I sat down with Karen Grey at Drupal Camp Brighton 2015 to find out more about who she is and what she does with Drupal. I apologise for taking her out of the code sprints for that time! Since we spoke, Karen has taken on a position as Senior Drupal Developer at i-KOS in their Brighton office.

Read the full post and see the conversation video at the Acquia Developer Center: https://dev.acquia.com/podcast/182-drupal-fun-use-meet-karen-grey

Ronald Ashri, former CTO at BlueSpark is now a Founder at Roomify - a Drupal-centric startup focusing on online reservations. Here, Ronald presents an enjoyable and valuable session about content strategy and Drupal, full of practical and actionable advice – worth watching in full for all strategists, site builders, and anyone who wants to know how to build a better content-oriented site.

Read the full post and see the conversation video at the Acquia Developer Center: https://dev.acquia.com/podcast/180-content-strategy-drupal-site-building-connecting-dots-ronald-ashri

Looking back on 2014, it was a great year of events and conversations with people in and around Acquia, open source, government, and business. I think I could happily repost at least 75% of the podcasts I published in 2014 as "greatest hits," but then we'd never get on to all the cool stuff I have been up to so far in 2015!

Nonetheless, here's one of my favorite recordings from 2014: a terrific session that will help you wrap your head around developing for Drupal 8 and a great conversation with Frederic Mitchell that covered the use of Drupal and open source in government, government decision-making versus corporate decision-making, designing Drupal 7 sites with Drupal 8 in mind, designing sites for the end users and where the maximum business value comes from in your organization, and more!

Read the full post and see the conversation video at the Acquia Developer Center: https://dev.acquia.com/podcast/155-2014-greatest-hits-30-awesome-drupal-8-api-functions-you-should-already-know-fredric

While speaking with Melissa Anderson about behavior driven development (BDD) at BADCamp 2014, she suggested I get John Bickar from Stanford Web Services in front of my cameras to talk about his experience during last year's "Drupalgeddon" security vulnerability. The result is this podcast and some great insight into how this kind of testing can significantly improve initial, ongoing, and emergency delivery of software. As John puts it, using BDD means: "delivering better software, delivering it faster, and knowing that it is delivering the value that we have promised to our partners." I would have named this episode of the Acquia Podcast more in the spirit of Dr. Strangelove: "Behat tests mean death to Linky-Clicky or how BDD helped Stanford Web Services recover fast during Drupalgeddon," but reason won out.

Read the full post and see the conversation video at the Acquia Developer Center: https://dev.acquia.com/podcast/179-deploying-better-software-confidence-behat-bdd-meet-john-bickar

PHP security expert and member of the Global Cybersecurity Group at Hewlett Packard, Chris Cornutt and I had the chance to meet in person at PHP World 2014, in Washington, D.C. We compared notes on the "PHP Renaissance", looking over other projects' shoulders, sharing code, and PHP security basics.

Read the full post and see the conversation video at the Acquia Developer Center: https://dev.acquia.com/podcast/178-writing-secure-php-meet-chris-cornutt

Tips and tricks for getting the most out of simplytest.me – Patrick Drotleff is a passionate contributor to the Drupal project whose work – including simplytest.me, pareview.sh, and the tongue-in-cheek BreakingHead card game – often centers around building tools that help others contribute to Drupal. Within minutes of Drupal 8 beta being announced at DrupalCon Amsterdam, I saw a tweet saying it was available to try out on simplytest.me. Though I had used the service before, I wanted to know how it actually worked and Patrick was kind enough to agree to show it off here on jam's Drupal Camp.

Read the full post and see the conversation video at the Acquia Developer Center: https://dev.acquia.com/podcast/177-working-simplytestme-and-drupalorg

Eric Mandel, CEO of infrastructure provider Blackmesh, and I got the chance to speak at PHP World 2014 (where I was also a keynote speaker). We spoke about his history with development, open source, and Drupal. I also had the chance to ask Eric about how Blackmesh has become a leader in the area of corporate contribution to Drupal, employing Cathy Theys to work on Drupal core, mentor new Drupal contributors, and help out at code sprints around the world.

Read the full post and see the conversation video at the Acquia Developer Center: https://dev.acquia.com/podcast/176-4-benefits-hiring-dedicated-open-source-contributors

Part 2 of 2 – I ran into Elia Albarran, Four Kitchens' Operations Manager at BADCamp 2014. She mentioned she'd read my blog post 10 Tips for Success as a Remote Employee; we started exchanging tips and ideas until I basically yelled, "Stop! I need to get this on camera for the podcast!" She graciously agreed and brought along two Four Kitchens developers for the session, too: Taylor Smith and Matt Grill, whom I spoke with in part 1.

Read the full post and see the conversation video at the Acquia Developer Center: https://dev.acquia.com/podcast/175-remote-team-success-22-manager

Presenter Brad Czerniak caught my eye with a blog post entitled "10 things I learned using Drupal at a hackathon," based on his experiences taking part in the #hackDPL (Detroit Public Library) competitive hackathon. In our podcast interview we talk about that – before moving on to Brad's session about the Drupal development best practices he and his team use at Commercial Progression in Michigan.

Read the full post and see the conversation video at the Acquia Developer Center: https://dev.acquia.com/podcast/174-development-based-drupals-fundamental-particles-brad-czerniak

Part 1 of 2 – I ran into Elia Albarran, Four Kitchens' Operations Manager ... ahem "Funmaster", in the inspiring atmosphere of BADCamp 2014. She mentioned she'd read my blog post 10 Tips for Success as a Remote Employee; we started exchanging tips and ideas until I basically yelled, "Stop! I need to get this on camera for the podcast!" She graciously agreed and brought along two Four Kitchens developers for the session, too: Taylor Smith and Matt Grill.

Read the full post and see the conversation video at the Acquia Developer Center: https://dev.acquia.com/podcast/173-remote-team-success-12-developers

I met Ian Read, Front End Development Team Leader at TSO/Williams Lea Public Sector at Drupal Camp Brighton, where I found out that he has recently been involved in a subject close to my heart: Drupal and government. He was part of the team that designed and built the attractive, responsive, and very functional London Borough of Croydon's new council website. In our conversation, we touch on the value that the Drupal community provides to everyone involved; Drupal and innovation in government digital services; the thought process, needs, design and more that went into the new Croydon Council Drupal website; and more!

Read the full post and see the conversation video at the Acquia Developer Center: https://dev.acquia.com/podcast/172-digital-government-services-and-drupal-meet-ian-read

Lorna Jane Mitchell is back to show us some great reasons for upgrading your projects to PHP 5.3 or newer. Drupal 8's minimum version requirement is already up there at 5.4.5 (as of 2015.Feb.02), so we're doing well! Lorna and I have a quick chat about her history and experience, open source versus proprietary software development ("Projects and companies that work in that open source technology space make much better use of tools ... and they are wonderful, free, and well-supported tools!") ... specifics of how and why the PHP "Renaissance" is happening, and Drupal 8 as a PHP meta-project before she gets down to her jam's Drupal Camp presentation.

Read the full post and see the conversation video at the Acquia Developer Center: https://dev.acquia.com/podcast/171-new-wave-php-lorna-jane-mitchell

Dustin Whittle, Developer Evangelist at AppDynamics, and I sat down at SymfonyLive Berlin 2014 to get to know each other. We touched on PHP's past and potential futures through HHVM or PHP7, how competition and collaboration both improve open source software and how business benefits from that, Drupal 8, and more. This podcast is some extracts from that conversation!

Read the full post and see the conversation video at the Acquia Developer Center: https://dev.acquia.com/podcast/170-meet-dustin-whittle-get-more-done-better-faster-together

Sally Young, Senior Developer at Lullabot, let me take her away from the DrupalCon Amsterdam sprints to talk with me. I was thrilled to finally get her in front of my podcast microphone and camera. She is a smart and interesting developer involved in innovations including headless Drupal and mobile applications. More importantly to me, I've been figuratively dying to get her story on tape about her mother's misunderstanding of her first job ever since I first heard it a couple of years ago. Listen on and you won't believe what happens next! ;-) ... We also touch on the beauty of her job, CMS v Framework, the Drupal community, being an open source developer, why Drupal 8 will be nice for developers and clients.

Read the full post and see the conversation video at the Acquia Developer Center: https://dev.acquia.com/podcast/169-drupal-and-power-flight-sally-young

Stephan Hochdörfer from bitExpert AG and I got the chance to sit down and chat in the event hotel lobby following his session (and my keynote address :-) at SymfonyLive Berlin, 2014.

Warning: Surprisingly, this podcast contains "the s-word" once.

Read the full post and see the conversation video at the Acquia Developer Center: https://dev.acquia.com/podcast/168-php-getting-job-done-really-easily-meet-stephan-hochdorfer

David Aponovich knows the web content management business far beyond just the "Drupalsphere". I was thrilled when he joined Acquia from Forrester Research in 2014, since I believe his voice, experience, and insight can help convince more businesses of the benefits of using Drupal, especially given the upcoming release of Drupal 8. He and I sat down at DrupalCon Amsterdam – David's first Drupal community event – and talked about digital transformation from the "information superhighway" to today, corporations and open source software as a pragmatic choice, and how the definitions of cooperation and competition are changing in business today.

Read the full post and see the conversation video at the Acquia Developer Center: https://dev.acquia.com/podcast/167-explaining-drupal-pragmatic-choice-meet-david-aponovich

I am looking back on a great year of events and conversations with people in and around Acquia, open source, government, and business. I think I could happily repost at least 75% of the podcasts I published in 2014 as "greatest hits," but then we'd never get on to all the cool stuff I am lining up for 2015! Nonetheless, here's a recording from one of my favorite moments from 2014: Drupal Dev Days in Szeged Hungary, where more than 300 contributors went wild working together on Drupal, I was honored to be the keynote speaker, and where Adam Juran and Campbell Vertesi debuted their now-legendary "Coder v Themer" ultimate smackdown grudge-match. In this podcast, Michael "Schnitzel" Schmid and I talk Drupal 8 from his perspective as a service provider.

Read the full post and see the conversation video at the Acquia Developer Center: https://dev.acquia.com/podcast/145-drupal-8-means-better-business-2014-greatest-hits-rebroadcast-michael-schmid

Part 2 – Larry Garfield and I had a long chat in front of my camera at DrupalCon Amsterdam to warm him up for writing "Building Bridges: Linking Islands" in the Future of PHP guest blog series on Acquia.com. In this second part of our conversation, we touch on Drupal's specialist value-adds over and above straight PHP, what defines community, sustainable contribution and services v products businesses, rebuilding Drupal's foundations to make a better project for everyone, the php[world] conference and Drupal 8 itself as manifestations of all the good changes coming with PHP interoperability, how communities are building bridges between their islands and sharing innovation, and how to do the Drupal Hug™.

Read the full post and see the conversation video at the Acquia Developer Center: https://dev.acquia.com/podcast/166-drupal-php-linking-islands-22-larry-garfield

Part 1 – Larry Garfield and I had a long chat in front of my camera at DrupalCon Amsterdam. Part of the idea was to help Larry prepare his thoughts for writing the blog post that has turned into "Building Bridges: Linking Islands" in the Future of PHP guest blog series on Acquia.com. In this part we cover Larry's start in Drupal, some project history, what Drupal can teach (and needs to learn) about contribution and community ("celebrating the newbie" and the power of "thank you"), The New PHP, fuzzy project boundaries and inter-project collaboration.

Read the full post and see the conversation video at the Acquia Developer Center: https://dev.acquia.com/podcast/165-drupal-php-linking-islands-12-larry-garfield

Chris Jolly, CTO Ontraq Europe, and his company have a strong technical background, going back to "old school" (pre-internet) IT. Their main focus until now has been eCommerce, Symfony, and solving hard problems like legacy-system integrations. Now, thanks to its use of Symfony framework components, they've started using Drupal 8 as their content management technology of choice! Chris and I talked at DrupalCon Amsterdam about getting there and what they're up to now.

Read the full post and see the conversation video at the Acquia Developer Center: https://dev.acquia.com/podcast/164-symfony-shop-embraces-drupal-8-gets-down-business

At the 2014 Government ICT 2.0 conference in London, I gave a presentation on Drupal and open source software as an essential facilitator in the practice of good digital government today, "Code for a Better World: Open Source Drupal + Government." (presentation slides embedded below). Hugo Pickford-Wardle, Chief Innovation Officer at Matter Digital, helped me out by speaking for ten minutes about Matter's activities and experience on the front lines of government transformation in the UK today. Afterward, we got the chance to sit down and talk in front of the camera about all this and a lot more.

Read the full post and see the conversation video at the Acquia Developer Center: https://dev.acquia.com/podcast/163-digital-government-and-content-moon-hugo-pickford-wardle

Voices of the ElePHPant / Acquia Podcast Ultimate Cage Match Part 2 - I had the chance to try to pull Cal Evans out of his shell at DrupalCon Amsterdam. After a few hours, he managed to open up and we talked about a range of topics we have in common. In this part of our conversation we talk about 'Getting off the Island', inter-project cooperation in PHP and Drupal's role in that; the reinvention and professionalization of PHP core development; decoupled, headless Drupal 8; PHP and the LAMP stack as tools of empowerment and the technologists' responsibility to make devices and applications that are safe, secure, and private by default.

Read the full post and see the conversation video at the Acquia Developer Center: https://dev.acquia.com/podcast/162-cal-evans-22-lets-talk-open-source

Voices of the ElePHPant / Acquia Podcast Ultimate Showdown Part 1 - Cal Evans and I got the chance to sit down and talk (a lot!) at DrupalCon Amsterdam and talk about a range of topics we have in common. In this first part of a 2-part series, we talk Drupal, PHP convergence and the "PHP Renaissance", open source communities, proprietary v open source business and the ethics of helping, and more.

Read the full post and see the conversation video at the Acquia Developer Center: https://dev.acquia.com/podcast/161-meet-cal-evans-12-meet-jeffrey-jam-mcguire

I met Vinita Rathi at the recent Digibury Weekender, where she gave a presentation entitled "Why we all need women in tech." Her presentation was thought- and audience-question provoking and I was thrilled when she agreed to sit down with me and talk about women in technology. In this conversation, among other things, we touch on how businesses with more women in leadership tend to be better performers financially; motherhood and maternity leave as a business advantage; perspectives on problem solving; and how to move technology companies and industries towards gender balance and diversity.

Read the full post and see the conversation video at the Acquia Developer Center: https://dev.acquia.com/podcast/160-women-technology-better-business-better-world-meet-vinita-rathi

Kalpana Goel - web developer with Forum One - and I sat down to chat at DrupalCon Amsterdam. We discussed the topic of Dries Buytaert's Amsterdam keynote: the potential benefits of "gamifying" and rewarding companies for supporting contributions, especially to Drupal core; Kalpana's discovery of Drupal; her contribution to the Drupal 8 web services initiative and Drupal's culture of sharing, and some of the benefits that are coming with Drupal 8.

Read the full post and see the conversation video at the Acquia Developer Center: https://dev.acquia.com/podcast/159-meet-drupal-core-contributor-mentor-kalpana-goel