The changing Drupal community

With my voice still recovering from Drupalcon SF, I've been thinking a lot about what I learned. The most surprising and significant thing I learned is that the landscape of Drupal has changed in drastic ways since I first started using it 4 years ago. Even since Drupalcon DC last year, the community is different. Standing at our booth last year, a few people stopped by with curious interest. After a few minutes of small talk, most folks would mosey on to the next booth with the same ambivalent inquisitiveness in which they had found us. Not this year.

Build the right team, and let them work together

So, the DrupalCon session that I’m giving with Dave is titled “Planning and Executing a Successful Drupal Implementation.” …. Wait… sorry, I just fell asleep. Yeah, it doesn’t sound very exciting does it? Well, hopefully it will be more interesting than the name let’s on.  In an effort to try to get some folks in the door before heading out to happy hour next Monday, we wanted to share a couple of the topics this week in the blog.

The incredible shrinking main navigation

Recently someone mentioned to me the main navigation on cnn.com. I've read that site every day for about 6 years, but I couldn't tell you what even one of the main navigation items was. Lorem? Ipsum? No idea. What's interesting about this to me is that it was never a conscious decision on my part. I never realized that I never used it - I just didn't because, apparently, I didn't need it.

Now that I'm paying more attention, I'm noticing all kinds of creative ways that online publishing sites are de-emphasizing main navigation in favor of robust and well-designed homepages, user-driven navigation, and tag linking techniques. In this blog entry I share a few of these different techniques.

A quick study of Drupal multisite options

It seems like these days if your organization only has one website you're about 5 short of the norm. So, a very common question I get is how organizations can benefit from a common CMS environment. It's easy to argue that standardizing an organization on a single platform definitely has its benefits. Drupal, in particular, is a good choice for such an environment. There are multiple architectures to choose from, depending on your needs.

In this post I outline 3 different levels of multi-site architectures that I've had success in implementing with Drupal.

SEO for Drupal Presentation

It’s a little late in posting, but here is a presentation we put together for the September NOVA Drupal Meetup. This presentation outlines some strategies for implementing effective SEO on a Drupal site.

Check Water Supply... again

Here at Phase2 Technology we have a futuristic coffee machine. It is supposed to work like this: You pick your little plastic cup out of the cardboard box and drop it into the damp, crusty slot at the top of the machine. Then you place your logo mug from the internet company you worked for in 2001 (that went bankrupt) under the spout. Finally, you hit the blue glowing button and watch your steaming brew trickle out like a magical stream of deliciousness. That’s the way it is supposed to work, anyway… Instead, you get this…

A sketchy approach to wireframes

Recently I tried a new, more collaborative approach to one of the critical processes involved with building a new CMS/website – wireframing. A colleague of mine pointed out a technique that was being used to help generate ideas for the redesign of drupal.org (Thanks to Leisa Reichelt’s great blog, Disambiguity !). The technique is simple and looked fun, so I gave it a try on one of my new projects.

You can't just install the whatever module

As the open source Drupal CMS platform continues to gain popularity, I’ve noticed an unfortunate trend. Many organizations with the potential to use Drupal are underestimating the amount of effort that goes into building and shaping a Drupal website into the solution they desire.

AJAX as an adjective?

Did you know AJAX can be used as an adjective? I do, because I hear it a lot. Here are some typical comments from my clients and associates.

The rough seas of a website launch

So your content management driven website is a shiny new yacht sitting in port. Your vendor just built it. The outside is spit polished, the engine hums, and the navigation tools are state of the art. You imagine yourself as Donald Trump when you step aboard. But wait! There’s no fuel in it. The inside hasn’t been decorated yet. The galley doesn’t have a drop of champagne. And as you peer out into the rough seas of a CMS website launch, there are some mighty big waves. Sound familiar? Sound scary?