Portfolio

OpenConcept has used a number of solutions for time tracking and project management over the years; Basecamp, along with a couple of iterations of a Drupal 5-based system based on the Worktracker module. OpenConcept has grown considerably in the last couple of years, and with additional staff, bigger projects, and the historical accumulation of information each system began verging on unworkable as we transitioned to the next.

Recognia provides technical analysis products (interpreted chart recognition) to large brokerage firms worldwide. They help the brokerage firms attract, retain and engage traders by providing actionable research tools. 

Recognia came to OpenConcept because they were trying to enhance their web presence with a new website that is more engaging to users, clearly defines the company mandate and product offerings and enables their internal team to take control of content entry.

T-Base Communications was looking to enhance their web presence by implementing a new design, by upgrading the accessibility of their website and by improving the simplicity and power that their CMS was able to provide.

They chose Drupal as their platform of choice because of its intuitive content management interface, its inherent built-in accessibility features and its growing popularity amongst organizations looking for a hands-on approach to the development of their website content. They decided to go with OpenConcept because of our expertise in Drupal as well as the area of accessibility. We were able to deliver a website that adhered to the WCAG 2.0 AA web content accessibility guidelines, as outlined by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The T-Base website successfully validates and can be checked using W3C's markup validation service.

I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the Ottawa Book Launch for Transforming Power, that was held at the Raw Sugar Cafe earlier today.  The cafe was definitely packed with people who came to both see Judy & celebrate Octopus Books' 40th Anniversary.  The venue was intimate and everyone was interested in hearing from Judy.  We have been doing the Website for Octopus Books now for probably 8 years (Krishna & I put up what was at the time a fairly complex site at that time) and also helped Judy Rebick put together her site over the past couple of months.

We took a leadership role in supporting Judy's site because we saw the potential for this project to mobilize the social justice movement in Canada.  When we (Krishna & I) first worked with Judy it was when we helped to launch rabble.ca back in 2001.  Rabble.ca has done a lot to help to focus left leaning media and discussion since that time and it was with rabble.ca that we were involved in our first advocacy campaign to build a petition to release Jaggi Shing. 

The goal of this project was the establishment of an online collaborative work and learning environment for a group of distributed learners in the Living Leadership, the Executive Leadership Program of the Canada School of Public Service.

The participants are executives from the public sector using the website to access information, documents and participant information. Each participant has a blog as well as a customized learning plan page maintained by the staff. The website is bilingual and features a calendar of events for the program. These elements were required to fulfill the Living Leadership Program’s blended learning needs.

This was a WordPress to Drupal 6 conversion for an organization focused on environmental challenges and solutions.

Using panels and aggregator modules, we created a system for filtering incoming news feeds to determine which ones are shown on the front page. Normally, aggregator feeds appear unfiltered, but this organization wanted to control what external links are visible on the website. A custom panel shows the incoming feeds with admin links for choosing which feeds show in the custom feed blocks.

We are pleased to announce that we were involved in launching Make Poverty History's latest campagin, "Tell the Prime Minister to make child poverty history". This is a fairly simple implementation of our Connect module to allow individuals to send a letter to Stephen Harper to talk about child poverty. 

We've continued to extend the flexibility of this module so that it can be used to server a great many advocacy campaigns within the same site.  Petitions, letters to targets, faxes, as well generating dynamic lists of targets based on postal code.  We want to allow campaigners to create innovative campaigns that attract the interest and support from those who participate.

We recently upgraded the OctopusBooks.ca website from Drupal 4 to 5. In the process, we decided to upgrade the eCommerce module to the new Ubercart 1.0 shopping cart.  There are many flexible product and shipping options available in Ubercart and the whole shopping process is more slick and simple.

New blocks were added to take showcase the in-house and aggregated content that had been added to the website but was not being highlighted.  The blocks ranging from 'News' to 'Reviews' were randomized to give the site a fresh look each visit.

The Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) is the national body for unions across this country and the largest democratic and popular organization in Canada with over three million members.   We support the website and web servers and have done so since 2005.  We set up both their recent Drupal site as well as the content management system that preceded it.  Both have had the requirements for online action campaigns and for dynamic bilingual content. The CLC has consolidated several of it's websites within Drupal.  Working with their in-house communications staff, we did not produce the designs for this site. Our server work has included support for their mailing lists and newsletters.