[support] Is Drupal Appropriate for Our Site?

[Victor Kane]

The Times They Are A'Changing. Use Drupal, man, and don't look back.

When you say "for a simple site, use WordPress", for a complex site use
Drupal (admin headeaches worth it then), for a (wet thumb stuck up in the
air to feel the wind) not so complex site, use a half-assed CMS that has
Apache writing to root.

But now, your clients don't want websites. Nor do you if you want a decent
professional blog, capable of creating a portfolio content type and listing
it and theming it with views.

They want website applications. Which means you need a development framework
to develop with, not an off-the-shelf-solution to stick somewhere. Which
means, to be productive, you need to get involved with a framework, make
reusable components of your own with it, get involved in its community, know
which modules to use, because you can't do this alone. Which means you need
to solve once and for all your administration processes on all your customer
sites, and teach your customers best practices on how to upgrade Drupal and
modules, or provide maintenance services, etc.

So, you can be a dilettant, and think in terms of half-assed solutions for
half-assed websites, or you can be a website application developer who works
with a CMS framework they have gotten to know well over the months and
years, and with which they have become productive. Which is not to say you
never whip up a few well formed A List Apart style HTML+CSS for a small
static site, or that you never install WordPress for you uncle's blog (he's
not going to update it tho).

A website application developer is something to be.

Victor Kane
http://awebfactory.com.ar
http://projectflowandtracker.com


On Sat, Sep 25, 2010 at 12:11 AM, Miles Fidelman <mfidelman at meetinghouse.net
> wrote:

> Rich Shepard wrote:
> >     Most of theu pages on our site are static; I'll add new newsletters
> or
> > white papers to the documents.shtml page, but that's about it. I would
> like
> > to add polls, a form-based e-mail capability for those who prefer to ask
> for
> > information that way rather than via regular e-mail, and -- perhaps --
> the
> > ability to comment on issues raised in newsletters and white papers. This
> is
> > why I ask whether Drupal is really the appropriate tool for me to learn
> and
> > apply.
> >
> For a simple, relatively static site, I'd probably go with Wordpress,
> for more complex ones, Drupal or maybe Plone (I've used all three,
> played with others).  The KISS principle applies to web sites, just like
> anything else - why eat administrative headaches if you don't need the
> extra functionality.
> >     I don't know that any professional services consulting company's Web
> site
> > actually generates clients. I know that a poor site can drive away
> potential
> > clients, but in the 17 years I've run my business no one has hired us
> > because they found our Web site somehow and decided they needed our
> > services. Of course, if I can actually generate new business via a
> spiffy,
> > Durpal-based site, I'll be very pleased to have that result.
> >
> These days, its more that the web site is a combination newsletter and
> brochure - to the extent that you do a lot of writing, someone might
> track down a paper and that can lead to a sale, but beyond that, the web
> site is where someone will turn to find out about who you are AFTER
> you've made initial contact through a referral, sales pitch, or more
> traditional means.  (Having said that, I once retained an attorney,
> based on a web site that presented in-depth information about a very
> specialized area of practice.)
> >     You can see the current site at http://www.appl-ecosys.com/. I'm
> > completely open to suggestions to make it more of an attactant, and
> whether
> > Drupal is appropriate for this type of site.
> >
> For what it's worth, and since you asked - the web site does not present
> a clear image of who you are, and what you do - it takes work to dig
> that out.  My suggestion would be to really streamline the "who, what,
> where, when, why" message - one sentence that jumps out about what you
> do, and then make it really easy to find bios and case studies.  If you
> want to add value, some how-to material, and maybe a blog that provides
> useful, current information (someone may not be a prospect today but
> might be tomorrow if you keep them on the hook).
>
> Having said all of that, I'm currently doing none of the above.  I work
> in a primarily big-ticket sales environment, it's all direct sales
> followed by proposals.  When I build web sites, they tend to be to
> support a specific project, mostly for internal communications.  So take
> anything I say with a grain of salt.
>
> Two web sites that are pretty simple, but to the point, are
> www.millervaneaton.com
> and
> http://www.baller.com/
> both law firms that specialize in telecom. law (an area I used to be
> involved in).  No bells and whistles - just clean presentation of the
> firms, their practice areas, their key people, and some useful
> information that adds credibility.  Not a bad model for a consulting
> firm's web site.
>
> Hope this helps,
>
> Miles Fidelman
>
> Miles Fidelman
>
> --
> In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
> In<fnord>  practice, there is.   .... Yogi Berra
>
>
> --
> [ Drupal support list | http://lists.drupal.org/ ]
>
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