Drupal

I'm very excited about confirming my plans to attend Drupalcon this March in Washington, DC. As I've worked more with Drupal over the last couple years, I really gained an appreciation of not just the features and code, but the community as well. Lots of very dedicated and smart folks. Looking forward to the chance to get to know some of them and learn more about Drupal.

I'm very pleased to announce that Level OS has officially become an Acquia Silver Partner.  Acquia is a fairly new commercial company started by Drupal founder Dries Buytaert and Jay Batson.  It aims to expand the reach of Drupal by providing a fully supported distribution of Drupal made up of the latest versions of the core platform along with select contributed modules.  It does this via the Acquia Network, an operations portal to deliver technical support and site monitoring services to maintain trouble-free Acquia Drupal websites.

For anyone familiar with RedHat in the Linux space, this is an analogous concept.  One of the main barriers to the adoption of open source software in the enterprise space is a lack of support; who do you call at 2 am when your mission critical application is experiencing trouble?  Well, if you're using Drupal, Acquia provides an answer to that question.  Acquia doens't aim to provide consulting and development services, which is where their partner network comes in.  It's a mutually beneficial relationship, where Acquia provides qualified leads along with training and access to support and reference materials to its partners.  In exchange, they encourage their clients to use Acquia Drupal and enroll in the Acquia Network when applicable.  I am honored to be accepted into this program and look forward to the exciting opportunities it will bring.

Collaboration Is At The Heart Of Open Source Content Management -- Open Source Content ManagementDrupal was built from the beginning to let site builders include social software components, such as profiles, single and multiuser blogging, and social networks. And Drupal is winning converts. Sony BMG and Warner Bros. use Drupal to create sites for artists on their labels. The Onion, a satirical news site, also runs on Drupal. The New York City School system is using Drupal as part of a massive data-mining effort, letting 80,000 teachers and administrators share ideas on how to use testing and other data to spot lagging student performance and improve teaching.

I have had the great pleasure of working with the team at One Economy Corporation since last December on their exciting new venture, PIC.tv, the Public Internet Channel, a network with a public purpose. always on. What exactly does this mean? A snippet follows below, but you can visit the site to learn more.

The Public Internet Channel (PIC.tv) is a next-generation, public-purpose online network. It inspires, informs, and entertains, helping people live better lives.

The Public Internet Channel combines compelling programming with a launching point into relevant information that provides the opportunity for people to take action.

Everything on the Public Internet Channel is relevant, current, accessible and, whenever possible, local — and always with a clearly-defined public purpose. The Public Internet Channel shows real people in real situations tackling everyday topics, from health to money to living a sustainable lifestyle.

It also provides users with an interactive “Make It Easy” toolbox that gives people instant access to local information and the tools they need to take action based on what they learned. By providing this tool directly to all Americans, we hope to narrow the “information gap” that divides communities and provide a common space that crosses racial, gender, age, religious, geographic and political barriers.

The site features original and licensed video content, which is streamed from the Brightcove platform. The site itself is based on the excellent open source Drupal content management system and web application framework, with significant customizations, mostly at the theme level. Special thanks to Greg Spies of The Interactive Department for his work in helping to develop the Flash rotators in use througout the site.

I have been honored to be involved with this project and it is a rare opportunity indeed to get a chance to combine one's professional skills with broader goals. That, combined with the smart and passionate people I have had the opportunity to work with, has made this one of my most rewarding projects. As Dan Fellini, the project's producer put it,

Savor it, believe in it, and let it energize you forward. There’s work to be done, for sure. There always will be. But it’s important work and we’re up for the challenge.

The site is still in beta and currently requires registration, but I encourage you to spend a moment looking around and provide your feedback.

Just winding down from a great day at the first ever Portland Drupal Camp. This was an unconference in the barcamp tradition, put on the Portland Drupal Users Group. The group that put the show together did a really fantastic job. It was a free to the public, all volunteer event, and was organized better than many paid events I have been to. Hats off to Grant and all the other volunteers who clearly spent a lot of time putting together a great event.

Speakers include many local Drupal wizzes, including Matt Westgate, president of Lullabot and co-author of Pro Drupal Development.

I was a co-panelist with Dan Mendell about at a talk titled Drupal in business, pitfalls, concerns, features for the business owner. Dan is the President and CEO of NeutralSpace, a new company whose focus is experimenting with and deploying collaborative technologies. He have a great presentation about his experiences with Drupal as a business owner, in many ways concluding that while is a good platform with many features available out of the box, successful projects still require a great deal of planning and talent to get them done. I then spoke about running a consulting business based on Drupal and, I think more interestingly, the pros and cons of using Drupal as platform for a web startup.

Working on launching MomHub, GreeRenter, and Newsvetter (for a client) has taught me a few lessons about the latter, although none of those sites have scaled to the point where a platform decision might really start to hurt. The basic takeaway in my opinion is that Drupal is a great tool for getting the common tasks done in an elegant and flexible manner. These include things like a user account system and managing content postings. Having these tasks taken care of lets project teams focus on adding value at the top of pyramid so to speak, not on the basics that any site needs to have. On the other hand, a truly unique idea (at the time) like Twitter probably lends itself better to custom development.