Friday, December 11, 2009
Solution48/Bigfish
Joe Pizzimenti (owner), Brian Kevitt, and James Palazzolo (Drupal expert)
Phil Munroe, Eileen Archibald, Kurt Chambers, Scott Morken
480-355-2550
7898 E. Acoma Drive, Suite 207
Scottsdale, AZ 85260
Discovery:
They had good questions regarding the past work we have done in usability studies, analytics, etc.
Creativity:
Looking at the web work they did for Scottsdale Healthcare, Sage Software, Humana (micro site), and some other big players, they have a skilled creative team and good design concepts. Their experience extends outside of websites, and encompasses print design, sales & marketing, and "the bigger picture". This could prove useful in other respects.
Programming/Development:
Their skill in coding can be difficult to determine based solely on viewing a website, but some information can and should be garnished by viewing work they have done. Need to review their experience in PHP and Drupal. It seems they are a full-service shop. Should review web practices to for implementation of progressive techniques such as image replacement and use of CSS.
They have proven the ability or proof of concept of their ability to integrate PeopleSoft with a local website.
Social Media site they developed for ASU and other universities. BETA Digidorm.com
General:
They seem like a cross-trained, diverse group, because they do consulting, creative work, programming and implementation.
Programming skills in PHP and .NET platforms. The CMS's they recommended for Mesa/Scottsdale were Sitefinity and Drupal, which are .NET and PHP, respectively. Their recommendation also reflects their desire to develop on a platform that is progressive, SEO friendly, and somewhat easy to develop on.
James has experience with Drupal, including his experience with ASU, which uses Drupal extensively. James' title is Public/Media Relations, Social Media. For example, how many websites have they built in Drupal. How long have they been working with Drupal. How many other PHP systems have they worked with?
They will send examples of the educational sites they have completed.
Friday, December 4, 2009
Portland State University's experience with Swipht and Drupal
- Centralized OpenID/Ldap authentication (custom work)
- Ldap user account migration (custom work)
- Multi-site Shared User management (custom work)
- Multi-site Site Access Listing (custom work)
- Google Search Appliance Integration
- Per-site media management
- WYSIWYG Editor integration
- Generic Analytics integration (custom work)
- Google Analytics integration
- Search Engine Optimized XML Sitemap
- Content Access Security (custom work)
- Menu Access Security (custom work)
- Syndication client management and display (custom work)
- PSU Drupal theme (used on all sites)
- PSU Home Drupal theme
- Sophisticated Drupal theme settings and media management (custom work)
- Centralized OpenID/Ldap authentication (custom work)
- Ldap user account migration (custom work)
- Multi-site Shared User management (custom work)
- Multi-site Site Access Listing (custom work)
- Content Access Security (custom work)
- Menu Access Security (custom work)
- Custom content authoring (news, events, profiles, faqs)
- Multi-category tagging and classification system
- Web-services XML syndication framework (community/custom work)
- Phone: 503-725-3711
- Fax: 503-725-4465
- ucomm@pdx.edu
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Parallax Visual Communication
http://www.parallaxviscom.com/index.php/meet/
Jonathan@thinkparallax.com
http://ftp.parallaxviscom.com/newsletter12/pvc_newsletter12.html
Here is brief outline of the steps you should take/we take when going through the web redesign process. It will be smart to meet internally to see what pieces you can handle vs. what you can outsource. We can talk more about where we might be able to fit in.
Web Committee
Organize a group of 4-6 people that will be able to give valuable input through out the process. IT, Marketing, Development/Recruitment - and definitely someone that has a good pulse on the organization. Who gets the big picture and has a vision for the future. Maybe that's you:)
1. Discovery/Needs Assessment
The discovery phase will be a Q+A with the web committee and possibly department to determine all of the goals of the organization. You'll need to determine what currently works/doesn't work, what do we want to achieve with the website and what tools will be need to achieve those goals. When
you itemize the goals you'll be able to figure what tools/applications will be needed to action - and what Drupal has that you can incorporate.
During this phase you or the company you are working with should identify competition, likes dislike etc. It will help you visual what works/doesn't and what you might want to include.
We are in the discovery phase of a big redesign for the Water Authority here and they wanted every department to have a say - so now we have a list of 150 items for their wish list which is about 140 more than is in the proposal. So having a discovery will be really helpful to finding out what you need before you get started or hire a firm. You can also hire a firm to just handle the discovery.
In this process you can also post a questionairre on your external site to get public opinion about what they want and do an internal survey to see what staff/faculty etc. are thinking. I can give you a set of questions to work off of and you could use Survey Monkey - super simple and cost effective.
Requirements
After and while your going through the discovery phase you'll want to finalize the technical requirements and also the workflows. How will a user post to the site, who the owners will be, who will manage, post content and how the whole process will work.
2. Planning, Architecture, site map, wireframes
After you've gone through and finalized all of the requirements and what will be included you can phase the project - what we can do in the first, second - etc.
You should be able to get pretty good pricing from any firm at this point and you'll also be able to see what you can handle internally vs. externally.
At this point you can start to create the site map/information architecture about where all of the information will live and how the user will flow through the site.
3. Design
After the site map, you'll move to wireframes and then the concepting design portion.
Your familiar with the design part, but generally we come up with 3 unique options for the homepage, 2 rounds of revisions. And the same for a standard subpage and then additional unique subpages. Before this you will have determined what types of interactivity that will be included - user
submitted content etc.
4. Development
When the design is finalized you can begin with the development process, which can be started while the design is being finalized. There should be a staging server (testing environment) before launch. And I would rec. doing it in phases. You'll add a truck load of stress to try to knock it all out at once.
5. Launch/Results
While it's being launched - test and make changes. Have predetermined measurements to get the ROI
Here are some links and pdf/screen shots of sites we've finished and are working on.
If you have time for a call, I can go through in more detail. I'll call you either way to follow up next week.
Here is the online virtual tradeshow for Qualcomm (I talked about doing the same thing as an Open House for schools)
http://www.parallaxviscom.com/qualcomm_tradeshow08/
http://www.visitcwc.com
Site for Visit California finished a few months ago
Here is a screen shot of the web redesign for the San Diego Comm. School district. And below is the link on how their internal developer is executing the site. This is a great example of how/why the design team should be involved for feedback when an organization goes through an develops the site themselves. See if you notice the difference between the two. I'm going to give them feedback next week regardless, but even it's 10-20 hours that we would work with you through the dev. process, I think it's worth it.http://employee.sdce.edu./ (being developed in drupal)
It will launch in a few weeks.
And here is where we are at with the UCSD site - the first is a static home page and the second an interactive timeline. Work in progress.
homepage http://www.parallaxviscom.com/UCSD/index.html
interactive timeline
http://www.parallaxviscom.com/UCSD/main.html
Smaller sites for different clients/industries
www.spicynothings.com
branding, packaging for food client
http://fosteringchange.org/
Joomla (open source) for non profit
http://www.stadiaclothing.com/default.aspx
http://jivaactive.com/
clothing clients/shopping cart
Qualcomm Annual Reports
http://www.parallaxviscom.com/qualcomm/ARAP/
http://www.parallaxviscom.com/qualcomm/ARAP07/
Micro site for water authority (being developed in drupal) I'll send another email with a presentation for UCSD.
Talk to you soon!
Thanks!
Jonathan
Northland Pioneer - Drupal and Image X Media Experience
Northland Pioneer College is a regionally accredited, publicly supported community college serving several diverse areas in Navajo County, Arizona. They are based in Holbrook, but have 4 campuses and 6 centers.
NPC did not have a dedicated webmaster or skilled team to maintain a growing internet presence. They had looked at a few commercial systems as well as Drupal, in search of something robust and scalable. In the end, NPC approached ImageX Media looking for a solution.
ImageX delivered the complete package for them, from consulting, design, building and integration. NPC has a 1-1/2 year working relationship with ImageX. The communications director, Ann Hess, said she liked that Drupal was free, but was not completely sold on Drupal. After having worked with it, she is extremely happy with it, and it has served them well.
ImageX created workflow automation for them so that many repetitive tasks that were being done by administrative staff can now be reduced. As a smaller college, maybe 3500 students, they don't have large departments or lots of people to help edit the pages, so the workflow process helps things move along, and she can give access to different departments, so only they can manage their own areas. They are apparently not using Multisite. They have just one website, one server, etc.
As Ann described it, ImageX used Drupal to create a moderation system to edit pages relevant to what each area does. In other words, there are access restrictions per department or division, so they can't administer other areas of the website. I'm not certain how they implemented this.
A couple possible ways would be Organic Groups (a heavy solution?), or more likely Taxonomy Access module. However, Ann seemed to indicate it was a custom solution programmed by ImageX, using Drupal. It would be more appropriate to actually ask ImageX directly how they approached this administrative separation.
ImageX was on budget, and they built NPC's site from the ground up; a complete rebuild. Their site was in need of that, because the old site was a mess. Most of their NPC's collaboration with ImageX was done through telephone calls and Base Camp. ImageX made a visit a year into the project.
The backend is run through the I.T. department, but Ann's office, the office of communications, manages the website, and Ann used Jing to create screencast tutorials for training staff on how to administer the website.
They are just now beginning to set up the Program, Department and Division pages, and she will work with the departments to provide some access control for managing content, as needed.
Sounds like NPC is quite happy with what they have, and their site looks great.
Ann Hess, Director of Marketing and Public Relations, can be reached by phone at 928-536-6257, and is located at the Silver Creek Campus in Snowflake, Arizona.
posted by Phil
Large Scale Drupal Deployment Made Easier with Aegir
Drupal a Visionary in Gartner's Social Software Magic Quadrant

Wednesday, November 25, 2009
ConnectYard Social Media
ConnectYard press release
The Journal Article
Gigya Socialize
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Award Winning Websites
I'm gathering the Gold and Silver winning materials from the Paragon Awards from NCMPR National Council of Marketing and Public Relations. Came across the web-site submissions that got awards for 2008. Thought you'd like to see them...the gold winner was my favorite. The visuals are appealing, new, fresh..very in. Feels like you are in a blog website. --Micaela
Check them out...
GOLD: http://www.wccnet.edu/
SILVER: http://www.hacc.edu/ (check out student success stories: http://apps.hacc.edu/admit)
BRONZE: http://www.kwantlen.bc.ca/home.html
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Article: The Top 12 Options for Web Content Management
Gartner has published its Magic Quadrant for Web content management in 2009, to help CIOs and IT decide just what will meet the needs of the enterprise. Web software is now the fastest growing sector of the enterprise content management market, according to Gartner, and was valued at more $3.3 billion last year.
This annual report identifies the leaders in the industry. We've picked out the top dozen vendors aimed at enterprise content management on the Web. Here are their strengths and weaknesses, to let you get a handle on what's best for your business.
Leaders
While there's some overlap with generally popular offerings — Drupal-based solutions and open source are getting more attention than ever — most of the top dogs in ECM on the Web are specialist vendors who focus solely on the needs of enterprise. Gartner's choices for who fits inside the Magic Quadrant bear this out.Oracle remains one of the biggest players in this area, despite being better known in many circles for its databases. What really brought them on the scene was the acquisition of Stellent in 2007, and since then their strength has been integrating WCM into their wide-ranging offerings for content management.
Autonomy, which entered the sector through its acquisition of Interwoven this year, tends to appeal most strongly to the marketing side of WCM. While they offer an ability to deliver content that's highly targeted, WCM will continue to be a sideline in terms of profit. While Autonomy can deliver right now, they lack a detailed roadmap for the future of the product.
Open Text is one of the most well-known in this space, and is the top pure play vendor for content management. Despite a close partnership with Microsoft, Garner predicts that Open Text's top competitor will continue to be SharePoint and other .NET software packages.
SDL acquired Tridion in 2007, and since then has shown impressive growth. This is the result of solid capabilities in multilingual and multichannel content management, as well as robust SharePoint integration.
Challengers
While the three companies listed at challengers by Gartner hardly seem like underdogs, software from Microsoft, IBM, and EMC are increasing in importance very rapidly.Microsoft's SharePoint is growing enormously in market share as a Web content management solution. In addition to feeding off the trust that the Microsoft name inspires in just about every CIO, one of the strengths of SharePoint compared to current leaders is the partner ecosystem that is growing rapidly, and how tightly integrated it can be with Microsoft's other products in e-commerce, Web analytics and search. Of course, as fast as it grows in WCM, SharePoint is hated for its weaknesses as an intranet and document sharing system.
IBM's greatest strength in content management is also its greatest weakness. The fact that Lotus WCM is vertically-focused and is closely integrated with the entire Websphere Portal makes it appealing to organizations who already use the portal. But for those who don't, Lotus seems lacking without the rest of IBM's system.
EMC has been slowly brewing its WCM capabilities since it acquired the fairly popular Documentum in 2003. EMC is especially good in the sense that it works with a broader ECM solution, and can do DAM and records management of Web content too. It's also shown some of the biggest improvements in its latest release, 6.5, through adding technology first used in X-Hive, an XML database and dynamic delivery environment.
Visionaries
A list of honorable mentions shows up in the Visionaries section of the Magic Quadrant. The label might sound fanciful, but most of these up-and-coming vendors are making a real name for themselves.Sitecore is a Denmark-based company that's also a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner. Their .NET CMS is unsurprisingly tied to Microsoft in a multitude of ways, which can be either a plus or a minus, depending on where your enterprise stands technologically.
FatWire Software has a Java software package that focuses on collaborative features and analytics, but suffers from what Gartner calls "costly" customization needs to make it play nice with related technologies.
Ektron is especially famous in the SMB market. Its CMS400.NET integrates relatively well with SharePoint Server.
Day Software sells software based on Java EE, and it's made strides in usability. Despite these improvements sales have lagged, and Gartner predicts that the partnerships with IBM and HP that this Swiss-based vendor has will decline in the future, weakening its position.
Clickability is a pure SaaS vendor in Web content management which is making progress with enterprises fed up with the costs of on-premise WCM, even if SaaS remains on shaky ground.
There are at least a dozen more vendors in enterprise-class Web content management who get short mentions in Gartner's report. Solutions such as Alfresco's open source software or Acquia's Drupal distribution might not warrant inclusion in any list of leaders yet, but they're making respectable gains. For a detailed account, be sure to read the full report.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Drupal/CMS Notes from June 2009 Meeting
I wanted to follow up from the Drupal/CMS web meeting we had last month. I have created a web page (CMS Redesign) that briefly outlines the Drupal Content Management System.
On another note, there are at least a couple things I'd like to implement in the next two months, related to Google.
1) We need to include Google Analytics on ALL our pages. We currently have it enabled on some pages, but not all pages. This would enable us to better observe traffic flow throughout our site, as well as complement other statistics that we are able to gather.
2) I am looking at replacing our "Google Syndicated Search" with "Google Custom Search". The Syndicated Search, while still working, is deprecated and is not actively supported by Google. Custom Search is essentially its replacement. It also gives us a little better control of how it searches our site, including a Dashboard for managing the Custom Search.
There are no costs to to our college for either of these Google services. If you have comments or questions about something mentioned here, feel free to reply-all, or contact me directly.
Thanks,
Phil
Google Analytics
Google Analytics (GA) can provide traffic flow, from total number of visits, pages per visit, average time on our website, and much more. It is based on a small piece of Javascript (smaller than many scripts we may use ourselves), and therefore has no impact to our own servers—only client side. The current tracking code is 18K in size, and is cached on subsequent page loads. It is apparently fail-safe, as if there is a GA Javascript error, it will not cause the page to hang, and it's also the last piece of code to be loaded on any page.
GA also tracks browsers, browser version, operating system, and IP addresses, but goes beyond what is capable in processing raw server logs, such as being able to detect screen depth (colors), resolutions, Flash versions, movement throughout the site, connection speeds, detect if a visitor is a new or return visitor, detect bounce rate (where someone visits one page and leaves, but doesn't visit any other pages), and more. Enabling it sitewide will be much simpler, as any page can be viewed at will from the Dashboard. GA also has the ability to perform automatic A/B Split and Multivariable testing to allow reporting of which "version" of a page is performing better.
It is better to consider GA as a tool for measuring trends, rather than raw numbers, as GA only collects data if Javascript, images, and cookies are enabled in the client's browser. GA is free, and is capable of providing much more than I've been able to monitor using AWStats. And it's free. Many of our colleges are using GA on the home page.
Google also provides all these statistics in a customizable dashboard style format, with draggable blocks to show the statistics that are most important. Stats are generally available a few hours past real-time. In any case, GA is a tool that can supplement other data sources.
http://www.google.com/analytics/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Analytics
GA vs Server Logs comparison
Monday, August 3, 2009
2008-09 Media Preferences Survey Data for WEB
Lots of Color:
It's OK 42%
Like it 30%
Lots of Things to Look At:
It's OK 42%
Like It 24%
Lots of White Space
It's Not OK 30%
It's OK 28%
Dislike It 22%
Hate It 12%
Different Type Styles and Sizes
It's OK 42%
Like It 21%
It's Not OK 12%
Lots of Text in Paragraphs
It's OK 38%
It's Not OK 22%
Dislike It 18%
Navigation Throughout Page
Like It 38%
It's OK 32%
Love It 18%
Nav Shrtcts Deep into Site
It's OK 32%
Like It 28%
Love It 18%
Site "Sticks" to LH Side Window
It's Ok 38%
It's Not OK 20%
Dislike It 13%
Like It 12%
Website "Floats" in Mid of Window
It's OK 35%
It's Not Ok 22%
Dislike and like =
Photos/Graphics of Students
It's OK 50%
Like It 25%
Love It 13%
Photos/Graphics of Campus
It's Ok 38%
Like It 38%
Love It 22%
Photos/Graphics of the Faculty
It's Ok 45%
Like It 30%
Love It 15%
Photos/Graphics that Change
It's OK 42%
Like It 32%
Love It 28%
Pages W/Out Photos/Graphics
It's OK 35%
It's Not Ok 23%
Dislke It 20%
Hate It 15%
Flash Animation
It's OK 48%
Like It 20%
It's Not Ok 12%
Lots to Click On/Do
It's OK 48%
Like It 25%
Lots Diff. Topics to Read
It's OK 42%
Like It 35%
Games
It's OK 35%
All Other =
Podcasts or Vodcasts
It's OK 45%
Like It 22%
Good Internal Search Engine
Love It 45%
Like It 37%
It's OK 23%
Pgs w/Clickable Links, No Content
It's OK 38%
Like It 28%
Love It 22%
Content Updated Daily
Love It 42%
Like It 32%
It's OK 22%
Content Updated Weekly
Like It 39%
It's OK 38%
Content Updated Monthly
It's OK 32%
It's Not OK 23%
Like It 12%
Unique Site Just for Current Students
It's OK 32%
Like It 33%
Love It 25%
College News Blog
It's OK 42%
Like It 28%
Love It 19%
Videos About Programs
It's OK 40%
Like It 28%
Love It 20%
Video Campus Tour
It's OK 32%
Like It 32%
Love It 28%
Register Online
Love It 67%
Like It 20%
It's OK 12%
Hate/Dislike/Not OK 1%
Pay Fees Online
Love It 67%
Like It 18%
It's Ok 12
Ability to Buy Books Online
Love It 58%
Like It 22%
It's OK 17%
Online Advising/Counseling
Love It 39%
Like It 22%
It's OK 23%
It's Not OK 8%
Free Email from College
Love It 47%
Like It 25%
It's OK 22%
Ability to Download College Forms
Love It 60%
Like It 22%
It's OK 12%
Download Mtrls from Library
Love It 63%
Like It 22%
It's OK 15%
Take Class Online
Love It 55%
Like It 18%
It's OK 20%
How Often Visit Favorite Fun Website
Always 45%
Often 32%
Sometimes 15%
How Often Visit Favorite Info Website
Always 48%
Often 38%
Sometimes 12%
Gas Prices-How Affected in General
Very Affected 41%
Affected 31%
Some Affect 19%
Gas Prices - How Affected College Experience
Somewhat 28%
Frequently 22%
All the Time 18%
Not At All 18%
Rarely 14%
Gas Prices - Likely to Take Online Courses
Very Likely 24%
Somewhat Likely 18%
Likely 15%
Not At All 16%
Unlikely and Somewhat Unlikely 24%
