Open Atrium 2.x at DrupalCon!

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A tremendous amount of progress has been made on Open Atrium 2.x within the past month and we couldn’t have done it without the help of the Drupal community. (We’re currently on Alpha 5, which can be found here.) The Open Atrium developers have made their way to DrupalCon Portland and we would love to share our progress with you as well as find ways to get you involved. Below are some of the events we have lined in for the next few days:

Day Stage Presentation

Tuesday, May 21st at 9 AM
Room B 112

Come let Mike Potter & Karen Borchert walk you through the new Open Atrium 2.x. If you have ever looked for a collaborative platform that works as a pluggable framework, this is a presentation you shouldn’t miss.

Open Atrium 2.x is for organizations with teams, clients, or affiliates who need a common platform to communicate, collaborate, and manage knowledge. From multi-brand corporations to geographically dispersed companies; from national nonprofits to international aid efforts; from networks of government agencies to local or national political campaigns; Atrium connects teams with knowledge.

Open Atrium 2.x Hackathon

Friday, May 24th at 9:30 AM
Double Tree Portland, The Oregon Room
1000 NE Multnomah St, Portland, OR 97232

Roll out of bed and come code with us! Mike Potter is hosting an Open Atrium 2.x Hackathon starting at 9:30 AM at the Double Tree Portland. If you’ve ever had questions about how to build a plugin and extend Open Atrium 2.x for your organization, Mike will be working one-on-one with attendees to do so.

Daily Open Atrium Demos

Tuesday, May 21st; Wednesday, May 22nd; & Thursday, May 23rd at 4 PM
Phase 2 Booth (#233 – the big bar)

Stop by our booth prior to our 5 o’clock happy hour with FREE BEER and let us walk you through Open Atrium 2.x.

Open Atrium 2.x BoF

Date & Location TBD

Keep an eye out for the date and location of the Open Atrium 2.x BoF hosted by Mike Potter. Learn what’s new about Open Atrium 2.x and figure out how you can get involved.

In addition, you are always welcome to stop by the Phase2 booth (#233) and ask any questions that you might have.

Lastly, we have revamped our Open Atrium 2.x documentation site, which is now live! Feel free to peruse the content that has already been created or, if you know a thing or two about Open Atrium 2.x, sign up for an account and create your own documentation!

Hope to see you this week!

Three Top Trends in the Drupal Market

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DrupalCon kicks off today, and I am looking forward to connecting with old friends, partners, and clients. As our team has arrived and started reconnecting with our colleagues and friends in the space, a lot of discussion has centered around what’s happening in the Drupal market, and what trends are emerging.

This is an exciting time for Drupal, and we are seeing considerable growth in the companies we meet and in the projects we want to service. Here are three major trends I am most excited to follow:

 

1. Strategy, Not Just Implementation

In many cases, we are finding that companies aren’t just looking for us to “build a Drupal website” — they are looking for technology consultants to help dive deep into their organization’s vision, mission, and challenges, and develop a technology strategy that will deliver for the long-haul. Often, these teams are considering Drupal as a viable option for their site, and they need advice from Drupal experts who have seen how Drupal can work for their particular business case, as well as what other integrations they might consider to complete the solution. This is awesome to see — our team is excited by the opportunities to develop comprehensive strategies that help our clients achieve their missions, and it gives our team the ability to really be invested in that mission, too.

 

2. Businesses Need Collaboration Tools, Not Just Websites

Intranets, portals, communication forums, and connections — Forget simple “content management,” — these are the hallmarks of many organizations’ needs for Drupal right now. More organizations are seeking (and more Drupal contributors are developing) internal communication tools and robust Drupal functionality that keeps their teams connected and projects managed. The recent release of Open Atrium 2.0 is gaining a lot of attention for its flexibility and customizability. We’re interested to learn more about the plugins, integrations, and functionality the market is seeking in the social business collaboration space right now, and to working with talented developers in the space at the Atrium Hackathon this Friday. If you’re a developer, we hope you’ll come hack with us Friday!

 

3. The Market is Getting Smarter

Enterprise level companies have been using Drupal for some time now, and many are even on their second or third implementation. What this means is that the market is maturing — many firms are already very knowledgeable about Drupal, and they value expertise, contribution, and community leadership. The challenge of “building a Drupal platform” has been replaced by the challenge of scaling that platform from 60 sites to 2,000. The DrupalCon training: “Drupal Performance and Scalability with the Dream Team” is a great example of how trainings and sessions are meeting the market around this need.

The underlying message in the trends that I am seeing is that the Drupal market is changing and maturing. We no longer necessarily have to prove Drupal can be a viable option, or explain the premise around open source. Customers are more knowledgeable about what Drupal is capable of, and what they want. We are now engaging with companies who are truly informed buyers and who are looking to us to bring their Drupal system to the next level. I’m really looking forward to discussing these trends at DrupalCon this week, and discussing how we can push more companies to be informed Drupal buyers.

 

 

 

Take Open Atrium for a Spin!

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screen shot of Pantheon's one-click installation screen for Open AtriumThe question we hear most when people learn more about the Drupal distributions we maintain – OpenPublic, OpenPublish, and Open Atrium, is this: “where could I try it out?” People are looking for a quick, “one-click” option for test driving these distributions, without having to go to all the work of setting up a Drupal site hosted internally.

Finally, we have a way! Our friends at Pantheon now offer simple one-click installation of Phase2′s distributions, as well as one-click updates to keep your site’s modules, themes, and libraries up to date.  Best of all, trying out one of our distributions is completely free!

Whether you’re an experienced Drupal developer, site builder, or a team considering Open Atrium for your organization, getting your hands into the software to try out the various features and see how the software works is the best way to find out if it’s the best fit for your project.

Take Open Atrium for a spin here  – and tell us what you think! If you’re at DrupalCon Portland this week, drop by the Phase2 booth or head to the Atrium Hackathon on Friday May 24th. Otherwise, get in touch and let us know how we can help you with your Open Atrium project.

And good news — there are one-click installations of OpenPublic and OpenPublish too!

 

The 5 Stages of DrupalCon- What Stage Are You In?

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Next week, thousands of Drupal developers, themers, and users will gather in Portland, Oregon for the bi-annual DrupalCon. This will be my 4th North American DrupalCon, and each year has been a completely unique experience.  If you are lucky enough to attend DrupalCon this year, you should determine what “stage” of DrupalCon you fit into, to learn what to expect and what you might get out of it.

Stage 1: Questioning

“What is Drupal?”,  ”How do you even pronounce Drupal?” (it’s droo-puhl btw),  ”What is a node?”

The first time you attend DrupalCon, you are lost, confused, and full of questions. Welcome to the Drupal learning “cliff.”  There is much to learn and everybody seems so smart.  You’ll feel a bit like an outsider since many people in the Drupal community already know each other.

Your goal during this stage is to absorb as much as you can and start meeting the people behind Drupal. Go to the sessions and immerse yourself in the culture.

If you are new to Drupal, start the conference at my Open Atrium 2.0 Day Stage Session (Tuesday, 9am, Rm B112) and learn how to use Drupal to build an entire collaborative web site in just minutes.

Stage 2: Denial

“I will go to all of the sessions, all of the BoFs, all of the parties, and visit all of the vendors!”, “I will sleep *after* DrupalCon.”

Now you’ve been working with Drupal for a year. You know some of the lingo and you are excited to immerse yourself even deeper into the Drupal community. You learned so much in your first year, just imagine what you can learn the second time! Unfortunately, many people at this stage end up curled up in a fetal position by the last day.

Your goal during this stage is to pace yourself.  You really don’t need to “see it all.” Try a mix of sessions (some new, some as a refresher), and mix it up with attending a couple “Birds of a Feather” (BoF) sessions.  BoF sessions are smaller informal discussions around a particular topic.  They are scheduled during the conference, so look for the BoF Board near registration to see the schedule.  Meet the people who are building and using your favorite Drupal modules.

Come to my Open Atrium 2.0 BoF to learn what’s new in OA2 and how you can get involved.  If you use the Features modules (if you don’t, you should!) come to my Features BoF to see the new user interface in the 2.0 version.  (The times and locations will be posted on the BoF board during the conference)

Stage 3: Anger and/or Depression

“What do you mean it will all change in Drupal 8?”, “Why hasn’t my favorite module been updated?”, “Why haven’t these bugs been fixed yet?”

You’re comfortable with Drupal just in time for all of the talk about the *next* big version.  During Dries’ keynote you get pumped up and excited about all of the new features.  Then you learn that your favorite modules won’t be ready yet.  You wonder how everybody can tolerate a product that doesn’t provide a seamless upgrade path. You get angry because you have become passionate about Drupal!

Your goal during this phase is to start getting involved.  You’ll learn that the key to Drupal success is the community. There isn’t a single person or company in charge of Drupal.  If you want something fixed in a module, or you want to upgrade a module, hunt down the module maintainer(s) and learn how to help.  It’s the combined effort of everybody in the Drupal community that makes it great.

If you want to help with the Features module, or with Open Atrium 2, you can find me down in the Phase2 booth (#233).  Come to my Open Atrium 2 Demos each day at 4pm, and stay for free beer at 5pm. If you want to learn how to write your own Open Atrium plugins, come to the all-day Hackathon at the DoubleTree hotel on Friday, May 24th.  I’ll be working one-on-one with people to teach how OA2 works and how you can extend it with your own plugins.

Stage 4: Acceptance

“All is well…It’s just the Drupal way.”

By now you’ve come to accept how Drupal works. You’ve gotten more involved in the community and have come to terms with the life-cycle of Drupal versions. Many names and faces are familiar, and you are more interested in networking with friends than going to sessions.

Your goal during this phase is to start teaching others about Drupal.  Submit your own sessions!  Start your own BoF sessions!  Start speaking at local Drupal “camps” and build up to DrupalCon.  We are always looking for new speakers who are passionate and entertaining.

Stage 5: ???

Come find me at DrupalCon and ask me what Stage 5 is like.  I’m sure it will be something different and surprising!  Most of all, bring your energy and excitement and have fun!  See you in Portland!

 

How to Determine Your Drupal Layout Controls?

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One of the sessions for DrupalCon Portland that I’m looking forward to both participating in and hearing from fellow panel members is “Different Ways to Control Your Layout.” There are a wide range of sites built using Drupal, from small, one person run sites where complete control is desired, to large sites with many contributors where strong guardrails and permissions are desired. Determining which mechanisms to offer for layout control is an early key decision on a project.

This session will give a brief introduction to a variety of methods which can be used to offer users control over their page’s layout, a brief demo of each, discussion about their strengths and weaknesses, and then an audience Q&A. The goal is to help you determine which approaches are likely to work for your project, expose you to some approaches you might not have known were available, and give you the chance to ask questions that help you understand the differences in each approach.

The panelists include:

  • Kris Vanderwater (EclipseGC) – speaking about the blocks everywhere initiative and the page layout philosophy and tools in Drupal 8.
  • Kristof De Jaeger (swentel) – speaking about DisplaySuite.
  • Chris Johnson (me) (tekante) – speaking about how Context can be used as a page layout and block placement system.
  • Matt Cheney (populist) – speaking about the Panopoly distribution which ties together a large amount of panels and panels related functionality.
  • Brian McMurray (bmcmurray) – speaking about template_field and single page node approaches to layout.
  • Frank Febbraro (febbraro) – moderator.

This is a follow up to our session from DrupalCon Munich. I am especially interested in seeing how certain solutions have progressed and how Drupal 8′s capabilities and approaches might affect each one of the layout techniques.

If you are heading to DrupalCon, I hope you will stop by our session “Different Ways to Control Your Layout” on Tuesday May 21st, starting at 4:30pm! And you can always stay up-to-date with our panel sessions by following us @phase2.

Drupal Mapping Community Needs You!

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I am really looking forward to getting together with Patrick Hayes, Josef Dabernig, Pol Dell’Aiera, Tom Nightingale, Rik de Boer and my Phase2 colleague, Nate Parsons, to participate in a DrupalCon panel discussion about the present state of online mapping in Drupal.

One of the strengths of Drupal and open source in general is the community that supports it. In our micro-session, Nate and I will be talking about ways to introduce and onboard new contributors to various Drupal geospatial projects, and how we, as a community, can improve how we support our own ecosystem to make Drupal a truly viable geospatial platform.

By the end of this panel presentation,you will know…

  • What’s currently possible/practical in Drupal 7 using contributed geospatial modules
  • What direction we’re currently thinking about taking in Drupal 8
  • What nifty projects/toys we’ve built over the past few months

I hope you can join us for our session “Should Have Made a Left Turn At Albuquerque: Building Maps in Drupal” on Thursday May 24th at DrupalCon.  For a full list of Phase2 speaking engagements at DrupalCon, check out Annie’s blog post: “Find Phase2 At DrupalCon.”

Ready, Set, Go! Spin Up An Omega Layout in 45 Minutes Flat!

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Last night I presented at the SFDUG Meetup (you can find my slides on the Phase2 slideshare). There were some great questions and Drupal theming discussion at the end of my presentation. Here are a few of those questions that came up, as well as the answers:

Q: How does Omega compare to a simpler Drupal theme in terms of performance?

A: There are trade-offs as with anything. Phase2 has used Omega for a number of large site projects including Georgia.gov and Fema.gov.  There are scaling concerns with any complexity in a system but it is by no means a road block.

Q:  Is Delta only used for Omega?

A: Delta was made by the same people who wrote Omega, so this will be your best compatibility, but it is compatible with other themes as well.

Q:  Can we use custom grid systems with Omega 3?

A: Yes, you can. You have to write some custom code to handle compatibility.  There is documentation you can refer to if you interested in trying it out.

 

To experience the full session experience, check out this recording of my session:

Omega from Download to Layout from Phase2 on Vimeo.

Thanks to the San Francisco Drupal Users Group for inviting me to talk!

 

Sneak Peak at Our DrupalCon Session with Robin Hood

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DrupalCon Portland is just around the corner and I’m excited to share our panel, “Weathering the Storm: Robin Hood Uses Drupal to Fight Poverty,” with you. We’ll be sharing some of the really great lessons and experiences we’ve had partnering with the Robin Hood Foundation to build a scalable web platform that really helps them communicate their mission to fight poverty in New York City.

You’ll hear about innovative content tools to make flexible, beautiful communication easy, fast, and interactive. You will learn about how the platform created to quickly and easily — with minimal new code — to react to the rapidly changing communication needs surrounding the 12 12 12 Concert for Hurricane Sandy. You will also hear how we helped Robin Hood to build a web infrastructure that doesn’t break the bank,  and that effectively scales to handle massive traffic spikes.

So if you are heading to DrupalCon next week, come hear our stories and experiences next Thursday,  May 23 at 10:45am (PST).

As though you needed more of a tease, check out this great teaser video about some of the content tools on Robin Hood’s web platform:

Robin Hood Tools from Phase2 on Vimeo.

I can’t wait to see you at Drupalcon!

The Do’s and Don’ts of DrupalCon

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It’s that special time of year where some of the brightest minds on the Internet converge on a city for a week of learning, networking and drinking.  Doug Van has recently published an excellent list of top ten things to bring to DrupalCon Portland.  I’ve only been to three DrupalCons so I don’t claim to be an expert, but here are some things I’ve actually seen people do to get the most and least of the experience.

DO:

Attend the keynote speech by Drupal creator Dries Buytaert.

DON’T:

Boo during the keynote speech by Drupal creator Dries Buytaert.

DO:

Check the session schedule to plan out your days.

DON’T:

Try to attend every session by sitting in each for 5 minutes, summarily declare “Information absorbed!”, then go to the one next door.

DO:

Bring business cards for networking.

DON’T:

Bring only QR code stickers then slap them randomly on peoples’ laptops when they aren’t looking.

DO:

Meet the people behind your most favorite distros and modules.

DON’T:

Attack the people behind your most hated distros and modules.

DO:

Attend and contribute patches during the Drupal Core code sprint.

DON’T:

Try to sneak easter eggs and ASCII art into core during the Drupal Core code sprint.

DO:

Have a casual drink with new friends at one of the sponsored parties.

DON’T:

Throw a “sponsored” party in your hotel room.

DO:

Log into the #drupal rooms on IRC and see what people are talking about during the con.

DON’T:

Log into World of Warcraft.

DO:

Invite your clients to Drupalcon so they can see the vast community that supports their investment.

DON’T:

Invite random cosplayers from the cosplay convention next door.

DO:

Wear comfortable shoes. You’re going to be walking around everywhere.

DON’T:

Wear a hotel comforter as a cape.

DO:

Explore the surrounding city and local culture.

DON’T:

Compete with the six other people attempting to be mayor of the convention center on FourSquare.

What is your top DrupalCon Do and Don’t?

 

Phase2 heads to CMSExpo with the Drupal Publishing Experts

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2013-header4Phase2 is heading to CMSExpo next week (May 14-16, Evanston Illinois) to discuss Drupal for media and publishing companies. CMSExpo is a learning and business conference designed to educate people about different kinds of content management systems from both a technical and business standpoint. We are bringing two of our excellent clients, Paul Caluori, Global Director, Digital Services at Associated Press and John Cary, Director of Digital Products at The Nation Magazine, to join us in a panel discussion with our own Felicia Haynes and Josh Caldwell, to talk about publishing sites built in Drupal and to provide advice for other publishing companies considering Drupal as a CMS.

Both The Nation and Associated Press worked with Phase2 to create effective online strategies using Drupal, but these two strategies are very different. The Nation leveraged Drupal for their site to produce extensive custom functionality, whereas Associated Press has used Drupal to display content with custom tools built for ingestion and dynamic listing of content.

Our CMSExpo panel presentation will include discussion around the following  themes:

Flexibility

Flexibility is at the top of every online publishers needs. The ability to deliver content as quickly and efficiently as possible without worrying about back-end functionality is one way Drupal shines in the publishing world.

John Cary will discuss how The Nation’s Drupal site is heavily customized. Specifically The Nation needed several custom solutions to allow them to serve advertisements and integrate with their subscription service for membership and premium content.

Paul Caluori will discuss how Associated Press needed a platform which provides the ability to receive thousands of news stories every hour as well as the ability to provide branded versions of their sites for local affiliates.

Custom Functionality

Both Associated Press and The Nation required extensive custom Drupal functionality. We built an automated content ingestion system for Associated Press for content flow and distribution, giving Associated Press the ability to feed the latest news to all their online news channels.

Drupal plays nice with third party integrations which allows for publishing companies to incorporate the applications and functionality that they need most.  We were able to integrate third party subscription services into The Nation’s cms so they can offer subscription based content.

Profitability

One of the toughest challenges for online publishers is making web content profitable. Our presentation will discuss the strategies that Associated Press and The Nation use on their own web platforms. From Associated Press’s white label sites to The Nation’s subscriber wall, Drupal is able to accommodate diverse revenue strategies.

This presentation promises to be a valuable session for any publishing company considering Drupal or any other content management system.  Look for our presentation slides on our slideshare account after our CMSExpo presentation on May 16th!