Professionally, this past year has proven to be pretty amazing.  I've continued to work for pingVision - an interactive media company that has a pretty heavy focus on Drupal.  It was Drupal that brought me to pingVision nearly two years ago.  I was learning about Drupal on version 4.7 in Vancouver to leverage the CMS in a site I was working on for WESTAF--I was, at the time, Senior Director of Technology.  I was moving my blogging activities from Blogger to my own domain, which my wife and I have used since 1995.

In 2008, I had some hand in many Drupal sites at work ranging from client relations for simple discoveries (looking at an existing site for security issues, bad practices, and so forth) to full blown site development from the ground up.  Every day I work with the software, I find myself learning something new.  New modules are released and/or upgraded.  Keeping up, seems like a never ending task--so thank goodness for the Planet for aggregating the writings of smart people in the community.  Working at pingVision is an education that I have relished and look forward to continuing.  I am extraordinarily lucky to work for and with a great group of people.

2008 brought TraumaAdoption.org into being born of my need to give back to the community of adoptive parents who have chosen to be parents to kids of neglect or abuse.  The site was put together in just a couple of weeks during spare moments and then the recipe was documented with the hope that others, with just a little technical skill, can be coaxed into using Drupal 6 to create sites on their own.  No coding required!  By using a few contributed modules and a contributed theme, nearly anybody can put together a powerful database driven site over a very short period of time.

A group of us in Metro Denver also started working on a the formation tech non-profit.  My hope is that we'll have all our paperwork squared away in the next couple of months.  This organization will largely aid in the organization of Drupalcamps in Colorado.  I'm excited by the prospect.

I have continued to help out with the NonprofitCommons, a community of nonprofits that meet regularly in SecondLife to create collaborative opportunities between organizations that might not normally cross paths.  This segued into a presentation at the Net2 Conference where I had the pleasure of meeting, face to face, folks that I've been working with for about two years.  It was a pretty exciting time.  The Commons enjoyed an upgrade from Drupal 5 to Drupal 6 and got a new look and feel at the same time (as did this site).

I had the pleasure of attending my second Drupalcon--this time in Boston--where I participated on a couple of panels.  My hope is that I'll be helping present a couple of case studies, one on developing Pregnancy.org and another on SportingNews.com.

So, what will 2009 bring?  I plan to continue writing this blog--hopefully on an even more regular basis.  The nonprofit I'm helping found will likely spring into being.  There will be a couple of Drupalcons--my hope is to attend both.  The committee in Metro Denver will organize at least one Drupalcamp--though I'd like to see camps occur more often.  I'll continue to talk about Drupal any time it seems reasonable and advocate its use.  I'll continue working on TraumaAdoption, fostering its community.  I'll be seen at the Nonprofit Commons and on the Techsoup Emerging Technologies Forum.  I'll continue looking at new Web 2.0 services as they emerge and try and garner uses for the nonprofit community.

I look forward to 2009 with a great deal of hope and anticipation.