I. Introduction
This is a summary document of all the useful tips and tricks learned from my week at Drupalcon Boston 2008. This Drupalcon is my first exposure to Drupal, so treat it as a beginners guide for new Drupalers looks to start their own Drupal business. There is a lot of valuable information for everyone else as well in this document. Note that I primarily attended the Marketing/Business and Site Building sessions, and I did not focus on the Community/Core, Design/User Experience, or "Birds of a Feather" round table discussions.
II. Table of Contents
I. Introduction
II. Table of Contents
III. Marketing and Business Track - How to improve your Drupal Business
i. What is Drupal?
ii. How to stay informed on all things Drupal
iii. How can I learn more about drupal?
iv. What skills do I need to a be a Drupal...site builder? themer?
v. Gathering Business Requirements
vi. Meeting Client Expectations
vii. Open Source Basics
viii. Where to Buy Drupal Services?
IV. Site Building Tips (to be included in the future post)
V. Marketing Tricks (to be included in the future post)
III. Marketing and Business Track
- How to Improve your Drupal Business
i. What is Drupal?
a. A download and install product
b. A content management system
c. A web application framework
d. All of the above
It is the future of the web:
Web 1.0 = web content management
Web 2.0 = web 1.0 + user management + infinite extensibility
Web 3.0 = web 2.0 + infinite interoperability
= web 2.0 + data portability + web service API's
= the semantic web (no coding required)
Drupal's principles:
http://drupal.org/principles
What do people think Drupal is?*
68% Product
32% Web Application Framework
What type of people use Drupal?*
44% Enterprise site builders
32% Web application framework developers
24% Small/medium business site builders
*Source of section i.: Dries Buytaert's Boston Drupalcon 2008 keynote
ii. How to stay informed on all things Drupal
a. Drupal groups
http://groups.drupal.org/
b. RSS feeds of "drupal" tagged items on Slashdot
http://slashdot.org/faq/tags.shtml#tags100
-Please refer me to a site that explains how to search for Drupal tagged items.
c. Blogs on drupal planet
http://drupal.org/planet
d. Finding Modules
aa. Monitor CVS commits
http://drupal.org/cvs
bb. RSS feeds of project notes
iii. How can I learn more about Drupal?
a. Book - Pro Drupal Development by John Van Dyke
b. Conferences
aa. Web Directions North
bb. Web Visions
cc. South by Southwest
Note: See wikipedia for more details one what each conference focuses on.
c. Podcasts
aa. Great general entrepeneurial podcast:
Stanford University Entrepreneurial Thought Seminar
http://edcorner.stanford.edu/podcasts.html
iv. What skills do I need to be a Drupal
a. Site Builder?
-keep up to date with modules and Drupal development
-understand client requirements
-no programming skills required
-LAMP/WAMP for deployment
b. Themer?
-HTML
-CSS
-graphic design
-some PHP
*Source for section iv.: Drupal for fun and profit: making a career out of Open Source by Khalid Baheyeldin
v. Gathering Business Requirements
This section explains the process of gathering business requirements and mapping them those requirements to Drupal modules.
a. Gap Fit
Don't let your Phase 2 become a "feature parking lot".
Use Excel spreadsheets vs. expensive Axure software?
Ex. Excel spreadsheet Gap Fit Tracking
Feature Module Notes Phase One?
Forum Advance forum, core Yes
Wiki Books, Diff
Gallery Image field, lightbox, views Yes
c. Data Description
Type of content
Sitemap
Field level data outline
This becomes a model for your CCK and Views configuration.
d. Iteration
-In the build out of the website, plan two times in the development cycle for the client to see and use the website in it's currrent state. Plan one towards the beginning of the cycle, and one towards the middle/end. This allows the client to see progress and provide more input to direct to the way they want.
-The first iteration can be a static site, or a simple un-themed Drupal site based on the clients orginal Requirements document.
e. User Stories
These are very important for advertising and attracting new customers. These demonstrate your company's experience.
f. Wire Frames
Create mock-ups of what you imagine your website to look like. As you create these, you gain a better understanding of functionality you want in your site.
Not all shops recommend using wire frames; shops with more experienced designers don't always use these.
g. Ticketing
Essential to use an internal ticketing system to tracking issues/bugs
simple ex. - Google docs
adv ex. - Drupal CaseTracker module, Unfuddle, High Rise (good as it has dated to-do's), Base Camp (no dated to-do's)
Document drupal issue on the drupal.org issue queue site.
http://drupal.org/project/issues/drupal
h. Finding Modules
aa. Monitor CVS commits
http://drupal.org/cvs
bb. RSS feeds of project notes
cc. Blogs on Drupal planet
http://drupal.org/planet
i. Approving Modules
Expose clients to the cost of adding an additional module to a project.
Factor in cost of theming the new module page.
Make clients aware of the popularity of Drupal, and ongoing development of Drupal. Drupal's page rank is 9. (3/7/08)
*Source of section v.: Mapping business requirements to Drupal modules: a gap-fit process by Boris Mann
vi. Meeting Client Expectations
a. Tips
When building a Drupal site for clients, develop two themes for them from two different designers. This allows the client to compare the product against something other than every site out in the internet. You help manage the clients expectations.
Wire frames are not necessary for sites with simplier design specifications.
Only 5% of one web design firm's clients (Acro Media) include wire frames with their business requirements. As a client, you may potentially reduce design costs if you do come prepared with wire frames of what the functionality of your site will look like.
Make sure to identify all of your menu items. Adding new menu items late in the development process can increase development costs.
Don't upgrade a clients site to the next version unless there is a need because of the costs associated with an upgrade. Ex. New functionality, or there is no longer security support for your current version.
b. Examples of work
Provide examples of previous work to clients as proof of your quality of service.
c. Quality assurance
Find bugs before the client does! It affects your clients confidence in your product. If they find multiple bugs, the client may then start actively looks for bugs, slowing down your design schedule.
d. Support and Training
aa. Create a standard list of included modules for any site.
bb. Create a client training document, or even better a wiki with screenshots.
cc. Create a demo site. To impress clients, in the first meeting as you review their initial business requirements create the demo site then and there. Let the client play with the demo site. This is great advertising for your company.
e. Warrenties
Two tier support model:
Standard 9-5 business hours support, no guaranteed response time.
Premium 24/7 support, guaranteed response time.
vii. Open Source Basics
What isn't open source?
aa. Public domain, non-commercial
bb. Proprietary
cc. A CAL (Commercial Access License)
Open source is everywhere
It runs 70% of mail servers, 65% of web servers, and 90% of DNS servers.
Open source is easy to release (no legal concerns).
Open source is fast
Faster updates, bug fixes, and more responsive than proprietary software
*Source of secion vi.: Google and Open Source (Open Source is Magic) talk by Chris DiBona
viii. Where to buy Drupal services?
a. Drupal consulting groups site
http://groups.drupal.org/consulting
b. Acquia - Founder Dries Buytaert's company which provides commericially supported Drupal service and development.
"Acquia want to be to Drupal what Red Hat has been to Linux." -Wikipedia on Dries Buytaert
http://acquia.com/
c. Open source marketing consulting - Sandro Groganz
http://www.initmarketing.com/, http://boston2008.drupalcon.org/session/marketing-open-source-software
Extras -- Steps to Finding a Good Web Developer (by Gabbers511)
The following lists the steps of what I did to get a good web development firm to create my project.
1. Identify sites where you'll be posting your project for bidding. The sites I used were Guru.com and Elance.com. You can also post on drupal.org in their forum thread labeled "Paid Drupal Services."
2. Provide a summary description of what your envisioned website will be and your overall project budget. Post it on the project bidding sites. State that you want bidding firms to provide an estimated timeline, cost, and approach to building the site. Firms that see your post will start bidding on your project.
3. If your site is very simple, then skip this step and go to step 4. If your site is very sophisticated and you have detailed wireframes/mock-ups and requirements of what you want your site to look like, then continue to read on. The wireframes and requirements that you wrote are a collection of your ideas, intellectual capital, and other proprietary content. It is recommended, but not required, that you have a detailed confidentiality agreement (aka nondisclosure agreement, or NDA) available for bidders to sign.
3a. Take a look at the firms that had bid on your project so far and research their portfolio. Most firms usually give you a list of sites related to the one you want to build to showcase their expertise. Keep tabs on all the firms that have impressive portfolios.
3b. For all the firms that have good portfolios, email/message the firm and tell them the following: (1) you were impressed by their portfolio, (2) you have detailed documentation for your project and you want a more accurate bid, timeline, and approach (3) you're willing to share the documentation provided that they first sign an NDA. Having them sign an NDA ensures that your ideas are protected and that the bidding firms can't steal your ideas -- whether or not you award them the contract.
3c. Once the firms send back your signed NDA, send them your detailed wireframes and requirements so that they can analyze everything and give you the final bid and timeline. The turnaround time for response is usually 1-3 days depending on how sophisticated your requirements are. You can give them a deadline if you are in a hurry. You should start a spreadsheet to track all the firms you're interested in. Some important things to track include: (1) did they sign the NDA, (2) final bid, (3) overall timeline, (4) short description of approach, (5) portfolio rating 1-10, (6) comments.
4. Evaluate your options and choose the best firm to help build your site. Inform the winning firm that you will be awarding them your contract. Send a message/email to all the other firms to let them know that they were not chosen but you'd like to keep in touch for future project opportunities (it's always best to know that you have options in the future).
5. The chosen firm will provide you a copy of a project plan with deliverable deadlines and a payment schedule.
6. Congratulations! You now have a web development firm who will create your vision! Keep close tabs as the project progresses and provide feedback when necessary. Good luck!