blackrimglasses

Shaun Haber (my Tech Proj Manager at WBR) and I went up to Yahoo’s campus for the OSCMS summit this Thursday and Friday. It would more aptly be named “The Drupal Convention that happens to include Joomla folks because we’re nice” summit, but i digress. It was an interesting time, with contacts made, things learned and people met. My pictures are up here. I used the time to experiment with my flash and camera, hence poor Shaun has more photos than necessary as I was testing settings.

Some things to summarize:

• Yahoo has a very, very strange campus and culture. I say this after a few visits to their campus and a few meetings there outside of OSCMS. Its monolithic, but seemingly disconnected. It is also very cultish in some ways, and is caught between “1.0″ sensibilities and corporate mandates. Key example: two guys in Dockers khaki’s mulling over grass stains on their pants after taking a break on the lego-pad fabulous lawns.
• Side note: Why design buildings that are hermetic when you’re offices are right next to one of the most beautiful wetlands in California? Wouldn’t it be a nice time to try inside/outside architecture? Hell, WBR has that and we’re in fucking Burbank!
• Drupal is definately poised for ascendency to a major player in the CMS field. It just needs some good marketing! I made reference to this a lot. If Drupal.org listed use-cases, and had profiles that helped “fit” it with a variety of uses (like for say, Artist websites), it’d be fantastic. Also: better information architecture is needed on drupal.org
• On this note: drupal should start a “case study” site to show Drupal’s usage in newspapers, entertainment, education, art, etc. Simple, easy to understand language.
• Time for Drupal to also grow up in the sense of referencing dollar savings because its open source.
• Drupal is much more powerful than people give it credit for, but it obfuscates the power under language. Not nearly as much as Joomla does, but there is still room for improvement.
• I’m surprised, but not really, that more major newspapers haven’t taken a good hard look at Drupal. I would have expected Freedom, Copley, Tribune, someone to send a representative. Nope.
• Shaun corrected my analogy: Facebook is to Yahoo what Apple is to Microsoft. Shaun and I visited Facebook. This is never more apparent than when you walk in the door. Flights to Australia indeed!
• I realized that at Facebooks offices we were one block away from where the fictional offices for Oop! are.
• Valley culture still mystifies me a bit, and I like the fact that its 37 minutes and 96 dollars away via Southwest. Its reassuring to know its close enough to touch, but not close enough to make me a pod.
• And then I realize, I am a pod, as I work in the music industry.

Ultimately, a good trip.

By the way, if anyone in the Los Angeles area is seeking an amazing artist/illustrator/creative director/producer/animator with superb computer skills and a fabulous sense of humor, please e-mail me. My wife is interested.