[consulting] Staying Current

[Shai Gluskin]

Sam,

D7 is coming out, say in 4/2010, so there is plenty of time to plan. But in
any case, nothing is stopping developers from backporting security fixes to
D5 after that date. Whether or not there is a link for it on the home page
of d.o. isn't relevant in my opinion. Folks who want that can do it and
share their efforts. Same is true for contrib.

Regarding navigating contrib. Ubercart is a great example, because there is
no ambiguity about the judgement of its vitality. Ubercart will be around.
It does not take going to a dinner in D.C. at DrupalCon with 100 people
(which I did) to figure out that Ubercart is growing and has a great user
and developer base. A quick poke around ubercart.org will communicate to any
visitor that Ubercart is alive and well.

Part of what being a shop that specializes in Drupal is about is following
Drupal trends. By following trends you can make better decisions about the
future for yourself and your clients.

Re: the $5,000 site you mentioned. That's what I do a lot and here is how I
do it. Say the org wants to spend $5,000 to build and then $100/month to
maintain for four years. The total is $9,800. I counterpropose $3,000 to
launch and spending $300/month for 4 years for a total of $17,400, a little
less than twice what they wanted to spend. I tell them about the hidden
costs of not including ongoing development. I explain the dynamism of web
2.0 and how they will likely want to grow the site, incrementally, after
they understand what it can do. I also emphasize that ongoing training is a
key component in the ongoing budget and they need think of the costs of not
doing ongoing training.

A minimum commitment of $300 month gets them my discounted rate and an
ongoing relationship with me. Without that, they get a higher rate and my
ability to jump in and help will depend on my availability.

How do I get a site down to $3,000 for launch. Drop the designer and use an
open source template with small branding customizations. And even then they
might have to drop items off the spec sheet. But they like the idea of a
less-expensive launch.

I'm pretty new to doing Drupal as a Drupal professional. I was a content
person who brought Drupal to an org from the inside. I taught myself since
we didn't have the budget to hire a firm, and fell in love... :) and now am
a freelancer who hopes to grow my business.

My limited experience so far has been that a client who makes a $300/month
commitment for an ongoing relationship might end up spending $800/month --
with no complaints. They see what a dynamic web site can do and want more,
more, more. Budget wise, maybe they are taking money from their marketing
budgets, or their constituent services budget, or whatever. They get that
this new web site is indeed different, that it is living and breathing. And
they need a living and breathing consultant to help them develop it further
and provide ongoing training.

Best,

Shai
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