Drupalcon Boston 2008 - drupal

FastCompany.com

cfuller12 — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 16:06:38 +0000

Achieve Internet is proud to have been an integral part of the development process for the new FastCompany.com business community site. We provided custom Drupal software development and project management leadership to deliver a world-class union of award winning journalism and online community. The site incorporates a professional grade content management system and editorial workflow controls, along with a full suite of cutting edge Web 2.0 applications.

The Achieve development team, in conjunction with Lullabot, created customized user registration and profiling ability. More than just allowing community members to build profiles, we extended the ability of Drupal to facilitate members’ ability to search for common interests, keep track of all their contributed content along with interacting with contributions of other users and editorial staff. With this expanded capability, FastCompany.com offers business professionals a unique opportunity to collaborate with other business people and professional content creators in building a next generation business community.

Another piece of custom functionality provided by Achieve was to extend the Drupal RSS capability in unique ways. Community members of FastCompany.com have the ability to send their own submitted content out onto the web as an RSS feed, they can also integrate various off-site feeds and ‘browse’ stories, blogs and editorial content from the entire FastCompany.com site. This customized evolution of Drupal RSS capability is unique to the FastCompany.com experience.

The new FastCompany.com website, which was built by Achieve Internet, Lullabot, Advomatic and Tree House Interactive, expands the tool kit of today’s business professional, by giving them a variety of powerful Web 2.0 applications. These collaborative tools allow them to leverage the best of interactive media and provide access to a larger global audience.

The Witness Video HUB

zoeyk — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 02:03:16 +0000

The WITNESS Video Hub is a participatory website where anyone, anywhere can upload human rights related media that can be used to create change. The site features web-based video upload via cell phone and other mobile devices, content distribution, tools for online community building and advocacy, and Google maps integration with a custom-designed full-screen mode and switcher.

From a technical perspective, the WITNESS project required covering new ground in both Drupal and in third-party integration. Working with the team at WITNESS, CivicActions built a robust and full featured video upload, conversion (transcoding), and playback suite for the Drupal content management system, called Media Mover. With Media Mover at its core, the site enables users to upload and categorize video with a comprehensive vocabulary including both geography and issues. This system of organization allows users to find, watch and share relevant videos, and then join groups and campaigns around the world using the Organic Groups module.

Comprised of an information architect, a designer, a project manager, engineers, and themers, the CivicActions team has worked in close collaboration with Witness–from an initial strategy phase to beta launch and ongoing iterative releases. With its rich toolset, the WITNESS Video Hub feeds the populist shift toward user-generated content and increases the reach and impact of organizations doing human rights advocacy.

Amnesty International

zoeyk — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 23:48:34 +0000

Amnesty International is a worldwide movement of people who campaign for internationally recognized human rights for all. The organization has more than 2.2 million members and subscribers in more than 150 countries and regions and coordinates this support to act for justice on a wide range of issues. Amnesty International’s Project IMPACT involved a complete replacement of the organization’s website and CRM system, as well as the completion of a global brand strategy and the replacement of a vast document management system of over 50,000 reports.

For the IMPACT project, CivicActions worked with Amnesty International to create a Drupal interface that synchs with the newly adopted al Fresco document management system, multi-level publishing and translation workflows, a custom CiviCRM implementation, and a theme that maintains Level 2 accessibility in the four core languages of the site (English, Spanish, French and Arabic).

CivicActions completed this work in 6 month-long sprints, and continues to work with Amnesty to improve and enhance the features of the site. The site provides the Amnesty International Secretariat with a new set of tools, an open source CMS, and most importantly, a scalable and community-supported foundation to build upon into the future.