Keynote at New England Drupal Camp 2023: “The Inner Work of Being a Public Good”

I was so honored to be invited to give the keynote at the 10th anniversary New England Drupal Camp this weekend at Rhode Island College. The Drupal community has always been so good to me, and NEDCamp was no exception. Thank you so much to John Picozzi, Leslie Glynn, Stephen Cross and the whole crew of volunteer organizers who make this amazing event happen. Congratulations on 10 years!!

When they first reached out, the team tasked me with talking about Drupal as a public good. I put my signature spin on it by connecting Drupal’s recent designation as a Digital Public Good by the Digital Public Goods Alliance with its capacity to advance the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the personal responsibility each of us must take to accelerate that progress, utilizing the emerging global movement of the Inner Development Goals (IDGs)—an open-source framework of 23 skills across 5 dimensions we can commit to developing within ourselves to help create a sustainable future.

I was so deeply touched to hear the positive feedback from the crowd, many of whom told me they were inspired to incorporate the SDGs and IDGs into their work and their teams, who now see their contributions to the Drupal project and Drupal community in a whole new light with even greater meaning and purpose.

If you’re curious to hear more, please hit me up anytime. I love this stuff so much and I love chatting about it. I’ll post the video when it goes live. I’m so grateful to get to do what I do. Thank you, Rhode Island!

The Inner Work of Being a Public Good by Whitney Hess
Sustainable Development Goals
No matter what the problem is, it’s a people problem. — Gerald Weinberg
Inner Development Goals framework
Keynote closing slide