Tagged with 'chicago'

It is rare for a day to go by that we don’t receive some kind of inquiry about Drupal. In fact, in response to the inquiries, our lead Drupal developer, Doug Vann, published a Drupal-related blog post just last week. In his post he addressed the question, “What’s All the Buzz About Drupal”

So we’ve decided to offer a hands-on Drupal Training Workshop to dig a little deeper into the question of why Drupal is getting a lot of buzz.  Let me emphasize right away that this workshop is aimed at website administrators and marketers who are NOT deeply technical. Web developers who are technical but want to also understand the business case for using Drupal would also find this workshop useful. I took a very similar course from Doug over the summer and found it to be a great way to orient myself to Drupal. And this course has the advantage of also being hands-on.

We think that some of the likely candidates for this workshop include people who are in the following situations:

Leverage Social Media
Drupal is social publishing software.  Chances are you are encountering challenges integrating social media with your present content management software. You can find out if Drupal might take you closer to where you want to be.

Micro Sites
We know that a complete corporate website overhaul may not be in the cards for you today, but you may have some business initiatives you want to pursue online.  When budget and timeline are significant constraints, Drupal may offer an implementable solution. Our client, the Lake County Forest Preserve District just launched a simple Drupal microsite on a very short leash. Not only was the outcome successful, but they have a Drupal site in which they might explore capabilities in anticipation of some future re-development of the District’s main website.

Dated, Proprietary or Non-existent Content Management System
Perhaps you are still managing your website using either page-based content management systems like Adobe’s Contribute or just making changes in the HTML website code. The Drupal CMS might provide a relatively easy evolution of your website to something considerably more powerful and requiring fewer technical skills to manage.

I suspect I haven’t captured the scenario of everyone who might be interested in migrating their website to Drupal. For an investment of your morning on October 13, 2009 and $40, you can assess your website problem against this solution. It could be a very efficient way to gain clarity on your requirements as well as evaluate this particular option.

If you are interested in one of the 18 seats available, you can register here.

Last night, the Chicago Chapter of the Legal Marketing Association held their annual “Your Honor Awards” recognition dinner. Like every event the Chicago LMA Chapter conducts, this event, held at Scoozi in Chicago, was top flight. Megan McKeon of McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff LLP made organizing the well-produced awards presentations and dinner appear effortless. And the Wall Street Journal footed the bill for this private party whose bar never closed. I was there to confirm it.

Chicago LMA Awards Judges' Innovation Award to Valorem Law website

What really made the evening special for us was the recognition of our client, Valorem Law.  Valorem, a one-year-old firm, is comprised of expatriates (yes, I once spelled this ex-patriots) of BigLaw.  These thought leaders long ago recognized the sea change occurring in the legal industry and founded their firm on the premise of, among other innovative factors, the “billable hour is dead.”

Recognizing the firm’s innovative culture and business proposition, the LMA honored Valorem’s website with the Judges’ Innovation Award, unique recognition issued at the discretion of LMA. Innovation. It’s great to hear that term in the legal market. While we are thrilled to share in some of the glow cast by Valorem’s achievement, more importantly, this Innovation Award illuminates how lawyers who have worked hard to understand the Internet leveraged it in pursuit of their business.

The Valorem Law website has also been recognized by the Web Marketing Association with a 2008 Legal Standard of Excellence WebAward.

We felt aftershocks in the office at around 10:15 this morning. The search term “chicago earthquake” is “spicy hot” right now according to Google Trends. Search activity peaked about 6 hours ago … what’s interesting (and note that the timescale is P.S.T. and we are in C.S.T.) is that search activity picks up immediately after the earthquake occurred. I experienced an earthquake in 1988 while living in upstate NY and we had to wait an hour, glued to the radio, to learn whether or not I was hallucinating. I’m not sure how quickly official news of the quake was posted, but many turned to Google for information as soon as the event occurred.

Surfing around I found this great USGS user contributed data earthquake experience map. If you felt the quake post your experience.