Business Business related information http://addingunderstanding.com/taxonomy/term/1/atom/feed 2008-07-02T14:56:27-06:00 The magical hour, Acquia launches Acquia Drupal and Acquia Network http://addingunderstanding.com/2008/09/magical-hour-acquia-launches-acquia-drupal-and-acquia-network 2008-09-29T23:00:00-06:00 2008-09-29T22:43:27-06:00 joshb Like many in the community my first exposure to Acquia came back in the first part of the year. It was an exciting time for the Drupal community and what we learned at Drupalcon in Boston suggested many great things to come. At the time I was running an independent Drupal development shop. The news that an organization like Acquia was going to come to the Drupal ecosystem was great news. Some had early concerns that Acquia might compete in the site development space. These fears turned out to be ill-founded and the entry of Acquia into the marketspace a great boon for small shops like ours. Now the future held the promise that we could continue to work on the development we were doing and help customers build great sites, while having a solid organization we could hand off day-to-day support on the back end.

Over the summer my excitement about Acquia grew. First talking to Robert Douglass and Chuck D'Antonio about the partner program Acquia was putting together was very encouraging. The model sounded like it would very much help our business and grow the opportunities for all kinds of great shops doing awesome things with Drupal. Beyond a solid model as the various meetings about the partner program progressed it became obvious that not only was the model good but that feedback was being incorporated and the offering tuned in response to input from those participating in the discussion.

As the days of summer grew hotter and longer I was fortunate to participate in the alpha and then beta testing of Acquia Drupal, then code-named Carbon and the Acquia Network which was once "Spokes". These early sessions indicated Acquia had great things going on. And then as summer vacations everywhere were drawing to a close an opportunity to join the great team at Acquia came along. So for the last month I've been making the transition from partner to employee. It has been an invigorating experience being a part of the launch of Acquia Drupal and the Acquia Network. Without a doubt there is plenty left to do but the first release of Acquia Drupal is out the door and the Acquia Network is live.

So what does all this mean?

]]> Like many in the community my first exposure to Acquia came back in the first part of the year. It was an exciting time for the Drupal community and what we learned at Drupalcon in Boston suggested many great things to come. At the time I was running an independent Drupal development shop. The news that an organization like Acquia was going to come to the Drupal ecosystem was great news. Some had early concerns that Acquia might compete in the site development space. These fears turned out to be ill-founded and the entry of Acquia into the marketspace a great boon for small shops like ours. Now the future held the promise that we could continue to work on the development we were doing and help customers build great sites, while having a solid organization we could hand off day-to-day support on the back end.

Over the summer my excitement about Acquia grew. First talking to Robert Douglass and Chuck D'Antonio about the partner program Acquia was putting together was very encouraging. The model sounded like it would very much help our business and grow the opportunities for all kinds of great shops doing awesome things with Drupal. Beyond a solid model as the various meetings about the partner program progressed it became obvious that not only was the model good but that feedback was being incorporated and the offering tuned in response to input from those participating in the discussion.

As the days of summer grew hotter and longer I was fortunate to participate in the alpha and then beta testing of Acquia Drupal, then code-named Carbon and the Acquia Network which was once "Spokes". These early sessions indicated Acquia had great things going on. And then as summer vacations everywhere were drawing to a close an opportunity to join the great team at Acquia came along. So for the last month I've been making the transition from partner to employee. It has been an invigorating experience being a part of the launch of Acquia Drupal and the Acquia Network. Without a doubt there is plenty left to do but the first release of Acquia Drupal is out the door and the Acquia Network is live.

So what does all this mean?

At this very moment you can go to Acquia's website and do any of the following:

  • Download the totally free Acquia Drupal 1.0 release - Complete with a great new theme developed by the folks at Top Notch Themes this distribution represents a combination of Drupal 6.4 and key contributed modules all wrapped up together with the documentation on how to get it all up and running.
  • The opportunity to review and comment on our product and service offering roadmaps.
  • An opportunity to purchase a subscription to the Acquia Network. A little birdie has hinted that prices for the Acquia network start at free if you get one between now and the end of the year.
  • The ability to review all the levels of support offerings for Acquia Network.
  • Oh yeah and last but not least, simply because it's Drupal which means it's fun, cool and just worth checking out

And while if you're reading this you're already using an Acquia Drupal website there are sites from places like Adobe's Flex site, JackBe community and Chris Bell for Senate that are already using Acquia Drupal. Over the next few days you'll see many more talking about their experiences I'm sure.

One last point I want to highlight is that while all of the work to get Acquia Drupal and Acquia Network ready has been going on, the folks at our company haven't stopped contributing to the Drupal project and community. I for one have been slower in responding to my issue queues of late because things have been a little busy, but this is more a short term ebb having to do with my personal schedule being crazy rather than a long-term change.

]]> From bizarre to absurd http://addingunderstanding.com/2008/08/bizarre-absurd 2008-08-06T20:04:50-06:00 2008-08-06T20:15:19-06:00 joshb I wrote recently about the terrible G-Technology customer service experience with my G-Drive Mini Triple. After getting it off my mind I figured it would be the last I'd write on the subject. However tonight I'm convinced that there must be a time-sync or time-warp on the thing to go along with the impressive heat sync.

Picking up where the story left off I'd since sent two separate email inquiries about the status of the case. One, two and then three days passed with nary a response. In fact I still haven't gotten a response. I did, however, get a new drive so consider the issue resolved. And then tonight the event leading me to believe there is a hole in the fabric of time around this drive. I received an email from the store that sold the drive telling me my drive shipped today. At least the FedEx number was correct and correctly showed the drive arrived over a month ago.

So I'm cautiously loading the drive with some data. Hopefully it's not gone for good this time.

]]> I wrote recently about the terrible G-Technology customer service experience with my G-Drive Mini Triple. After getting it off my mind I figured it would be the last I'd write on the subject. However tonight I'm convinced that there must be a time-sync or time-warp on the thing to go along with the impressive heat sync.

Picking up where the story left off I'd since sent two separate email inquiries about the status of the case. One, two and then three days passed with nary a response. In fact I still haven't gotten a response. I did, however, get a new drive so consider the issue resolved. And then tonight the event leading me to believe there is a hole in the fabric of time around this drive. I received an email from the store that sold the drive telling me my drive shipped today. At least the FedEx number was correct and correctly showed the drive arrived over a month ago.

So I'm cautiously loading the drive with some data. Hopefully it's not gone for good this time.

]]> Kickin' with the Kickstand http://addingunderstanding.com/2008/07/kickin-kickstand 2008-07-10T21:33:20-06:00 2008-07-14T09:44:24-06:00 joshb Went to my first meeting with Kickstand tonight. A great Boise area group of business owners and innovators. I only managed to meet a handful of the folks in the room but every one of them was quite interesting. The depth and breadth of work going on in Boise is simply fantastic.

Here are the websites of some of the folks I met:

It was a great time to talk to several folks about the power and elegance of Drupal as a tool for building websites. I know it's hard to believe that I would spend the evening talking about Drupal. Thanks to Tech Boise for the Kickstand suggestion.

]]> Went to my first meeting with Kickstand tonight. A great Boise area group of business owners and innovators. I only managed to meet a handful of the folks in the room but every one of them was quite interesting. The depth and breadth of work going on in Boise is simply fantastic.

Here are the websites of some of the folks I met:

It was a great time to talk to several folks about the power and elegance of Drupal as a tool for building websites. I know it's hard to believe that I would spend the evening talking about Drupal. Thanks to Tech Boise for the Kickstand suggestion.

]]> How business should work http://addingunderstanding.com/2008/07/how-business-should-work 2008-07-02T14:54:51-06:00 2008-07-02T14:56:27-06:00 joshb A brief note about how companies should do business. While on a call this afternoon my UPS shipment arrived. A couple of cable/remote releases for the Nikon were to be inside. Unfortunately when I opened the box only one of the two items were inside. Checking the manifest it showed both should have been there. "Oh great," I said dreading the afternoon of phone calls that was about to come. Would they send an inspector to the house for this ten-dollar item, I wondered? How many hours would it take. I punched the numbers in and dreaded what would become of my day. Here's what happened then:

Amazon call center: Can I get your email or order ID?
Me: Sure... and gave her my email address.
Amazon call center: How may I help you today?
Me: Well I just got my box that was to have two items but it has just one was in the box.
Amazon call center: I'm sorry about that which item was missing?
Me: It was the wireless remote the ML-L3. I even took the box apart to make sure.
Amazon call center: OK. I can do two things I can either refund the item or send you a replacement.
Me: I'd like a replacement.

Now at this point I'm pretty happy but still a little sad. I'd ordered the remote in time to have it for the fireworks this Friday and now knew that wasn't going to happen. Would I have to wait for a new one to be manufactured and then shipped via snail?

]]> A brief note about how companies should do business. While on a call this afternoon my UPS shipment arrived. A couple of cable/remote releases for the Nikon were to be inside. Unfortunately when I opened the box only one of the two items were inside. Checking the manifest it showed both should have been there. "Oh great," I said dreading the afternoon of phone calls that was about to come. Would they send an inspector to the house for this ten-dollar item, I wondered? How many hours would it take. I punched the numbers in and dreaded what would become of my day. Here's what happened then:

Amazon call center: Can I get your email or order ID?
Me: Sure... and gave her my email address.
Amazon call center: How may I help you today?
Me: Well I just got my box that was to have two items but it has just one was in the box.
Amazon call center: I'm sorry about that which item was missing?
Me: It was the wireless remote the ML-L3. I even took the box apart to make sure.
Amazon call center: OK. I can do two things I can either refund the item or send you a replacement.
Me: I'd like a replacement.

Now at this point I'm pretty happy but still a little sad. I'd ordered the remote in time to have it for the fireworks this Friday and now knew that wasn't going to happen. Would I have to wait for a new one to be manufactured and then shipped via snail?

Amazon call center: OK. I'm going to get that shipped to you today and I'm going to upgrade the shipping to the next level.... one moment... This will ship today and will be next-day shipping. Let me send you the email now.

Sure enough within moments my email box had this message:

Thank you for contacting us at Amazon.com. I'm sorry for the problem you experienced with this shipment.

I've placed a new order for the item at no charge. Here are the details of the new order:
[...]

In all the many times I've ordered from Amazon I've had two orders that went awry. One previous time it was a gift that didn't arrive. In both cases, however, the customer service has just been first rate. With customer service like this and soaring gas prices it makes more and more sense to use some good shops like this.

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