Off to DrupalCon Copenhagen

Frank, Irakli and I are arriving in Copenhagen on Monday for this fall’s European DrupalCon - which runs August 23rd - 27th. Phase2 is a bronze sponsor of the event. As always, we are looking forward to meeting as many people as we can, catching up with old friends and sharing in good Drupal spirit with the rest of the community.

OpenPublish 2.0 and Beyond - A Labor of Love

As one of the very first widely adopted and professionally created Drupal distributions, OpenPublish has been an active growing project now through 2 major releases and over 8 minor releases since we first released it in January of 2009. OpenPublish has had a good run so far in 2010 with lots of exciting developments to share. As its creator and maintainer, Phase2 Technology has invested over 3,000 employee hours into this effort. I hope this post helps explain a bit about why we think that effort has been worth it.

Big Drupal: Ten Trends for the Enterprise

As the Drupal community and lots of newcomers all descend on San Francisco this week, I am making just one (maybe not so bold) prediction: This conference is the tipping point. Drupal is officially big. Why is this all happening now? It is likely a combination of many things: maturity of the product itself, size of the installed base, growth in community popularity and participation, lack of affordable alternatives for comparable web 2.0 functionality, etc. I actually prefer to view it more as the maturity of Drupal as a platform through which the Drupal technology community is pushing Drupal forward - potentially straight into enterprise software territory. Here is my "top ten style" list of the technology trends I see fueling this growth.

Drupal in Government Part 2: Drupal: The New Gov 2.0 Site Builder?

I have been writing a series of guest blog posts at GovFresh on Drupal in open government. GovFresh works to inspire government-citizen collaboration and build a more engaged democracy through Gov 2.0 best practices, open gov news, guides, TV, tech, people and official U.S. government feeds, all in one place.

This month, I discuss how Drupal is close to being the perfect Gov 2.0 solution for savvy agencies – and soon perhaps a default solution for open government web initiatives in my post today entitled Drupal: The New Gov 2.0 Site Builder?

Last month I wrote about how Drupal supports five of the most effective open government sites in Five Government Sites Using Drupal Effectively for Open Government Initiatives.

Let me know what you think of these posts and what else you would like to see written about on this topic.

Phase2 Drupalcon 2010 Proposed Session Topics

Session voting for Drupalcon 2010 in San Francisco started today and I am very proud of the great entries that our team at Phase2 has prepared for the conference. In total our team proposed 13 sessions that cover 5 of the 6 categories and run the complete range from business topics to graphic design, architecture and code development. We would love your vote and chance to share what we have learned this past year.

Drupal in Government Part 1: Five government sites using Drupal effectively for open government initiatives

Why is Drupal important to the the Federal government? That is the main topic I will cover in a 3 part guest blog series on GovFresh. GovFresh works to inspire government-citizen collaboration and build a more engaged democracy. It features Gov 2.0, open gov news, guides, TV, tech, people and official U.S. government feeds, all in one place.

The first post Five government sites using Drupal effectively for open government initiatives provides some high profile examples of who is using Drupal effectively in government and why Drupal is a great fit for what these sites are trying to achieve.

My second post will focus on the unique aspects of providing web content management for government that are relevant for Drupal (i.e. what can Drupal learn from Government?) And my final post will provide ideas and predictions for the future of Drupal within the Federal government.

What Does the Open Government Directive Look Like?

On the first anniversary of the President's inauguration, I wanted to share some thoughts about the historic Open Government Initiative and discuss the implementation details of last month's Open Government Directive. Since we are developers, we wanted to do more than talk and write about what open government is, we are interested in how it actually looks and works to a user on the web. So we prepared some mock-ups for this purpose and shared it around town. This mock-up demonstrates both our concept for the user interface and content of a great /open site, but also prototypes what a simple approach to open government data and communications could be through a templated installation of Drupal we would like to build if some agency wants one?

Go.USA.gov the Government URL Shortener using Drupal

"Does the world really need another URL shortener?" Asked TechCrunch in a snarky post by Erick Schonfeld on October 13, 2009 entitled Go.USA.Gov! Our Taxpayer Money Hard At Work Shortening URLs. He was referring to Go.USA.Gov the new URL shortener that lets government employees create short .gov URLs for their links. Go.USA.gov also tracks the number of clicks each shortened URL receives, so you can measure the impact of the spread of those links. We feel this is more like an example where the government rapidly and inexpensively deployed something innovative that will protect the reputation of government assets on the web.

Today We Release Tattler, What Is It? Why Is It Unique?

Today we are releasing our first publicly available open source version of Tattler on Drupal.org. Tattler is a way to monitor topics you are interested in and learn who is talking about them, where, when and how.

Tattler might be used by a researcher, journalist, blogger, technology analyst, or PR specialist or anyone looking for a better way to research on the web. In other words, Tattler is for those that don't just listen to, but help shape the public policy debate - either with coverage or research. So what is unique about Tattler?

Can the Semantic Web Really Save your Site?

Yesterday, I had the privilege of moderating a panel session at the Online News Association's 2009 Conference in San Francisco on the use of semantic web technologies for publishers entitled "Can the Semantic Web Really Save your Site?" Our 3 guests included two CTOs for major online news organizations and a semantic web author and technology expert. I was really looking forward to this and was not let down at the caliber of knowledge these guys brought to the table (literally).