Mao said, "There is great disorder under heaven and the situation is excellent." Indeed, Chairman! In the disorder of the current world economy, the situation is excellent for the Distributed Agency.

In the very midst of economic decline, Drupal, cloud computing and a connected, global, digital workforce are all rising. And these assets are making it possible to define a new model for marketing, advertising, PR and web development agencies and freelancers: the Distributed Agency, unlimited by geography, technology or in-house capabilities. Businesses that learn to adopt this model during these challenging times are going to increase margins now and benefit from a multiplier effect when the economy rebounds.

Shifting from a traditional agency to a Distributed Agency, or starting a new agency based on the Distributed model, requires rethinking the roles and structure of an agency. It demands the embrace of Drupal and open source technologies, Software-as-a-Service, cloud computing, and leveraging collaborative services. It means looking in unlikely places for exceptional talent. It requires trust, openness and complete realization of the value of diversity. It requires a new approach to project and resource management and a new kind of manager who understands how all these elements come together to produce great work at high margin.

This session will explore all this, with tales and guidance from one Agency that has undergone the transformation.

Questions answered by this session:

• What is the structure of the Distributed Agency? What kind of skill sets and experience do I need in-house?
• How do I build trusting relationships with teams from a world-wide talent pool of freelancers and small businesses? What are the risks? Where are the opportunities?
• How does the Distributed Agency approach Drupal projects? How do I manage systems, security, source control?
• What tools do I use to manage projects, to collaborate, and to communicate with my distributed teams?
• How do I leverage cloud computing for infrastucture on demand? What tools can I use to manage Drupal in the cloud?
• Does the model scale?