Last week, FFW was proud to attend and sponsor Drupal GovCon, a Drupal Camp dedicated to serving Drupal users in the government sector and hosted in the greater Washington, DC area. The event consisted of three days of great conversations, sessions, and sprints in the FFW Sponsored Sprint Lounge. We’d also like to congratulate the GovCon organizers on this year’s amazing event, which had more attendees and excitement than ever before.

A chance to reconnect

One of the things we noticed at GovCon was the amazing enthusiasm about the Drupal project, and especially Drupal 8. We got to be part of a lot of great conversations about Drupal 8, and appreciated the chance to reconnect with colleagues who are interested in Drupal and its capabilities. One of our teammates, David Hernandez, had an especially great session about Docksal and VMs, and had a lot of great conversations later about the subject matter.

For us, the chance to meet up with our friends and colleagues is the most important part of attending camps. Being able to take the time to have in-depth conversations with other people and organizations who are using Drupal in new and challenging ways is incredibly valuable to us, and is a great way of understanding the problems and challenges that others in our industry are facing on a day-to-day basis.

Open source and government sites

In our work with governments and other big organizations with strict governance rules, we’ve found that open source software is an ideal choice. In addition to being far more secure than closed-source alternatives, software like Drupal simplifies the process of managing permissions and creating content that can be read by anyone, anywhere, on any device.

Additionally, the flexibility of open-source solutions makes it easier to integrate digital platforms with a variety of systems so that simple transactions can be automated. For example, see how several Danish municipalities built solutions that could better serve their constituents with help from FFW.

Ultimately, we know that open source is a great solution for governments, and we had a wonderful time connecting with other like-minded people at GovCon last week. We were glad for the chance to sponsor such a great event, and look forward to connecting to more Drupalers in the government sector in the future.