Last week, PreviousNext joined forces with fellow Drupal Certified Partners Annex, Morpht and Salsa Digital for a shared booth at the Public Sector Network's Government Innovation Showcase in NSW. We came together to show government agencies what Drupal has to offer, including Drupal CMS, AI, security, and content governance.
A joint effort, not a competition
Drupal Certified Partners don't usually share a stand, so this was something special. PreviousNext, Annex, Morpht and Salsa Digital came together to present a single message about what Drupal delivers for the public sector.
Several attendees commented on this directly, with consistent feedback on how collaborative the presence felt.
This mattered because most people in the room already knew Drupal. Thanks to OneCX's presence across the NSW government, there was no need to explain what Drupal is or how PreviousNext support it. That freed up conversations to go deeper, into real problems agencies are trying to solve and how recent innovations in Drupal can help address them.
What stood out from the sessions
The day's sessions reinforced a theme that's top of mind for many of our government clients: how to use AI responsibly without losing sight of the people doing the work.
- Josh Wagner (Chief Data and Analytics Officer, Arizona State) opened with a keynote on solving the "innovation paradox", offering practical frameworks for driving change at scale, not just theory.
- Dan Hart (GM, AI Hub, University of Sydney) delivered a standout session on tackling burdensome, repetitive tasks. His team's approach is simple: ask every agency what the worst part of their day is, then quantify it in hours per year. If it's under roughly 300 hours a year, they don't act on it. Crucially, the framing wasn't about reducing headcount. It was about freeing people up for harder, more valuable work.
- A panel on smarter services and better outcomes brought together senior voices from the Department of Customer Service, Revenue NSW and Julia Topliss from DrupalSouth. The main thread was trust: as more services move online, agencies need to show the public that decisions are still being made fairly and ethically.
These conversations line up closely with how we think about AI at PreviousNext: as a tool that supports senior expertise and speeds up repeatable work, always with human oversight and clear governance. It's also a direction the wider Drupal community is investing in with the Drupal AI Initiative and its 2026 roadmap.
Building relationships across the ecosystem
Beyond the sessions, the day was about connecting with the people shaping digital government in NSW. We caught up with contacts from Digital NSW, Blacktown City Council, and the Department of Customer Service, among others, and heard firsthand where agencies see Drupal fitting into their future plans.
It was also a chance to spend time with the broader DrupalSouth community, including the team helping coordinate partner presence at events like this one. Conversations like these are exactly why we stay involved in the wider Drupal community.
Looking ahead
We're expecting the larger Digital NSW government conference later in the year to bring even more opportunities to connect. We'll be there and look forward to building on the relationships we started at this event.
Want to know more about how PreviousNext works with government agencies on Drupal? Get in touch with our team.
