Open Business Models and The Drupal Guild Gregory Heller CivicActions, LLC BarCamp NYC 2006

Freedom Creating a new business model that values Freedom, Contribution, Ideas ● Free Software ● Free Content ● Create work that works for us ● Inclusiveness ● Ownership

Legal & Licensing ● Freedom Through Open Source Licensing ● GPL and AGPL ● Creative Commons, Attribution Share Alike 2.5 ● Freedom Through Corporate Structure ● LLC: Limited Liability Corporation

Organizational Structure ● Independent Contractors ● Cross Functional Teams ● 2-10 people per project ● Work on Multiple Projects ● Scalable ● Add contractors for specific engagements ● No employee Overhead

Practice Areas ● Pre-sales, Sales ● Engagement/project management ● Strategic consulting ● Marketing ● Political ● Internet Strategy ● Technology ● Community organizing ● Design, Identity ● Programming ● Human interface design ● Documentation, Training ● Quality Assurance ● System admin and security

Lifestyle ● Virtual Workforce – Scalable – No office ● Work from home ● Make your own schedule ● Travel ● Quarterly Face-To-Face Meetings

The Drupal Guild

Drupal Guild: Problem ● Manpower Shortage – There are not enough Drupal Developers to meet demand for Drupal websites ● No Training Programs – All Drupal developers and deployers are self taught ● Overlapping Module Development – Multiple developers working on similar modules ● Legitimacy

Drupal Guild Most of what we look at right now for employment is the idea that everyone is looking for employment long term so that they are employees...the future is not really there for digital artists the future is much closer to when you wanted to build a castle you had 3 or 4 guilds... a whole bunch of people showed up, they built them and then they they disappeared... went on to the next job... They were essentially freelancers--networked by the guild and guaranteed by the guild. -Alex Lindsay, Founder, PixelCorps

Features of the Guild ● Historically, guilds have provided a way for skilled craftsmen and artisans to organize ● Opportunities for people to learn skills and share them with other members ● Certify skills levels ● Employment Referrals ● Professional Networking ● Association of Freelancers

Drupal Guild ● Drupal development shops and individual developers join the Guild ● New Developers can apprentice with shops to build skills ● Relationships are fluid – Developers can work with multiple shops – Open Source Licenses allow them to own their work and take it with them.

Drupal Guild This Organizational Chart suggested a way for the guild to organize for the mutual benefit of all members.

The 3 “C”s Drupal Guild reduces the “noise” and increases the “signal” making for better networking. ● Communication – When Drupal developers communicate with other developers.... ● Cooperation happens – When developers start cooperating, things get built and... ● Collaborations are formed – Drupal developers and shops collaborating can better serve all their customers

Drupal Guild: Marketplace ● Bounties – Members can post bounties for projects they need completed, other members can see and respond ● Reverse Bounties – Members can offer work and other members can choose to engage them ● RFP Referral Service – Drupal Guild can accept RFPs, members can rank, review and tag RFPs and all members can choose to bid

Drupal Guild: Marketing ● Drupal Guild will collect statistics from members – Number of sites created along with other important stats, number of page views, articles, users, money raised – Aggregate revenues, average contract size ● This information will be available publicly for marketing purposes, will add legitimacy and help Drupal compete with the largest proprietary applications

Drupal Guild Bug ● All Drupal Guild members will be entitled and encouraged to use a DrupalGuild “Bug” to represent that the work is done by a guild member. ● Acts as a calling card for the Drupal Guild ● Sets guild member developed sites apart from the rest ● Represents quality

Drupal Guild: Resources ● Business Process Documents – Contracts, Evaluative tools, questionnaires – Project Planning Documents ● Marketing Materials, Success Stories ● Client Evaluation and RFP template documents ● Training Materials ● Skills Shares ● Show and Tell

Drupal Guild Drupal Guild is just a concept, it can be more or less than described here Join us and help design it Join us and help create it