Building the Drupal Community around the World: who, why, where and when

Executive summary What makes local Drupal communities around the world tick, how do we maintain momentum, how are we organizing our events and how can we increase their awesomeness? Overview We'll explore how people around the world are building the Drupal community on a local, regional, national and international level. Wel'll draw from our experiences in the US, France, Belgium, Hungary, Kuala Lumpur and China, and try to get a sense of the similarities and differences in our approach. Intertwined with the aspect of community organization, is event organization: we'll explore the different kinds of events that are held on a regular basis: local user group meetups, regional DrupalCamps, national DrupalCamps and DrupalCons. We'll discuss their strengths and weaknesses, goals and result and how to start organizing these different types of event from scratch: the hows, the whys, the whos and the whens. You've stood on a soap box, evangelized Drupal and gathered a group of dedicated followers. Excellent! You've started organizing events. Even excellenter. But communities are people too (TM), and one of the burning questions is how to keep your community from losing momentum. How to retain the energy, positive spirit and sense of adventure? How to keep your group of volunteers together and motivated? We invite you to show your battle scars and share your ideas and lessons learned. We'd love to find out from you how your environment, culture, religion or language influences your community and how it can inspire others.