Screencast on how Denver Open Media is using CiviCRM with the Open Media Project

Nice tutorial! These kind of tutorials are great to inspire those of us who are still not that deep into Drupal or the Open Media tools. Keep 'em coming! :)

What I have learned at Media Bridges:

1. Drupal and the collaborative creations of the community
2. Ubuntu the Open Source Community …

3. Communicating on behalf of an organizational initiative through the online community …

4. Drupal and the collaborative creations of the community …
   I have always spent the majority of my time online reading and experiencing what the internet has to offer in terms of being a resource for information and knowledge. In working on behalf of Media Bridges I have taken my skills as an online researcher and have focused my efforts as a researcher and have taken to absorbing as much information about a topic as I can find and dovetailing the information I have found with regards to solving a problem here at Media Bridges. I have interacted with the Drupal Community through online forums and chatrooms and have been directed as to the best practices that can be achieved through with regards to the Drupal Content Management System.

In approaching the catalog of information available for the Drupal Content Management System I have learned that the phrases “easy” and “simple” are used quite readily quite often when in fact what the Drupal Community considers easy is actually quite difficult to achieve. There is a level of technical ability that the Drupal Content Management system asks for that is often glossed over in the Drupal Community. The people that make Drupal happen are very tenacious people who are working to incorporate as much functionality into their platform as is possible. It is a obviously a long process and to witness the work that is going into that process is extremely interesting.

It would seem that the Drupal Community itself is aware of the fact that they truly have a weak knowledge base in terms of explaining how to use their software for non computer science minded individuals. The Drupal Content Management system is in a constant state of flux which can be understood by the fact that the latest version of Drupal will be coming out this January as version 7. The Drupal Community is a work that is in constant progress and due to the fact that professional documentation is lacking it so happens that when an individual such as myself comes into their community , what is considered easy and simple by the Drupal Developers is in fact considered difficult an individual such as myself.

Problems I have encountered with the Drupal Content Management System include discreptancies between what a module is stated to do and how such a module does not have what I would consider to be proper documentation as to how to go about using the module itself within the Drupal Framework. I think that a lot of the problems of the Drupal Contement Management system could be alleviated if the community spent more time identifying the key software engineers who produce the most stable modules and as a community they could develop final solutions for their software; that is not the case now. Time spent developing a new take on a module could be time spent developing the documentation that will make the module effective for a user such as myself as I believe myself to be the ideal candidate for gauging the effectiveness of whether or not what is considered to be “easy” or “simple” by the Drupal Community actually is.

The Open Media Project is a prime example of a lax documentation model. The software being created in this open source environment is capable but the documentation is lacking. There is a general lack of communication and follow through as to how to go about actually implementing the modules that are being created for the communities that these pieces of software are being created for. If there was better documentation for the Drupal Community at a module level then the work that is being created by the Drupal Community could be more easily taken advantage of. There is not currently a hive mentality in the Drupal Community , in reality Drupal is composed of a disparate community of individuals all trying to add functionality to the Drupal Environment one piece at a time as opposed to a larger viewpoint that would enable an organization such as Media Bridges to fully take advantage of the community and the work that is being created.

It would seem that for the Drupal Community that there would be great benefit to be had by identifying the exact uses that organizations would like to see in Drupal and catering to that. The Open Media Project seems to be an example of this as this was a project that was taken on with a client in mind. The need of the client dictated the creation of the modules that would benefit the client , however, I see so many modules that appear to have been created with no client in mind or larger purpose in mind. It would seem that so much of Drupal is consumed by exploring what is possible as opposed to exploring what is needed and creating to fit a need and a finished product. Drupal as a CMS is a major environment for an open source community to explore , however, I see a definitive lack of finished product at this point. I realize that Drupal is an Open Source Project that will never truly be finished, but it would seem that a higher level of organization could be enabled that if the focus was on developing finished products “shrink wrapped” if you will that much more value could be attributed to the community than is being credited currently.

Open Publish is a prime example of a project whose purpose is to create a finished operational Drupal Environment for Content Creaters to distribute their wares en mass. The documentation of the Open Publish model is capable and they do offer trainings which could lead to the solution that Media Bridges is looking for but on its own as a documented finished product , again , it is the documentation that is lacking in terms of implementing their polished solution.

It would seem that the documentation for the Drupal Community should be written by English Literature Students. An English literature student would be ideal for writing documentation for the Drupal Community because they would be able to break down all of the steps necessary for implementing the modules that have been created by the drupal community with the greatest common denominator in mind in terms of determining what needs to be documented in order to transfer understanding from one individual to another. Drupal as a community understands itself but it is not creating a community for itself it is creating a community for the creators of content.

I see so much effort going into the creation of a functional engineering product that can be made to marvel at by other engineers, however what I do not see is a content management system that can be utilized by the people that the platform is intended for the most … the artists and other creators of content. I get a sense that the Drupal community is comprised of artists that spend a lot of time developing answers to the question … “What if?” What if Drupal did this? What if Drupal did that? What if Drupal is capable of this? It is capable of everything that has been asked of it but the Drupal community does not seem to be truly catering to the people that they claim to be catering to because there are few finished documented products that are “shrink wrapped” and ready for dissemination to a public that can create content but cannot create software.

It is technically a young community and there is basically no oversight … so what has been created is a stunning achievement … however what strides are going to be made for Drupal 8 , Drupal 15 and Drupal 29? At what point will the Drupal community have created a product that has been refined and shrinkwrapped to the point that an organization such as Media Bridges can go online and download and install a profile developed by the Drupal community and review refined documentation as to the functionality of the Drupal software and be ready to begin uploading content either dynamic or static shortly after downloading the software from hyperspace?

The documentation is the weak point that I see online and it might make sense for the Drupal community to create partnerships with writing organizations and to begin the process of further explaining what their product is capable of and what their creations are meant for. I would like to see a situation arise where Media Bridges can approach this project in the future and bring in another English Literature Student who are savy online and have them downloading and installing exactly what is needed by Media Bridges in a week. That is not the case now and that is unfortunate and yet with this need created the likelyhood of this solution manifesting itself is increased.

The Drupal community exists to serve the needs of the content creators and as such their goal in developing their software should involve user testing which at the current moment does not seem to happen. There is no user testing … there are computer scientists and engineers creating capabilities with no shrinkwrapping involved. This can only happen with user testing. There is no component of the Drupal community that serves as an arm that asks people what they need or want … there are only engineers developing solutions to What If situations and maybe now that the Drupal community is maturing, user testing can occur and could be documented and implemented.

I have learned that the Drupal Interface is stated as being much more simple than it truly is. I speak from the vantage point of a trained digital designer who spent time developing interface designs and in my opinion the Drupal Interface could use some simplifying. The goal of what Media Bridges is trying to do should be the solicitation of an interface that streamlines the process of uploading content to the web as simply as possible with as little distraction as possible. That is not the case now and Media Bridges truly needs a concept enabled where for a Hyper Local Journalism Site that has a backend interface that allows for content to be emailed to the website and then uploaded, it needs a space for Twitter Feeds and video and photography and that is all that can be uploaded to the site. There is no solution in the Drupal Community that satisfies me to the extent that it has been made as simple as possible.

I believe that the Drupal Community in what I have experienced exists as a function of engineering and not a function of content distribution and management. There are some lovely Drupal websites that have been created from what I have seen but the creation of these websites all exist outside the range of abilities of this single Drupal researcher. I understand that the Open Source Project is an ongoing and collaborative project however it would also seem that there is no final solution in mind. There is no predetermined goal in mind. There is a lack of focus and direction and if there wasn’t a lack of focus I believe there would be far less modules and far more polished functionality and explicit documentation as to how exactly one should go about building a Drupal website.

I know that creating a project such as Drupal is a convergence point between the world of computer science and the world of content creation and the more important of these communities is the content creation community because that is what all of the work going into Drupal has been for, the dissemination of content. I would like to see Media Bridges incorporate itself into this Drupal Community as a space that allows for documention of Drupal to be possible. What are the most polished and useful modules and how can excrutiatingly accurate documention be created for the content creators so that the Drupal Community can aid in the act of creating a platform that makes creating content dissemination points accessible and truly simplistic.

The Drupal Community has also taught me that I am truly illiterate. I function in a world where there is a language being spoken and written that completely obfuscates me. I know how it feels to be illiterate because when I try and learn and speak the language of Drupal and PHP and the code that is used to create the Drupal platform , I find myself stymied and ignorant. I can read the English and accomplish what has been described to me but I have no foundation for making assumptions into the Drupal CMS. If I am not told how to use it I will not know how to use it. I am not well versed enough in computers to be able to guess or figure it out without being shown and as there is a lack of proper documentation that speak to me I feel as though I am struggling every day to make even the most basic functionality occur on the Drupal website.

I am not being asked to develop a basic Drupal Website though. I am not being asked to create a blog. I am being asked to create a multi user dynamically updated website that is easily utilized by a Community Media Organization. That requires a level of technical ability that I am working to aspire to however the creation of a Drupal website is difficult for a Drupal Developer and I am following in their footsteps because the Drupal Developers know what is possible and it would seem that there is a module capable of achieving any desired effect within the Drupal CMS however on my end as a Drupal developer the lack of documention makes it difficult to establish the kind of web presene with Drupal that is being asked of my tenure here at Media Bridges.

This is where my online research has aided me as my natural tendency is to do what it takes to develop a solution to the project that media bridges has aspired to create. I have been in contact with Red Hawk Technologies and Centogram as well as a small company whose work is to implement the exact solutions that Media Bridges is asking for. I believe that I have done the very best work that I can do up to this point and that part of that work was identifying those that would be capable of implanting the solution that Media Bridges is asking for. I believe that I have spent time through my research identifying the people that can finish this project on a proper timeline.

The majority of my time here at Media Bridges has been spent searching for a solution to this project and I would like to see this project culminate in a finished product so that I can spend my time disseminating information about how to go about utilizing the website and promoting its content. I believe that this is where I would be most beneficial to media bridges as an instructor of how to use the tool that was built upon the Drupal Content Management System. Once a tool is in place and finished , I can learn how to use it and teach others how to use it and that is the long term goal of the project anyways, the creation of a sustainable source of information for the Cincinnati Community. I believe that this would be a great achievement for Media Bridges and the Cincinnati community as a whole because I believe that I could be of great service helping to document the Cincinnati experience as a writer.

I believe that I have also learned through my time spent reading that the Drupal community is building a tool and they are taking stabs into the dark and hoping that people will use their system but I believe that it is clients like Media Bridges and the Community Television Community that are truly pushing Drupal to its most useful fruition. When the engineering community is left to itself it creates small useful tools but as is my usual stereotype for scientist type people … they lack social imagination. A scientist is capable of defining a fact but is incapable of defining how that new fact fits into a larger social framework. This to me is where a client like Media Bridge can help direct the progress of the Drupal community. We have a whiteboard that details what we want and there is a community that can make our project complete but how do we interact with that community in such a way so that our vision for their tool is realized?

1. Ubuntu and the Open Source Community

The first project that I started working on here at Media Bridges was the Open Source Software solution. I successfully after many attempts of installing software and trying different systems implemented the Ubuntu Operating System onto an affordable donated computer. I was very excited by this achievement because it allowed me to see firsthand that the Open Source Software community can create a very sustainable and beautiful product.

I believe that I learned that Media Bridges can add value to their community by creating the Ubuntu boxes and giving people access to media creation software and a virus free computing environment that is enjoyable and intuitive. I have learned that Media Bridges can provide a valuable service in the form of providing people with a free alternative to the typical operating system equation that people feel comprises the only solution they have access to.

What I thought was most interesting about the Ubuntu operating system is the ability to upgrade itself from within itself. The One Studio on Ubuntu allows for a user to upgrade their computer to be able to interact with information in every facet possible. If you need an email client, a word processor, a three dimensional modeling piece of software, video editing software, or recording software you can accomplish all of those tasks through the open source software that was developed for the Linux environment. This is very promising to me and to witness firsthand the achievements of the open source community is exciting because the software is only going to become more sophisticated and the hardware is only going to become more capable and this is wonderful for an organization such as Media Bridges that is now placed in a position where it can be a dissemination point for all of this powerful software and a source of knowledge for this community that finds itself in Cincinnati.

This new service that Media Bridges can provide however would require a new strategy for dissemination and would require new training for the public to interact with this service. Media Bridges could very easily provide a service that allows people to bring in their buggy older machines and then have them upgraded to bug free media creation stations which in turn would benefit Media Bridges because this would enable more people to edit more content and bring back more footage to be aired on the Media Bridges channel. I believe the term would be recursive that would describe the situation that would be created by disseminating media creation machines from a public television station.

The amount of literature that could be created to accompany the Ubuntu Machines created at media bridges would be interesting as Media Bridges could identify the exact pieces of software that it would stand behind and then documentation could be created to help people understand how to use the software at their home. There would be a large amount of work created for Media Bridges at this point because we would serve the purpose of downloading and researching all of the latest developments in the Open Source environment and then we would serve as a node to disseminate this information to the local populace. Media Bridges would be the physical manifestation of the Open Source community in Cincinnati.

Media Bridges in my estimation could also serve as an advocate for the Open Source community here in Cincinnati by approaching local businesses and schools and sharing with them the bottom line savings that can come from the implementation of the Ubuntu Operating system into their work flows. It would seem that Media Bridges could be a powerful advocate for the Open Source community and could help establish a network of open source machines over time here in Cincinnati while partnering with the Cincinnati Computer Cooperative. These two organizations in conjunction could with effort be powerful co-productive allies in the Cincinnati Community and dovetail their interests. For every computer that was redirected to the Open Source environment here in Cincinnati would be another computer and user that would be a part of strengthening the Open Source community as a whole.

It would also make sense that through this initiative Media Bridges could use its educational channel to disseminate the information that would be necessary on a regular basis to inform people as to the capabilities of their newly found open source computers. Through the leveraging of the television channels that media bridges has they could be disseminating hardware , software, and information about how to best take advantage of the hardware and software that was disseminated. This would be a service that the City of Cincinnati could afford because through this initiative finances would be saved across the board for every participating organization in this initiative and as a valuable asset to the community this would create a new need for the media bridges services as an agent of financial streamlining within the city.

I have learned that Cincinnati is interested in closing the doors of media bridges as an entity within the city however with the current projects that Media Bridges is working on a great disservice would be done to the city of Cincinnati if this was the case because the profits that the city would reap from implanting open source solutions from media bridges and the information that could be disseminated through the education channel would not be able to be take advantage of and in the long term value in Cincinnati would be lost through the loss of their public media station. Cincinnati is more valuable with a public access station than without it and through the implementation of the idea o serving the community through an open source framework it becomes necessary to continue providing services as a media entity and the leadership of Cincinnati could be called into question if this point is not realized.

Ubuntu serves as a catalyst for media creation here in Cincinnati and through the Media Bridges infrastructure that is already in place with the radio station and the television station it would seem that at the very moment when community media could be most transformative and essential to the function as a city , the city is finding a reason to close the operations of Media Bridges. This is not truly acceptable as just because the liquid assets of the city are in flux which could be due to a number of mitigating factors that the devaluing of the city is called into question as a result of these liquid asset issues.

Ubuntu dissemination could be the kind of service that if presented to the city would in and of itself provide enough value to the city to provide for a reason to keep our doors open and to yes compete with the fire department and the police department who would themselves benefit from transitioning to open source software solutions and who might even benefit from several ubuntu workstations delivered to their organizations for the purposes of making their lives easier and more efficient.

Media Bridges provides an extremely valuable service to its community and through the open source culture that is being explored here a new service could be provided that would enable Media Bridges to continue operations through the 2020’s.

1. Communicating on behalf of an organizational initiative through the online community …

Another valuable lesson that I have learned her at media bridges that has received dramatic approval from the open source community as a media outlet for information that would benefit the open source community that would again be a recursive value generating agent within the city. From my earlier discussions and conversations with the ubuntu community in their chatrooms and their email listings I have identified a niche for media bridges that it currently does not cater to. The Open Source Community is that community. In light of the creation of youtube and vimeo and archive.org and the entire open source software environment and the social dependence that has been created in an environment where the computer is the center of all information creation , to have a place like Media Bridges where the potential of this information can be realized it makes sense for Media Bridges to partner with the open source community which would in turn allow the open source community to partner with media bridges and would give media bridges a voice in the creation of new custom pieces of software for a community of programmers that might be in need of the inspiration and direction that a place where their software is used and promoted could create.

The environment that Media Bridges facilitates right now consists of producers of television and radio content but with a new partnership with the open source community that I have been exploring media bridges could with more effort also be a place for the drupal community and the various nodes of computational conversation to have a home to discuss and create new software for the open source community. Right now there are drupal Meetup Groups that meet at the Cincinnati public library and coffee shops around the city and if Media bridges could reach out to these communities and provide a home for them and a place to store and create experiments it would seem that more value could be attributed to Media Bridges and the community that it facilitates.

I have been in conversations with the open source community from Sweden, denver, and various communities here in the tri state and the interest is there for a space that would cater to this community of developers that is in search of a home. Media Bridges should be that home and we should have more conversation regarding the dissemination of pertinent information to all things computational and content creation.

Media Bridges is in the process of recreating itself and its services and there is a community of people currently not being served that could be being served through a reinvention of the services that Media Bridges provides, an expansion if you will. Media Bridges in my estimation could be a nexus point for conversation that alludes to all things open source and in that value would be derived as our value would stem from the value that we provide others. Through the offering of Ubuntu Services to the education sector, the commercial sector, and the creative sector a dramatic lowering of community operating costs could be achieved which would in turn be the case that media bridges could make for its value and importance to a metropolis that is searching for budget alleviating initiatives. If we could provide a metropolitan envaluing service then we can make a powerful case for ourselves in light of budgetary concerns regarding the police department and the fire department as media bridges operates in all non emergency situations and provides a source of culture when civilization is thriving and that is valuable. The fire department is valuable when there is a fire and the police department is valuable when there is a conflict but media bridges is valuable when there are no fires and no emergencies.

Media Bridges as an entity is powerful and interesting and useful and with the incorporation of the open source community this truth could be made even more apparent as people could be watching television and learning about open source software that would make their lives easier and coming to the media bridges station itself and engaging in discussion between the producers of content and the producers of the tools that create the content.

The open source community is very excited by the possibility of having this outlet for their services and their creations and media bridges would benefit and the city of Cincinnati would benefit from these services being provided. I currently see zero production on television that caters to the development world of the internet and the culture that creates the culture that is the internet and media bridges as a point of exploration into this world would be in a wonderful new creative space to explore the possibilities that would be derived from the inspiration that such an initiative would provide.

Media Bridges can provide what no other commercial entity can provide and that is intrinsic value to its surrounding community. Where Media Bridges is a non profit can be leveraged as highly valuable because all of the service that media bridges provides is worth more than the investment that the city is providing for media bridges. The fact that Big Wil has produced ten albums here at Media Bridges is an example of the type of value that media bridge provides, the content that James Alexander has produced is an example of the value that media bridges provides, the content that Angela has begun to create on the radio station is valuable to the city of Cincinnati. There is culture that occurs as a direct result of the existence of media bridges and if these services are retraced the city of Cincinnati will lose some of its most valuable character as people are utilizing the services of Media Bridges and are creating value in Cincinnati.

As a media entity the city of Cincinnati should be looking at media bridges for all of the involvement that it provides for the patrons of this establishment. Which organization in Cincinnati would be there to serve as the dissemination point for open source culture if no media bridges? Who would provide a hyper local media dissemination point if not for media bridges? Who would provide a place to explore ones potential if not for media bridges?

There is a definitive lack of media outlets for Cincinnati arts and entertainment in Cincinnati and what I have learned is that without media bridges there would be zero chance for people to explore the possibility of engaging with the media and for a city that deals with the flight of the creative class by pulling back a powerful option for the creative class Cincinnati would be devaluing itself and from my discussions online and with friends it could very well be that Cincinnati would be missing out on a very valuable opportunity to enmesh the world of the internet with the world of the local mainstream.

This idea has already been explored and has been found to be valuable as a venue for the open source community and as such we should advocate for the opportunity to explore the possibilities that the convergence between the open source culture and the media dissemination would provide.

nicholas@mediabridges.org