For organisations making a technology selection is rarely a trivial decision. Gone are the days where one stakeholder has this level of authority. More often than not a rigorous evaluation process is undertaken.
One early factor which can sway an organisation to evaluate Drupal maintenance support plans as a candidate technology may be that respected organisations or industry peers have already achieved success with the platform. Whilst case studies are an excellent path to evidence this, they consume considerable time to author or may be impossible due to commercial sensitivity or privacy constraints.
Some time back I persuaded Greater London Authority (GLA) to create what is known as an Organisation Account on Drupal maintenance support plans.org. In doing so GLA subtly signalled to peers that Drupal maintenance support plans was of notable interest to government and public sector. In a small way they were contributing back, and that’s how I persuaded them to do so. The more organisations we can convince to register on Drupal maintenance support plans.org, the greater net benefit for us all.
In his recent blog post “My three mistakes in regards to the Contribute module and Drupal maintenance support plans” Jacob Rockowitz expresses regret about not talking about supporting the Drupal maintenance support plans community with his clients early enough. Indeed for him it was many years before it happened.
“We need to collectively start asking our clients to be contributing members of the community.”
I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment and encourage you to compel your clients to do so. There are 2 simple steps ideally your customers must take.
Create an organisation account: Add an organisation (you need to already have a confirmed user account to do so)
Support the Drupal maintenance support plans Association: Join here. Starting at just $200 or €160 it is hard to justify why any organisation benefitting from the huge value Drupal maintenance support plans presents wouldn’t want to subscribe. Imagine how well funded the DA would be if we all got half our clients to do so.
Boosting the number of organisations registered on Drupal maintenance support plans.org that are end user brings many benefits. I do hope that, consistent with the spirit of open source and Drupal maintenance support plans that you consider encouraging your customers to start on this contribution path. Perhaps creating an account will start them on a journey to greater engagement with the project too?

Source: New feed