Whether this is your first DrupalCon or your 10th it's always a bit challenging to know which sessions to go to because there are so many great ones. Let me help you. I’ve combed through the different tracks to help guide you in your session choices for DrupalCon Baltimore 2017. This conference is by nature more targeted for the developer audience, but there are lots of great sessions for a less technical user, such as myself.

As a Digital Marketer, I look for sessions that will give me new ideas that I can walk away with. I’m looking for new technology I can learn about -- new and better ways to implement the basics on my site in order to improve the experience of my everyday users. The two main tracks that I would recommend for digital marketers are the User Experience and Content Strategy track and the Drupal Showcase track. The Project Management and Horizons tracks could quickly get a bit too technical, so be careful. The Horizons track is interesting because it talks about new and emerging technologies and how you can leverage them. The Horizon track has a lot of potential to meet my need of inspiration for my Drupal site. However, I don’t recommend just picking a track and only going to those sessions. Bounce around, and plan ahead so that you can pick and choose. That way you’ll get the most out of your DrupalCon experience.

Kate’s great tip: Don’t jam pack your day going only to sessions back to back; take a break and go have a seat somewhere to grab a coffee. It’s a great way to meet people in the community, and if you exhaust yourself, you won’t be up for the night events later. (I did this my very first DrupalCon and missed out on some great events.)

Here are the sessions and events I would recommend for any digital marketer attending DrupalCon Baltimore:

Tuesday:

• Registration starts at 7 a.m. Make sure to get registered and pick up your packet before the 9 a.m. keynote address. The 8 a.m. prenote, which features Acquia’s very own Jam, is also a lot of fun.
• 8 a.m. – 8:45 a.m.: Prenote, this is usually a festive and informative way to kick off the event.
• 9 – 10:15 a.m.: Keynote, also known as the Driesnote. You should always attend.
• 10:45 – 11:45 a.m.: Future of CMS OR Live Content Audit of Drupal.org OR Get the Most out of DrupalCon, get another's perspective on how to navigate DrupalCon
• Noon – 1 p.m.: Go get lunch
• 1 p.m. – 2 p.m.: New Technology and the aging baby boomers
• 2:15 p.m. – 3:15 p.m.: Project Management the musical OR So you want to be a “Digital Platform” Rock star
• 2:15 p.m. – 2:45 p.m.: Making mass.gov data-driven and constituent-centric.
• 2:45 p.m. – 3:15 p.m.: Using Machine learning to personalize web experiences
• 3:45 p.m. – 4:45 p.m.: Project manager are the new content strategists OR This time, it’s personalized: preparing your site for effective personalization
• 3:45 p.m. – 6 p.m.: Drupal 8 SEO hands on seminar (this might be too much)
• 4:15 p.m. – 4:45 p.m.: Employing a collaborative model for structured content
• 5 p.m. – 6 p.m.: The cure for translations headaches
• 6 p.m. – 8 p.m.: Woman in Drupal (if you’re a woman)

Wednesday:

• 9 a.m. – 10:15 a.m.: Keynote
• 10:45 a.m. – 11:45 a.m.: Who cares about lead capture anyways?
• Noon – 1 p.m.: Lunch/Break
• 1 p.m. – 2 p.m.: Planning and managing migrations
• 2:15 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.: Content strategy and relation to UX design
• 2:30 p.m. – 2:45 p.m.: Break
• 2:45 p.m. – 3:15 p.m.: Strategy and redesign for the US commission on security cooperation in Europe
• 3:15 p.m. – 3:45 p.m.: Break
• 3:45 p.m. – 4:15 p.m.: Optimizing your site for the world to see: international SEO
• 4:15 p.m. – 4:45 p.m.: Paper to style guide and still remain friends

Thursday:

• 9 a.m. – 10:15 a.m.: Keynote
• 10:45 a.m. – 11:15 a.m.: Content strategy in popular culture Part 2
• 11:15 a.m. – 1 p.m.: Break/Lunch
• 1 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.: Design systems: increase your design efficiency and scalability
• 2:15 p.m. – 2:45 p.m.: Pushing the design limits with paragraphs OR Web performance in 2017 (could be too technical, but I care about this)
• 2:45 p.m. – 3:15 p.m.: Content before code a D8 case study
• 3:30 p.m. – 4 p.m.: Closing session
• 9 p.m. – 11:45 p.m.: Trivia night

I know I said don’t over do it, but I then gave you a jam-packed schedule. I’m sure not all of the ones I picked will interest you. I highly encourage you to participate in the activities happening after hours as well. Try to get into parties the sponsors are hosting, or go to trivia night or the Woman in Drupal event. These events are a great ways to meet people in the community and talk about common roadblocks you’ve seen. I always love learning about what technologies others are using to get inspirations for my website.

Bonus: I hope you get to see some of our Acquia speakers while you are at DrupalCon. Acquia has many employees presenting at DrupalCon this year, check out our list here.

Have a great time and learn lots at this year's DrupalCon Baltimore 2017.