TD Cafe #017 - Drupal Beginners with Mike and Rod
Talking Drupal
Mike Anello and Rod Martin discuss the sharp decline in demand for beginner Drupal training. Drawing on data from their businesses, events, and other training providers, they explore factors including AI-driven self-service learning, Drupal’s growing complexity for newcomers, and limited community-wide marketing. They also discuss how initiatives like Drupal AI and broader promotion efforts could help attract and support the next generation of Drupal users. For show notes visit: Topics Mike Anello Mike, widely recognized by his Drupal.org username "ultimike," is a prominent figure in the...
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Talking Drupal #555 - AI Learners Club
Talking Drupal
Today we are talking about AI, How to stay up to date with it, and if it will really take our jobs with guests Angie Byron & Amber Matz. We’ll also cover AI Best Practices for Drupal as our module of the week. For show notes visit: Topics What Is AI Learners Club Amber Defines the Club Origin Story and DrupalCon AI Debate and Community Tensions Issue Queue Conduct and Moderation Thread Tone vs Substance AI Adoption Outside Drupal Conflict Mediation Playbook Maintainer Burnout and Flood Safe Space Learners Club How the Club Started Picking Topics and Demos AI Taking Our Jobs Future of...
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Talking Drupal #554 - Hey! Scott Tolinski!
Talking Drupal
Today we are talking about Web Education, Level up Tutorials, and life after Drupal with guest Scott Tolinski. We’ll also cover Views Row SDC as our module of the week. For show notes visit: Topics Scott Origin Story Level Up Tutorials Era Syntax Podcast Beginnings Growing The Audience Web Components Debate Leaving Drupal Behind What Drupal Still Nails Agency Project Highlights Booking Podcast Guests Scott Work Week Setup Running Syntax Team Canvas HTML Experiments Livestream Tools Challenges Funding Via Sentry Project Ideas Process Conference Speaking Journey Speaking Logistics Family...
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Talking Drupal #553 - Saving The Open Web
Talking Drupal
Today we are talking about The Open Web, What it means, and Why it’s important with guest Alex Moreno. We’ll also cover AI JSON-LD as our module of the week. For show notes visit: Topics Defining the Open Web Drupal in a Bubble Marketing and PR Challenges AI Bias Against Drupal Why AI Won’t Recommend Drupal Is Drupal AI Native Marketing Against Giants Local Evangelism Push Funding Outreach Trips Drupal CMS PR Gap Templates Lower Barriers Need a Drupal Onramp Speaking Beyond Drupal Web Summit Lessons Sell Problems Not Drupal Rethinking DrupalCon Camps and New Audiences Marketplace...
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Talking Drupal #552 - MOSA
Talking Drupal
Today we are talking about The Midwest Open Source Alliance, What they do, and How they support Drupal with guests April Sides & Tearyne Almendariz. We’ll also cover Canvas Field Component as our module of the week. For show notes visit: Topics Congratulations to April as the 2026 Aaron Winborn award! What is MOSA, and what gap in the Drupal ecosystem was it created to fill? How did MOSA get started, and who were the key people behind its formation? MOSA acts as a fiscal sponsor—what does that actually mean in practice for Drupal events and initiatives? What are some of the projects...
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TD Cafe #016 - Understanding Drupal Caching with Matt and Nic
Talking Drupal
Nic Laflin and Matt Glaman sit down to discuss Drupal caching and Matt’s new Leanpub book, Understanding Drupal: A Complete Guide to Caching Layers. For show notes visit: Topics New Book on Caching Why Drupal Caching Shines Cache Tags Explained Cache Context Variations What Caching Really Is Invalidation Across the Stack NGINX Layer Pitfalls What Drupal Can Cache Writing Cacheable Render Arrays Debugging Metadata Issues Testing Caching Strategies Researching the Book Variation Cache Deep Dive Access Policy and Performance Permissions Caching and Disk IO Extension Discovery Tangent File...
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Talking Drupal #551 - Drupal Recording Initiative
Talking Drupal
Kevin Thull, who leads the Drupal Recording Initiative (DRI), joins us to discuss why DRI started, how it scaled from Kevin recording local camps to supporting many events, the hub-and-mentorship model for maintainers, differences between shipping kits vs onsite support, costs compared with traditional AV vendors, and challenges like aging capture hardware, audio/video troubleshooting, and sustainable funding. For show notes visit: Topics Module of the Week TFA Why Recording Matters Early Events and Growing Pains Post Production and Gear Limits Recording DrupalCon vs Camps Costs and Value...
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Talking Drupal #550 - The Future of Site Builders
Talking Drupal
In episode 550 of Talking Drupal, Rod Martin joins us to discuss how Drupal site builders are defined, how their role has changed across Drupal versions, and what the future may look like with Drupal CMS, Canvas, and Drupal AI. The show’s module of the week is Password Policy, presented by Avi Schwab, covering customizable password constraints and password expiration/reset features, along with supporting modules Password Policy Extras and Password Policy Pwned, which checks passwords against the Have I Been Pwned database. The conversation also explores the challenges site builders face...
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Talking Drupal #549 - Catching up with the DDEV Team
Talking Drupal
In Episode 549, Randy Fay and Stas Zhuk join us to discuss what DDEV is, recent improvements, and where it’s headed. Module of the week is the DDEV Drupal Contrib add-on. Randy and Stas discuss priorities like reliability, consistent UX, add-ons discoverability, and new features including revamped ddev share with Cloudflare and rootless Podman support. They also cover , a cloud-based DDEV environment built on for easier onboarding and contribution, plus sustainability, community support, and challenges such as AI-driven PR volume and Stas’s development constraints in Ukraine. For show...
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Talking Drupal #548 - How to build your own CRM
Talking Drupal
In episode 548 we welcome back JD Leonard to discuss what CRMs are, what problems they solve, and which organizations benefit from them. JD explains why Drupal CRM defines CRM as “Contact Relationship Management,” outlines core expectations like contact and relationship tracking and integrations, and describes Drupal CRM’s Drupal-native architecture using dedicated, fieldable entity types for contacts, relationships, and contact methods. The panel compares Drupal CRM to older Drupal CRM efforts and user-based approaches, covers security considerations for PII and plans for field...
info_outlineJoin John and Steve as they delve into the intricacies and challenges of maintaining Drupal modules, comparing experiences with WordPress, and sharing their journey in making web development more accessible. They discuss their personal stories, the learning curve in module development, balancing user experience, and the importance of contributing back to the community. Learn about their current projects, thoughts on AI's role in accessibility, and get inspired by their dedication to improving the web for all users.
For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/cafe010
Topics
- Drupal Beginnings: Personal Stories
- Journey into Module Development
- Accessibility in Web Development
- Navigating the Learning Curve in Development
- The Importance of Community and Collaboration
- Challenges in Module Maintenance
- Comparing Drupal and WordPress
- Innovative Approaches to Development
- Pet Peeves and Frustrations
- Future Directions and AI Integration
- The Story Behind the Shovel Avatar
Steve Wirt
Being a Developer and Tech Lead at CivicActions has exposed him to the experience of working on some of the largest government websites in the United States. A passion for opensourcing as much as possible has lead him to develop a growing number of modules, with two addressing accessibility Alt Text Validation & Node Link Report)
John Jameson
As the Digital Accessibility Developer at Princeton University, John has come to believe that the biggest barrier to accessible content is the idea that training can compensate for unintuitive authoring interfaces. So far his work to fix the authoring interfaces, to make workflows intuitive and accessible by default, has resulted in the Editoria11y Accessibility Checker and Link Purpose Icons JS libraries and Drupal modules.
Guests
Steve Wirt - swirt
John Jameson - itmaybejj
Resources
Modules
- Editoria11y Accessibility Checker https://www.drupal.org/project/editoria11y
- Link Purpose Icons https://www.drupal.org/project/linkpurpose
- Alt Text Validation https://www.drupal.org/project/alt_text_validation
- Node Link Report https://www.drupal.org/project/node_link_report
Talking Drupal #490 Contrib First https://talkingdrupal.com/490
Contrib First https://guidebook.civicactions.com/en/latest/common-practices-tools/contribution/contrib-first/