Tot ziens, Amsterdam
It’s been a blast!
6th October 2014By greg
A huge thank you (as ever) to the fantastic local and Drupal Association teams who have made this year’s DrupalCon Europe another roaring success. The whole Code Enigma team had a great time. Our financial year ends 30th September every year, and it was such a big year for us that closing it in style, in Amsterdam, was a great way to welcome in 2014/15.
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Personally, I was mostly in the “Hall Track”, in our booth or walking around, meeting people, some old friends but lots of new friends too. I think I spent the whole week chatting to one person or another, from first thing in the morning to last thing at night, which was great. I love the sense of community we get at DrupalCons and this one was no exception.
Steve had a much more active DrupalCon, since he joined the @TourDeDrupal gang and cycled from Leeds to Amsterdam (and back!) on his lovely bike-to-work machine. "That was an amazing experience, huge thanks to Rachel Lawson and Stefan Van Hooft for making it happen." (And that in spite of 75 miles in driving rain and three punctures on the way home.) He was also extremely impressed by Dutch hospitality and the whole organisation of the event. His main take-home was on the future though: "Moving forward, [Code Enigma] need to get more involved in how to fund Drupal core development. It's so important to us - and to everyone in the community - that Drupal retains momentum."
Project manager and content strategist, Koen Platteeuw - a DrupalCon first-timer - was impressed: "This was the first time I attended DrupalCon, and the sheer size of the event and the number of people working in this industry stood out. DrupalCon is so much bigger than the DrupalCamps I visited. What impressed me most though is the number of developers who stayed around on Friday to help. The hall they booked was huge, but it was still too small to host everybody comfortably. That just shows how great the engagement of so many people in the community is, all working hard trying to get Drupal 8 released."
Junior systems administrator, Emlyn Kinzett, also came along and seconded Koen's comments on size. "I was overwhelmed with the number of attendees and the interest and contribution to the Drupal community." In general it was great to get that real feeling of being part of something big. Will he do it again? Absolutely! "I look forward to the next one!"
That just shows how great the engagement of so many people in the community is
A year of firsts
This year we felt it was finally right for us to make some noise
As for Code Enigma, last year was full of firsts for us. It was the first time we’d sponsored DrupalCon Europe, and we're so glad we took that decision. It's also the first time we’ve really been able to talk to people at an event like this about our Drupal support and hosting services properly. We've been doing serious, Enterprise-grade Drupal hosting and server management for years now, but it never felt like the right time to shout about it. This time, because it was also our first (of many) events working directly with Rackspace as Gold Strategic Partners, we felt it was finally right for us to make some noise. We were also ISO 27001 certified for the first time, so if compliance and security matter to you, we’re pretty much the only Drupal hosting company you should be talking to.
And in other news, our colleague Mark had his first baby, so massive congratulations to him and his new family. It was the first time Steve made fun of Dries... in front of Dries. (How to make friends and influence people.) Plus we are also delighted to announce we turned over £1million in a financial year for the first time, with respectable profits as well.
Cracking on
It's been a real year of solidifying and professionalising, and it feels - off the back of Amsterdam - we're no longer a "startup" business. We're a mature and stable company with a lot to offer our customers, our people and, we hope, the Drupal world as a whole.
We’ll see you in Barcelona, we hope by then many more of you can call us colleagues or partners, and we look forward with real hope to another great 12 months of Drupal and growth.
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