We have a few sites made with Drupal, and we saw that in the past there was basic courses in Drupal. Do you do these throughout the year? We made out sites, originally, but we need to refresh our skills and we have a new person.
At the moment there aren't any formal trainings planned. However the User Group typically meets on the last Tuesday of the month, Nov & Dec are an exception. We will probably meet the 1st or 2nd week of Dec. The user group is a great chance to come and ask questions. You can find details for the meetups at http://www.meetup.com/Greater-Kansas-City-Drupal-User-Group/.
We have discussed doing more training sessions, pop into a meetup and let us know what intetests you!
Since there are no short term training sessions planned, I think we are going to look for having our website work augmented with an outside contractor. We can do much of the basic work, as we have our website already, but improvement is needed. I know we can put items out for bid to the "world", but our preference is to keep it local, as long as we can find someone competent and reasonable here in the KC area.
How would I go about finding local independent contractors from the group or else where that may fit our needs?
I would get a competent Drupal Dev who can help you and work with you until you understand your system enough to take over. There are numerous in the area that can help, myself included. This way you get your immediate needs addressed and set yourself up with the knowledge to be successful on your own.
I would second the idea of bringing in a mentor over a traditional contractor. If your goal is to ultimately manage the site in house, it would be very beneficial to have hands on from the get go. A mentor can guide you, giving just in time guidance as it is needed, allowing you to actually build the site and learn from the process. It might take a little longer, but the end result will have you trained at the end.
There are several members that offer mentoring, myself included as well. Additionally bringing in someone from the group would bring in resources from the larger grou, as several of us already pull from each others talents on projects already.
Visiting on of the Meet Ups would be a good way to introduce yourself and your project to the group.
Posted by KarlKedrovsky on November 8, 2013 at 3:49pm
Your post here will likely be enough to get you in touch with a few good Drupal freelance developers that are local to the area. There are quite a few freelancers in the group (Scott/HaloFX and Dennis/iLLin being two of them) so you should be able to find someone with the skill set you need. If you don't hear from anyone in the next few days feel free to contact me directly and I'll see if I can help get you connected with the right people.
Thank you for your comments and ideas. We would like to pursue a local mentor freelancer to help with the project. It is correct our goal is to manage this in house. I may also involve a local high school student in the team as part of their education curriculum to get real life work experience, which I think would be very rewarding for them and us. We are very small company 4-5 of us, so the decisions and the content should be easy to accomplish.
We currently have 2 Drupal websites, that have been up and running for a number of years. We did them ourselves. But, both are in dire need of updating and a make over. We will start with the simpler site, to train us for the larger one.
I am not sure on the next step to decide on a contract/freelancer/trainer/mentor .... basically we have a job, we need to describe it, set the goals, and then choose the person that can best accomplish it, with an agreed to price/hour for this work.
Now, this is where I am stuck, as I am new to this forum…the next step to begin the process to choose. I have 2-3 people that have responded with interest, so I would imagine we take this out of this forum onto email, and share information.
Karl, what advice can you provide on the next step? How do I get their emails?
Anyone that has contacted you through this thread (Dennis/Karl/myself) should have a contact form on our profiles. I believe I already sent you my contact info through the form on your profile.
Comments
Upcoming Training
New to the group. Hello!!
We have a few sites made with Drupal, and we saw that in the past there was basic courses in Drupal. Do you do these throughout the year? We made out sites, originally, but we need to refresh our skills and we have a new person.
Thanks Much
At the moment there aren't
At the moment there aren't any formal trainings planned. However the User Group typically meets on the last Tuesday of the month, Nov & Dec are an exception. We will probably meet the 1st or 2nd week of Dec. The user group is a great chance to come and ask questions. You can find details for the meetups at http://www.meetup.com/Greater-Kansas-City-Drupal-User-Group/.
We have discussed doing more training sessions, pop into a meetup and let us know what intetests you!
Local Contracting Opportunity
Hello,
Since there are no short term training sessions planned, I think we are going to look for having our website work augmented with an outside contractor. We can do much of the basic work, as we have our website already, but improvement is needed. I know we can put items out for bid to the "world", but our preference is to keep it local, as long as we can find someone competent and reasonable here in the KC area.
How would I go about finding local independent contractors from the group or else where that may fit our needs?
I would get a competent
I would get a competent Drupal Dev who can help you and work with you until you understand your system enough to take over. There are numerous in the area that can help, myself included. This way you get your immediate needs addressed and set yourself up with the knowledge to be successful on your own.
Mentoring
I would second the idea of bringing in a mentor over a traditional contractor. If your goal is to ultimately manage the site in house, it would be very beneficial to have hands on from the get go. A mentor can guide you, giving just in time guidance as it is needed, allowing you to actually build the site and learn from the process. It might take a little longer, but the end result will have you trained at the end.
There are several members that offer mentoring, myself included as well. Additionally bringing in someone from the group would bring in resources from the larger grou, as several of us already pull from each others talents on projects already.
Visiting on of the Meet Ups would be a good way to introduce yourself and your project to the group.
-Scott
Local Drupal Contractor
Your post here will likely be enough to get you in touch with a few good Drupal freelance developers that are local to the area. There are quite a few freelancers in the group (Scott/HaloFX and Dennis/iLLin being two of them) so you should be able to find someone with the skill set you need. If you don't hear from anyone in the next few days feel free to contact me directly and I'll see if I can help get you connected with the right people.
Next Step
Karl and all.
Thank you for your comments and ideas. We would like to pursue a local mentor freelancer to help with the project. It is correct our goal is to manage this in house. I may also involve a local high school student in the team as part of their education curriculum to get real life work experience, which I think would be very rewarding for them and us. We are very small company 4-5 of us, so the decisions and the content should be easy to accomplish.
We currently have 2 Drupal websites, that have been up and running for a number of years. We did them ourselves. But, both are in dire need of updating and a make over. We will start with the simpler site, to train us for the larger one.
I am not sure on the next step to decide on a contract/freelancer/trainer/mentor .... basically we have a job, we need to describe it, set the goals, and then choose the person that can best accomplish it, with an agreed to price/hour for this work.
Now, this is where I am stuck, as I am new to this forum…the next step to begin the process to choose. I have 2-3 people that have responded with interest, so I would imagine we take this out of this forum onto email, and share information.
Karl, what advice can you provide on the next step? How do I get their emails?
Anyone that has contacted you
Anyone that has contacted you through this thread (Dennis/Karl/myself) should have a contact form on our profiles. I believe I already sent you my contact info through the form on your profile.