Until Drupalcon Denver (the annual Drupal convention), I still felt relatively new to Drupal (read: n00b).  Drupalcon featured sessions ranging from design, UI and layout to system administration and performance and scalability.  Many of the top Drupal contributors were in attendance, including module developers, core developers, and even the founder himself, Dries Buytaert.  This offered a great opportunity to learn more about the CMS we’ve been operating our website on for roughly a year now.

Since that time, we’ve seen great improvements in how quickly we can get new content and features up on the site.  Standard maintenance tasks common with our old site are now automated.  Different members of the ReadyTalk marketing team now own sections and can make updates without waiting for me to publish content for them.  This makes everyone happy!

So what did I gain from going to Drupalcon?  First, the knowledge that if I did it all over again I would go to Drupalcon before – not after – starting a Drupal project.  Drupalcon offers a great place to meet people who have been through it all – site developers from government entities to news organizations to corporations were all in attendance.  For instance, CU Boulder’s team gave a great presentation on their rollout, which due to the requirement of supporting years of legacy material from their schools made it many times more complex than our own.

Second, it was great to hear people say, ‘yeah, I’ve been through that.’  Finding out that I’m not the only PHP nerd in the world is comforting, much to the chagrin of some of our developers.

Third, I learned about some pretty advanced configurations and modules and got to see the future of Drupal 8.  The efficiency at which so many contributors can work together to make these things happen is mind-blowing, and the future looks bright.  It’s great to know that the next time we update our site, the next version of Drupal will be ready for us and will be awesome.  I also hope that we get to contribute back at some point.

In any case, now I’ve been there. I’m feeling much less like a Drupal n00b, and much more ready to tackle the world of nodes and entities.  We’d like to hear your experiences with Drupal.  After all, Drupal’s greatest asset is its community.  If you have any tips, headaches, or questions, please share!

Daniel has been managing ReadyTalk’s website since 2008 and helps make marketing collateral easy on the eye.  When he’s not hacking away at VIM or tweaking the website, he’s busy improving his Denver Victorian, making/enjoying good brew and offering expertise to local non-profits.

Today’s post is provided by Yun Oudaha,Quality Assurance Engineer.

Volunteering and philanthropy are major elements of ReadyTalk's culture. In this photo, a group of employees who recently volunteered at SAME Cafe.

One of the benefits that attracted me to ReadyTalk was the opportunity to volunteer in the community during work hours.  ReadyTalk gives each employee up to 20 hours of paid volunteer time per year.  It allows us to offer our time at places that are only open during business hours.  I recently volunteered at SAME Café, which is open for lunch Monday through Saturday.

I met the owners, Libby and Brad Birky, at a friend’s BBQ around the time when they had received funding to open a restaurant.  Their idea was that people could pay what they could, and if they had no money, they could help out in the restaurant.  I didn’t see Libby or Brad again until last year when Libby spoke at TEDxMileHigh.  Inspired by her talk, I thought it would be a great place to get a group of people from work to volunteer for the day.  Since then, we have had volunteers helping out at SAME Café on a few occasions, with five volunteers participating each day.

Most of our work is done in the kitchen: prepping the food, cooking, and washing dishes.   We wipe down tables and clean the floors at the end of the day.  They have a standard menu of salad, soup and pizza.  But this year, they were able to renovate their kitchen and hoping to expand their menu selection.

The people we are helping range from college students to the elderly, and from the unemployed to business people.  Usually, Brad or Libby greet people that come in and know many of them by name.  They want to build a community and part of this is getting to know the people who lunch there.  Some who visit need a good, healthy, home cooked meal that they may not be able to get because they don’t have the money.  Others come in and donate money to help out the cafe.

Kim and Cheri wash the spinach for the day's lunches.

Jess and Joel were busy grating cheese at SAME Cafe

I’m writing this post at 4:30 on a  Friday afternoon at ReadyTalk. The engineering team is winding down from a busy week. There are numerous activities going on and I can’t decide which one to join.

In deciding what to do, I carefully take into account where is the easiest place to go without being pegged by a million darts on the. Nerf wars are a very common occurrence late in the day in ReadyTalk Engineering, but on Fridays they seem to take on a life of their own.

So, I think to myself…The closest option would be the 2^nd Floor Great Room where there is an intense session of Rock Band going on. With a number of our engineers coming from a musical backgrounds, it is always a pretty impressive showing. Rock Band is also great practice for the Battle of Bands that is supposed to take place between our Sales  and Engineering.

My second option would be to stop off in Team Room A to get a first row seat for a secondary jam session that’s taking place. Several of our engineers have grown up perfecting the art of strumming the guitar…all they need now is a lead singer to join the group! Let me know if you are a viable candidate.

My 3^rd (and safest option), would be to stay right here at my desk and join in the Open Arena game that takes place every Friday. The only problem with this option is that I have no idea how to even start playing that game. All I know about it is there a lot of people and a lot of guns involved.

My 4th and final option would be to join a couple engineers on an afternoon jog. The only problem with this is that my idea of a jog is a light run/walk around the park and most of the engineers idea of a jog is  similar to a full sprint around several blocks.

Looking over my options I think I am going to grab a beer off the fresh keg that was just delivered from Wynkoop and get ready for my try out as the lead singer in Team Room A.

If you interested in trying out for the lead singer spot or any of our open engineering positions http://www.readytalk.com/about/careers-readytalk please e-mail me directly at Catherine.harrison@readytalk.com.

ReadyTalk and PR Newswire have long been mutual customers, benefitting from the various marketing opportunities that result from both platforms and business models. PR Newswire recently launched a self-service platform, iReach^TM, which enables users to easily create and distribute a press release for a low cost. ReadyTalk is always looking for new promotional channels that our customers can take advantage of, and the iReach platform is a perfect fit, especially for those that use webinars to generate new leads for their sales funnel.

Besides being easy-to-use and cost-effective, our integration with iReach by PR Newswire offers several benefits:

• Broader (but targeted!) promotion
  • Automatically promote your webinar on PRNewswire.com and make it findable by search & news engines
  • Ability to target the most relevant audiences when PR Newswire tags your releases for the right industries, subjects and geographies
  • Increase your website visibility
    • Drive more visitors  to your site by including back links in your release
  • Extend the ROI of your webinar
    • Your press release is hosted forever with PR Newswire, which includes a search-friendly permalink URL

ReadyTalk customers have access to two iReach packages at special introductory pricing:

• SearchReach: Promote your webinar online and within search engines for $99 per release (a $30 savings!)
• WebReach: Optimize your press release with an image and drive more traffic to your site for $249 per release (a $50 savings)

And, finally, how do you get started?

Log-in to Conference Center to schedule your upcoming webinar.  After filling in your meeting details in step 1, go to the ‘Promotion Tools’ section in step 2.

Click on ‘Send a Press Release’ and a new browser window will open to the ReadyTalk iReach^TM website.

Choose which option you would like to purchase on Step 1 (SearchReach or WebReach).

You will be taken to Step 2 to start creating the content and details of your press release.  For your convenience, the default meeting registration link will automatically be included in the press release body section, along with the following standard language (don’t worry, it’s editable!)

Please click on the following link to register for the upcoming webinar: Meeting Registration Link

Continue through the remaining steps (preview, pay, release!) to complete the process and promote your upcoming webinar to a broader (but targeted) audience.

A few tips:

• Remember to finish setting up your webinar in Conference Center (invitations, registration form, emails, survey, social media promotion, etc)
• Measure the effectiveness of using the iReach platform by creating a unique campaign url and include it in the press release body. **Remember, the default meeting registration link will be automatically populated, so make sure to swap it out!

Please share any feedback, and results, you have on your experience. We love hearing from our customers!

Beth is a Product Marketing Manager and works with our customers to understand their needs as they relate to Event Services and ReadyTalk’s Conference Center, which is used to setup the details of our clients’ upcoming meetings. Outside of the office, Beth loves to spend time with family and friends, cook, and hit the slopes.

Raising Geeks (image: desktopnexus.com)

I’m a geek. I’m also a dad to 4 wonderful, geeky boys.  I like to think that I’m raising my boys to be complete geeks, the kind that randomly quote Star Wars and Bladerunner and dream in code. One might think this would be easy, given how much technology is surrounding us, constantly buzzing and beeping and reminding us to Tweet. But I think the real thing that is needed is exposure to true engineering ideas and principles. How do you get a 10 year old to think the way a programmer would? How do you unleash in them the types of problem-solving skills needed to be a passionate engineer?

Over the past three and a half years at ReadyTalk,  I’ve been involved in more than 250 interviews, and one thing that has been very interesting to learn throughout all of these interviews is what got people interested in pursuing a career in an engineering discipline. A common thread has been the rise of computer programming courses at the high school level (which was never really offered in my high school…I feel like I got robbed on that one). So I got to thinking, how do I encourage my boys to think about software engineering without feeling like it’s being forced on them? Here’s a few things I found and am encouraging in my home:

LEGO Mindstorms - This was an obvious one. LEGO’s are a kids best friend, and I am not ashamed to admit that I intend to purchase every LoTR LEGO set for myself. Combine that with programming and you’ve got an instant recipe for “raising a geek”. We’ve got the NXT 2.0 set at home and my boys love it, although the software for the Mac is less than ideal.

CodeCademy.com – I had read a few articles about the various online academies/schools opening up to help encourage and teach computer programming, so I thought I would check them out. CodeCademy even caught the attention of NYC Mayor Bloomberg, which I thought was really cool. The idea is to tear down the barrier of entry that might discourage people from exploring what computer programming is all about is a great thing that is happening. So, I introduced this to my kids and they are hooked. The fact that the site took the gamification approach is what I think is so appealing to younger kids. Every where you look you are able to earn badges and achievements and compare your progress with your friends, so why not apply that to learning programming? Pure genius awesome-sauce.

c-jump – This is a board game that a co-worker told me about. I haven’t purchased it yet for my kids, but it is on my list. I love the premise of it, though. The game takes the approach of teaching basic programming fundamentals, such as loops and conditionals. It reminds me of Chutes & Ladders, except you’re actually learning programming.

What this all comes down to is this; as the world’s current geeks, it is our obligation to help encourage and inspire the next generation of geeks. These are the young people that are going to shape the future world that we live in, and I for one want to know that I did my part in helping the kids of today become the engineers of tomorrow. How are you helping in this endeavor, and do you have other experiences or ideas on this topic? I’d love to hear them!

Jason Collins (aka JC) is the VP of Engineering at ReadyTalk and the self-appointed Chief Happiness Officer. He’s been either writing code or managing engineers for nearly 15 years and has a passion for technology and agile development practices. The happiness of the engineering team is his top priority and he can usually be found wearing a ReadyTalk cape and the infamous “idea helmet” around the office to help keep people entertained. When he’s not hanging out with his work family, he’s at home with his wife and four boys doing all sorts of geeky things, like playing video games and watching campy Sci-Fi and Action flicks.