Advantage Labs - The Art and Science of Online Progress

Cultivating sustainability

bmadore — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 10:52:06 -0500

In an effort to save the world with Drupal while also making a living, we've spent the last 7 years refining a model for working with clients that is sustainable for both them and us. Our principal strategy is simple enough:

Establish a long-term relationship with our clients ensuring that "set and forget" is not an option.
Collaborate with them to leverage their strengths and resources so they are freed up to do what they do best.

As this noble concept has proven to be more of a challenge than we anticipated, I'd like to share a few lessons we've learned along the way. In this post I'll talk about lesson number one: the importance and practice of a goals-based process.

Easy content specific payments using the Payment API

bmadore — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 16:42:26 -0600

Collecting and tracking donations on your Drupal site is powerful and easy. In our recent screencast, we demonstrated how to create a simple donation form using a recipe of contributed modules. A powerful extension of this concept is allowing visitors to make payments directly related to the content they are viewing.

"Learning can be quite thrilling"

bmadore — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 09:15:00 -0600

"When a website is truly a mission-based communication tool for a person or organization, that person really needs to understand how to use it effectively. That's something we would never have gotten if we had just hired someone to make our site."

New releases of Payment API and Donate modules

bmadore — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 14:33:53 -0500

Since getting great feedback about the Payment API module at Drupalcon Copenhagen, we have been busy working on improvements. With mega thanks going out to Nate Haug (quicksketch) for his contributions, Advantage Labs is happy to introduce new alpha releases of the Payment API and Donate modules.

Payment API

Announcing Labor Hub: creating a online labor presence together

bmadore — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 15:51:23 -0500

Advantage Labs is proud to introduce Labor Hub, a new Drupal-powered solution designed for labor based organizations. For the past 18 months, we have been building a suite of Drupal tools that help labor unions and union causes build an online presence. We wanted to build websites that are easy to use, attractive, and cut to the chase with information that points visitors to what matters most.

Free Introduction to Drupal workshop

bmadore — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 15:21:00 -0500

I had a great time attending the Introduction to Drupal training yesterday at Advantage labs! Not only was it a great starter on how to get into Drupal, the group was diverse on CMS experience, careers, gender and race!
Adria Richards, But You're a Girl blog post

Drupal is a powerful tool that can provide functionality for your site that was beyond reach just a few years ago. Going from downloading Drupal from Drupal.org to having the site of your dreams can be a daunting process, however, unless you are familiar with some key concepts and development strategies.

The Pay Module – Paying for Stuff in Drupal

willince — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 17:30:37 -0500

Sometimes you need a simple way to receive payments from your Drupal site without the complexity of a shopping cart. The Pay module provides the necessary mechanism for online payment handling in Drupal. Pay allows you to add a payment form to your site -- or to a specific piece of content on your site -- and enables a single-click payment transaction. No cart, no check-out necessary.

Shouldering the heavy-lifting of transactions, the Pay module:

It was insane, but we met the deadline

bmadore — Tue, 18 May 2010 13:12:00 -0500

"When I first started at Tiger Oak, I thought I would be fired because there was no way I could get those sites built in that timeframe using the process and platforms I was familiar with."

We met Sandy Powell at a meeting of the Twin Cities Drupal Users Group when she approached us with what seemed an impossible task. She'd recently been hired by Tiger Oak Publications, a regional and national publisher of books, magazines and media. They publish over 25 different magazines and employ over 100 people.

Sandy's task? Starting with a meetings and events site divided into 10 separate regions, rework Tiger Oaks' 22 existing websites to increase brand consistency and extend reader interactivity with social networking features. The timeframe for delivering that first meetings and events site? 3 months.

Drupalcon SF: Redefining Training as Learning

bmadore — Mon, 03 May 2010 10:51:00 -0500

One of the more exhilarating and valuable Drupalcon San Francisco experiences for me was participating in a self-organized BoF (birds of a feather) session convened around the topic of Learning Drupal.

Extending the value of user group sessions

bmadore — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 10:52:32 -0500

At Advantage Labs, we host a variety of participatory Drupal learning opportunities. Our weekly Lab Hours sessions have become particularly popular and effective at creating a community skill-sharing environment.