Contractor Sought to Market Digital Innovation Contest

Jun 20, 2008

For the 2009 round of the Knight News Challenge, the John S. and James
L. Knight Foundation is looking to contract with a highly networked Web
2.0 marketing and account management freelancer to:

• Manage programs designed to increase the visibility for the
  Knight News Challenge,
• Traffic, coordinate, and measure deliverables for third party
  relationships that will help build on the established audiences
  (journalists and bloggers) and increase the number of high-quality

OSInet organise le 26/06/08 de 14h00 à 17h00 une session gratuite d'introduction à Drupal.

Au programme : les concepts fondamentaux pour un projet Drupal:

Hello,

We are looking for speakers for the upcoming DrupalCon in Boston. Since you are subscribed to a business and marketing related group, you might be especially interested in the "Business and Marketing" track (see http://boston2008.drupalcon.org/business-and-marketing-track-description... ).

This track covers the following topics:

• The Drupal ecosystem
• Businesses learning to use Drupal
• Case studies
• Showcases: NPO, Education, News, Media, Government, Healthcare

Ongoing job assignment with new, well-funded media startup. Very flexible hours and compelling work. Specifics include theming, light development, views/CCK. More info upon request. This is a KILLER opportunity for anyone seriously interested in new media. Serious inquiries only.

Drupal Developers provide technical solutions on client projects that include configuration, programming and third party systems integration. They are expected to be familiar with emerging trends in technology and have the ability to offer insights on implementation. Lead developers also offer technical expertise to other members of the team.

Background Requirements:
- BA / BS in a relevant discipline
- 2-4 years professional experience

Required Skills: Drupal, PHP, MySQL, web services

The Technical Lead acts as technical expert and organize the efforts of the development team to ensure the successful delivery of client projects. They interface directly with clients to establish expectations and identify gaps within in the delivery process. Technical leads provide project status reports during weekly meetings and work directly with the Director of Development to identify development strategies. Beyond oversight, technical leads provide development solutions as part of their day to day responsibilities.

I thought it might be useful if we created a list of Seattle-area companies and individuals who do Drupal projects for clients. The idea would be that the list could be viewed by potential clients, who might not want to make an account and post a job, and also that other Seattle Drupal User Group members could use the list to find people to refer clients to or help them on projects. It will also give the group members an idea of what type of Drupal expertise we have available locally.

I represent a nonprofit regional arts organization that is currently seeking a skilled DRUPAL programmer to correct issues with and make improvements to a DRUPAL-based website focused on one civic arts community. Both traditional web and graphic design skills are an advantage. Your physical location is not important, but mastery of written and spoken English is required. Pay range is between USD 90-125 an hour, depending on skills and experience.

I'm glad Darren Oh has got a solid proposal for this group. I would suggest that the most needed aspect of a Drupal marketplace would be a way for individual Drupal users and Drupal shops – especially smaller shops – to pool resources to fund specific module development.

User dahacouk called for more structure and a funding model to make the quality of contributed modules the best they can be.

To quote from my endorsement and proposal:

pingVision has immediate paid entry level positions for Drupal web development and theming, working in our offices in Boulder, Colorado. Responsibilities will vary depending upon your experience, skills and interests. We're looking for people who want to learn and grow with us.

For the development internship position, the ideal candidate will already know PHP and MySQL, and has some acquaintance with Drupal. Other requirements:

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If this project gets finished, it will provide a tremendous boost to Drupal development. Is anyone working on an actual site yet? Has any funding been pledged? I'm ready to start working on it. This is an invitation for anyone who is doing actual work on the project to join me (or let me join you). Edit this page to include what you intend to do.

Due to the late notice for the call today, those of us who where there decided that we would have another call next week, at 8AM PST.

The call-in number is (641) 297-4600
Conference Code 776614#
Back Channel: irc://chat.freenode.net #drupal-shoptalk

Please suggest topics as comments below:
Here are some thoughts:
* Template RFPs
* Drupal 5.0 and install profiles
* Collaborating on functionality like Send/Forward/Tell-a-friend

I was curious if anyone has this host, I was curious as to if it's worth paying for the service or not. I notice they have one click installs of drupal. I currently have dreamhost which is a good host but the Grid Service media temple provides is quite inticing espically considering it isn't a whole lot more than what I pay for dreamhost.

Dear Jenny, Fouad and all,
CONSEN want to contribute Towards a:
- Drupal and Open-Source Multidisciplinary World Task-force Organisation and Fair Marketplace" (WORG).
- Establish research technical and commercial project and services around Drupal - OS/IST- at world scope (iFOSS, FOSSP, CONSEN coop SCE, ....)

Seeking Drupal Assassin(s)

Seeking professional experienced web developers (two) who are fluent in all aspects of development, and project management. Candidates must have a solid grasp of PHP 4/5, SQL, CSS, (x)HTML, JS, OOP, and wait for it... Drupal. On the Drupal note, you should be fluent in CCK, views, events, module development, and the forms API with a proven track record in all of these areas.

This is a call for Drupal Consultants and Programmers to talk about the work they are doing, new sites they have launch, modules they are working on, opportunities for collaboration, etc...

These calls will happen every 5 weeks, the time of the call will change to ensure that those with particular scheduling conflicts will have opportunity to participate.

Proposed Agenda
1) Introductions (name, firm, last site you or you firm launched, favorite module lately)
2) Setting / Review of agenda (you can post agenda items as comments to this thread, please post any supporting materials that might be helpful to others)

This is a call for Drupal Consultants and Programmers to talk about the work they are doing, new sites they have launch, modules they are working on, opportunities for collaboration, etc...

These calls will happen every 5 weeks, the time of the call will change to ensure that those with particular scheduling conflicts will have opportunity to participate.

Proposed Agenda
1) Introductions (name, firm, last site you or you firm launched, favorite module lately)
2) Setting / Review of agenda (you can post agenda items as comments to this thread, please post any supporting materials that might be helpful to others)

A few months ago we had a few calls where representatives of Drupal
shops and independent developers got together to.... talk shop.

Well, after a summer hiatus (and maybe spring too actually), we are
going to try it again.

Come one, come all
12 noon Pacific Time
Tuesday October 10
(641) 297-4600
776614 #

_The call will be recorded and the recording will be posted for all to
listen to.

As in the past, the call is informal and will last 60 to 90 minutes. We
will try to take an agenda (via this email list) before the call starts.

Suggested agenda topics include:
module development, drupal developer training strategies, big project

My Santa Monica client is looking for a Senior LAMP/Drupal Developer to develop and help run our successful website projects. They serve 45 million page views a month and have a long list of exciting feature ideas to develop and implement on these sites.

Responsibilities Include:
* Spec and develop features for our websites
* Optimize MySQL databases
* Scale PHP/MySQL, Drupal apps beyond where you've probably scaled before
* Create APIs to help with inside and outside developers and programmers
* Lead development projects using internal and outsourced developers

Required Knowledge:

Neither the group description nor the posts clearly state what's the point of this group. I am reading pages and pages and pages of words but I don't get a clue what is tried to achieve here.

Let's start with a few simple questions:

Subject:    Drupal Help
Date:   August 20, 2006 2:17:34 PM EDT
From:     vcurrie1(a/t)yahoo.com

I am new to Drupal and PHP but is familar with CSS and
HTML. I have a design for a webpage I have been
working on for my wife and need help 'converting' it
to Drupal. To get my wife off my back, I am willing
to $pay$ for help in converting. I am in Brooklyn.

Viv Currie

Judging from the latest (cross)posts, I'd say interest in this particular group seems to be waning.

Also, I've seen nothing of general relevance occurring over at http://citizenagency.com/.

I know it's difficult to get any sort of momentum behind an idea, however good it may be.

As I understand it, the motivation behind the Marketplace group is to unite demand for website construction (featuring Drupal) with small groups of people with the necessary skillset to fulfill a given instance of this demand.

My own personal, selfish goal in participating in this group is to hook up with one or more of: web designer, graphic artist, (drupl saavy) program manager to form a Drupal supergroup (what if Jones, Page, Plant and Bonham had been web developers!). I believe there are others out there with similar goals.

From my inbox to yours...

Subject:    drupal consultant?
Date:   August 9, 2006 6:21:29 PM EDT
From:     mark@labornotes.org

Hi Noel,

I got your email from Linda Setchell at Eggplant Active Media. I work for a small non-profit in NYC called Labor Notes. We publish a monthly magazine for grassroots labor activists and have been working on redesigning our very old website to run on Drupal. We are almost done, but need to find someone who can help us take our site (which as far as I can tell is almost completely finished) and migrate it off the Eggplant test site and onto Site5 where we are going to host it. (The need kinda goes hand-in-hand with by Arthur Foelsche leaving Eggplant.)

IST-2006 21/23 November Helsinki (FIN) open invitation to collaborate in IST-Media-Blog Exhibition

The European Commission (EC) DG Information Society has approved the exhibition in the IST-2006 21/23 November Helsinki (FIN) of
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/istevent/2006/index_en.htm

IST-Media-Blog (Rich media profiles for all) Cordis 3rd generation.

http://IST-2006.consen.info/

CONSEN Euro-Group, DrupalCat and MUFICATA-ZENSCI offer you (Drupal community and professionals) the opportunity of co-organize this exhibition in a Practical, Integrative, Cooperative, Demonstrative, Scientific, technologic and Business innovative effort to build a web-portal, database and a sustainable and responsible socio-economic exploitable Info-Space.

I had my first attempt to draw up what I would like to see this market place to provide. Please see the attached diagram.

The sketch is based on the considerations of what I heard from various posts:

-- quality and customer satisfactory is important
-- open bidding is not preferred. I also think this might be odd given the fact that this marketplace is spawn off from an existing community that many people have known each others already.

So, without worring about how this will actually work, here is what I have, the market place will consist of:

I'm collaborating with Yvette on her Cultural Fusion project , with her permission I'm posting the following request to the group. I like to use this project as an example of "managed project services" that this marketplace can offer (as what I'm doing now), as well as a "Collaborative Drupal Project" that the to-be-developed BMOC model can be applied.

If you read thru the business and development plan that Ron and Yvette put together on the CF site, it seems as a mission impossible for any one single Drupal consulting firm today. To understand this project, first scan thru the main page http://comfusion.pbwiki.com/CulturalFusion, it is most important to grasp the mathematical concept of infinity that is being told thru the story of Hotel Infinity. I quote the version from Dave Stacy at the end of his article " The point of all this is that infinity is NOT a number, and--though there is a subject called "transfinite arithmetic"--you can't think in terms of doing ordinary arithmetic with infinity. The best way to think about it, is that infinity is a property that some sets possess. Richard Dedekind defined an infinite set to be one which could be put in one-to-one correspondence with a proper subset of itself. This is the very thing that we see drupal as a community plumbing can enable for many self-organizing network of networks that can grow into infinity.

I just read through this group - and I'm thrilled.
After having "played around" with Drupal on various pet projects for the past four years, I'm now moving to become a full time Social Media consultant here in Denmark, and plan to base most of my work on Drupal. I've been working with computer media for my entire professional career (since 1992), and I'm really looking forward to this.

I do have one concern though. This initiative could be bogged down in "boards", rules, regulations, headquarters, minutes, etc.
I have seen this happen with international communities on more than one occation. Keep it simple - if at all possible. Don't build too much structure, but stick to a few clear rules, roles, and best practices.

Okay everybody,

Neil McEvoy, you have tempeted me to announce the "Drupal Open Co-operative Business Model", the first of its kind, this too will be a Business Center of the marketplace. This will also cut down on the issue of pricings, Asian's cutting your profit grips and all that stuff! So here it goes:

Copyright Notice 2005, Fouad Riaz Bajwa, All rights Reserved till further notification:
Remember this business model titled "Drupal Open Co-operative Business Model BMOC" is neither patented nor it is available for patenting under US Federal Laws or international WTO-TRIPS and only falls into Copyright of creative expression, it is the Official Copyright of Mr. Fouad Riaz Bajwa, General Secretary and Co-Founder of FOSSFP: Free and Open Source Software Foundation of Pakistan resident of Lahore, Pakistan and is announced as of June 20th of 2006 on http://groups.drupal.org/marketplace as part of ongoing discussions to formulate a Drupal Services Consulting Marketplace. On my behalf, I officially authorize, Jenny Hsueh of On Demand Network, NJ and Neil McEvoy Bootstrap Ventures (I hope you two don't mind!) to defend this model and its Copyright legalities in New Jersey, USA, or, anywhere they deem there is a violation or misuse of the business model titled "Drupal Open Co-operative Business Model BMOC".

This place has got it all. 21st century network organisations through to Social Enterprise... like I've found home... :-D

Reading through the posts, here's my initial personal thoughts:

• Yes I'd say there is definately a need for it. I think Drupal suffers a bit as it isn't quite organised enough in key areas. There is a need for improved documentation, better showcase facilities etc., and a services group would be ideal for delivering this, as a means of self-describing their skills etc. With roles you can directly implement the required skills/membership system.

A co-op group could then pool resources/funds to create centralised resources for where things are duplicated. Eg a specialist lawyer could be hired that each member gets to use for client project negotiations, template legal agreements for members to use etc etc.

Yeup thats right, as you all may see that the model we are formulating here has Social Responsibility as the number one agenda, how, first, a certain percentage of income goes directly to the Drupal Project, it will be there issue what they do with the money, secondly, as the Drupal Marketplace is completely established, we will clone it to Drupal Non-Profits Marketplace for supporting Non-Profits throughout the world for empowerment through Drupal. We will have to keep this idea in mind, 100%!

Secondly, where ever possible, the marketplace will even contribute to non-profits and capacity development activities around its sphere of service provision activities. Yes, if any new products turn into ventures, the marketplace will also provide seeding services thus it will be a hub for social enterprising!

Please read this blog entry on Nick Lewis's Blog: http://www.nicklewis.org/node/831

Copyright of Publisher Nick Lewis: The Blog (http://www.nicklewis.org)
Taking Drupal's Marketing to the Next Level

Someday, I’ll have a chance to design some halfway decent drupal ads. In the meantime, however, I can only offer some general thoughts on how Drupal could become the poster child for good grassroots open source marketing.

The Focus of Our Marketing SHOULD NOT BE Drupal
Drupal’s biggest problems, in terms of marketing is two fold:

Our marketing is not getting people’s attention. I think the majority of new users had to seriously educate themselves before they understood that drupal was the right choice.

Great idea, I think it needs some rounding out.

First off, there are going to be providers with different levels of competency. It would be in everyone's interests, right off the bat, to establish particular services they provide and have some method of feedback allowing individual providers to be rated. I would hate to see a couple of poor client experiences lead to an entire marketplace getting a bad reputation.

Secondly, economics. There are going to be individual consultants who can work for much less than consultant shops which can provide more services. Something that would be interesting, as a way of leveling the playing field between each, is the establishment of a sub-consultancy group as well, where groups can collaborate to provide services. My company, for example, sells a bulk mailing program that intergrates nicely with Drupal through Web services. While I may not be interested in every client out there, people certainly should be able to take advantage of the mailer I have directly rather than sending clients over.

I moved from traditional employment to full-time Drupal indy consultant at the end of last year. I've learned the same initial lessons everyone has. Working for oneself is great. Specializing in Drupal is fun, rewarding and also great. Taking over responsibility for roles such as tech writer and project manager is not so fun, rewarding or great. Dealing directly with a client rather than with a tech lead, or at least a PM, is a complicated and messy business that has more to do with people skills and mind reading than with programming or design. I've also learned (the hard way) that blindly trusting clients and forgoing all of the hassle of agreements, policies and procedures is most definitely a bad idea.

Hi,

Thanks to Fouad for taking the initiative of setting this up, personally I think this proposal will be a win-win for everyone, wondering if anyone foresees any down side of doing what is being proposed here?

The 8 project ideas outlined in the group page seems a good starting point to tackle them one by one, I will also add the considerations of legal review etc.

So where do we start? I think a few key steps are:

• Agree on the commission and Drupal contribution model
• Membership model ( Should this be an open market or suppliers have to meet certain qualifications to keep the market place quality up?)