Using Layout Builder: Practical Advice from the Field

Layout Builder has been included in Drupal core as a stable module since 2019, yet many site builders and developers still struggle to set it up effectively. They might be fresh off a Drupal 7 migration, completely new to Drupal, accustomed to a Paragraphs-based architecture, or feeling like it just isn't usable enough.

With the right planning and configuration, the Layout Builder experience can rival or surpass what’s available in other commercial site building platforms. This panel will demystify Layout Builder for anyone wanting to improve their understanding of its capabilities and limitations.

Heather Wozniak (OpenScholar) will facilitate a conversation with panelists Monica “Nikki” Flores (Lullabot), Rick Hawkins (Slalom), and Andrew Morton (freelance). They have incorporated Layout Builder into sites for healthcare, nonprofits, government, and businesses from small to enterprise. Questions may include:

* What kinds of projects and organizations do you recommend Layout Builder for?
* What are the must-have add-on modules to improve the LB experience?
* What kinds of features require custom code?
* What are the drawbacks of using LB?
* How does using LB change the way you approach design, content strategy, and site architecture?

Attendees will learn the pros and cons of adopting Layout Builder to help them consider whether it is the right solution for their project. And they’ll learn concrete tips for setting up and customizing the authoring experience.

Beyond Inclusion: Doing the Right Thing, Drupal-Style

A sense of belonging makes the difference between who stays and who leaves. Inside Drupal we have a variety of viewpoints and personalities: we have ample opportunities to build strength, empathy, & resilience together.

Last year we shared tips on how to foster inclusion at the workplace: Beyond Inclusion - Building a Culture of True Equity: Pittsburgh 2023.

We'll use this session to go in-depth into mechanisms those of us in the Drupal ecosystem can use to do more of the right thing systemwide.

1) #diversity-inclusion Slack channel https://drupal.slack.com/archives/C1BCR7XL6

2) Code of Conduct https://www.drupal.org/dcoc

3) Community Working Group https://www.drupal.org/community/cwg and Incident Report Form https://www.drupal.org/community/cwg/incident-report

4) Reaching out to the Drupal Association At-Large Board members

We’ll review four “sticky scenarios” to explore concrete processes and procedures that promote safety, autonomy, and empathy in our community. We’ll explore and engage how to handle:

* a teammate will not work on a project because of religious or moral objections

* a developer at your client’s company attempts to flirt with you, with increasing demands, through company-owned communications (increasingly demanding Slack DMs)

* a direct report put comments on social media displaying confidential company information

* a public petition circulates against a partner company

We’ll bring up other situations you’ve faced in your work within Drupal.

Beyond Inclusion: Building a Culture of True Equity

What does it mean for Drupal professionals to feel like they are included at their workplace? How does an organization foster inclusive practices, and move towards a sense of equity for all levels of technical and non-technical staff? What does it mean to truly build equity in a company, from worker-led policies to full employee ownership?

We’ll review ten ways to implements inclusive practices to retain, support, and provide growth opportunities for teammates.

We'll also review resources for learning how to move towards employee ownership, from the National Center for Employee Ownership.

Non-Profit Industry Summit

The Non-profit Industry Summit at DrupalCon Portland 2022 is your chance to connect with other Drupal users from the not-for-profit, citizen sector space, including web developers, content creators, designers, strategists, and managers.

Run over two days prior to the main conference, you’ll get to learn and collaborate with your non-profit peers on Drupal best practices and adopting complementary technologies into your organization’s workflow.

The summit format is designed to be relaxed and informal, facilitating open discussions, sharing experiences and socializing with new colleagues. While you’ll get to hear from experts in the summit keynote and curated talks, you’ll also have the opportunity to dive deeper into the unique requirements of working in not-for-profit organizations through small group discussions and facilitated roundtable workshops.

Whether you’re a seasoned Drupal user, evaluating Drupal for the first time, interested in open source, or seeking to expand the ways non-profit technology makes a measurable positive difference, the DrupalCon Non-Profit Industry Summit is an ideal opportunity to broaden your knowledge and connections.

Day 1 Schedule

8:30am - 8:40am: Welcome and Introductions

8:45am - 9:30am: Moderated Panel - Best Practices for Reaching out to Members and Donors (CRM Strategies), moderated by Nikki Flores with panelists Kathryn Carruthers, Albert Hughes, Eric Spector

A non-profit's most valuable donors, members, and supporters read all the e-mails, send multiple and/or recurring donations in a year, and take action on all the CTA's (calls to action) you share with them. Learn the tools and processes our panelists use to reach out to foster relationships and continued active connections with their communities.

9:30am - 9:50am: Lightning Talk - Captchas and other gotchas: Make sure your secure website is accessible with AmyJune Hineline

You have spent boatloads of time battening down the hatches and making sure your ship’s hull is impenetrable to pirates and stowaways...but, security measures and accessibility don’t always play nice, and you may be inadvertently sending some of your users down the plank. Captchas, timed logins, alert pop-ups, gated content, and modals are often used for security but not all assistive technology can get their users past the barriers. Come set sail with us as we travel through the inaccessible waters that security measures often dredge up. We’ll look at practical and straightforward ways to implement solutions that are both secure and accessible, keeping folks from abandoning ship.

9:50am - 10:05am: Sponsor Slot - Open Social: Pushing Drupal boundaries for real-time interaction with Bram ten Hove

On social media and in online communities, people are used to interacting in real-time. Open Social uses React to connect via GraphQL to Drupal, to create this user experience for its Community Platform's members.

10:05am - 10:30am: Interactive Workshop - How to Leverage Social Media

TikTok surpasses Google in search, and many hashtags on Instagram generate thousands of clicks, re-posts, and interaction. How do non-profits leverage social media in general, and short-form video in particular, as an emerging communication tool? In this interactive workshop, interested participants will build a short-form (30 second) video suitable for use with Insta Reels, TikTok, or YouTube Shorts. Hosted by Sylvia Flores of Hawai’i Public Radio.

10:30am - 10:45am: Voting and Beverage Break

10:45am - 11:30am: Breakout Discussion groups, facilitated by our speakers and panelists, organized by summit participants including Classy, privacy and security, Customer Relationship Management, and a Social Media Booth for content creation.

Fundraising Trends to Capitalize on in 2022, presented by Classy: The nonprofit world has undergone tremendous changes in the past two year, partly thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, but now let's discuss what trends are shaping our world this year and beyond. Join Classy, a nonprofit giving platform, for a conversation about the five trends are continuing to evolve the fundraising landscape. Leave Classy's roundtable with tangible takeaways from each trend and discuss how your organization, along with others, will be affected by these shifts in giving.

11:30a-11:55am: Sharing Insights

11:55a-12:00pm: Closing remarks and preparation for the next day's summit

Find Day 2 Schedule here: https://cutt.ly/NPSummit22-Day2

How to be an Effective Mentor

As we recruit and train more participants in the Drupal community, we have an opportunity to share knowledge with developers, designers, content strategists, and project managers on how to get started with Drupal. Let's review 7 practical tips for mentors/mentees working on career and professional growth, including: articulating a mission, vision, and values; identifying a skillset and tools; networking with peers; driving decisions through data; clarifying a "personal brand"; planning for the longer term; and finally, practicing communication

Twelve Steps for your .edu conversion

Based on knowledge gained from working with .edu teams who are moving or upgrading we'll review who to bring onto the redesign committee, guidelines and goal-setting, the minimum viable product, an approach to structuring content, categories and taxonomies, success metrics, the RFP, the vendor review, kickoff, the plan for migrations, and how to handle the buildout process from feedback cycles through launch.

Drupal has been increasingly viewed as a flexible, scalable, and secure platform for universities and powers websites around the world.

Step-by-Step: Building a Mutual Aid Network on Drupal

We'll walk through steps to building a Drupal-powered mutual aid network, including a "request" content type, views for that content type, and the Flag module to handle an ongoing flow of requests. A pilot version of this website was built for FutureHack 2021 and can be found at: https://communitytech.co, built on Drupal 9 with hosting sponsored by the Pantheon Heroes program.

This website supports communities in building up connections and opportunities for mutual support through a Request List. Any volunteer user may submit a request, or fulfill a request.

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead

100% Remote: Tips for Managing a Fully-Distributed Workforce

Certified ScrumMaster® and technical project manager shares knowledge on how to manage remote teams based on the 100% distributed team at an agency supporting Fortune 100 companies, government, education, and publishers. Staff working across 9 time zones use tools like asynchronous communication, scheduled meetings, Slack, Paper, Drive, Jira, and Zoom. We'll consider how to practice compassion, respect boundaries, and foster psychological safety.

Participants will understand how values drive the business of managing remotely, learn a suite of existing tools and technologies to manage distributed teams, and determine their next step for implementing better communications with their own direct reports.

My Mentoring Advice

7 practical tips for mentors/mentees working on career and professional growth. We'll review lessons learned from my past few years informally and formally mentoring other women in technology:

1) Articulating your Mission, Vision, and Values
2) Identifying your Skills
3) Networking with Peers
4) Driving Decisions through Data
5) Clarifying your Brand/Portfolio
6) Planning for the Longer Term
7) Practicing Communication

This will be offered as a Zoom presentation with time for questions and answers

Landing Pages, Link collections, and Listing Pages - content types for a State-managed platform

If a state is moving to a standardized platform for all state agencies, they may run into situations where some authors feel they are giving up custom functionality.

In this talk, we'll discuss three main content types: landing pages, link collections, and listing pages -- that may be repurposed for a variety of authors across multiple agencies.

We'll discuss rationale and demonstrate one state's solution to implementing content for 30+ agency websites to date:

1) Overview: content vs micro-content
2) Automatic Lists vs. Link Collection Lists
3) Landing pages (using Layout Builder)
4) Listing pages

Participants will walk away with a practical understanding of how one State has implemented a standardized approach to fulfilling disparate needs.

This talk is based on the State of Iowa's Digital Transformation project and is geared to decision-makers and implementers for statewide projects, about 45-minutes including Q&A.