the core problem that faces companies trying to build growing businesses around software — dealing with the fact that different users take advantage of different features, and that applications tend to grow more complex as their user bases grow. It seems to me that the fashionable answer to this problem is to claim to be an auteur of application development, and to only build the features that are appealing to you. But that’s not the way big software companies work, and it’s really not the way they should work. If you’re in the software business, this presentation is a must-read.

I agree - this presentation is a must read (emphasis mine). Go grab the PDF of the presentation from DANC at Lost Garden.

I have been saying for a while that Drupal needs to actually cater to the bottom of the pyramid - so that more people can make it up the pyramid. The infamous "learning cliff" of Drupal means we need to make the "first level" of Drupal that much easier.

This post of moving from Ning to Buddypress would be pretty much impossible in Drupal - and that's a problem.

DANC says: "Two lessons: If you do a crappy job and people still think the result is amazing, you are onto something. If this can work with Word, it can work with almost anything."

I have long said "Drupal sucks, it just sucks less". There are painful pieces to it, especially for people that aren't educated about the whole rest of the stack. That includes two parts - the technical stack of databases, web servers, DNS, (and even operating systems / command line). Secondly, there is what I'll call the "community stack". Not hacking core, figuring out where (and how) to ask questions, how to contribute back feedback / documentation / code, and so on.

Anyone that attends a DrupalCamp or Drupalcon very often levels up immediately in the community stack - lots of learning, lots of positive reinforcement, and a good chance that someone else there is attempting to complete the same mission.

Writing this up also gives me a chance to talk about a tweet I made during Northern Voice:

Sitting in @davecormier's #Drupal for communities - just told everyone that it "burns like fire" vs the ease of use of #wordpress #nv10

An analogy that I ended up developing as part of the discussion (and from the painful groans of some of the edtech crew in attendance) was this:

WordPress is like an oil lantern. It's got this nice brass case, a little pool of oil, and a burning wick on the inside. You can pick it up, walk around with it, and generally do a very good job of shining light into corners.

Drupal, on the other hand, is like a raging fire. It's fantastic at throwing light into a really large space, where a brass lantern just won't do. But, you're carrying that big fire around in a wooden box. If you don't figure out how to build a metal case around that box, Drupal's fire is going to eat through the box and BURN YOUR HANDS.

As Dave Cormier explained to people, "With Drupal, you need to plan ahead". Drupal is a more complex tool. But we're not going to lose complexity. We're going to keep adding cutting edge features ("there's a module for that!"), we just have to find ways to make the early levels easier, and to build more game-like features into our Drupal training and learning tools.

And the end game? I have a pretty good feeling that distributions are a part of it.