For the last few months myself and quite a few community members have been working on a larger vision for our beloved Drupal documentation. It has taken quite a bit longer than I had hoped, but I want to put out a draft of an initial "roadmap" for documentation that outlines our bigger issues and an approach to tackling them. I've attached a document which has everything we've hammered out so far in a 10 page document along with three appendices. This post is just a short summary of what is in that document and to let people know that we are gearing up to kick things off and really make Drupal documentation rock.

For starters, we've spent a lot of time identifying problem areas, prioritizing them and setting out some target dates. When looking at the tasks we need to accomplish we recognized that there are two main areas to focus on: the documentation itself and the community of people that create and maintain it.

At DrupalCon DC 2009, an unexpected event happened. While sessions centered on development, writing code, performance, businesses and the community were happening up front, the community of Drupal designers and themers were connecting behind the scenes like never before. It started over Twitter and in small Birds of a Feather (BoF) sessions and ended with the designers and themers taking over a room for the last two days of DrupalCon.

Packt Publishing is pleased to announce the release of a new Drupal book called Flash with Drupal, authored by Travis Tidwell. Catered for Drupal Developers, this book walks the reader through the evolution of many different Flash applications built around the power and flexibility of Drupal.

Packt Publishing is also pleased to offer a 15% discount to any Drupal.org user. To purchase this book with this discount, simply purchase Flash with Drupal through Packt Publishing, and provide the code FlashDru15. Also, keep in mind that Packt contributes a portion of every book sale right back to Drupal!

Packt Publishing is celebrating its fifth year in existence by crowning an author of the year for 2009. All authors releasing a book through Packt in 2008 were eligible for this distinction. Voting was opened to the public and through this process the field was whittled down to six finalists.

The competition has served as a reflection of the quality work being done within the Drupal community. Of the 81 titles under consideration, covering a wide range of IT disciplines, two of the final six authors wrote books on Drupal. Aaron Winborn was recognized for his book "Drupal Multimedia" and Matt Butcher for "Learning Drupal 6 Module Development". The vote will now go to a panel of experts who will determine the winner based the quality of the author's work and its contribution to the tech community.

When Zappos.com needed a content management system for its ever-growing content, it looked to Drupal after it was showcased at SXSW '08. Zappos.com built its first Drupal site, About.Zappos.com, as a way to test the features, capabilities and development effort of a Drupal site. With that project Drupal successfully showed itself to be both flexible and customizable and therefore a good fit for Zappos. Since then, Drupal has played a larger role at Zappos in a multitude of projects.

Established in 1999, Zappos.com has quickly become a leader in online apparel and footwear sales by striving to provide shoppers with the best possible service and selection. In 2008, the company’s gross merchandise sales exceeded $1 billion. Zappos.com currently stocks millions of products from over 1000 clothing and shoe brands. Zappos.com was recognized in 2009 by FORTUNE MAGAZINE as one of the “100 BEST COMPANIES TO WORK FOR”, debuting as the highest-ranking newcomer to FORTUNE’s 2009 list. More information about the company’s customer service philosophy, unique company culture, and job openings can be found at About.Zappos.com.