Episode Transcript
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0:00
Hello, and welcome to Tag1 Team Talks, the blog and podcast of Tag1 Consulting.
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We're commemorating the 20th Anniversary of Drupal with an interview series,
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featuring community leaders talking about their Drupal experiences.
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I'm really excited to have Jody Hamilton on the show today.
0:14
Prior to joining Renesas Electronics, a large semiconductor manufacturer,
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as their Senior Digital Business Analyst, Jody was the CTO and co-owner
0:23
of Zivtech, a really well known Drupal agency that she ran for ground 13 years.
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I'm Michael Meyers, the managing director at Tag1.
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Tag1 is the number two all time contributor to Drupal.
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We build large scale applications for Fortune 500s and large
0:38
organizations, and pretty much every industry and sector using Drupal,
0:42
as well as many other technologies. Uh, we're also one of the few official providers of Drupal 7 Extended Support.
0:48
Uh, so if you'd like to continue running Drupal 7, after end of
0:51
life, uh, please contact us.
0:53
We're happy to help you make that happen. Please join me in welcoming Jodi.
0:59
Jodi. Thank you so much for joining me here today.
1:02
Thanks. Awesome.
1:04
I mean, there's Jodi, there's so much to talk about, but I thought we would talk
1:08
a little bit about your, your background and your work in the Drupal community.
1:11
And then shift gears a little bit and talk a little bit more about Drupal
1:15
as a product and where, you know, you see Drupal going in the future.
1:20
Um, awesome. This is, uh, it was really fascinating to me.
1:24
You know, you, you started as a chemist. Which, um, and then you, uh, moved into web development.
1:30
Uh, you, you started Zivtech around 2008, I believe, uh, with Alex UA, who
1:35
is one of the more outspoken members of the community, uh, and Zivtech
1:39
became a really well-known agency that was very active in the community.
1:43
Um, so I'm, I'm curious, you know, how did you go from, uh, you know, chemistry and,
1:48
and being a chemist to getting into web development, to starting your own agency?.
1:53
Um, so I was terrible chemist.
1:55
I kind of, I got into chemistry is just like the path of least resistance.
1:59
Um, I went to Harvey Mudd College and you had to, you could only have, you
2:04
know, a science or engineering major and chemistry seemed to be the easiest
2:08
because they closed the lab at five.
2:11
And then that was the end of your day, you know, whereas computer
2:14
science, you know, people are staying up all night drinking Mountain Dew.
2:19
So I thought chemistry seemed like, you know, easy.
2:22
And I was from, um, from Philadelphia, which is, uh, a big, uh, pharmaceutical
2:27
hub, especially in New Jersey.
2:29
So I knew that there'd be work. Whereas if I did like a physics major or something, I didn't
2:34
know if I would have a job. So I kind of just ended up in chemistry, hated it.
2:40
I was a math teacher for a year and ended up back in chemistry.
2:44
And then I, um, I, I was also a musician, I had a band.
2:50
And I, um, I hated being a chemist.
2:52
I just dreamed of like a way out of this career.
2:56
Um, our company actually closed down and we all got severance
3:00
and unemployment, which was my, my, I knew that was my chance.
3:05
So I considered two options. I thought maybe I could become like, uh, an ecstasy producer, um, because you
3:15
know, my chemistry background, uh, but that'd be like a good way to make money.
3:19
I wouldn't have to go back to school, you know, or maybe I could get into
3:22
like websites and I'd like made, um, websites for my band and for
3:27
myself and I was pretty good at, it seemed like a good combination of
3:30
like creative and technical for me. And, uh, so I was talking to people in the music scene about this, these
3:39
ideas, and they were like, Jodie, like you're terrible criminal.
3:43
You're already telling everyone about this idea.
3:45
Like you have a huge mouth you know, your terrible idea, like do the website thing.
3:51
And they told me that this guy that was, uh, recording an album for me,
3:56
he told me he worked with this other musician who had his own web agency.
4:00
And maybe he would be looking for like an intern.
4:03
So I emailed this guy out of the blue and said, you know, I think I would be a
4:08
great intern to like, learn how to become a web developer as just an unpaid intern.
4:14
I wondered if you were looking for an intern.
4:17
And he said, because I was able to be an intern, I got unemployment and everything.
4:22
And he said, oh, I just got this big job doing a site for this guy, Stephen
4:28
Colbert who just got his, uh, show.
4:32
Who just got a show on Comedy Central. And I was actually just going to look for an intern.
4:36
So this is like amazing timing, you know, come on down.
4:39
And I'm like, okay. Then after that phone call, I look up and I, and in my desk where I'm
4:46
sitting as a chemist in the left, it had like a newspaper cutout.
4:51
Uh, our band had been like in the Philadelphia Inquirer for being
4:55
part of this compilation album. And there's a picture of my band.
4:58
And there was another band that was also in the album.
5:01
That was also a pad, a picture that had, had taped up at my
5:05
desk for like over a year. And I realized it was him.
5:09
It was my new boss who I had just reached out to.
5:13
It was his picture. It was like looking at me at my desk this whole time.
5:18
And his name was Mason Wendell. And, uh, he took me as an intern, taught me, you know, pointed me in the right
5:25
direction, taught me PHP, CSS, my SQL, you know, everything I needed to know.
5:31
And then he told me he had like his own CMS and I was like doing
5:35
the backend of that for him.
5:37
And he told me he, he got a job, um, where we needed like more user roles.
5:43
It was getting too complicated for our CMS.
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And he'd heard about this Drupal system and could I check it out for this project?
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So I checked it out for him and that was it.
5:55
I just like, oh, he also told me I should listen to this Lullabot podcasts.
5:59
I listened to this Lullabot podcast. I heard Angie on there.
6:02
She said, she said her advice was, uh, to learn Drupal and open a bank account.
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And I was like, sounds good, Angie, that's, that's what I'm going to do.
6:13
So, uh, that's what I did.
6:15
And I just like obsessively learned everything I could about Drupal.
6:20
And PHP and CSS and mySQL, all that, um, you know, until my
6:25
unemployment and everything ran out.
6:28
And then by that time I kind of looked up and I was like, whoa,
6:30
I'm actually pretty good at this. So
6:37
That's pretty amazing. Angie always gives good advice.
6:40
And so how did you go for, you know, you were working for Mason as
6:43
an intern, unemployment runs out. How do you get from there to
6:46
Zivtech? Um, so yeah, so Mason, um, over time you start paying me a bit, and then I also
6:54
started doing, um, freelance work, Drupal was so in demand then that was like 2006
7:00
or so it was so in demand, like you could just find jobs on Craigslist or even on
7:05
like drupal.org had like paid gigs or people would post like some bug that they
7:11
had, um, like a bug bounty and they'd be like, oh, I'll pay you $500 if you can
7:16
fix this bug and be like, okay, done. Like, um, it was easy.
7:21
It was, it was so much demand back then.
7:24
Um, so yeah, so I started making money, um, doing my own projects.
7:31
Um, I worked for another agency, like as a contractor as well.
7:35
And then I started thinking and I was, I was starting to do like core contribution.
7:41
And I'm writing blog posts about Drupal, and I'm thinking
7:44
like, I'm great at Drupal. Like I'm like, um, you know, some great Drupal talent, uh, you know,
7:51
people, I should go work for one of these like top Drupal shops.
7:54
It's going to some of the top shops back then, were like rain city.
7:58
Um, didn't last that much longer after that.
8:01
But, um, I thought, you know, I don't know.
8:03
I moved to Vancouver and worked for RainCity, you know, still be great.
8:07
But then I kind of realized like nobody knew who I was.
8:10
I was just like this girl with like no experience, no CS degree.
8:15
Didn't even look like a developer. And, um, yeah, I, so I felt like, what are they going to give me?
8:23
Like some entry-level job? Like I, you know, I think I'm great.
8:26
They don't think I'm, they don't know who I am.
8:29
So, um, I thought, you know, the market kind of undervalued me.
8:33
So, um, yeah, I met this guy, Alex UA in Philly and he sort of had
8:41
like the opposite problem of as me.
8:43
Like, we were both working as freelancers.
8:46
He had way too much work and had no idea how to do it.
8:50
I hated doing sales and, um, was great at doing the work.
8:56
So, uh, so we just met kind of at the, at the Drupal meetup.
9:01
So we thought, you know, let's just make a company and it'll be easy for us
9:07
to become like the dominant company in Philadelphia, since there is no one else
9:11
really vying for that yet if we come in now and try to do it now, um, and then
9:17
we'll be able to try to like, you know, attract the best talent in the area.
9:22
And we ended up a couple of years later.
9:24
My buddy, uh, Mason, who had, who had taught me, um, he ended
9:29
up coming in on as our creative director for a few years as well.
9:32
So he got back in the, in the mix too.
9:36
It's pretty amazing small world. I, I think that's really great advice.
9:39
I think the market undervalued me. So I went out and I started a company and it really served you well, um,
9:45
you know, running a, an agency or any business is, can be really challenging.
9:50
Um, you know, and there's a lot of coopertition in the Drupal
9:53
community and there's a lot of really great, you know, organizations.
9:56
You mentioned Lullabot, um, you know, were there shops that, uh, inspired
10:01
you when, when forming Zivtech that you know, that running Zivtech?
10:06
Um, Yeah, so, I mean, so we were always, um, Alex and I were always good friends
10:13
with chapter three, um, and who are the owners now running Pantheon.
10:19
So we're really close with them. So we knew a lot about kind of how they ran chapter three.
10:25
Um, so that was like one company that we followed.
10:29
And then at that time, in like 2008, 2009, uh, the biggest like kind of hottest,
10:36
like Drupal shop was Development Seed. And so, and they were based in DC.
10:43
And so they're kind of like biggest moment.
10:46
I felt it was like the DrupalCon of DC in 2009.
10:51
And they were really inspiring for us. That was kind of like our first coming out as Zivtech brought, we brought our
10:57
whole team down to, uh, DC and went to all the talks by Development Seed and
11:03
followed like what they were up to. And, um, you know, one of the things with them was, you know, they were always
11:11
trying to kind of get out of client work.
11:13
I felt like, you know, they're always trying to like build products which this
11:17
they ended up leaving the Drupal community and becoming the map, what's it called?
11:24
Sorry, Mapbox. Um, and, um, although Development Seed actually does still exist.
11:33
Yeah, no, they still exist. They don't do Drupal.
11:36
Um, but they still exist and all their blog posts are still online.
11:39
All the, you can still read all of their Drupal blog posts from 2008, 2009.
11:45
Um, they like really inspired us in terms of like all the different
11:50
tools that they were trying to make. Although, um, some of the tools that they made back then, like ended up
11:59
kind of becoming like semi abandoned when they left the community.
12:03
So like some of the things that they really worked on a lot were
12:06
like, You know, features and strong arm and, um, context.
12:13
Um, so many, so many different tools and those tools just kind of like stagnated a
12:22
little bit after they left, but they were also the only tools they were, this, that
12:25
team was just so ahead of everyone else. And so ahead of their time.
12:29
So it's just kind of funny how, you know, for like the next, like
12:32
almost 10 years, everyone in Drupal, like use Strong Arm version 2.
12:38
That was just this like kind of half baked idea.
12:42
And they weren't even trying to like really do configuration management
12:46
the way everyone else does. They were trying to build distributions.
12:49
That's why they were building those tools. Um, and then all of a sudden we have, we got into this horrible place,
12:56
like 10 years in Drupal where we had like Features and Strong Arm
12:59
and your, your clients would say to you, so how do you, um, export the
13:03
configuration and you would say.
13:05
Well, you have to understand some types of some types of configuration or C
13:10
tools exportable, and some are not.
13:13
So first you have to know which ones are, which ones aren't, because
13:16
they will behave differently. And, you know, it's a, it was a tough period of time.
13:21
Um, Yeah, Drupal, you know, certainly had its rough spots, you know, early
13:27
in the early days, um, Dev Seed was punching way above their weight.
13:31
And like you said, you know, way, way ahead of their time, they did Open Atrium.
13:35
Right? Is that them too?, Yeah, that was like Open Atrium and another distribution.
13:42
Um, those were like some of the distributions that they were working on.
13:46
Um, they kind of to like, had, they had this idea that they would make these
13:49
distributions and then they wouldn't have to like, do all of these one-off
13:52
client projects and they would have this steady income, which was always
13:56
kind of like a nice, nice dream.
14:00
I'm not sure if that ever worked out for anyone, but
14:04
Yeah, I think the community as a whole has really struggled
14:07
to productize distributions.
14:10
I think that that doesn't mean that they aren't valuable, you know,
14:13
Acquia's Lightening, you know, as a jumpstart framework and, you know,
14:17
uh, not reinventing the wheel. I mean, I think they were definitely on to something it, you know, um, it's
14:23
certainly streamlined their business, you know, it made, you know, it made
14:26
them more profitable perhaps, but it was really challenging to productize
14:30
and, uh, Yeah, it is really interesting.
14:33
They had a lot of ideas. They move fast, they put a lot out there and then they exited stage
14:37
left and everybody was just like,
14:41
what just happened? You know, it took us a long time to like process everything they had just done.
14:46
Yeah. Yeah, the team I'm working with now still uses Context.
14:53
Wow. And I just remember in like a DrupalCon DC, how they introduced Context and
14:58
they said, it's an abstract system where you can, depending on the context, you
15:03
can have, uh, a condition and then a reaction there's all types of conditions.
15:08
And the reaction could be anything, any type of reaction in the world.
15:11
But of course, it's just a system that people use to place blocks onto different
15:15
regions of the page, but that's not how they had envisioned it, you know?
15:20
Yeah. And then, yeah, Mapbox, went on to be, it's a billion dollar
15:24
company now, which is crazy. So they they've done really well for themselves.
15:27
And they finally found that productization fit.
15:30
I think the backstory of that team was like, said, supposedly they didn't
15:34
even have like a technical background. They were a bunch of people that were friends hanging out at a
15:38
local bar, and then they magically morphed into this like amazing team.
15:44
It was really interesting. A lot of really smart people.
15:48
Yeah. And it's really, it really inspired me because it's kind of like, to
15:51
me, everything's really about the talent of the individual people
15:56
and how well they work together. Um, whereas sometimes in tech people forget that, or don't realize
16:03
that it's a talent based industry.
16:06
Which I think is way off. Yeah.
16:09
I couldn't agree more. So it's crazy.
16:12
You went from, you went from chemistry to code, you ran Zivtech for 13
16:17
plus years and you recently made another set of really big changes.
16:23
So you are not risk averse and that's exciting.
16:26
Um, so you went from, you know, being the CTO at a digital agency.
16:31
Now you're working at Renesas, which is a very large semiconductor manufacturer.
16:36
Um, What precipitated, wanting to move from the technical side to,
16:41
you know, and an agency where you have clients to be a client and
16:47
then working on the business side. I mean, that's, that's, you know, a lot of shift.
16:51
Yeah. Well, I think, you know, for one thing, you know, the whole time that I was
16:55
working as a vendor, I'm observing my clients and I'm thinking to myself,
17:02
They seem to have a pretty good job. I mean, I mean, I'm sitting here, I'm sitting here killing myself.
17:09
I work on a timer, you know, I'm living on a timer for over 10 years.
17:14
I'm pressing a timer for every task that I'm doing.
17:16
I'm jumping from project to project. If they don't like what I've accomplished, they just maybe won't pay me at all.
17:23
And I just will have no income whatsoever.
17:26
If the PR no matter what happens in the project, they're just getting
17:28
a paycheck this whole entire time. Right.
17:30
It's not really a skin off of their back personally.
17:32
Right. Um, meanwhile, they're treated like royalty, you know, we're, we're
17:39
rolling the red carpet out for them.
17:41
We're saying, you know, any, anything that comes out of their mouth.
17:44
Great idea. Fred love that idea, you know, and I was realizing, you know, we don't
17:52
really get a lot of, some clients were great, but a lot of them, you know,
17:56
they don't give you a lot of thanks. They think that paying you is the thanks that you get.
18:00
And. I know as the owner I'm the last to get paid.
18:04
So it really wasn't much. Thanks.
18:06
Sometimes there were years where I didn't get paid at all, running a business.
18:11
Um, so when they didn't, you know, Thank me either.
18:15
It wasn't, it wasn't great.
18:17
I'm a sensitive person. So now that, so I, but I thought to myself, it can't be that, you
18:23
know, being a client is that much better, you know, it's probably just
18:26
grass is greener on the other side. Um, no, I think it is, it really is.
18:30
I would try it now that I'm like working in-house when I go to a
18:35
meeting and I say something, people go, that's a great idea, Jody.
18:39
I'm like, thank you. This is a good idea because I've been saying great ideas this whole time.
18:45
No one ever said that before, you know, and they say, oh,
18:50
how's it, how's it going? You know, do you want to be on my podcast?
18:55
It's just, people treat you a lot better.
18:57
Um, when you're a vendor, you know, it's like, which is better
19:00
being a diner or being a waitress. I mean, probably being a diner.
19:06
So, so I thought, you know, this could be me.
19:09
Like the other, the other frustration that I had was, you know, Th the clients
19:15
come and they already come to you with an idea of what they want to do.
19:19
And sometimes they just kind of treat you like, you're just a set of hands.
19:25
And as like a technical person, some people think of you as a resource and it
19:31
can be hard to, um, you know, as I, you know, as I got better and better at what I
19:37
did, you know, it was really an expert in.
19:41
And, you know, strategy and, and web applications in general, not just how to
19:46
implement them, but you know, what your strategy should be in the first place.
19:51
And so when people would come and say, this is what we want you to do, and they
19:55
didn't really care if I didn't think it was a good idea or not, I didn't
19:58
really like doing work that I didn't think had a lot of value, um, whether
20:03
they were going to pay me for it or not. And I didn't like that.
20:06
Sometimes it felt like I didn't really have a seat at that table.
20:10
So, um, so I found that.
20:13
So I started to realize that, although I felt that, writing code made me really
20:20
strong as, um, a strategist and more of like a product owner that a lot of
20:28
people saw it more as if you write code.
20:32
You're like a resource, you're just a coder or you're just a technical person.
20:37
I don't know why they, they look at it that way, but a lot of people do.
20:42
And, um, as long as I kept on wearing that coat or hat, I, it was
20:47
gonna keep me from, from the seat at the table that I wanted to have.
20:52
Um, so I felt like I kind of had to let go of that.
20:56
I'm still like read code all day, but I don't write it.
21:02
Um, but yeah,
21:05
So now you're the client, that reads the code and gives everybody shit.
21:10
No. I'll give you shit if its bad, but if its good . I will be the client that
21:17
really appreciates you, you know? Um, yeah, you can't, you won't be able to hide from me if it's
21:21
bad, I'll be your worst nightmare. But if it's good, you know,I'd be the client that actually sees you and
21:28
gets you, um, and does, thank you.
21:32
Um, I don't understand why people don't treat developers like gold,
21:37
you know, it's, it blows my mind. They're amazing.
21:41
You know, and they're so hard to come across.
21:44
Um, I think I, my theory is that people who, um, Who, who don't understand code
21:53
are threatened by it to some extent and they would, and so they have to come
21:58
up with some way to like minimize the other people by kind of calling them
22:03
a technical resource and trying to make them less important in some way.
22:08
I don't know. That's just my theory. So I'm also, I'm in an MBA program now, which is just, uh, mainly just to
22:16
get that credential to help me to, you know, have a seat at the right table.
22:22
Um, and, uh, yeah, it's, it's the same type of thing, like in the
22:28
MBA program, there's there's no, um, there's no acknowledgement
22:35
of the existence of talent. Which I, to me, I think is what everything has always been about.
22:43
It's always been about finding talent, working with talent, growing talent,
22:48
the talent of individual people. And that's the business, that's the value, but that's not, um, what they
22:57
are interested in and their little worldview that they, that they're in.
23:01
So The company is nothing without its people.
23:06
I think you're amazing, well position, you have this, you know, this deep
23:09
background as a CTO and running an agency and dealing with, you know,
23:13
all sorts of different organizations, you pair that with an MBA.
23:17
You know, I think you're going to get whatever seat you want at the table.
23:21
And also, you know, and also I've aged into it.
23:23
I think it's hard. It was hard for me, like as a, a woman in my twenties to be taken
23:29
seriously and have a seat at the table. Um, now that I'm in my forties, I feel like I'm a little bit.
23:37
It's easier. It's harder being a woman.
23:40
It's harder being young and it just gets easier, I guess, over time.
23:45
It's pretty amazing. I, I, uh, I want to shift gears a little bit and talk a little bit about the
23:50
community that you just made me think. Like when, when we started in the community, we were in our twenties,
23:54
you know, we were these kids running around with these great ideas and, you
23:58
know, 20 years later, Drupal's this thing that powers, you know, 3% of the
24:02
internet and, you know, provides, you know, jobs for, for lots of people.
24:07
Um, you know, for you, you know, what has been the best part of, you know, being
24:14
part of the Drupal community for you? Yeah, I think, um, you know, it's a professional community, but it's such
24:21
a special one, you know, it's hard, um, as an adult to make new friends,
24:26
but it's easy in the Drupal community.
24:29
Um, so I've definitely made.
24:32
Lots of friends and, you know, it's, it's also hard to meet smart,
24:35
interesting people in this world. And, uh, you go to like a, a Drupal community event and
24:41
that's, you know, how everyone is.
24:45
Um, so yeah, definitely like the friendships.
24:51
One of my closest friends is, is Matt Cheney of Pantheon.
24:55
And I met him at, um, my first European DrupalCon, DrupalCon Szeged, in Hungary.
25:01
And we've had a great time every Drupal event since, um, I guess for me being
25:09
so busy running the business, it, and I'm sure for a lot of people, it
25:13
kind of became like going to Drupal events was like my only vacation, even
25:18
though you're like working the whole time, it was like that's vacation.
25:21
Because if you had another vacation, it's probably just like with your family.
25:25
And it's just kind of like a chore in some other way.
25:30
So yeah, it just kind of became that, that was like our chance to like see
25:35
our friends and go to all different places all around the world and go
25:40
out to different bars and just, um, talk to really interesting people.
25:46
So, and now, and even now, like, um, you know, get to kind of still
25:52
be in the Drupal community, still get to see people, even though,
25:54
you know, it's pandemic, haven't really been to an event in a while.
25:57
Um, but you know, and also, you know, the people that were our employees, I
26:02
mean had many employees over the years and the fact that like, there is this
26:07
sense of community of just like, you can, you can quit Zivtech and you know,
26:11
we're still friends and we can still see each other, um, at events and, and
26:18
still be part of this community together. So it was really nice that the community in the friendships come first
26:25
and over the business relationship.
26:29
I love the early DrupalCons.
26:31
They were a lot of fun. You know, the fact that they're now in more fixed locations,
26:36
they're a bit more business events. They don't, to me, you know, they're, they're, they're good for business, but
26:42
they're not, they don't have the same, you know, I remember, you know, we Szeged, you
26:46
know, we drank every bar in the town, dry.
26:49
Literally we took over the town, you know, we had an amazing time.
26:53
It was so much fun and, you know, You would talk about Drupal and you, and
26:58
you would make changes to the platform in these, you know, now those are like
27:02
co you know, maybe I haven't been to a dev days in a long time, but you
27:05
know, maybe it's shifted, but you know, like us, the community kind of grew up
27:09
and, you know, things changed a lot.
27:12
Um, but yeah, I mean, I, I agree.
27:16
I mean, for me, you know, going to these events, I got to see the world.
27:19
To go to so many countries meet so many people see countries through the eyes
27:23
of people who live there, which was even better than just going, you know?
27:27
Um, and that, yeah, as sort of the lifecycle of the Drupal software
27:33
has matured, like, so have we.
27:35
And like, we're not really we're, our lifecycle is kind of going along like
27:39
with the Drupal lifecycle because Drupal, honestly, doesn't really attract
27:43
that many younger people anymore.
27:45
It's, it's, it's the people that are in it, or a lot of them have
27:49
been in it for a long time and the growth is not there anymore.
27:53
It's not like the cool thing that like people in their twenties are
27:56
going to be like, yeah, let me learn this, you know, behemoth of a system.
28:02
Um, so yeah, I mean the kind of group has kind of aged together, I think.
28:08
Yeah. I like to think like fine wine, Jody.
28:11
We've only gotten better. I'm ready for a glass of wine.
28:19
Do you remember your first contribution to the community?
28:22
You know, at Zivtech, you know, you guys were, were really
28:25
engaged in the community. That was really wonderful to see.
28:28
Um, uh, I mean, it doesn't have to be your first.
28:30
I don't, I don't know if you remember your first, but one of your earlier contributions.
28:35
Um, no, I don't, I don't really remember my first, it was just like
28:38
little patches and things, but some of like, in the earlier days, some of
28:42
the things that like, I really enjoyed was times when I got to be invited to,
28:47
um, help define like a new initiative.
28:51
Um, because I think that's a really good, a good role for me, but not necessarily
28:56
one that's that easy to get into.
28:59
Um, I tend to find like the kind of tedium of like pushing a patch through, into
29:08
finally getting committed, like way too slow and, um, painstaking of a process.
29:16
But, um, getting to kind of like come in with more of like an opinion of like how
29:22
things should work from the beginning. Um, I enjoy that a lot more.
29:26
So it's a couple of the things I got to work on in that, uh, aspect was, um,
29:32
Media module, which we originally made for, um, Drupal 6 with Aaron Winborn,
29:39
who was a good friend of Alex and mine.
29:45
And, um, I really enjoyed that one and also Drupal Commerce, uh,
29:50
with Ryan Szrama they invited me to kind of like a few days, like
29:56
retreat, where we like architected Drupal Commerce from Uber cart.
30:01
And I really enjoyed, um, getting to do that a lot.
30:06
I love Ryan and, and, and Drupal Commerce went on to have a huge future.
30:11
Uh, I didn't realize that you had been a part of that. That's one of the things I love about talking to people
30:15
about their contributions. You know, I, I learned so many things as to like who was involved in what
30:20
and how things became, what they were. Um, you know, you mentioned that that Drupal is this behemoth, then, you
30:27
know, people, you know, give Drupal a hard time for its learning curve.
30:32
Um, I wonder if there's, you know, one thing that you learned the hard way
30:36
about Drupal and it is, you know, not necessarily code, but, you know, uh,
30:40
you know, looking back you're like, man, I really wish someone had told me,
30:43
you know, before I had to go through this, this process to learn this lesson.
30:48
Yeah. Well, I guess it's more about, not so much about Drupal, but about
30:53
like developers and like who I am, how different people think.
30:58
I've gradually learned over the years that most developers enjoy complexity.
31:05
Like they just like it. They just like when things are super crazy and, and, um, not all of them
31:14
and all everyone's different, but a lot of them kind of fit this sort
31:18
of similar profile that I never fit.
31:23
And that was like, you know, always kind of a source of confusion for me.
31:27
But over the years, I've understood more who I am and, and, and you
31:31
know, what the strengths of it are. I hate complexity.
31:35
So when people start talking about all this technical stuff and they want
31:40
to go on and on and on and on about it, I'm just like, you're killing me.
31:43
You're overwhelming me. I don't like any of this.
31:47
And I realized over the years that not liking complexity is actually a superpower
31:54
because when you want things to be simple.
32:00
That's how you make things that are actually good., and, and so early
32:05
on, I would kind of doubt myself when people would have these like really
32:09
technical, overwhelming conversations where they're going back and forth,
32:12
super fast, all this, all this stuff I would think to myself, I'm confused.
32:18
I don't know what they're talking about. I'm totally overwhelmed.
32:21
Doesn't seem right to me.
32:23
I guess I'm just maybe not smart enough like them, so I'll just keep it to myself.
32:29
I learned. That's a big mistake, right?
32:32
Uh, if I'm confused, everyone's going to be confused.
32:36
Forever. Right? So, so for example, when we came up with the media module architecture,
32:41
there were all these conversations about how we're going to have a file entity
32:45
and also a media entity or something.
32:47
And there was some kind of logic about why we needed two new entities instead of one.
32:53
And it confused the hell out of me. And, uh, I think it was a terrible decision to have both of those ended
33:00
up confusing everyone and making everyone do tons of extra work.
33:03
Forever. Um, so whatever advantage it gave was certainly not worth, you know, what it
33:10
cost everyone with that extra complexity.
33:13
And if I had, you know, raised my hand and been like, no, like this is hurting
33:18
my head and it's going to hurt everyone's head that ever has to use this system.
33:22
We could've had a better system. Um, because actually it's a good thing to.
33:29
Um, to be confused. It's, you know, it's a valuable thing to be confused because it's,
33:34
if you can say that you're confused, you can you know, you can save
33:39
thousands of other people from being confused by stopping it right then.
33:44
Yeah. No, I, I, you gotta, you gotta speak up and share your confusion, uh,
33:49
for, you know, for me, sometimes it helps to better understand it.
33:51
Well, why the hell do they want that? You know, like maybe I will.
33:54
And, and half the time I'm like, no, that that really is not a good idea.
33:58
It doesn't make any sense and I'm not crazy, right.
34:00
I'm not, you know, not getting it, like, you know, I just, this isn't
34:04
how I would recommend you do it. Um, and I think that, you know, uh, you know, to some degree, you know,
34:11
uh, more people need to speak up, but I also think that's one of the
34:14
challenges with Drupal is that, you know, there are a lot of voices.
34:19
And, you know, they're not, uh, in my opinion, they shouldn't necessarily
34:23
be, you know, carrying equal weight. Um, and you know, it makes getting things done.
34:30
I love the spirit of it, but it, it makes, uh, getting a lot of things done.
34:36
Um, you mentioned, you know, this, this complexity, the file issue,
34:41
um, do you have a least favorite or favorite aspect or feature of
34:47
Drupal or, or the Drupal community?
34:50
Yeah, I mean, I definitely had had, um, trouble in the open source community,
34:58
you know, really finding my place in it.
35:03
Um, especially, and especially because of, you know, running a business and, and
35:08
my whole mindset has always been about just personal and financial survival.
35:12
So I've never really felt like I have like a lot of time to, to make open
35:19
source contributions that aren't paid for.
35:23
Um, although, you know, I enjoy it to some extent, but I also have made, but
35:30
my main challenge, I feel like with the Drupal community was that, you know,
35:34
it's, uh, the beauty of it is it's a democracy and it's a chaos and, you know,
35:39
anyone can do anything and that's great. But the other side of it is there's no, in a lot of places and this has gotten
35:45
better over years in some ways, but in general, there's no real leadership.
35:49
And so, yeah, anyone can just come in and say anything and derail the conversation.
35:54
And, you know, there's just a lot, you can say, you can say, oh, let's just
35:59
do this trivial fix and get this done.
36:02
And then someone will say, oh no, we can't do that because we have to do
36:06
this thing and refactor this in the whole entire thing and then make a
36:08
whole new version and then do that. And then we could do this fix.
36:11
Umm, I don't have time for this, you know?
36:14
So, so I just kind of became someone who just had like a huge wallet of a hundred
36:18
patches and half of them, I had written myself and I wasn't gonna sit there
36:23
and argue with people about whether or not they were going to get committed.
36:27
I just put the, I just took them with me from one project to another and had
36:30
the platform the way I wanted it to be. Um, but yeah, I think I wish that I had had somehow more of like
36:40
a leadership position somehow.
36:43
Um, but it wasn't that something that you could just sign up for
36:48
without putting in a thousand hours of work, um, to try to get there.
36:52
So Sort of the, the inequity of open source and, you know, really ties to that.
36:58
I, I admire these, you know, the, the core developers that have the fortitude
37:03
to shepherd things through that, you know, patch based contribution process.
37:10
It's really a labor of love.
37:13
It's pretty amazing what they're, what they're doing.
37:15
And I I'm with you. I, I, I, I don't think I could survive going through that process.
37:21
Um, you know, the, the time the, yeah,
37:26
I think we've all had, you know, core patches that we tried to push forward
37:29
for it, you know, five or 10 years for some trivial fix that, you know,
37:34
just could never, never get done, you know, and it's just, you know, it
37:40
pushes people away they can't take it
37:44
So more than anything, what do you think Drupal needs now?
37:51
Um, I think at this point, I think, you know, we need to be realistic
37:55
that, you know, we're, we're far in our life cycle, there's, there's a lot
38:00
of big organizations with big sites running Drupal, and they're going to
38:05
continue to, unless we make it really difficult for them to continue that.
38:11
This idea that we're going to like, uh, continue to attract hobbyists who
38:17
are just looking for a platform to make their website like Drupal did in 2006.
38:23
I think that, you know, that that's passed.
38:26
I don't think any, why would anyone use Drupal instead of Squarespace
38:30
or something to like get started making some small website?
38:34
Um, and yeah, I think we need to just be, you know, and I think
38:42
we are, you know, especially with the Drupal 9 being such a better,
38:47
you know, path forward with such an easy upgrade, you know, I think we're
38:51
definitely going in that direction, but, um, yeah, I think we, we
38:55
need to be real, like we're, uh, a mature product used by large teams.
39:02
Um, and that's, you know, what we're going to be.
39:05
We're not going to refactor the whole entire thing to be
39:09
all completely in JavaScript.
39:11
Like, let's let's get serious. No, I did.
39:16
Uh, I got to dig up the link. Someone sent me a Java clone of Drupal, where they rewrote Drupal in Java
39:23
for like to create an enterprise CMS.
39:26
So I think I would agree with you. Drupal is very much a mature enterprise CMS and, um, you know,
39:34
and I love it on a lot of levels.
39:38
And, you know, I think back to the community that, you know, we quote
39:41
unquote grew up in and the things that we loved about it, you know, I think in
39:45
part that was because there were people from many different walks of life.
39:49
And now that Drupal is this like really stable, large enterprise
39:54
product used by really large teams.
39:57
You know, those non-for-profits those, you know, um, you know,
40:00
some educational institutions. I, it it's, it's changing the dynamic and the makeup of the community a little bit.
40:06
Yeah. And that's been happening, you know, the entire time that I've really
40:12
been involved because now my first.
40:15
Big DrupalCon, you know, DrupalCon Boston, and that's the DrupalCon
40:18
where, I talked to Alex and we decided to start Zivtech and that was
40:22
also like Acquia's big coming out. That's why it was in Boston.
40:26
So like Acquia was coming out and, um, and this whole idea of Drupal becoming more
40:32
of an enterprise thing and less about less this tool of anarchists and non-profits
40:38
that was, you know, has been happening. It's the drug dealers.
40:44
You know, that's been happening, you know, the entire time.
40:47
Um, but, and it is sad to think like.
40:53
Uh, are we just going to become like an enterprise practice?
40:55
Are we closing the door behind us? That's the door that we went in, but you know, times have changed that door.
41:01
I mean, no, one's gonna, no, one's looking for starting some
41:05
small project on Drupal anymore. And I think, and I think, I wish that Drupal would really reckon with that.
41:12
It's been this constant, this constant friction point of like, are we a tool
41:18
that's for people who can't code, who can just configure everything
41:22
on their website by clicking around these complicated interfaces?
41:25
Or are we a tool for professional teams?
41:27
Like the one I'm working with that has, you know, maybe 15
41:31
full-time developers working on this platform, like, which are we?
41:35
Because it's so confusing to be both.
41:38
And these professional teams, they spend their time.
41:42
And I did for many years, you spent your time.
41:45
Clicking through these interfaces that are UI, that you don't need because you're
41:49
a developer and then you have to export, then that goes in the database, but you
41:54
don't want it in a database because you have a whole workflow of deploying your
41:58
changes that you need to have for quality.
42:00
And then you have to export all of this into code, which is really where it
42:03
should have been in the first place. And then you have to go through this whole process of like sending it through
42:09
these environments and testing the deployment and hoping that nobody like
42:13
changes the configuration on the live site, that you didn't really want them
42:16
to be able to change in the first place. It's, it's silly.
42:18
It's really silly because it's really silly that we have to have a
42:21
user interface for everything, for a tool that's used by developers.
42:27
So it's, it's just, it needs to, the choice needs to be made and
42:32
needed to be made a long time ago. But I'd love to talk to you more about that.
42:37
I have. Somewhat strong opinions on the topic, but, um, we are,
42:43
we're running short on time. So I want to shift into our lightning round, uh, real quick,
42:48
uh, whatever comes to mind first.
42:51
Uh, I've got four questions I want to get through in four minutes.
42:54
Uh, who are your Drupal mentors?
42:57
Um, I never really had a mentor, but one person I've always admired is Jeff Eaton.
43:01
I really liked the way he like started out as like a developer.
43:05
Because we're a CMS. He found that, you know, the real challenges were in the content strategy
43:10
and he moved in that direction. I love that he followed the complexity and the real challenges instead of like
43:16
the sticking with some technical parts.
43:20
I'm a big Eaton fan boy, for sure. Um, all right.
43:24
Favorite or least favorite Drupal module?
43:27
Um, I would say Views, uh, for both.
43:30
I mean, obviously great module and Drupal would probably not be, you know,
43:35
what it is without it, but I think it's just crazy how so many teams use it.
43:40
Like it's like they don't even, they can't even write a query without it,
43:44
like if they want to display, like one thing, they make a view and it's, it's,
43:48
you know, you can just write a query. It ends up with, they have.
43:53
Five different hooks and five different templates trying to override
43:57
what's coming out of views module, and then they have this completely
44:00
like unmaintainable mess of code.
44:02
It's like, you can actually write a custom query and, you
44:05
know, make a table yourself. It's fine to do that.
44:09
That's okay. I, I Drupal wouldn't be what it is today without Views.
44:13
I'm sure. Um, but you were talking about UIs for everything.
44:17
The first UI for Views was an atrocity.
44:24
It's amazing. And that says a lot for how powerful it was, is a tool that people were able to
44:29
say, you know, to make that work, um, best or favorite, uh, Drupal Conference
44:36
or Drupal Camp that you've been to.
44:39
And why? Um, Yeah, definitely Bad Camp.
44:42
Um, you know, it's free. It's, it's been, um, you know, until the past couple of years it's been in Berkeley
44:50
in October, It's a beautiful time of year.
44:53
Um, it's my friend, Matt Cheney organizes it with lots of other great people.
45:02
Um, it's just always like just a good vibe and it's not, uh, you know, that
45:07
businessy, but it's also like a big event.
45:10
Um, just always a, a great time,
45:13
Hands down. My favorite Drupal camp, couldn't agree more with everything that you said.
45:18
Um, where do you go to learn more about Drupal?
45:22
Um, I would, my recommendation is Read The Code, um, and I
45:26
still I'm sure my boss wishes.
45:29
I wouldn't. I still read code. All the time, because I think the only answer to things is to, you
45:36
know, understand them completely. You get, got to get to the bottom of things.
45:39
That's how you become a good engineer. There's no like secret to it.
45:42
It's just digging in and digging in, digging in, reading everything,
45:45
understanding everything. Once you understand it all, then, you know., um, and even it'd be a
45:50
lot of code, but it is like finite.
45:52
And I think, you know, that's really how I became such a good Drupal
45:57
developer was, you know, early on. I was like, I think I will just sit here and read this module.
46:02
And now I'm going to, you know, read this one and you know, now I'm an expert on it
46:06
and it doesn't necessarily take that long, but, uh, Yeah, just get in there and read.
46:13
Read the code. R T F C.
46:19
Alrighty. So to wrap things up, I want you to pass the torch, uh,
46:24
who should I interview next? Is there, you know, someone that's had a lot of influence over the success of
46:31
Drupal, um, you know, uh, for you, um, who you recommend that I reach out to?
46:37
um, but go with my friends, Matt Chaney.
46:40
Um, also Mike Pirog, another friend of mine.
46:44
He, um, he develops Lando and does lots of other interesting things.
46:51
Um, Jeff Eaton, definitely Ryan Szrama.
46:56
I also, uh, really like Todd (Nienkerk) from Four Kitchens.
46:59
He's a good one to talk to. Yeah, that's, that's a really great list and I, uh, I can't believe
47:04
I haven't interviewed those folks yet, so I will definitely, uh, get
47:07
them on the list and follow up. All amazing people that I'd love to talk to.
47:12
Jody. My face hurts from smiling so much from laughing.
47:17
I really appreciate you joining us today.
47:19
This is, this is a lot of fun. Uh, I hope that, uh, our listeners enjoyed it, you know,
47:24
anywhere near as much as I did. Uh, I really appreciate your time, uh, really generous with it today.
47:30
Uh, so thank you. Thanks so much. Yeah.
47:33
Alrighty for our listeners. If you like this talk, please remember to up vote, subscribe, and share it out.
47:38
You can check out all of our interviews in this series at tag1.com/20.
47:43
That's two zero. Uh, we actually also set up the, the twenty, because I'm sure
47:47
people are going to type it in. You can check out our past Tag1 Team Talks, uh, on the latest technology
47:54
topics at tag1.com/talks as always.
47:57
We'd love your feedback. Uh, it is so gratifying to hear from you.
48:01
You know, topic suggestions. Tell us what you think you can write to us at [email protected].
48:07
That's tag, the number 1.com.
48:09
Thanks again for tuning in take care.
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