In light of the recent positive media concerning Drupal and Jamaica on Dries Buytaert's popular blog http://buytaert.net/
"The website of Bruce Golding, the Prime Minister of Jamaica is using Drupal: see http://www.opm.gov.jm. Ya man!"
and Drupal's (Acquia's) new drive to support government sites. Trevor Forrest, the lead on the project from 876 media will be presenting on Drupal in government.
Location:
Bottom floor of the Humanities block. UWI
If you drive by Mary Seacole end, you will be beside the Humanities parking lot. Walking in from there towards the big tree, the room is on the building on the bottom floor, just after you pass the "Jamaica Language Unit". The room number is Room 75, with Mark-Shane Scale on the door.
Take about $100 - $200 per person so we can get pizza and Juice.
Tue - Feb 16, 6pm
Comments
Great, I look forward to it
Great, I look forward to it
Thanks Trevor Forrest for a
Thanks Trevor Forrest for a great presentation! Really great to hear the details of how Drupal can reduce costs for organizations and and help the Jamaican government. It's nice to see so many local agencies running Drupal, and learning about the power of leveraging a Drupal multisite install. Rohan, I didn't see you, but thanks for pulling this together.
Here are two useful links I picked up. One is on CITO's push to get the Jamaican Government to use more foss . And the other is a link to the great achievement in defining web standards for .gov.jm sites.
Maybe we can post listing of existing government sites that are running Drupal?
I had a concurrent event so I
I had a concurrent event so I came at the start and end of the meeting, I got some info from Trevor as well, the aim now is to push Drupal in the Jamaica web market as much as possible.
Cool, well thanks again.
Cool, well thanks again. Ideas for a time for the ubercart gateway code sprint?
Major benefit
I think the most important transformation in my thinking that I walked away from that presentation with was that a website should not just be like an electronic or multimedia brochure. A website should affect business processes positively, by saving time, data entry and labour.
A website must actually help a business to get work done. That way its cost can be justified.
I never thought about a website like that before. So that point really change my whole outlook on the Web in a new way.
In Jamaica, I am always going to a company to get information or just to get a form to complete. If not, I have to make phone calls. Hence I am always paying for information transfer, whether transportation cost or telephone charges. Few Jamaican websites allow me to save on these charges by having a website where I can email my query, or instant message my query, or find and fill out forms online. So I always have to be paying just for information before I even get the service and have to pay for the actual service.
Drupal in Government .gov.jm
Thanks for the workshop. It was refreshing and very insightful.
I am glad to know that Mr. Forrest communicates to business how the effective use of a website can positively impact their bottom-line - profits.
Websites have long evolved into web applications but some companies in Jamaica have not made that paradigm shift, partly because IT is not treated as a part of the strategy for improving and driving efficiency. There is the need for us (technologist) to be able to effectively communicate to the business person how the use of technology can result in great returns on their investment over a period of time. As advocates of Drupal, when websites are mentioned, this is where we come in.
Acquia does a good job here:
Acquia does a good job here: http://acquia.com/government
GoJ Drupal Update
Just giving an update where this is concerned
Ministry of Finance launched their site a couple months ago ... it is running Drupal 6
I am currently working on the Ministry of Justice's Website .... will be done in a couple months also....the current site runs DP4.7
The new site will be running DP6.
Trevor Forrest
CEO
876 Solutions
Phone: 876-408-4398
Twitter: @trevorforrest
Skype: trevorforrest876