09.09.2025

Mikko Hämäläinen

AI is Reading Your Content – Are You Ready to Respond?

An ever-growing share of online content is consumed by AI bots – whether through ChatGPT queries or more complex agent networks that perform tasks on behalf of users.

The role of content is inevitably shifting in the age of AI. Every content creator needs to decide how to approach the use of their work outside their own platform. Some aim for maximum visibility, while others want to drive traffic to their own site to secure ad revenue.

The change is already visible in Google’s search results: users increasingly see direct answers first, with links pushed to the background. ChatGPT’s nearly six billion visits in July demonstrate how search terms are evolving into full questions – and how AI is strengthening its role as the interface to online information and services.

Bring Your Content Within AI’s Reach

Our clients often ask how to optimize content so large language models can find it. Bots still have limitations and preferences when it comes to structure. By meeting those requirements, your content surfaces more easily and gains visibility in AI-driven queries.

Many AI SEO principles mirror traditional search optimization. Semantic, accessible HTML remains the best foundation. Clear text-based content, a well-defined “main point,” and proper internal linking all support discoverability. Highlighting the author’s expertise and profile further increases credibility.

Traditional formats often outperform trendy solutions: while headless services seemed attractive for a while, AI still favors classic HTML. The same goes for PDFs – offering an HTML version makes them easier for bots to read.

Tools for AI SEO Optimization

Shortcuts already exist. Structured data helps bots understand what your site is about. JSON-LD metadata and sitemaps (sitemap.xml) improve visibility.

New proposals include ai.txt and llms.txt. The former works like robots.txt but is aimed at AI bots. The latter provides metadata and links that guide bots through your site’s structure. Both serve as recommendations, but bots may still choose to ignore them.

Want to Block the Bots?

If you don’t want to share your content, ai.txt alone won’t do the job. You need heavier tools, such as blocking bot traffic with Cloudflare.

Cloudflare is also developing a pay-per-crawl model that would let site owners charge AI networks for using their content – protecting revenue streams in the process.

AI SEO Checklist

Build an accessible site
Add metadata and optimize both structure and content
Highlight your key messages clearly – don’t bury them at the bottom
Ensure content credibility and showcase the author’s expertise
Consider adding ai.txt and llms.txt files

I’d be happy to share more on this topic – feel free to get in touch.

Author

Mikko Hämäläinen

CEO

Mikko is the CEO of Druid with more than 20 years of experience in content management and customer experience development. He helps marketing and business teams harness the potential of technology, and his true passion lies in digital customer experience management systems

03.09.2025

Roni Jarkko

How to Harness Personalization on Manufacturing Websites

The right information for the right visitor – exactly when it matters.

Customers in the manufacturing industry represent a diverse mix. Buyers focus on business outcomes, while technical experts need precise product details. Resellers care about order information and their own customer base. One client wants a tailored solution, another browses entire product families. Geography also shapes what options make sense to offer.

In this blog, I’ll share practical ways personalization helps manufacturing companies serve their customers better.

Role-Based Content Speaks Differently to Buyers and Technical Experts

Visitors come to your site with different expectations. A technical expert looks for hard facts: certifications, specifications, and measurements. A buyer cares more about references, benefits, and ROI.

You can personalize content by role in several ways:

Build dedicated landing pages and user journeys for each audience.
Engage visitors with dynamic content.
Offer the right contact options and forms that match each stage of the journey.

The Right Product and the Right Path

A broad product catalog can quickly become overwhelming. No customer wants to scroll through hundreds of items – from relays to drill bits.

Marketing, sales, and digital services should share one goal: guide customers quickly to the solution that matters – whether it’s a corrosion-resistant structure, a service description, or a maintenance order.

Personalization creates these pathways without duplicating content. For example:

Content organized by common use cases or industries.
Product group views that lead directly to the right item.
Cross-links: “Interested in this? Check out X, often used in the same context.”
A personalized AI assistant that advises on products, sales, or usage.

Adapt Content to the Visitor’s Location

Does the customer operate in Finland, Germany, or Sweden? Each market requires different content, language versions, and sometimes even a unique product range. Location-based personalization ensures the right audience gets the right information.

You might use:

Localized references, e.g., “See how our customers in Sweden use this.”
Automatic language and currency settings.
Regional contacts and support services.

Geographic personalization builds trust and makes it easier for customers to get in touch. Strong personalization also respects cultural differences, such as tone of voice and product images.

Guide Resellers to Added Value with Smart Recommendations

Personalization doesn’t just mean highlighting best-sellers. If you’re searching for hall lighting, you don’t care that others buy work lamps.

Recommendations should make resellers’ work easier and add value: compatible products, accessories, or current promotions.

In order channels or extranets, you can leverage:

Smart product recommendations based on previous orders.
“Frequently bought together” highlights on product pages.
Personalized calls-to-action (CTAs) that genuinely guide to the next step.

Well-targeted recommendations save time, enhance customer experience, and increase order value.

Use Data to Continuously Improve the Experience

Data powers personalization as an ongoing process. It reveals what different user groups search for and where they drop off. These insights help refine services to be more customer-centric.

Focus on:

Website analytics: track which paths convert best.
A/B testing: find out which content performs strongest.
Customer feedback and usability testing: listen to real users.

Even small adjustments can significantly boost conversion and satisfaction.

Personalization Is a Service, Not Just Technology

At its core, website personalization means helping your customer. They find what they need easily and feel your company truly understands their situation.

That requires considering roles, needs, locations, and products already during design. That’s why you should make personalization part of digital service development from the start.

Want to explore practical opportunities for personalizing your digital services? Get in touch – we’ll design a solution that truly serves your customers.

Author

Roni Jarkko

Sales Manager

Roni Jarkko is a specialist with a passion for customer experience, common sense, and business. As Sales Manager at Druid, he combines broad business insight with service design expertise to drive the profitable development of digital services.

12.08.2025

Kirsi Vatanen

AI in Content Creation

AI has become part of our marketing toolkit. It speeds up content production, improves search visibility, enhances the customer experience – and at its best, saves hours every week. Some of the features I talk about here can be used in standalone AI tools like ChatGPT, while others are built directly into the content management system.

I’ve found that even small changes can lead to significant benefits. Here are practical examples of how AI can work as part of your website and content management process.

Draft and Refine

AI won’t write a publication-ready blog post for you, but it can help you get started. It structures the topic, suggests titles, and summarizes key points – especially when deadlines are tight or you’re working with a lot of material.

I use it to create rough drafts and fine-tune wording. It doesn’t replace writing, but it makes the process smoother.

Clearer Communication

When I write expert content, I want to make sure the message comes across clearly – even for readers who are new to the topic. I ask AI to assess readability and suggest improvements that make the content easier to absorb and more accessible.

Content That Resonates

AI is a great sparring partner when I plan content journeys for different audience segments. I test various content ideas and ask for suggestions for personalized paths. This helps me identify the points where visitors need more information or reassurance before making a decision.

Search Visibility Sorted

AI analyzes how search-friendly the content is – from keywords to internal links and technical structure. I ask it to suggest improvements and generate metadata in advance. The output usually needs a quick review and a few tweaks, but most of the work is already done.

Multiple Languages at the Push of a Button

If you work with multilingual sites, you know how time-consuming translation can be. AI can translate content directly within the interface, saving you from endless copy-paste between tools. The translations are consistent in tone and often nearly ready to publish after a quick check.

Search That Understands the User

A traditional search function isn’t enough when you have a lot of content or when users search with different terms. AI-powered search understands questions as they’re asked and quickly delivers accurate, context-relevant answers.

This improves the user experience and provides valuable insights into what information visitors are looking for and which parts of your content could be improved.

AI as Part of the Publishing Process

In systems like Drupal, AI can be used directly within the interface. It helps with formatting, categorizing, and optimizing content. Publishing is faster, and content stays consistent without switching between tools.

The benefits of AI in content management show up as time savings, higher-quality content, and better discoverability. At the same time, you gather data that helps you develop your site in the long run.

If you’re wondering whether a particular step in your workflow could be easier, we can help. AI won’t replace humans but it will free up time for you to focus on what you do best.

Book a demo and see how it works in practice.

Author

Kirsi Vatanen

Marketing Manager

20.05.2025

Roni Jarkko

Your Website as a Customer Experience Platform – How to Build a Truly Impactful Digital Experience

“Customer experience platform” may sound like a clunky term, but it’s surprisingly accurate. It means your website is no longer just a channel for sharing information – it becomes an active part of your customer experience: guiding, responding, and serving users in a personalized way. It connects marketing, customer data, and business processes into one seamless digital experience.

On a customer experience platform, visitors don’t just browse – they receive service. The platform helps guide them in the right direction, responds to their actions, and supports individual needs. That’s how you create a genuinely good digital customer experience.

What Sets a Customer Experience Platform Apart from a Traditional Website?

Dynamic content that responds to customer needs.
The website evolves with the user and “grows” alongside them. Content, recommendations, and features adapt automatically based on customer behavior.

Data flows freely and meaningfully.
CRM, marketing automation, and customer data platforms (CDPs) are no longer isolated silos – they form a powerful ecosystem that fuels better customer experiences and drives results.

It fosters dialogue.
Customer experience isn’t a linear path – it adapts and reshapes based on the customer’s actions.

Why Is a Customer Experience Platform Crucial for Marketing?

Your website is often the first – and most important – touchpoint a customer has with your brand. It’s the home of the customer relationship, where your brand is not just seen but felt and experienced.

Marketing puts in enormous effort to attract potential customers to your website through campaigns and advertising. So why wouldn’t you ensure that once they arrive, the experience is as impactful as possible?

With a customer experience platform, you can:

Build targeted customer journeys for different audiences
Test and optimize content based on real data
Strengthen your brand experience, visually and functionally
Measure impact and improve the experience systematically

A customer experience platform helps you recognize evolving customer needs, respond to them in real time, and improve conversions.

Technology as the Enabler of Customer Experience

Behind the scenes, a modern customer experience platform is built on a modular, scalable architecture – which is essential. A headless CMS allows flexible content management across channels, APIs connect backend systems, and analytics bring the data back into the hands of marketing.

This is a great example of how technology should always be an enabler – never a barrier or bottleneck.

But the real transformation starts with a mindset shift: a website isn’t a one-off project. It’s a living, evolving platform that grows alongside your customers. And this way of thinking is far more cost-effective in the long run than rebuilding your site every five years.

How to Get Started with a Customer Experience Platform?

If your current site still mainly serves as a digital brochure for your offerings, the first steps toward a customer experience platform could be:

Personalizing content for your key audience segments
Targeting newsletters or campaigns based on user behavior
Integrating your website with CRM or marketing automation tools
Mapping your current technical architecture: What capabilities do you already have? Which existing tools are underutilized? Are any systems unknowingly blocking progress?

A Strategic Opportunity for Your Business

When your website acts as a customer experience platform, your digital touchpoints are no longer fragmented or difficult to manage. Instead, they become a connected whole that allows marketing to deliver truly impactful experiences.

Not just beautiful pages – but services that actually serve the customer.

And yes, this also shows up in your business results. You’ll reach and serve your target audiences more effectively and support smoother processes. There’s no reason your business shouldn’t thrive.

And the technology? It’s no longer just a background cost – it’s an active driver of your marketing success.

Curious about how your website could evolve into a customer experience platform?

At Druid, we can help you build a solution that reaches your customers with the right message, at the right time, in the right channel.

Book a meeting – let’s look at your business and how this approach could work for you.

Author

Roni Jarkko

Sales Manager

27.03.2025

Mikko Hämäläinen

Personalize Your Website with Druid Experience Platform

Personalizing your website and customer communication doesn’t just enhance the customer experience – it also drives better marketing results. According to McKinsey, personalization can increase revenue by up to 15%, reduce customer acquisition costs by 50%, and improve marketing ROI by 15%. Big promises, right? But how do you actually deliver on them?

Without the right tools, personalization is harder than making gravy without lumps. Many mid-sized and even large companies face tight marketing resources – and this is exactly the challenge the Druid Experience Platform (DruidXP) is built to solve. Not only does it streamline personalization, but it also enables fast and effortless content production across multiple channels.

Why Personalization Matters

Personalized content improves the experience especially for those curious, knowledge-hungry customers. It brings real value to brands and manufacturers looking to build loyalty and deepen engagement.

What Does Druid Experience Platform Offer?

DruidXP is built on proven and well-documented open-source solutions, so you’re not locked into a single vendor. Our platform combines content management, marketing automation, and AI capabilities into one seamless experience.

Multichannel Content Creation Made Easy

With DruidXP’s publishing system, you can create content not just for your website, but also for mobile apps, e-commerce platforms, and even extranets. The intuitive drag & drop interface makes producing content fast and easy. AI assists with content ideation, creation, accessibility, and translations – all just a click or two away.

Marketing Automation & AI That Knows When to Strike

Marketing automation analyzes, identifies, and profiles website visitors, and uses asynchronous channels like email and instant messaging to reach out at just the right time. When you strike while the iron’s hot, results follow.

How DruidXP Works Its Magic

DruidXP’s real power lies in its ability to bring all functionalities together into a smooth, integrated system. A casual website visitor is profiled based on their behavior, and the personalization engine serves up relevant content through smart highlights and CTAs.

The buyer journey can be optimized with lead scoring. That way, we know when a “considerer” is turning into a “buyer” – and we can time sales messaging perfectly.

Want to See Personalization in Action?

In our demo, we’ll walk you through a real-life example of how to create standout customer experiences in the age of AI.

Pick a time that works for you – Mikko’s calendar is open.

Book a meeting

Author

Mikko Hämäläinen

CEO

28.11.2024

Kirsi Vatanen

Druid Achieves ISO/IEC 27001 Certification: Security as Part of Our Customer Promise

Druid Oy has been awarded the ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certification following an external audit, underscoring the company’s commitment to high information security standards. This certification demonstrates that Druid’s information security management processes meet the internationally recognized standard aimed at protecting customer data and the company’s own information as comprehensively as possible.

The ISO/IEC 27001 certification covers Druid’s customer-specific software and web service development and maintenance, as well as internal business processes.

“The changing landscape of information security requires companies to invest more than ever before. We wanted to invest in certification to prove to ourselves and our customers that our information security processes are robust,” says Mikko Hämäläinen, CEO of Druid.

Why Information Security Matters to Our Clients

“Addressing information security in our daily work is not just a certification requirement, it’s also a vital part of Druid’s customer promise,” emphasizes Production Manager Pasi Järnstedt. “Our customers deserve not only first-class digital services but also the confidence that these solutions meet all accessibility, privacy, and information security regulations. A certified information security management system is one proof of our ability to handle compliance matters and, hopefully, improve our clients’ peace of mind.”

Continuous Improvement

The ISO/IEC 27001 certification was carried out in collaboration with KIWA Inspecta, who assessed and verified Druid’s information security management capabilities and practices. The certificate is valid for three years, with annual audits of Druid’s procedures to ensure the continuity of information security.

Improving information security is an ongoing process. We continuously maintain and develop our information security management system. New threats and security risks arise all the time, and we adopt new tools or practices to improve our overall security. The annual audit ensures that our management system evolves and that our operations meet its requirements.

What Does ISO/IEC 27001 Mean for Our Customers?

The ISO/IEC 27001 certification confirms that Druid has the required information security measures in place to protect customer data and ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information.

“For most of our clients, the services provided by Druid are critical to their business operations and contain confidential information. Therefore, security breaches in web services can significantly impact data availability, service usability, and the overall level of public data security and privacy. Certification shows our clients that we actively develop our security practices and can respond to potential incidents in a controlled and professional manner,” explains Pasi Järnstedt.

About Druid

Druid makes complex and challenging web development simple and effortless – we excel in our technical expertise and understand the regulatory landscape of web services. The result is high-quality, customized solutions for digital customer engagement, whether it’s websites, e-commerce, or self-service solutions. Our solutions share a foundation in open-source technology and a strong desire to help our clients succeed.

Big Questions About ISO?

Do you want to know more about ISO/IEC 27001 information security standards or hear about our experiences with implementing the management system? Get in touch!

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Author

Kirsi Vatanen

Marketing Manager

08.11.2024

Laurie Lim Sam

Hacktoberfest with Mautic

On October 31st, Hacktoberfest 2024 came to an end. Hacktoberfest is an annual event where open-source advocates come together to celebrate a month of code, collaboration, and community. The purpose of the event is to encourage contributions to open-source projects throughout October. This year I had the opportunity to participate by contributing to Mautic, the open source marketing automation platform.

Mautic is an essential component in Druid’s Digital Experience Platform, Druid’s XP. We use Mautic because it helps our clients deliver more customized experiences for website visitors. One of Mautic’s key features is website personalization, which allows for tailored content based on each visitor’s behavior, preferences, and demographics. This enables our clients to engage users with more relevant messages and improve their overall site experience. Hacktoberfest presented a perfect opportunity to give back to the community that maintains and improves it.

From Drupal to Mautic

Coming from a background in Drupal, I found understanding Mautic’s structure relatively straightforward. Like Drupal’s core, Mautic has its core bundles, and while Drupal uses modules for extension, Mautic can be similarly extended with plugins. Mautic is built on Symfony, starting with Symfony 2 and now upgraded to Symfony 5, so it felt familiar to me as a Drupal developer.

At Druid, we are actively encouraged to contribute to Drupal. We’ve held several contribution events throughout the year, and many Druids regularly participate in the Drupal community. However, as someone relatively new to Drupal, diving into the Drupal core issue queue can be daunting. There’s an overwhelming number of issues, some of which have been open for years, making it difficult to know where to start. By comparison, while Mautic has been around for a decade, it’s a smaller project than Drupal, making it easier to find issues to work on and navigate the codebase.

Contributing to Mautic

For this month-long event, a team was formed within Mautic to help onboard new contributors. There were both code and non-code contribution opportunities available, and just after I joined, I attended an online developer onboarding session led by a core maintainer who introduced the project and answered questions. During Hacktoberfest, non-code contributions were organized on a special project board, while code contributions continued to be tracked on Mautic’s Open Source Friday board, where issues and PRs needing review are listed. The documentation is thorough, and the Slack community is active, welcoming, and inclusive.

I was able to contribute in several ways. I reviewed pull requests and began translating Mautic’s knowledge base into French. I also set up the development environment locally, worked on a few issues, and submitted pull requests. One of my contributions was to create a data attribute for form elements that disables fields automatically based on the values in other fields. This feature is now part of the Mautic 5.2.0 release and is used in the form for creating custom fields. Another issue I tackled involved dynamically limiting a dropdown’s options based on related form fields and updating the dropdown as those fields changed.

Participating in Hacktoberfest was both rewarding and fun. It was a unique chance to contribute to a platform I already use in my work, while also gaining hands-on experience with Mautic’s codebase. This experience has inspired me to continue contributing to Mautic whenever I can.

Author

Laurie Lim Sam

Full Stack Developer

15.10.2024

Yevgeniya Kobrina

The notes of the DrupalCon first-timer

Although this wasn’t my first public speaking experience, it was my first time speaking at the biggest Drupal event. The most challenging part of the process for me was choosing a topic. After almost nine years of working with Drupal, I had accumulated enough development and project leadership experience to share, but every idea seemed to have already been covered. None of them really made me feel excited. I knew I needed to talk about something I was confident and passionate about to make it more engaging for the audience.

Then my husband asked, “What brings you joy? What are you proud of?” That’s when I realized: my long path in mentoring—helping others take their first steps in web development, learning Drupal, and building their confidence—was what I was truly proud of.

I felt mixed emotions throughout the submission process: excitement that I was finally proposing a session for DrupalCon, doubts about the topic’s value for such a large event, fear that I wouldn’t deliver the message concisely and engagingly (since I only had 15 minutes to speak), and, of course, the stress of having only three days to complete the submission. So you can imagine my disbelief when the session got accepted—and even more when I was chosen as a Featured Track Speaker for the Open Web community track!

Later on, when more than twenty people attended my talk, Empowering Drupal Developers: Redefining Training and Mentorship, and actively asked questions and sought my advice afterward, I felt reassured. It confirmed that the Drupal community truly cares about supporting each other and nurturing new developers. The community is clearly passionate about spreading knowledge and fostering a culture of mentorship and inclusion within their companies.

One of the biggest highlights of the event for me was witnessing Dries’ keynote from the audience. Seeing the father of Drupal casually queuing for waffles and chatting with everyone around him was surreal. It’s incredible how naturally people come together to share experiences, ask questions, and collaborate on projects. Contribution Day was another highlight for me—watching people volunteer their time and knowledge to improve and build the technology we all use and love was inspiring.

Overall, it was an amazing experience, both as a speaker and as a community member. I’m already thinking about what topic I could present at the next DrupalCon Europe. See you there!

DrupalCon Barcelona: Tech, Community, and Inspiration

DrupalCon Barcelona: Community Reunions, Business Insights, and an Unforgettable Hike

DrupalCon Barcelona: Not the City, But the People

Photos
Hero Bram Driesen, licenced as deed Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0. The original image was edited by narrowing it.

Author

Yevgeniya Kobrina

Senior Developer

14.10.2024

Simo Hellsten

Not the city but the people

I spent four nights in Barcelona but as for the landscape, I pretty much got to a conference center that was just the same as any other center and a hotel that was just the same as any other hotel. But for me the event was not about the city but the people attending.

Having worked in Drupal Core teams actively for some years I meet other developers and specialists on weekly bases in online meetings. With the Starshot initiative going on, with some people I even have regular meetings twice a week. DrupalCon is an excellent place to meet those people live or at least some of them. What a great feeling to actually meet someone after a couple of years of regular meetings over the internet. And also to meet your friends and acquaintances from the previous DrupalCons of course.

This time I had prepared a checklist of people I should have a chat with – to talk about a common task, ask advice for a project, to offer testing for a module or just to catch up. And by the last day of the trip I was happy to see all the names on the list checked, while having also made a number of new friends.

The cutting edge Drupal – a two edged sword

But it’s not only the people – we are also interested in what they do. This Summer and Autumn has really rushed the tech forward on many fronts. After the Starshot initiative was announced at DrupalCon Portland in the Spring of 2024 the community has really pulled together trying to make the deadline of Drupal CMS release in mid-January 2025. A lot of usability improvements have been planned to the Drupal CMS package, most important of which is the Experience Builder. Experience Builder allows easy but powerful wysiwyg page building experience with cutting edge components.

Experience Builder will unleash the creativity of the content editor, but Drupal has many faces. While one module or recipe will emphasize freedom another will be built on strict standards and structure. I myself can’t say which excites me more, the free flow of Drupal CMS and Experience Builder or the Schema.org Blueprints that automates Drupal content building using the Schema.org standard information structures. Sticking to the predefined content standards will make the site content extremely compatible with search engines and other automated tools. I expect it will probably also help with AI tools as well.

So I am looking at two seemingly opposite approaches to web content and love them both – they both have their uses but may even work together at the same time. Building components respecting the standards and fluently organizing them into pages using a modern page builder is something where Drupal can easily manage both in the future.

Being the one who always complains

For a few months I have been working as a member of Drupal Starshot’s (now officially named Drupal CMS) accessibility team. As Drupal CMS extends Drupal Core with a selection of prominent contributed modules we also wanted to expand the accessibility audits.

Dupal has a lot of great contributed modules and a lot of good people have poured their time and hearts into making them. Those modules that will be included in the Drupal CMS have now been under public spotlight for several months. As some of them have only one or two maintainers, I can imagine it’s a lot of pressure. (There are more people contributing code of course, but a maintainer has to make the decisions which fixes and changes go into the releases.) And now – on top of everything else – there are also me and my friends testing for accessibility and asking to fix this and that to meet some WCAG criteria.

Here the live meetings at DrupalCon help a lot. It’s one thing to send a formal sheet of accessibility issues by email to the maintainer and say: please fix this – and something quite different to have a cup of coffee with the person and say: Hi, nice to meet you. Has your module been audited for accessibility? If you like, I could do it. How would you like to get the list of findings?

A lot of developers are not so great with people skills and under pressure worse. I myself often say that I’m good with numbers and bad with people, but I try to learn. And I think I’m making some progress, as is Drupal’s accessibility.

DrupalCon Barcelona: Tech, Community, and Inspiration

DrupalCon Barcelona: Community Reunions, Business Insights, and an Unforgettable Hike

Photo Bram Driesen, licenced as deed Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 The original image was edited by narrowing it.

Author

Simo Hellsten

Full Stack Developer

14.10.2024

Mikko Hämäläinen

DrupalCon 2024 in Barcelona: Reflections on Community Evolution and Business Insights

Having DrupalCon 2024 in Barcelona holds a special significance for me. It was the first DrupalCon I ever attended, right after I joined Druid in 2015.

The almost ten-year gap between these two events is apparent in many ways. The community—and especially Drupal itself—has come a long way over the years. But there are also similarities. Back in 2015, the community was eagerly waiting for Drupal 8 to be released. The new version would bring significant improvements to Drupal, mainly the move to object oriented coding and the adoption of the Symfony framework. These changes also meant that from Drupal 8 onwards there was an upgrade path that allowed sites to be upgraded between major Drupal versions with relatively little effort. It was a massive change that benefited both the developers and the customers.

In 2024, the community is once again on the cusp of major, positive change. The ongoing Drupal Starshot project will release a new distribution of Drupal around the end of the year. This distribution will be somewhat unimaginably called Drupal CMS. While the name might spark some debate, the features it will bring will undoubtedly make Drupal the best and most marketing-friendly content management system to date. The “old” Drupal Core isn’t going anywhere, and it will remain a top choice for more custom, less marketing-driven web services.

During his annual “Driesnote” presentation at DrupalCon Europe, project lead Dries Buytaert showcased the outcomes of the community’s work on the Starshot project—and it was truly impressive. The customer centric presentation focused on showing everyone what can already be done with Drupal CMS. My personal favorites were the AI assistant for generating new content types, fields and importing data from existing web sites, the new recipes that allow grouping and installing site functionality with almost a single click and the ease of creating impressive looking web pages with the CMS’ Experience Builder.

Many have said that this year’s Driesnote was the best one yet, and I have to agree.

Another highlight of my DrupalCon experience was the Drupal Business Dinner. Formerly known as the CEO Dinner, this event brings agency leaders together to network and discuss the business side of the Drupal ecosystem. It’s an annual event, preceded by a survey on the state of the Drupal business, with the results presented and discussed during the dinner. This year, the presentation at the dinner was a shorter summary, while the full version was presented the next day during a BOF session at the venue.

A group of people discussing on CEO dinner.

The dinner is always an excellent opportunity to meet people working with similar challenges but in a different environment. This year, I found myself seated with people from the US, Canada, and Slovenia. We enjoyed a thorough discussion about the global state of affairs, accompanied by a hearty three-course dinner.

DrupalCon Barcelona: Not the City, But the People

DrupalCon Barcelona: Community Reunions, Business Insights, and an Unforgettable Hike

Photos:
Heading and middle Bram Driesen, licenced as deed Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0. The original images were edited by narrowing it.
Lower Jean-Paul Vosmeer, licensed as Attribution-ShareAlike. The original image was edited by narrowing it.

Author

Mikko Hämäläinen

CEO

AI is Reading Your Content – Are You Ready to Respond?

Bring Your Content Within AI’s Reach

Tools for AI SEO Optimization

Want to Block the Bots?

AI SEO Checklist

Author

Mikko Hämäläinen

Other interesting stuff

How to Harness Personalization on Manufacturing Websites

Your Website as a Customer Experience Platform – How to Build a Truly Impactful Digital Experience

How to Harness Personalization on Manufacturing Websites

Role-Based Content Speaks Differently to Buyers and Technical Experts

The Right Product and the Right Path

Adapt Content to the Visitor’s Location

Guide Resellers to Added Value with Smart Recommendations

Use Data to Continuously Improve the Experience

Personalization Is a Service, Not Just Technology

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