In May of 2008 I attended my first ever Drupal Camp in Vancouver BC. I was already using Drupal for some time but never got involved with community. This camp was the catalyst that encouraged me to hit the kool aid and drink it deep. Before this, I was still creating some web sites from scratch with no framework at all, building lots of WordPress blogs and toying with Joomla. Even thinking of taking the Ruby on Rails route. After Drupal Camp Vancouver I made the decision to make Drupal my number one tool for building websites.

Why? Well, I know this will sound cliched, but it's because of the people. I was so impressed with the Drupal community putting together such a great event and sharing so much information. The sponsoring web firms (particularly Raincity Studios at the time) were sharing information that could be seen as their competitive advantage, for free. And yes, I know the same could be said for other open source projects, but there was this vibe emanating from the Drupal community that I won't even bother trying to explain. I just liked it.

Disappointingly, the following year, there was no Drupal Camp in Vancouver. I guess we were all too busy with other things, and the year went by too quick. This year, 2010, I'm happy to say that we're following Seattle's initiative and hosting the Pacific Northwest Drupal Summit. A local Drupal Camp, but better. We're attracting speakers from all over, and attendees from BC, Alberta, Seattle, Oregon, Idaho, and whatever other locales considered Northwest I may be missing.

I encourage you all to register, you won't regret it. Like me, come for the technology, stay for the community. It's going to be awesome!