Drupal MD

(Originally posted on BrockBoland.com.)

Thursday night, Dave and I braved the wilds of suburban Maryland to check out the Drupal MD group.

It was a nice change of pace from the DC group. The DC group meets in the upper room of a local bar. There are typically around 20 to 40 people there, and a few people will give lightning talks, then everyone kind of mingles.

The Maryland group was much smaller - about a dozen people - and a very different format. They meet in a large break room at a company in Columbia. After we debated git and Subversion for a bit, two guys gave quick talks similar to those at the DC meetups, but instead of one person standing in front of a large group of people, they were seated at a table kind of in the middle, which lent itself to more discussion about the topics. After the presentations, a few people mentioned things they were struggling with or interested in learning about, and things quickly turned into a real nerd-fest; I wound up talking Fusion and favorite modules with a few guys, and chatted a bit with some other folks.

(Aside: did you know about Nivo Slider? Because I did not.)

It was a nice format, with a bunch of really friendly people. I think I preferred their style: the more social atmosphere of the DC meetups is fine, but I found it much easier to strike up conversation and talk to people in the not-a-bar atmosphere. It's a bit of a hike up to Columbia where they meet, but I'm hoping that I'll be able to make it to more of their meetups in the coming months.