and to start people moving them towards, um, you know, when we're looking for case studies and, um, success stories, we're looking to have, um, more and more webinars.

Um, that takes geography away. Anyone can come to the webinars that are recorded. Um, and also because we're capturing people's, uh, contact details, it means that we can then have a, a nurture campaign afterwards via email, and then maybe try and direct them towards events. So it's, it's a little bit of a, a hopefully a conveyor belt where we try and keep as many people in as possible.

And every webinar we- we're, um, making previous webinar attendees aware that there is another one coming. And, um, so there's, there's that. Um, we're also using social media quite heavily, so Amber is doing a great job of, um, picking up that, that, uh, um, baton. Um, so we're pretty much getting stuff out every day now, um, on LinkedIn.

Um, and so yeah, we're trying to, to get people towards DrupalDog ultimately, uh, where, um, they can find out a little bit more, you know, they become aware and interested. Uh, and then we, we, um- Trying to get people to go to the demos. Um, so there's some more work being done to create more and more demos. So I mentioned about the existing capabilities and the upcoming capabilities.

We've got content for those being produced, and we're also marrying that with demos so that if you read the, uh, the document or the page, you can then go through to go and try it out right now. Um, and that's, um, the conversion happens when they either download Drupal and try it out, um, they might bring it to their team or they start to, uh, engage with an AI partner.

Uh, so we're prominently featuring, uh, AI partners, um, in this journey so that, um, because of course they're funding, um, the AI initiative, they need to ... They deserve a, a return on investment from that. Um, yeah, and then it keeps Drupal healthy as well. Um, and of course the events p- play a big part in this as well, but we can only be in so many places.

Um, where are we not winning? Um, with, I've referenced like the, the multi, multi-audience, uh, aspect and, uh, it's a pretty unclean, um, journey at the moment, um, in terms of being able to address different markets. One thing we have done is create, uh, industry guides. So we've picked off all of the different sectors where Drupal is, um, highly adopted, and we've, uh, picked up on different scenarios that you might use AI for.

'Cause one thing that we've detected is that actually people aren't really, um, always, uh, going for this like big bang implementation of AI. Um, that they need to get IT's buy-in first and then maybe do something really small, it might be in the back office. Um, so we're looking to, uh, we've tried to create examples of what those things look like for different sectors, uh, and marrying them with demos, um, so that, um, we can just get people started to begin with.

So, and then they can take this journey to, to more complex implementations once they've seen some return on investment. So yeah, there's a lot of moving parts. Um, I mean ano- another thing which we, we have talked about as well is, um, the whole SEO and G- GeoAIO topic. Um, I think the thing is, um, the, v- a lot of people are starting to use, um, you know, um, Claude and, um, OpenAI to, uh, do their research and others.

Um, and if we're not on those then, um, we're not even on the list in the first place, which is a, a challenge

[00:43:28] Scott: Yep. How do we, how do we do that? Yeah, 'cause more and more decisions, I mean, anything from what CMS should I use, and sometimes not even just I wanna build this, to, you know, my everyday life decisions now about what shoes should I buy and where should I eat lunch, I, I kinda lean on AI.

How can we... what can we do to make it so that Drupal is recommended? If someone just says, "I need to build a website."

[00:43:50] Paul: Yeah. Well, it's interesting that Dries, uh, wrote about this the other day. Um, and, and, you know, whilst, um, you know, his findings were that Drupal did a reasonably good job, there's still work to be done.

Um, uh, we did some, uh, SEO research, um, back in December. Um, and, um, one of the challenges that, uh, we, um, saw from an SEO perspective is that, um, we've got this new drupal.org and we've got drupal.org, and the new pages, um, uh, don't have so much domain authority, even in traditional SEO. Um, so, um, the, um, uh, Drupal Association has taken on a, a quite a big task to, uh, address the findings from that SEO report.

Um, so, uh, but that's also led to conversations around, um, you know, we're not just treating the, um, the, uh, the bots, it's also how do we treat the humans. So, um, in Chicago, I was having some really healthy conversations with, um, the, the marketing group and also Ryan Whitcomb, who is ultimately in charge of the marketing for Drupal, uh, around, um, m- m- maybe a, some, a direction of travel where, uh, we have a, an area of drupal.org which is dedicated to, uh, the marketing of Drupal and another area which is dedicated to the community and, um, you know, the building of Drupal.

Um, and that's, uh, something which I think will help to address those challenges because there's, there's a potential that we might use Drupal CMS, um, to do the, the marketing side. Uh, and we can make sure that it's got the very latest capabilities, so, um, we can optimize the, the, the, the, the code of the pages so it's semantically correct.

Um, the, our team can work on the, the content to make sure that's working really well. But, uh, one of the most important things is we need to make sure that people are citing Drupal outside of drupal.org, uh, that it is good, and referencing that it's good and, and linking to us because that's, uh, a lot of how, um, the, uh, AI engines are actually working.

We can't just say it ourselves, we have to make sure that it's being, um, said by authority sources

[00:46:06] Scott: Yep. And then there's a, so there's a question in the chat here from Kofu. Um, it says, "I can never get Claude Code to recommend Drupal to me. It even constance- constantly discourages me from using Drupal.

10-year Drupal dev here." And this is actually a really interesting thing that we're gonna have to deal with, and probably leads to some self-reflection, introspection on the Drupal side. There is, on one hand, areas where agents don't know about what Drupal can do, so that is the framing and the marketing.

But we have to confront the reality that sometimes they very much know what we do, and they recommend against it, right? Because they understand Drupal. And if you think about how agents work, they're very much like humans. They're gonna take the path of least resistance. So one of the ones we see is if you're an agent and you can just spin up real quickly something free on Supabase or something fast versus download, set up PHP, MySQL, connect all the stuff for Drupal, it's gonna choose the easiest path.

Uh, Cloudflare released a thing last week where, uh, an agent can actually create its own account and start setting up stuff that the human then approves, right? So I do think there are gonna be areas that we really have to focus on extremely is like, what are the impediments that make Drupal hard to start with?

Not hard to understand, but, like, there's a lot of weight and, you know, every time I get a new Mac and it's just like, okay, I know I need to go get DDev, but there's gonna be DDev, there's gonna be, um, you know, Docker, all the stuff, and that's when I know it, right? Um, so there are a lot of areas. So yeah, so Kofu follows up, "Exactly.

It steers towards Supabase and Contentful, Strapi." Um, and this is, this is gonna be, I think, a joint effort between both Drupal as a community, the code for Drupal, and the hosts that come in, which is, you know, one of the things I'm really excited about the, on the Drupal AI initiative is that competing hosts are working together, 'cause this is good for all of us if we solve this.

If we make it easier for somebody to come and say, "I wanna test and play around with Drupal CMS," and click this button and it works, like, I would much rather it go to a competitor of Acquia on Drupal than not Drupal, right? And so it's an area that, like, we can all benefit from these types of things

[00:48:24] Martin: Yeah, I think I would add to that just to say hopefully as AI agents get a better understanding of some of the things the c- the community has already been doing to sort of like ease that ramp up with Drupal in terms of like Drupal CMS and site templates and some of those other things. Um, hopefully that will, as you say, sort of reduce the friction points that, that cause AI to sort of recommend different solutions as well.

[00:48:49] Nic: Yeah. I mean, s- setting up Drupal nowadays between DDEV and Site and CMS is so much easier than it was even five years ago. Um, so I'm curious, Paul, as a, as a marketing lead, what are s- what's something that, you know, I can do to help- get Drupal recommended in these types of situations

[00:49:20] Paul: Yeah. Um, I mean, we're all sat in different countries, and I think that's an important thing to recognize is that we can't allow, um, everyone else to do it for us. Uh, and, and also the different markets have different, um, ways to, to get to the people that, um, you know, that, that are making the decisions. Uh, I mean, I work for a company where we've got, um, people in Germany, UK, the Netherlands, Spain, and each country has a completely different market.

So I think one of the things that, um, anyone can help bring awareness, uh, to the team is, is, um, is, uh, the localization of, of your market and, uh, what we... You know, maybe especially if you're working for an agency in sales, come and have a conversation with us about, you know, h- how your market works. Um, but also maybe start to actively participate in, um, resolving some of the, the challenges, uh, of awareness in, in your, in your area

[00:50:33] Nic: Um, yeah, go ahead, Martin

[00:50:35] Martin: Oh, I, I was just gonna say, so, you know, if somebody is in that position of really, you know, let's say only has a couple of hours a month, um, are there sort of particularly high leverage ways that they can, can get involved, particularly in sort of helping Drupal as a community grow?

[00:50:51] Paul: Uh, yes. Um, so I would definitely say, uh, get involved in content writing, uh, because you're basically, uh, gonna, um, scale yourself there. Uh, you've probably got some knowledge that, um, about a particular niche area that, uh, would be really valuable to us that, um, even if you don't, um, just, um, summarizing some content that, uh, we already have would be fantastic 'cause, uh, th- having that constant stream of content is really good.

Uh, if you've got design skills, we've definitely got a shortage, uh, and we would love to hear from you. Um, publish an article about a success story or, um, uh, t- tell the story of Drupal AI from a customer's perspective. That would be really useful, and the more we've got, the better. We've got... If you've got a rich seam, that would be really nice.

Um, try and spend some time to persuade your client to agree to be featured on a webinar or in a, in a case study. Uh, we, we, we're actually developing a really lightweight case study format, uh, which we should have out, uh, in the middle of July, uh, that, that will give a couple of examples of what we're t- t- thinking about, um, because I know that, uh, on drupal.org, uh, if someone...

You've got to give permission to publish and you've got to write a lot of content for a, for a case study. So we're trying to just, uh, get those, uh, small ones out, so plant a seed, um, 'cause it can create those aha moments for, um, people who haven't quite worked out how to apply AI. Um, I mean, the project managers as well, um, if you've got, um, a couple of hours a month, uh, uh, Jeremy is looking for, for support, um, you know, with the large team, um, working, working in the issue queues.

Uh, there are lots and lots of small tasks that we can find for you to do. Um, if you've got, um, ability to, to create pages on, um, uh, or experience on drupal.org, um, we definitely need more people to do that. Um, and also just being eyes and ears for interesting stories. Um, be a scout for, for us. Um, um, and, you know, even if you think it might not be relevant, we'd love to know about it because, um, it probably is.

Um, so th- that would be really valuable

[00:52:58] Scott: The Scout thing is interesting, and Kofi's comment brings up a, a, a perfect example of this. You know, one of the big downsides of AI is it's a conversation of one. You are the only person there, right? So if it doesn't recommend Drupal or says something that's wrong about Drupal, if you personally don't say something, nobody else in the world will hear that, but many people will probably hear what the agent is saying, right?

So to that extent, um, Paul, when it comes to measuring how AI assistants talk about Drupal, uh, what are we doing? How are we measuring that? And who actually owns resolving that or, or helping the agents say what we want them to say?

[00:53:40] Paul: I, I would say, um, we have a partial gap there. Um, we, we have some access to really good, um, SEO people.

Actually, it's a really new field. Uh, I wouldn't say anyone is an expert in this. Um-

[00:53:55] Scott: We're all making it up. Remember

[00:53:56] Paul: that- Yeah, yeah ...

[00:53:56] Scott: general

[00:53:56] Paul: with all this stuff. I mean, the whole, whole GeoAIO thing is, is a pretty new field. Um, so as a, as an agency, 1XInternet is experimenting with this quite heavily. So we have a, a, a solution called Six Signals, uh, where it has, uh, six dimensions where it's, uh, assessing pages.

This is more like your on-site, um, side of things, um, you know, around semantic, um, um, clarity and, um, whether or not, um, you're, uh, citing, uh, your sources and, um, whether or not, uh, you're, you're, you're actually answering the questions that someone would come to the page asking. Um, you know, uh, is it on point?

Um, and so, uh, we, we do have a s- a, a solution where we can audit pages to, um, to, to, uh, come up with very constructive suggestions. Uh, but there are also, um, uh, paid tools that you can, you can, uh, buy to, to, to, uh, it... That, that they will actually find out what people are asking and wh- when you're being recommended.

So you get to see the, the, the pairing of the, the questions and what that is answering, which is really valuable. And I'm just thinking about, uh, if you do come across a situation where you use AI and it's not recommending Drupal, we would love to hear where that happens because that would help us to not be working blind, and then we can look at, um, optimizing the, the way Drupal would all be structured and the pages and the content, um, to, uh, address that and hopefully improve.

So it is definitely gonna be an area of focus. It's partly, uh, not, we've not invested quite yet in it because I know there's gonna be some potential significant change of Drupal org coming relatively soon. And I think that's the time where we should, uh, start to benchmark how it's performing and, and, um, optimize from there.

[00:55:50] Scott: Yeah. And there's one, there's another comment from Kovu that basically about, and I hope I'm pronouncing your name right since I'm saying it 10 times. Um, if we capture vibe coders, that's a huge funnel opportunity. There's a really interesting nuance in there that one pattern we're seeing, and this is a big one for partners in the ecosystem, is that people vibe code stuff, and it's like you can have your opinions on vibe coding, but some of it works and some of it grows.

What starts to happen is those companies grow into million-dollar companies, and then they need something real. So it's a great opportunity for partners to say, "Listen, you vibe coded this thing. That's great, but now you actually need a governed structured thing like Drupal." And there's a really big opportunity there.

So even if we don't capture the person who just vibe coded in their, their little thing, once that becomes a real company, that's where there's a ton of opportunity.

[00:56:37] Paul: Yeah, I agree. Um, I mean- You know- ... that's, that's the, the narrative we were taking at, um, sorry, um, in, uh, London Tech Week with dozens and dozens of people that, you know, Drupal has this rock solid foundation in, um, content modeling, the granular access control, uh, the security, the, um, uh, uh, scaling.

Um, you can start with a small site, and it can go in any direction. You layer on top it up the AI, um, uh, model integrations, we've got over 90 now. Last time I checked, it was probably over 100 now. Uh, and also the context control center, so you're not sending out your context to lots of different places.

It's a formidable, uh, um, uh, yeah, uh, capability that someone, um, can build really, um, yeah, if you need that kind of governance and, uh, you want to scale to the next level, it's, it's an ideal platform. Matthew.

[00:57:30] Martin: Yeah, I was just gonna, to sort of add one other thing, which is I've talked to a couple of people who are sort of in kind of the, the tech evangelist, uh, vein of things, and one of the things that they pointed out is for a lot of people that are of kind of that vibe coder mentality, the first thing that they want to do is not read like a marketing page.

They want to get their hands on the tech. And so one of the things I think also could be an opportunity is, you know, making sure that people know, like, you know, there is the sort of like one-click downs- uh, installer that you can use to sort of just get started using Drupal. But there's also tools like Drupal Forge, where you can go in, in a couple minutes, have an actual working Drupal site that you can start playing around with.

And I think unders- making people understand you don't have to like, you know, install a complicated setup if you just want to try out the tech, I think that's probably a message we need to make sure we get out there as well.

[00:58:19] Paul: Yeah. Yeah. And that's where there's a kind of a, a tension in my brain is, and, and I have to allow, let go where the demos that we have at the moment, you have to fill in a form to access them, uh, because then we get the contact details, and we can start a conversation.

But by the same token, we should really allow people to get frictionless access to these things because, um, all we want to do is people to adopt Drupal, and if that's the path they want to take, then we should absolutely let them.

[00:58:46] Nic: If you could change one belief or misconception about Drupal across the world right now, what would that be?

[00:58:56] Paul: I mean, if it was one, I think it's, yeah, this steep learning curve. I mean, look at Canvas AI and, you know, how quickly with Drupal CMS you can get something up and running really quickly, and it's, it's really nice to use. I mean, I had several people speaking to me r- earlier about how they had the perception that the administrative interface was, wasn't very good, but they must be thinking about Drupal from, like, 10 years ago, 'cause there's been so much, um, investment in research and u- user interviews and UX on that side of things.

It, it, it's a completely different beast. I wish people would realize that.

[00:59:34] Nic: I, I will say, too, that one of the things that Canv- CMS mostly, but Canvas to a lesser extent, has really done, too, is kinda give the core, core team the leeway or permission maybe, i- in the product managers to, like, cut some of that stuff out and make that decision.

So, like, for example, um, you know, I know Gabor has been working on getting rid of, like, the, the homepage front view, right? Which is something that I don't think anybody uses, and it's a little, it's surprisingly painful to pull out, and just people just haven't, haven't done it because you can just, you know, disable it once you install the thing, install it.

But because we're trying to work on CMS and make these things more streamlined, we're, we're working on it. Another one that comes to mind is the, the body field, like the sum- text with summary field. Like, yes, some people use that. It'll be a contrib module. Is it something that should be installed on every single site?

No. Has it been very pa- very, very... I mean, Steve Musgrave has done, Stephen Musgrave has done so much work to get that out. But because we have com- we have CMS, we have Canvas, we have these tools that are kind of the go-to starting base now, it's much easier to make those, quote-unquote, "harder, harder decisions" to pull them out, um, which is going to streamline core for people that are using core directly, too.

It's good for everybody.

[01:01:06] Paul: Yeah. I, I think these initiatives have been really good for, uh, that side of things. So some things are hard, and they need more people on it, and some things are unglamorous, um, but they're important. And the initiatives have started to really, uh, uh, enable people to overcome those, those things and see them actually happen

[01:01:28] Scott: One thing I'd add too for the... When you're thinking about the beliefs to challenge, like, the most important ones are the beliefs that are true, right? Like, there are things about Drupal that are hard and are going to be hard to fix, but we can do it. Um, and those are the ones we should probably confront.

[01:01:44] Nic: There- there's also things that are hard because they're complex things, and we solve them in a way that's flexible. Like locale. Yeah. I don't... I mean, I don't know how much time I've spent between 11.3 and 11.4 working with several people refactoring locale, and it is super complex. But translate- if you've worked on translation in other tools, Drupal's translation is second to none.

Yeah. I mean, it is the best of the best. There are bugs, there are things, but it's the best out there, hands down. I'm convinced closed source or open source.

[01:02:18] Scott: Mm-hmm.

[01:02:19] Nic: But it's a complex space. Translation is so much harder than you think it is.

[01:02:23] Scott: Yeah. We solve hard, hard problems, and that's, they're not, it's not gonna be easy to solve them.

[01:02:28] Nic: Yeah.

[01:02:28] Scott: Um, so.

[01:02:31] Nic: All right. Well, Paul, thank you for joining us, uh, to, to talk through kind of the AI initiative and how we can better market Drupal.

[01:02:44] Paul: It's been a pleasure. Really interesting.

[01:02:48] Martin: Do you have questions or feedback? Reach out to Talking Drupal on the socials with the handle TalkingDrupal or via email with [email protected]. You can connect with our hosts and other listeners on Drupal Slack in the Talking Drupal channel.

[01:03:03] Nic: And if you would like to be a guest on Talking Drupal or our new show, TD Cafe, click the guest request button in the sidebar at talkingdrupal.com.

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[01:03:39] Nic: Awesome. And Paul, if our listeners wanted to get in touch with you, had any questions, what's the best way for them to do that?

[01:03:44] Paul: Um, I'm PD Johnson on Slack. That's probably the best place to get me.

Um, I have provided quite a lot of links, uh, for the show notes. Um, I c- could can't miss an opportunity to market Drupal, can I? Um, but there's lots of ways in which you can get involved that'll be on those things as well, so perhaps check after the, the show gets published.

[01:04:03] Nic: Perfect. And Scott, how about you?

[01:04:05] Scott: Yes, Scott Falconer on Slack, um, and Scott Falconer on LinkedIn. Uh, and I would say it's been great being on this, this show, being the guest host for, for the last- Yeah, thank you for joining us ...

[01:04:15] Nic: month or

[01:04:15] Scott: so. Yeah, for sure. Um, yeah, and, and if anybody is listening and needs help with AI or anything the Drupal AI initiative can help with, be it a partner, be it an individual developer, you do not need to be an Acquia customer, you can be an Acquia competitor, I'm happy to help under the, the guise of the AI initiative.

Feel free to reach out. I don't care if you're an independent developer or a large company, um, anything that helps move Drupal forward, please, please reach out to me.

[01:04:40] Nic: Great. And Martin, how about you?

[01:04:43] Martin: Folks can find me as mandclu on virtually all of the sort of Drupal and social channels, but you can also follow my own journey in Vibe Coding Drupal at acquia.com/blog.

[01:04:55] Nic: Perfect. And you can find me pretty much everywhere at nicxvan, N-I-C-X-V-A-N.

[01:05:01] Scott: Perfect. And I get to do the tagline this week, right? That's a lot of pressure here. Okay. Drum roll. We're gonna do it. Um, if you've enjoyed listening, we've enjoyed talking, so thank you for joining.

[01:05:11] Nic: Perfect. Thank you. See you next week