Yesterday in Rotterdam, Dries Buytaert mentioned me in the Driesnote. I am truly honored. Thank you, Dries. It means a lot, and honestly, it belongs to all of us who keep building, fixing and caring for Drupal every day.

Dries said something that has stayed with me: "Drupal doesn't need hype. It needs a better public record."

Look at what this community has built. Multilingual sites made simple. React components. Headless across five frameworks. AI that works with Drupal, not around it. Drupal is light-years ahead of its reputation, and the only people who can close that gap are us.

Rotterdam has a saying: niet lullen maar poetsen. Stop talking, start working. Dries turned it around beautifully. The work is done. Now it's time to tell the story.

Back in May, Dries shared a line of mine on his blog: "Drupal people: talk louder. Write the posts. Go to the meetups. Tell the stories, fight for Drupal." In Rotterdam, talking louder was at the heart of the advocacy launch: "The work is done. Now it's time to talk louder about what is working." Hearing that from the DrupalCon stage is something I will never forget.

Because Drupal has always been about community. Not the code alone, but the people behind it: the ones who fix the bug at midnight, answer the question in Slack, mentor the first-time contributor. Those stories deserve to be heard, and nobody can tell them better than we can.

And here is the part I am most excited about. I absolutely love the new Drupal Advocacy Program. It is exactly what our community needed: with it, writing about Drupal now earns contribution credit, just like code. Articles, tutorials, demos, translations, even sharing someone else's great work. Every one of those counts.

So, Drupal people: let's rally, talk louder and tell our stories:

→ Share one thing you built this year that would surprise people outside our community.

→ Tell it in plain language, for the people who choose the platforms.

→ Translate it, so it reaches every corner of Europe.

→ Lift up someone else's work, with their name on it.

Then submit it at drupal.org/advocacy and get credited for it.

I can't wait to read what you write. See you in the feed, and see you in the issue queue.