Growing Venture Solutions - GVS - colorado

Fun and Games at Denver Drupal Meetup

matt — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 20:32:57 +0000

Yesterday was the Denver Drupal User Group Meetup. In the holiday spirit, we decided to do something a bit different - DrupalGames. It all started with a conversation in our local IRC channel, #drupal-colorado. After some discussions about possible rules and game play, we decided on taking some inspiration from the Food Network's Chopped TV show.

The evening started the same as always, with beer and pizza provided by Aten Design Group. We had attendees introduce themselves by name and drupal.org user id. We took this information to create the teams - spreading out the veterans and those who joined drupal.org last week equally. We ended up with 5 teams each with 4-5 team members.

Drupal-games rules

Each team was assigned three random modules from a hand-selected list of about 20.
Teams were then given a little over an hour to find a creative way of combining those modules into a functioning site.
You are allowed to download any additional modules, but the three selected modules must be the focal point of the site.

At the end of the hour, teams presented their creations to the group. Most teams ended up writing a few lines of custom code. It was really quite amazing to see how each team combined the three modules creatively.

The creations

Our list of modules to randomly select from was: Date, Fivestar, Vote up/down, Organic Groups, Location, Thickbox, Flag, Views Calc, Views slideshow, User points, Embedded Media Field, Draggable Views, Rules, Feeds, Colorpicker, Workflow, Taxonomy Image, Imagecache actions, and Twitter.

The first team was assigned Location, Vote Up/Down and Rules and created a Black Friday location and deals site which plotted user-contributed deals on to a google map.

The second team was assigned Views Calc, Workflow, and Twitter made a fake company, GreasyBird, which allowed employees to submit expenses and tweets the total amount approved by the company.

The third team was assigned Draggable Views, Fivestar, and Workflow and created a site for rating the quality of a Drupal site by using draggableviews to submit fivestar votes.

The fourth team was assigned Imagecache Actions, Vote Up/Down, and Colorpicker. Their site allowed users to upload images and select a color. The image was then displayed on the site framed and matted with the color selected. Users then vote on images to select the most popular.

The fifth team was assigned Colorpicker, Flag, and Userpoints. They created a site which allowed users to create color pallets which were then flagged by users as being "cool". Actions on the site, such as leaving comments, creating pallets, and voting gave users points.

Possible improvements

There's obviously some things that we could have done better. An hour is not quite enough time. I think a 1.5 - 2 hours would be ideal for site building, but that leaves little time for show and tell, and makes for a long meetup. However, the trade off is a bit more time to build and a little less rush. There's even a discussion thread to make this a weekend activity.

Also, make sure the modules you preselect have working releases! The second team had difficulty configuring the twitter module given the time constraints; however, they did create a custom theme and an awesome logo!

Beneficial for all skill levels

A game of this sort was beneficial for everybody that attended the meetup. Those who were completely new had the opportunity to see the real power of Drupal's modularity. The veterans had a chance to teach along the way, and I think everybody had a lot of fun. We ended the evening, as usual, at a bar for more beer and grub.

The Colorado Drupal community meets in Denver, Boulder, Colorado Springs, and Grand Junction - each once a month. Be sure to check out our g.d.o page for upcoming events: http://groups.drupal.org/denver-boulder-colorado-user-group-dbug. See you at the next meetup!

KIPP Colorado - Encouraging Community Involvement

evelyn — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 21:59:05 +0000

KIPP - the Knowledge is Power Program - is a network of free open-enrollment college preparatory public schools in under-resourced communities throughout the United States. KIPP Colorado opened its first Colorado school – Sunshine Peak Academy in 2002, and it’s second, KIPP Denver Collegiate High School, in August 2009. With the addition of a second school and plans for more in the future, KIPP Colorado needed a new website to help further its mission, with an objective of increasing support from the community in terms of volunteers and donations.

First, the theme

With a beautiful new design in hand from Bainbridge Studios, KIPP needed a Drupal shop to bring it to life. The site design consisted of a unique homepage layout, and a one and two-column sub-page layout. We started by creating the Drupal theme as a sub-theme of Zen. One of the more time-consuming aspects of theming this design was the implementation of graphic elements for the menus, including different colors for the rollovers:

We used the nice menus module for the drop-downs, and the menu class module to facilitate theming each menu parent individually.

Image links vs. text links

As is sometimes the case, design does not always serve functionality. When the site was themed and ready for the KIPP administrators to start adding content, KIPP realized that they needed to have control over the menu names, and that having to make new graphics for the menu text was not going to be feasible. We removed the graphics and styled the text as best we could, with the following results:

We also added a "Home" link above the logo and a search box on the top right, two items that were not in the design comp but were desirable features once the client was able to finally get their hands on a live version of their site.

By removing the image links, KIPP was able to rearrange their menu and sub-menu to create and better position their "Support Us" section.

Simple slide show

Another nice feature of the site is the home page slide show. This was set up so that KIPP can easily change the photos at any time by simply uploading and publishing new image content. Using some popular contributed modules and a jQuery plugin allowed us to resize uploaded images to the required dimensions, populate the page with them, and cycle through automatically. Specifically, this was built with Views, CCK, Imagefield, Filefield, Imagecache, and the jQuery Cycle plugin.

After the site launched, KIPP sent us this happy email:

"We are thrilled with the site and have already received several online donations as a result of the email that was sent announcing its launch! Thanks so much!"

Drupalcamp Colorado 2009 Videos - View of the Camp and People Present

Greg — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 16:13:38 +0000

The folks at SDRNews.com sent Kara Karsten to Drupalcamp Colorado to take video interviews with different folks at the event.

It's a lot of great footage and I hope you'll take the time to watch them.

History of Drupalcamp Colorado

Interview with Greg Knaddison about Growing Venture Solutions and the Camp

Ryan Szrama of Commerce Guys and Ubercart project

Commerce Guys and Ubercart

Chris Fassnacht of TopNotchThemes

TopNotchThemes is a GVS Support Client.

Drupalcamp Colorado Venue Tour

Denver/Boulder New Tech Meetup - August 2008

Greg — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 15:51:26 +0000

This was my second New Tech meetup (review of July meetup) and it was much better than last time, which is saying a lot because last time was pretty good. Perhaps that was because this was the 2 year anniversary, perhaps it was because all the demos were from TechStars, perhaps it was because I got there earlier so I could partake in the beverages and announcemens (like the wifi username/password).

Once again I'm keeping track of presentation software, browser, operating system, and this time I'm also keeping track of any software used to build their website and what their YSlow! rating is for their homepage.

EventVue Providing "community" Features to Conferences

Used Keynote and Firefox on mac osx. Blog: WordPress. YSlow: "C" (73).

EventVue participated in TechStars2008 and presented about a year ago at the NewTech Meetup. 2 weeks after they presented at the NewTech Meetup, they closed $250,000 in venture capital (they were very proud of this and challenged this year's crop to do the same).

In the past year, they've supported 28 conferences with their software (~2 conference signups per month). They signed up 9 new conferences in the last month.

The point is to make your time spent at the conference more valuable by helping you connect with conference attendees you already know or should know. They did a demo on the Defrag 2008 site where you can click on "who from my network is going" and also "invite people who aren't going" based on your LinkedIn network.

The cost is $4 per attendee. Personally, I would simply build the conference registration site with a richer application that already includes features like this or where it is easy to add features like this. However, their integration to 3rd party social networks is truly valuable (at least until we get things like OpenSocial out into the wild).

Ignighter - "group to group" dating.

Firefox on Mac with some sort of demo/reply software that was typing things in for them. Blog WordPress. YSlow: "F" (37 - and it shows - painfully slow!)

They feel that Match, eHarmony, etc. are a bit more targetted at "old" people. Group dating is safer, less awkward, more fun. Provided a relatively funny (though sexist) presentation.

Business Plan:
1. Get users dating
2. ?
3. Profit!

Serious revenue streams: Advertising, premiums memberships, venues. They started as a Facebook application, thinking of integration with other systems. Will soon provide a "Post your plans" feature. Since this is not an official "date" this feature will help reduce the pressure and awkwardness.

Occipital - Automated Photo Tagging/Organizing with Immersive Gallery Visualization

Powerpoint and IE on Vista. Blog: Wordpress. YSlow score (for blog): F (53).

This was the evening's only non-web presentation. They started with a history of photos culminating in the point that modern photographers take hundreds of photos and spend too much time organizing them. Occipital organizes photos for you using your vast computing resources.

The software starts by churning through your photos for a long time looking at the pixels in the photos for patterns. The real fun, though, is in an immersive photo gallery experience where you can alter your views of your photos. You can cluster photos by time - which is a great first step. Then, if your camera can geo-tag at least some of the photos, it can show them by geo-tag & time to plot the photos on the path where they were taken (this would be awesome for a hiking trip, skiing, or walking tour of a city).

Finds similar items between photos and automatically groups those photos together. So, every photo where you wore that one favorite shirt could get grouped together, or perhaps every photo of your mom. Based on geo-data and partial pixel matches on the edges of the photos it can also creates automatic panoramas of photos.

Frankly the demo was totally unbelievable. I loved this software and can't wait for it to be widely available.

To participate the pilot program send them an email @occipital.com

What about Photosynth? Photosynth takes thousands of photos of a public place and merges them. Occipital brings this and more to you individually.

PeoplsSoftwareCompany / WhozAround - Local to local, non dating.

PowerPoint / Firefox on Vista. Blog: Wordpress. YSlow: D (62).

Started with a 4 box matrix showing availability information (calendar) and awareness(?) (twitter, IM). Guess what? They're in the top right! It is not YASN (yet another social network). Instead they integrate with your existing social network/twitter to help match you up with people who are or will be near you and help you invite them to meet up and manage their invitations to you. Provides an iCal, e-mail, rss feed of your appointments or an integrated web page with a stream of potential invites.

It is local to local, but not dating specific meetings. Wanted to thank Techstars and Boulder who helped a Silicon Valley/Boston women get together and start a company. Also, their presentation included lolcats. Well done.

Foodzie Yet Another e-commerce Platform! (for artisan food producers)

Presented with Safari and Keynote on Mac. Blog: Wordpress. YSlow: C (72).

Bring food from artisan food producers -> you.
Not just e-commerce. Producer/Consumer community and filtering. Filters will provide for "foods within X miles" or "organic" etc. to help you find exactly what you need.

Gyminee Exercise/Nutrition tracking + social network

Keynote and Safari on Mac. Blog: WordPress. YSlow: B (84).

When I heard "Fitness Tracking + Social Networking" I initially thought that this was going to be bad. The recent trend of "anything" + social networking is a little too much to stomach. However...this was one of the more polished business ideas and more successful implementations of the night. Their site provides valuable exercise routines, goal monitoring, fitness tracking and advice, and the social networking is well integrated: you can create group challenges like your own private "Biggest Loser."

Currently have 35K registered users and 100K monthly visitors. Their revenue model is currently based on a direct to consumers "pro" subscription for enhanced features, but also weighing options for gym partnerships and ads.

No device integration for things like Nike running monitor, pedometers, gps monitors, but are considering it.

The Dao of the Drupal Community

Greg — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 19:07:25 +0000

Greg Knaddison

Growing Venture Solutions

July 2008

DrupalCamp Colorado

What confuses you?
What upsets you?
What don't you understand?

It's not just the code...

How do you pronounce Drupal?

DROO - puhll.

How do you pronounce Buytaert?

BUY - tart.

Diverse Communinity.
"Volunteers" (paid or hope to be paid)

Why are releases so fast/slow?

It's ready when it's ready.
(and you can help)

Do-ocracy
Why does chx decide so many things in Drupal?

Because chx decides so many things in Drupal.

Where do I find the roadmap?

There isn't one.
But, there are predictions (6.x and 7.x)
And personal battle plans (2007 and 2008)

Why are there major changes in every release that break the API?

The drop is always moving.

Why isn't feature X in core?

Core is small with APIs.

Where is the "Personals" module?

There is no personals module.

So Drupal is weak if it can't do that...

Well, views+cck+buddylist+privatemessage+
...
= Personals module

Think "features" not "type"

Be thankful.

Use a module? Thank a developer.
Submit a bug (nicely).
Test a patch.

Karma is our currency - can be bought.
Don't demand things (unless you have enough...).
Toot your own horn a little when you do help.

I found this bug. Why doesn't anyone care?

What to do when you find a bug
Getting a bug fixed sooner
How to write a good issue report

How can I get help with my problem?

http://drupal.org/support
Search first, ask smart questions.
Paid support

What are the new developments?

issues.
Mailing lists, Planet, forums, groups.drupal.org, IRC.

How come there's so many modules that do the same thing?

Do-ocracy + different goals = multiple modules
Desire for credit...
Incompatabilities at one point go away...

Code is gold.

DrupalCamp Colorado - Welcome!

Greg — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 06:52:26 +0000

Greg Knaddison

greggles

2008/03/05 9:00

DrupalCamp Colorado

Best DrupalCamp Colorado Ever!

The bathrooms...

Big thanks to Denver Open Media.

Big thanks to Aten Design Group.

Do-ocracy
Drupal(Camp) is what you make of it.

tag it: drupalcampcolorado

drupalcamp

(on monitor upstairs)

Lightning!

S5 Presentation Layer.
Simple Standards-Based Slide Show System
(no, it's not SSBSSS nor S2BS3)
(because Eric Meyer said so)

+ words = presentation!

Where are the slides?
Oh...they're already online in a shareable format.

Goodbye DrupalCamp Colorado 2008

Greg — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 21:15:33 +0000

Greg Knaddison

greggles

2008/03/05 13:30

DrupalCamp Colorado

Thanks Sponsors!
aten design group
CMS Website Services
Remy Corporation
New Media Denver
Monarch Digital
A Mountain Top
Denver Data Man
Integrated Alliances
Growing Venture Solutions

Thanks In Kind Sponsors
Denver Open Media
Active State
pingVision

Thanks Volunteers
* Paul Coughlin
* Kevin Reynen
* Brad Bowman
* Kevin Bridges
* Tony Shawcross
* Al Steffen
* Matthew Saunders
* John Fiala
* Brian Choc
* Don Hajicek
* Amy Tremper
* Laura Scott
* Brian Hiatt

Best DrupalCamp Colorado Ever!

* 4 (or 3?) times more people
* 6 times more sessions
* 100000 times more bofs
*

Favorite Moments?

Feedback
Input...number johnny 5 need input.

Stay involved...

State of Drupal Survey
http://groups.drupal.org/denverboulder-colorado-user-group-dbug

Help Next Year
Please.

Hive Live Podcast Transcript - Social Publishing for the Enterprise

Greg — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 21:18:10 +0000

This is a pseudo transcript I took of the Hivelive podcast from ColoradoStartups.com. When I read about HiveLive I was really curious because they are basically a hosted provider of a "social publishing platform" and it just so happens that I'm a developer who uses an Open Source "social publishing platform".

John Kembel's history:

design consulting firm (like ideo)
dodots - thin client browser/widgets before Dashboard was cool
hivelive: "enterprise social software"
- tap into power of social networks
- marketing communication vehicles
- amplify lead generation, insights, support
- flexible, cost effective, on demand, platform

2006 Founded Hivelive

Existing solutions are social software packages (blogs, wikis, forums)
They were either overly generic or inflexible
They didn't allow sharing
HiveLive is a unified platform - permissions and content richness "not just blogs/wikis/forums" for sharing

Existing Solutions vs. HiveLive

One common approach is to stitch together lots of technologies
People take a blogging platform, a separate wiki, a separate forum, social networking and try to build build unified package
The results are not good
So, don't staple together a bunch of solutions
HiveLive: Start with social networking, add on "hives" to share information

Why is social networking important to businesses?

humans are social
communities where socialization is part, but rather than being the focus, the business is the focus
tie business to customers - delivers lead generation, loyalty, insights, support all in one trust based relationship

HiveLive Competitors?

Hivelive is different in that they use building block rather than integrating point solutions
Configuration is via "clicking not coding"
Note: he basically dodged the question by not naming any competitors - in fact there are hundreds if not thousands

What about hosting?

It's completely on-demand

HiveLive's VC Funding:

Gruntech - east coast VC
The money is used for sales/marketing (launched at defrag)
Will also continue R&D in software

Who are the target users:

High tech - shared knowledge or practice around technology
Consumer brands with "depth" [i.e. Patagonia] where customers share values with company

The value proposition isn't all that strong, in my opinion. I think he ignores "social publishing" platforms like Drupal which not only enable a very similar feature set but do so in a way where you can have it hosted, or host it yourself, but most importantly there is no vendor lock-in and your data is always yours. I'd love to be able to see more about how the hives actually work, but the demos are kind of hard to get into.

In a review from November 2007 Anne Zelenka of GigaOm points out:

HiveLive claims to be “the first community platform to seamlessly integrate social networks with information networks” but they’ll compete in that space not only with Jive’s ClearSpace but also with Drupal, Ning, and even Microsoft (MSFT) Sharepoint. But Drupal requires coding for customization, Ning doesn’t offer the fine-grained permissions that HiveLive has, and Sharepoint will be mostly of interest to those with Microsoft-based infrastructures.

I'm not so sure about the "Drupal requires coding for customization part". Perhaps now that the GigaOm folks are using Drupal for OStatic they'll get more experience with it to know just how much you can do with so very little coding.

Growing Venture Solutions - GVS - colorado

Fun and Games at Denver Drupal Meetup

Drupal-games rules

The creations

Possible improvements

Beneficial for all skill levels

KIPP Colorado - Encouraging Community Involvement

First, the theme

Image links vs. text links

Simple slide show

Drupalcamp Colorado 2009 Videos - View of the Camp and People Present

History of Drupalcamp Colorado

Interview with Greg Knaddison about Growing Venture Solutions and the Camp

Ryan Szrama of Commerce Guys and Ubercart project

Chris Fassnacht of TopNotchThemes

Aaron Winborn of Advomatic Talking About Media in Drupal

Brad Bowman of Aten Design Group Talking About Drupalcamp Colorado

Jon Stacey, Google Summer of Code Student and Media Fan

Pat Nashleanas of Monarch Digital

Ben Finklea of Volacci

Mike Hostetler of A Mountain Top

Laura Scott of Ping Vision

Jono Shuster of Business Catapult

Drupalcamp Colorado Venue Tour

Denver/Boulder New Tech Meetup - August 2008

EventVue Providing "community" Features to Conferences

Ignighter - "group to group" dating.

Occipital - Automated Photo Tagging/Organizing with Immersive Gallery Visualization

PeoplsSoftwareCompany / WhozAround - Local to local, non dating.

Foodzie Yet Another e-commerce Platform! (for artisan food producers)

Gyminee Exercise/Nutrition tracking + social network

The Dao of the Drupal Community

Greg Knaddison

DrupalCamp Colorado - Welcome!

Greg Knaddison

Goodbye DrupalCamp Colorado 2008

Greg Knaddison

Hive Live Podcast Transcript - Social Publishing for the Enterprise

John Kembel's history:

2006 Founded Hivelive

Existing Solutions vs. HiveLive

Why is social networking important to businesses?

HiveLive Competitors?

What about hosting?

HiveLive's VC Funding:

Who are the target users: