Check out the new website for Main Stage West, a theater in Sebastopol CA, where “Good things come in small packages…” This is the website we worked on as part of the WIMPgives event I mentioned couple of weeks ago. The team included Nate Bauer, who designed the site, using some of the ideas and preferences of Keith Baker, MSW’s Managing Artistic Director, aka the “client” and Erin Casteel, who built the site based on the new design and the existing content of the previous incarnation of the site. Meanwhile as a project manager and content strategist I worked with Keith

• going through the content and structure of the site
• creating and optimizing MSW’s social media channels
• performing a mini-on-page SEO and educating the client about it.

In case you are interested in some technical aspects of the site: it has custom post and page types, rotating slider of upcoming shows on the home page, random picture for the background of the home page.

I enjoyed the experience: we were working hard, barely stopping for food (which was generously provided by sponsors) or professional massage (which my colleagues really appreciated), but at the same time had lots of fun as we the goal of the day became closer and closer. At the end of the day all the volunteers and clients gathered for showing off the sites we’ve built to each other and to vote on the best ones. We grabbed the third position. This is not bad, considering while the site was fully functional by then, we didn’t make it live as a few more final touches were missing. Those were done the following week.

I got a lot out of the day; e.g.

• worked with cool and professional people I didn’t know before
• learned about the aspects of WordPress I wanted to
• the good feeling that I helped a worthy non-profit in need
• publicity as my name is mentioned on the event’s site
• free food :-)
• tickets to the theater

I am looking forward seeing the pictures and videos that were shot and to participating in similar events in the future.

I will be spending a day this weekend on building a website for a local non-profit organization. The event was organized by a local group called, Web & Interactive Media Professionals, or WIMP for short. I am not yet a member of the group, but I follow and sometimes contribute to their discussions on Facebook. Here is the official description of the event titled WIMP Gives:

WIMP Gives is an event produced by Sonoma County’s most reputable group of Internet Industry professionals. It offers opportunities to WIMP members to join a team of fellow website building pros and partners them with local non-profits with a mission of building them a new website from the ground up in just one day. It also hopes to shed some light on some up and coming or lesser known non-profits in the area in order to give them a leg up and increase their reach and visibility online.

The meetup description is less dry:

WIMPgives is a FREE and PUBLIC charity hackathon, fundraiser, and workforce development event. Teams of professional volunteers will build websites for nonprofits in a single day of food, drink, and live music.

I found it a pretty exciting concept. Usually creating a website takes a couple of weeks or sometimes months as the client and the web professionals go through several iteration of planning, working out the design, finalizing the content, approving features and so on… Now we will do this all in one day.

OK, that’s not entirely accurate. We had a meeting last weekend, where

• The project teams were created, based on the number of volunteers and their skills. I will act as a project manager and content strategist working together with a designer and a developer.
• Each team got their NGO to work with via pulling out their name from a hollow R2-D2 toy. I am not sure I am allowed to share the name of the one I will work on, so I don’t. Hopefully after the job is done.
• Listened to a few words about WIMP and how the idea of the event was born.
• Listened to a presentation, aimed at the web people, on how to work within this framework of one day.
• Listened to a presentation, aimed at the people from the NGOs, on how the process works and how to prepare for it.

By the time this weekend comes we also should have a suggested sitemap for the site, so the day would go smoother. Thanks to the sponsors we will all be fed throughout the day.

I am looking forward to this event, particularly that, accidently, the NGO whose site I will work on is not too far from my own interests. The event is open to the public after noon, so come on down to Rohnert Park and check it out.

A full time, Drupal and WordPress related position in the Johnson County Library (Kansas) opened up:

Web Content Developer

The Web Content Developer has primary responsibility for writing, creating, re-packaging and managing content for the Library’s website; coordinating social networking and related on-line community collaborations; and analyzing library and community information needs to plan for short and long-term site development. The position reports to the Web Content Manager and works with three other Web Content Developers plus a Web Designer as well as other library colleagues, patrons and community partners to provide access to ideas, information, experiences and materials that support and enrich people’s lives.

 Preferred qualifications include: Experience with usability studies and user-centered design practices; working with Drupal and WordPress.

Read full posting at jocolibrary.org (via groups.drupal.org)

I signed up for Drupal Camp Stanford University 2013, to be held April 5-6, 2013, but probably will not make it. I did in 2011 and didn’t in 2012. Here are some of the sessions that I suspect I would benefit from if I could be there this year.

Beginner level:

• Elegant Content Sharing: R.I.P. Feeds, Hello Large-Scale Content Syndication! I have been using Feeds module, but not too extensively. It would be good to know how  to do something even better)
• Twig, and the new theme layer in Drupal 8 - Drupal 8 is coming this summer and I hven’t played with it yet. the sooner I start the easier it will be then.
• Writing Better CSS with Sass & Compass - My CSS skills are developing, meanwhile, the industry moves towards more complex and granular ways of handling styles.

Intermediate level:

• Planning for Drupal Performance - The more planning happens upfront the better the site and the process to get to it will be.
• The Future of Views - Views module is in the core of Drupal 8. What does it mean and how this will help me?
• Twitter Bootstrap + Panopoly = Thememagix/Codescience - I keep planning to play with Bootstrap as I’ve heard so much of it. Now with Drupal?

There will be two “Drupal in Libraries” sessions at the European Library Automation Group‘s annual conference, held in Ghent, Belgium Between May 28 and 31, 2013. The official description reads:

The first session is about introductions: we would like to see 3-4 15 minutes presentations (focusing on available library-centric Drupal modules), and some 5 minutes “lighting talks” (focusing implementations – show cases of library related Drupal sites). The second meeting is about discussing the possibilities of future cooperation between developers and implementors. What are those task our modules can work together? What are the “terra incognitas” which are not covered by modules?

I read about it at groups.drupal.org, where there are a few more explanatory sentences.

Alachua County Library District has a posting for a digital services manager for a content-rich Drupal website.

The eBranch Manager supervises two digital services librarians. Team is responsible for website user experience and content, ILS user experience, patron support for eBooks and other digital services, staff training and programs.

This position is responsible for the administration and efficient daily operation of the Alachua County Library District’s eBranch. Responsibilities include managing all patron interfacing online services including the online catalog, digital content, social media, and electronic resources and providing staff and patron training for eBranch services. Experience using and administering library digital services, Drupal content management system, Polaris integrated library system, image editing and screencasting software and the understanding of technical trends relevant to public libraries is desirable.

Full job description

From the preface of “Search Quality Rating Guidelines“ that Google just released:

Google relies on raters, working in countries and languages around the world, to help us measure the quality of our search results, ranking, and search experience. These raters perform a variety of different kinds of “rating tasks”  designed to give us information about the quality of different kinds of results in response to different kinds of queries.

The rest of the 43 page long, 713 kb, PDF document breaks down the various guidelines and criteria that the raters have to use. It is useful to read through if you want to provide content that Google and its raters woudl mark as high quality.

Google posted an interactive visualization, dare I say infographics, on how its search works: How Search Works 

I remember when I learned this very same topic 6 years ago in Library school. It was fascinating, but compared to that this page didn’t give me new information. What it did provide was nice visuals, that makes it more digestible for the anybody not just grad students like I was back then.

I particularly enjoyed this trivia at the very bottom of the page:

By the way, in the 226 seconds you’ve been on this page, approximately
8,719,080 searches were performed.

Search Engine Journal pulled together a basic SEO article for WordPress sites. I was familiar with most of what they recommended, but still found four tools that were new to me:

• Better WordPress Minify: Allows you to minify your CSS and JS files for faster page loading for visitors.
• Schema Creator by Raven: Provides an easy to use form to embed properly constructed schema.org microdata into a WordPress post or page. (Great for reviewing movies and books if you want the SERP to have your rich data in the snippet.)
• Better Internal Link Search: Improves the default internal link searching feature in a number of ways, making it faster and easier to find the content you want to link to.
• Allow HTML in Category Descriptions: Allows you to use unfiltered HTML in your category descriptions by disabling selected WordPress filters. (Yes, you should let yout tags and cateories be indexed and have good content in them too.)

I am giving these a spin right now.

Chris Silver Smith‘s comprehensive column on Is Social Media Worthwhile For Local Businesses? at Search Engine Land runs down the dis/advantages on why you should (not) get involved in social media if you have a local shop or business. Here is a brief summary of his article:

Pros

• Facebook and Google is where the people (potential customers) are.
• Google refers (potential) customers to your site
• Indirect benefits
  • SEO ranking may improve due to increased social signals
  • Proactive Online Reputation Management (ORM)
  • Just making yourself available on those platforms

Cons

• Social media users may not intend to purchase
• Referral traffic from social media may be low
• Content you put on your Facebook page may be owned by them. Better to spend time/energy on your own web presence

Bottom line/conclusion:

Just because you may not see direct or immediate benefits fresh out-of-the-box when you begin using social media does not mean that you are not getting some benefit. Over time, the slow accrual of SEO benefit alone may make it a necessity for you, while proactive reputation management and consumer engagement may also be compelling reasons to be present and active.

My 2 cents you cannot afford not to be where your customers are. You have to be present on the major social media platform. the trick is to organize and manage it effectively so you would not waste your time and resources on it.