Jeff Miller's Big Idea Creativity seeking form

We’re searching for a Developer with demonstrated, creative Drupal experience to work alongside our team of developers in creating original web pages and websites for KCM.

This is a full time, on-site position at Kenneth Copeland Ministries Headquarters in Fort Worth, TX.

Qualifications

• Four or more years experience in Web site design and development
• Demonstrated creative experience with Drupal CMS is mandatory--installation, upgrade, module modification, theming, shopping cart, and workflow
• Demonstrated SEO and SEM knowledge
• Experience in SQL, DB structure and ETLs--MySql is mandatory
• Demonstrated experience monitoring, comprehending and enhancing web pages based on web analytics and conversion metrics
• Working knowledge of PCI compliance, secure transactions, tokenization and encryption
• Understanding of and experience with Linux, PHP, Apache, MySQL and web services
• Working knowledge of Adobe software, JavaScript, Flash, XML, HTML/XHTML, CSS, Web 2.0 and cross-browser/platform
• web development techniques
• Must be able to direct as well as work on a team, and according to Romans 16:17, must not cause dissentions and difficulties or divisions
• Born again believer and must adhere to the doctrines of this organization as upheld by Kenneth and Gloria Copeland and their appointed representatives

For more than 40 years Kenneth Copeland Ministries has taught Christians worldwide how to live successful Christian lives— spirit, mind and body. With seven offices around the world, the television broadcast, the monthly magazine and an emerging digital presence, Kenneth Copeland Ministries is focused on getting the Word of God out on every available voice.

Has anyone found a solution to flash videos that work well on your site but don't work on an iPod etc since Apple does not support the format? Is there a way to serve up a flah format for IE & Firefox but a different format for iPods? Introducing a simple video on our church site introduced complaints I did not see coming. Would appreciaate any insight anyone has ahd with this.

I'm wondering if anyone out there has any experience using any of the Drupal issue tracking modules in a church context. I've looked over this Project Management/Issue Tracking page here http://groups.drupal.org/node/17948 and I like the features of Storm. I'm a little distressed by the lack of a stable Drupal 7 version, but other than that it looks really good.

We're preparing to launch a new website at our church and we're hoping to do a better job of managing the requests for maintenance on the website. So that will be the first type of issue that we will be tracking, but I could see us expanding the scope to include IT and facilities issues also. Does anyone have any experience they would like to share of doing this in a church context?

The Thrilling Potential of SixthSense Technology: If you watch one Ted video, I’d recommend this one.  This is Pranav Mistry demonstrating SixthSense, which is a touch and gesture based input device.  It gets pretty remarkable as the video goes on – this guy has completely rethought input devices, and the result is amazing.

I get a fair number of emails related to potential project work and I’m often surprised at them for a number of reasons.  I’ll go through some specifics in a moment, but my thesis is this: the web is a communications medium.  If you are involved in the creation of websites as a paid professional it means you are a professional in the Communications industry.  Take the time to ensure that your business communications reflect that.

I’m writing this from the perspective of being the email recipient, but most of this is universal. Pretend I’m that person you are emailing today. 

• Greeting/Introduction
  If you didn’t know me and walked up to me on the street you’d probably put your hand out and introduce yourself. Do the same in an email. Tell me who you are, what your company is, and where you are located. It gives me a sense of who is talking to me.
• Why You Chose to Email Me
  Where did you come across my name? Just randomly on the web? From the EE forums? A friend? And why me over the other folks you could have emailed? Not only does this help me know which of my marketing efforts is working, if you’ve been referred it allows me to seek out and thank that person.
• Signature
  Have a signature file with your name and contact info. Give me a way to check you out online to see if I think potential projects might be a good fit.
• Tone
  Friendly, self-deprecating emails get my attention and create an instant desire in me to want to respond quickly and helpfully.  Whine, demand, complain or abuse and I’ll just trash your email with no further response.
• Send a Thank You
  If you take only one thing away from this post make it this one: send thank you emails. “Thanks in advance” doesn’t cut it.  I’m saddened by the number of times I spent some time putting together a response and never heard a single word back. People don’t always respond in the way you want but send the “Thank You” anyway just for their time.  If you asked someone on the street for directions they didn’t know the exact answer but made some effort to be helpful you’d (I hope anyway) say a quick “Thank You” before heading down the road.  Have the same courtesy with your professional interactions.
• Wait Until the Weekday
  More and more the web world seems to ignore weekends and I think that’s going to hurt us long term. We need downtime.  I’m guilty of weekend addiction myself, having my iPhone handy all the time to check email and Twitter.  Let’s help each other get back to the idea of weekends off and hold off on sending business-related emails over the weekends or after hours.  I’ll understand if you’re from a different timezone, but generally there’s no reason I should be getting business email on a Saturday night.

Let’s talk a bit about Twitter. I know Twitter is awesome for how quick and immediate it is, but it has its downsides as well.

• Proper Support Channels
  This is related to ExpressionEngine questions.  I love helping people learn EE and and am always humbled that people seek me out for it.  But please understand, if I’m not careful I can kill large chunks of time essentially providing free EE tech support. I’d much rather see you post first in the EE forums, then promote that thread on Twitter.  If I’m able to help I’ll follow the link and chime in, but if I can’t at least that way your request is in the formal system and available to others.  If your question is around the use of a 3rd party add-on then seeking out its support channel is best.  If you’ve already done that then link me to it so I know and don’t duplicate efforts already underway.
• Be You
  In general I’m uncomfortable having conversations with brands.  Use your corporate Twitter account for promotional tweets, but if you want to have a conversation step out from behind the logo. Use a personal account that has your picture.
• Wait Until the Weekday
  I know - people are on Twitter on the weekends so it seems really easy to hit them up. It’s like IM, right?  But again - I ask for help in keeping our weekends for personal and recreation time.  I might be working but if I am I’m probably under the gun to get some client work cranked out. Please wait to ask your questions until business hours.
• Say Thanks
  As I write this there is a question on Twitter that I’ve been tagged on.  I’ve responded to two questions from this person in the past without getting so much as a simple Thank You in return.  I have to say, I’m not inclined to respond again. Twitter may be a relatively new communications platform, but it’s still all about people.  Help me to feel valued and not just like an instant-answer monkey.

Poorly Written Email Example
I don’t want to get too carried away here but wanted to show an example of a poorly written email and a well-written email. We’ll start with the bad. This is the first email from this source, we’d never communicated in the past and this is the entire email:

Hi- I may have an assignment - pretty chilled - for a very nice client. We will need a partner to help build, and build out a CMS in EE.

We are very collaborative.

I can send your specs if this is something you are interested in bidding on.

My questions:

• Who are you?  There is no introduction or context.
• Why me?  There is no explanation of how you came to be sending me this email.
• What type of company are you?  First you say “I” and then you say “we”.
• What on earth does “pretty chilled” mean?
• What does “We are very collaborative” mean?  It seems really important the way it’s been called out but I haven’t a clue.
• The typos don’t instill a great sense of confidence.
• Lack of a signature doesn’t help. In this case I was able to look at the sending email domain and figure things out, but still.

Well Written Email Example
Again, this is the first email from this source and this is the entire email:

I’d like to see about bringing you in on a possible client project. I’ve seen your work, read your EE books, and reviewed your project guidelines. I think this is right up your alley.

As a quick overview, you and I would be working together to accomplish a complete design, content and back-end overhaul of (website deleted).

I would be responsible for the front-end design and initial HTML/CSS build (in close consultation with you along the way, of course). You would be responsible for EE architecture and implementation to take it from my static code to functional site. You and I both would interact directly with the client as well as each other, and would each be paid directly by the client. (I’ve worked with this client on print projects for a few years. Never had a problem getting paid, and they are generally pretty easy to work with.)

The design phase of the project would start in late March, with a goal to launch the completed site within 6 months.

I’ll be happy to provide a full site plan and content overview if you’re available and interested. The only urgent part of the job is getting them an estimate. They’re trying to get a budget approved and make a decision next week if at all possible.

Interested? Feel free to email or call me at xxx-xxx-xxxx (home office) or xxx-xxx-xxxx (cell) with any questions.

Best regards,

This is not a long email yet I already know why he chose to contact me, the nature of the project, the pay process, the schedule, what’s needed of me if interested, and alternate contact info.

Which feels like a professional communicator to you?  Which feels like a project that is going to go well and be successful for the end client? Which would you answer with greater urgency and interest?

Knowing that, why would you bother to write emails that didn’t inspire the same feelings in your recipients?

I get a fair number of emails related to potential project work and I’m often surprised at them for a number of reasons.  I’ll go through some specifics in a moment, but my thesis is this: the web is a communications medium.  If you are involved in the creation of websites as a paid professional it means you are a professional in the Communications industry.  Take the time to ensure that your business communications reflect that.

I’m writing this from the perspective of being the email recipient, but most of this is universal. Pretend I’m that person you are emailing today. 

• Greeting/Introduction
  If you didn’t know me and walked up to me on the street you’d probably put your hand out and introduce yourself. Do the same in an email. Tell me who you are, what your company is, and where you are located. It gives me a sense of who is talking to me.
• Why You Chose to Email Me
  Where did you come across my name? Just randomly on the web? From the EE forums? A friend? And why me over the other folks you could have emailed? Not only does this help me know which of my marketing efforts is working, if you’ve been referred it allows me to seek out and thank that person.
• Signature
  Have a signature file with your name and contact info. Give me a way to check you out online to see if I think potential projects might be a good fit.
• Tone
  Friendly, self-deprecating emails get my attention and create an instant desire in me to want to respond quickly and helpfully.  Whine, demand, complain or abuse and I’ll just trash your email with no further response.
• Send a Thank You
  If you take only one thing away from this post make it this one: send thank you emails. “Thanks in advance” doesn’t cut it.  I’m saddened by the number of times I spent some time putting together a response and never heard a single word back. People don’t always respond in the way you want but send the “Thank You” anyway just for their time.  If you asked someone on the street for directions and they didn’t know the exact answer but made some effort to be helpful you’d (I hope anyway) say a quick “Thank You” before heading down the road.  Have the same courtesy with your professional interactions.
• Wait Until the Weekday
  More and more the web world seems to ignore weekends and I think that’s going to hurt us long term. We need downtime.  I’m guilty of weekend addiction myself, having my iPhone handy all the time to check email and Twitter.  Let’s help each other get back to the idea of weekends off and hold off on sending business-related emails over the weekends or after hours.  I’ll understand if you’re from a different timezone, but generally there’s no reason I should be getting business email on a Saturday night.

Let’s talk a bit about Twitter. I know Twitter is awesome for how quick and immediate it is, but it has its downsides as well.

• Proper Support Channels
  This is related to ExpressionEngine questions.  I love helping people learn EE and and am always humbled that people seek me out for it.  But please understand, if I’m not careful I can kill large chunks of time essentially providing free EE tech support. I’d much rather see you post first in the EE forums, then promote that thread on Twitter.  If I’m able to help I’ll follow the link and chime in, but if I can’t at least that way your request is in the formal system and available to others.  If your question is around the use of a 3rd party add-on then seeking out its support channel is best.  If you’ve already done that then link me to it so I know and don’t duplicate efforts already underway.
• Be You
  In general I’m uncomfortable having conversations with brands.  Use your corporate Twitter account for promotional tweets, but if you want to have a conversation step out from behind the logo. Use a personal account that has your picture.
• Wait Until the Weekday
  I know - people are on Twitter on the weekends so it seems really easy to hit them up. It’s like IM, right?  But again - I ask for help in keeping our weekends for personal and recreation time.  I might be working but if I am I’m probably under the gun to get some client work cranked out. Please wait to ask your questions until business hours.
• Say Thanks
  As I write this there is a question on Twitter that I’ve been tagged on.  I’ve responded to two questions from this person in the past without getting so much as a simple Thank You in return.  I have to say, I’m not inclined to respond again. Twitter may be a relatively new communications platform, but it’s still all about people.  Help me to feel valued and not just like an instant-answer monkey.

Poorly Written Email Example
I don’t want to get too carried away here but wanted to show an example of a poorly written email and a well-written email. We’ll start with the bad. This is the first email from this source, we’d never communicated in the past and this is the entire email:

Hi- I may have an assignment - pretty chilled - for a very nice client. We will need a partner to help build, and build out a CMS in EE.

We are very collaborative.

I can send your specs if this is something you are interested in bidding on.

My questions:

• Who are you?  There is no introduction or context.
• Why me?  There is no explanation of how you came to be sending me this email.
• What type of company are you?  First you say “I” and then you say “we”.
• What on earth does “pretty chilled” mean?
• What does “We are very collaborative” mean?  It seems really important the way it’s been called out but I haven’t a clue.
• The typos don’t instill a great sense of confidence.
• Lack of a signature doesn’t help. In this case I was able to look at the sending email domain and figure things out, but still.

Well Written Email Example
Again, this is the first email from this source and this is the entire email:

I’d like to see about bringing you in on a possible client project. I’ve seen your work, read your EE books, and reviewed your project guidelines. I think this is right up your alley.

As a quick overview, you and I would be working together to accomplish a complete design, content and back-end overhaul of (website deleted).

I would be responsible for the front-end design and initial HTML/CSS build (in close consultation with you along the way, of course). You would be responsible for EE architecture and implementation to take it from my static code to functional site. You and I both would interact directly with the client as well as each other, and would each be paid directly by the client. (I’ve worked with this client on print projects for a few years. Never had a problem getting paid, and they are generally pretty easy to work with.)

The design phase of the project would start in late March, with a goal to launch the completed site within 6 months.

I’ll be happy to provide a full site plan and content overview if you’re available and interested. The only urgent part of the job is getting them an estimate. They’re trying to get a budget approved and make a decision next week if at all possible.

Interested? Feel free to email or call me at xxx-xxx-xxxx (home office) or xxx-xxx-xxxx (cell) with any questions.

Best regards,

This is not a long email yet I already know why he chose to contact me, the nature of the project, the pay process, the schedule, what’s needed of me if interested, and alternate contact info.

Which feels like a professional communicator to you?  Which feels like a project that is going to go well and be successful for the end client? Which would you answer with greater urgency and interest?

Knowing that, why would you bother to write emails that didn’t inspire the same feelings in your recipients?

If you want to be friendly to the web, do the world a favor and start using the canonical URL LINK tag.  More things than you realize depend on the simple principle of identifying a page by a unique URL, and it's getting harder than you think.

It turns out that a web without canonical URLs is like a database without primary keys.

I recently wrote a web crawler (yes, seriously), and I was forcefully introduced to how vague URLs can be.  The idea that a unique page of content has a single URL is laughably naïve.

Turns out that the absolute hardest part of writing a crawler is “normalizing” URLs – taking two URLs, and trying to figure out if they’re actually addressing the same resource.  Fact is, you can address a page of content in more ways than you think.

Some examples --

You need to account for SSL vs. non-SSL.  A lot of sites will accept inbound requests for both “http” and “https” to the same URL, and return the same page of content.  This technically results in two separate URLs, and if a crawler is cataloguing URLs, it needs to account for the same that this is really the same page of content, even if the bytes of the URL differ.

Now, that one isn’t too hard.  There aren’t many pages that differ remarkably if they’re secure or not.  But what about domain?  Your website could respond to multiple domains.  It could be as simple as the same content coming up under “www.gadgetopia.com” and “gadgetopia.com", or as complex as hundreds of different domain names generating the same pages.

It gets worse – what about querystring arguments?  The fact is that different arguments have different degrees of import.  Some are critical in determining the content of the page (“article_id”) and others really only matter to humans interacting with the page (“return_page”).  There’s a whole bucket of querystring arguments that really have no effect on the core content being returned to the user agent.

(URL arguments for analytics are especially bad.  Click a link out of a Feedburned blog post, and you end up with "utm_source" and "utm_medium" as querystring arguments, none of which have any bearing on the actual content of the page returned.)

Differing capitalization could technically result in different pages too (although this would be terribly bad form…)

I could go on and on about URL vagaries, but just understand that this URL --

https://domain.com/page.php?article_id=5&return_page=6

-- and this URL --

http://www.domain.com/Page.php?article_id=5&return_page=7

-- may return the exact same page of content, but I have no way of knowing this.

On a known site (a site I own or am crawling for a client), I can make some rules, like always knowing that I should swap “domain.com” for “www.domain.com,” but if I’m doing a crawl of a site I have no connection with (a “hostile” crawl?), then I just have to assume those two URLs are actually two separate piece of content and index them as different pages even though “article_id=5” probably indicates they return the same thing.

And none of this takes into account the new world of visitor segmentation and anonymous personalization.  If you live in California, you might get a different page then if you live in New York.  So where is your crawler coming from, and how is it ever going to emulate someone from somewhere else?

(For a while, I tried to abandon URLs and hash the actual HTML returned, then compare the hashes.  This would tell me, more clearly, if this page is unique.  But that too is problematic for a number of reasons – sometimes querystring arguments, for instance, change the page in tiny, effectively meaningless ways, but ways which result in an entirely different hash.)

This is where canonical URLs help.  For each page content, have a canonical META tag which indicates the one true URL this should be accessed under anonymously.  Here’s Google’s page about them, and here’s what one of them looks like.

<link rel="canonical" href="http://example.com/my/url" />

It's not just crawlers that depend on this -- any site which needs to tell one URL from another would benefit from this.  If you submit a URL to Reddit, it checks to see if it's been submitted already.  To do this, it depends on the fact that the URL has some consistency.

If you are writing software that somehow keys of a URL, look for a canonical LINK tag and use it if you find it.  By including it, the site owner is doing you a massive favor.  Don’t ignore it.

Using a canonical URL is like declaring a primary key on your content.  You are saying, effectively, that “no matter how you actually got to this page of content, this URL is the official URL for this page and should be used when discussing this page.”

The web will be a better place for it.

"Self-published" is not in any way analogous to "published": There’s a very interesting discussion going on over at Reddit that’s very similar to something a line of thought I’ve had for quite a while.

The Internet has made it very easy to “publish” writing, in some form.  Pre-Internet, to get “published” meant to send a book off to a publisher, go through a long vetting process, and see your book on the shelves of a store somewhere.  Not anymore.  With Lulu, you can get a hardcopy from a PDF, and with Amazon, you can have your book distributed as an ebook quite easily (it doesn’t even have to be a book – you can “publish” a glorified blog post as a Kindle Single, even).

So, does this mean you’re “published”?

Nononno!  Being published is not just about having a hard copy of one's work - that misses the forest for the trees. Being published is about convincing a third party that your work is worthwhile enough to support and make public. It's about earning the respect of a group completely independent of you and having them fund the dissemination of your ideas.

Some of the comments are quite good and thought-provoking:

I was just having a discussion on this yesterday in my library studies class. A lady in the class kept referring to herself as a 'published author' and when I investigated further I found that all she does is chuck her romance novels up on her website as eBooks.

[…] I came here to say something like this, specifically about the wrench that sites like kickstarter throw into the works. As the original post states, "Being published is about convincing a third party that your work is worthwhile enough to support and make public" but traditional publishing houses are no longer the only viable way of doing that.

Visibility, measurement and accountability

New LucidWorks platform in beta

Men in Black II. My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Sweeping forest fires in Colorado. Snipers in DC. The Euro becomes official. Queen Elizabeth dies. No Child Left Behind act signed into law by President George W. Bush. Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, UT.

Remember the year?  Remember the decade?

I do, quite well.

The year was 2002. In addition to those events of significance there was also a much smaller decision, made in the living room of a small house in Holland, MI.

With a 3 and 5 year old scurrying about the house playing, with the security of a corporate job disintegrating at our feet, and with a insecure job market offering little in the way of options, together with my wife I decided to start a small business named Boyink Interactive.  I chose the name because I had no idea if I would be doing software/database or web development and I had already purchased the boyink.com domain name in earlier years (totally on a whim).

Every year around this time I write these posts, always feeling incredibly blessed and humbled that yet again, for another year, God’s chosen to allow us to continue to make a go of it.  Not only have I been able to provide for my family, I’ve gotten to do work I choose and love for people that are a pleasure to work with.  I get to follow whims that become additional businesses like Train-ee, and I get to choose to enter a period of full-time family travel while continuing to work.

It pleases me to no end to celebrate 10 years - a decade - in business as Boyink Interactive. 

Even if it is considered the “Tin Anniversary”..

Designed for expanding environments

Expanded data access, predictive analytics

[NO AGENCIES. Individual applicants only]

International Bible translation organization is growing at a phenomenal rate. Seeks top flight Drupal developer that has expertise in frontend, backend and LAMP configuration and tuning. Ground up redesign of core website(s) begins this summer. We do a lot of data synchronization between Drupal/non-drupal systems.

The PHP/Drupal Web Developer will have a servant’s heart to build and maintain user interface software applications and backend databases using various programming and scripting languages. They will be abreast of emerging web standards and gather feedback from design and technical staff on website/application development needs and assist with project planning by creating prototypes and functional specifications for software projects.The developer must have experience in coding Drupal, PHP, Javascript, jQuery, HTML 4/5, CSS, XML, MySQL and possess an understanding and experience with CRUD operations in relational databases.

The ideal candidate must have a minimum of one year experience doing highly complex development and maintenance with Drupal (version 6 and higher), PHP, MySQL and full system administration experience in LAMP environments with a proven track record in cross-platform, cross-browser development.

Local preferred. Telecommute option open for discussion.

The Seed Company has a limited number of paid employment opportunities. Paid staff receive a compensation and benefit package for their work, and are not required to raise support for their ministry. Applicants must have a passion and love for God’s Word and a desire to see others equipped and empowered with the Word of God. A paid position with The Seed Company offers several exciting staff benefits beyond what most employers are able to support or offer.

The Seed Company’s Mission, Vision and Core Values and Doctrinal Statement

An overview of Big Data and the information technology (IT) and management challenges it poses to all manner of organizations.

Easing adoption of social business, mobile and cloud tools

An overview of Big Data and the information technology (IT) and management challenges it poses to all manner of organizations.