02.28.2012:30 pm

Happy New Year 2020!

By: Vas Jaremchuk

Our Europe-based team welcomed the New Year in style.  Georgian style, to be precise. Following the good old traditions of the Caucasus, the party featured a curated succession of elaborate toasts – to a good year, to our team members’ and clients’ health and prosperity, to love, to world peace, and so on. The speeches got more poetic and personal as the night progressed, and Georgian wine flowed. The other part of the team joined in on the toasting via Internet placing front and center the colleagues from abroad they were hosting at the time. For some in the team, this was the first (and truly exciting) opportunity to put Read more
01.27.208:39 am

January JavaScript Meetup in Philly

By: Vas Jaremchuk

In January 2020, I attended my first JavaScript Meetup in Philadelphia at the office of Sidecar, a company specializing in e-commerce. It was on the first day of my trip to the US, and I was quite tired, so I forgot to take photos of the event, which I now regret. The speakers were exciting, and the crowd young and engaged. I was utterly surprised to discover that the first speaker at the Meetup was Jonathan Belcher (aka JB) from Automattic Inc. of WordPress fame. Having no idea the company was in any way connected to JavaScript, I initially thought that I was mixing things up. However, I soon recognized Read more
11.26.198:58 am

DrupalCampBaltics 2019

By: Vas Jaremchuk

This month, I was invited to speak at the biggest Drupal event in the Baltic Region, the DrupalCampBaltics 2019, held in Latvia’s capital, Riga. My presentation on Solution Engineering: How it can help sell discovery and holistic estimating was my first experience discussing a non-tech topic in a public setting. I talked about our work on the discovery phase in Sprint 0 and offered some ideas on how it could be made valuable for our clients. It was great to see many in the audience who had already had a similarly successful experience. Outside of the conference, I found Riga to be a very comfortable and friendly city with excellent Read more
11.26.196:56 am

WordCamp Kyiv 2019

By: Vas Jaremchuk

Earlier this month, our team took part in the biggest WordPress event in Ukraine, the WordCamp 2019, which was held at the DEPO Conference Hall in Kyiv. The Camp attracted a number of leading Easter European agencies specialized in WordPress development and featured many prominent presentations. We are grateful to the organizers for the chance to lead one of the sessions and talk about our approach to marketing sites setup. “While Gutenberg UX has emerged as the most popular tool for marketing website construction, it does have some weaknesses, which can render alternative solutions more cost-efficient,” said our Solution Engineer and CMS Practice Manager Vas Jaremchuk at the opening of Read more
08.21.193:31 pm

Speed & Function 4th of July Celebrations

By: Vas Jaremchuk

Speed and Function teams in different parts of the world celebrated Independence Day on July 4th. The pleasure of these events pulls us together, even though some of us are far apart. Everyone had a lot of fun relaxing: enjoying delicious food, outdoor activities, as well as each other’s company!     Some of us attended a wake park where we enjoyed wakeboarding with ramps & rails available to try out a lot of tricks. Some enjoyed boating, and traveling. At the end of the day we shared news, discussed each other’s hobbies, and got to know team members better over a delicious dinner. We have returned to work full of energy Read more
09.08.181:58 am

Meet Speed & Function at DrupalEurope!

By: Vas Jaremchuk

Next week, Europe’s Drupal community will gather in Germany for the biggest event of the year — DrupalEurope. More than a conference, this event brings together over 1600 attendees to discuss the latest tech developments, solve complex challenges, and contribute to Drupal’s continual improvement. Beyond attendance, the Speed & Function team looks forward to contributing our Drupal knowledge in our session, Fields, Bricks, Paragraphs, etc… What’s the next? Media Driven Content Architecture. We’re honored and excited to be presenting, as there’s no better way to ensure true understanding of a concept as teaching it. If you’re attending DrupalEurope and interact with media in Drupal, we highly recommend attending our session on Read more
07.10.1810:18 am

Kyiv Drupal Camp 2018

By: Vas Jaremchuk

The world of development is constantly in flux. There are always new tools, tricks, and frameworks to learn so staying on top of industry news and events are key in order to keep your skills sharp. Last month, our Drupal team attended Kyiv Drupal Camp 2018 to see how other developers are using the open source software, share how we work on the platform, and see what new skills we could glean for our own projects. I highly recommend development meetups as they motivate you to increase your technical knowledge, tap into industry trends, and of course, are great opportunities to contribute to the development community. Kyiv Drupal Camp was Read more
06.26.188:15 am

Tweaking the Twig Tweak Module: A Simple Drupal Site Recipe

By: Vas Jaremchuk

Many years ago I worked for a printing company. While I was there, we implemented a workflow that allowed us to produce business cards within 15 minutes of the client submitting their request. Through that experience I learned the competitive advantage of providing a simple service in a short timeframe. At Speed & Function, we typically work on complex projects where completing the design, development, and QA phases can take months. However, a little known fact is that we can also tackle quick and simple tasks. There is a common assumption that Drupal is only for large multi-user projects with complex business logic and high page counts. It is also Read more
12.04.173:30 pm

Success is a process not a Result

By: Vas Jaremchuk

Technology is the fastest growing industry today. With growth comes experience and with experience comes institutional knowledge. As a lifetime learner, I want to soak up as much insight from other experts in the field as possible. So, I attend conferences. Last month, I had the privilege to attend The Payoneer Forum which sought to answer the essential question: How can an IT agency with only a few immature freelancers create successful processes to become a leader in the market? Read more
10.17.1712:20 pm

DrupalCamp Lutsk 2017: Impressions from Speed & Function’s Drupal Lead

By: Vas Jaremchuk

This month I attended a DrupalCamp in Lutsk in western Ukraine. I would like to share my impressions of the conference. Typically, the common way to hold Drupal Camps in Ukraine is a bit boring.  I presented there myself and noticed there was little interaction with the audience and not much feedback. But Slava Merezhko had a great idea, turning his presentation “Let’s resolve a SOW” into a practical seminar. First, the audience was split in several different teams. Read more