[consulting] CiviCRM / Drupal integration expert

[Matt Chapman]

On Mon, May 3, 2010 at 6:12 AM, Sam Cohen <sam at samcohen.com> wrote:

> No problem at all.  It's always helpful to learn what other people are
> charging and how they are marketing themselves :)

So, now that I've accidentally shown my underwear in public anyway, I
think this is a conversation worth having.

Do other share my experience that the CiviCRM market is actually
vastly different than the Drupal market? I observe several factors
that make me think so:

1.) I've seen very competent Drupal developers royally screw up
CiviCRM work, due to ignorance of the vast difference between the two
systems.

2.) I find it very difficult to locate competent CiviCRM developers
who are eager to work on CiviCRM. (Most of us who do CiviCRM work
don't enjoy working with the software.)

3.) There is relatively little overlap in the learning curve for
Drupal as compared to the learning curve for CiviCRM. I.e., once
you've learned Theming, Drupal DB abstraction, Forms API, Views,
Drupal permissions, and i18n, then you have to learn Smarty, PEAR:DB,
QuickForm, Profiles, CiviCRM ACLs, and a completely different i18n
system. And OOP PHP. CiviCRM really doubles the required knowledge
base for a successful project.

4.) With few exceptions, I have been successful in charging as much as
double my 'Drupal rate' for CiviCRM work, or generally increasing my
catch-all rate when a project involves CiviCRM.

And yet, despite #3 and possibly because of #4, I see more and more
people interested in CiviCRM at each DrupalCon or Drupal event where
the topic comes up.

Are others seeing the same things, or am I crazy? Is there anybody
around who's got the management skills to help redirect the momentum
among CiviCRM new-comers into a project to re-create CiviCRM
functionality using Drupal 7 as the framework? That's a project I
could get excited about, but I'm far too busy to try to lead such an
effort right now.

All the Best,

Matt Chapman
Ninjitsu Web Development

--
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>
> I have a related civicrm question as I have had a couple of clients request
> it recently.  While I'm very impressed with the software and how far it has
> come, I'm amazed at how slow it is.  One client has a pretty powerful VPS in
> staging.  Without civicrm the site zips along.  As soon as civicrm is
> enabled page loads feel like it's on a dial up connection.  I find it
> agonizing to work with, especially after three cups of coffee.  Any insight
> on why it's so slow and are there any tricks to improve speed.
>
> Sam
>
> On Sun, May 2, 2010 at 7:46 PM, Matt Chapman <matt at ninjitsuweb.com> wrote:
>>
>> D$#%, sorry for spamming everybody.
>>
>> Can we please configure this list to set the sender as the reply-to
>> address? I don't have this problem on any o fmy other mailing lists...
>>
>>
>> All the Best,
>>
>> Matt Chapman
>> Ninjitsu Web Development
>>
>> --
>> The contents of this message should be assumed to be Confidential, and
>> may not be disclosed without permission of the sender.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, May 2, 2010 at 2:43 PM, Paolo Teodorani <teodorani at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> > Hallo everybody,
>> > I'm looking for a CiviCRM / Drupal integration expert to help in a
>> > middle
>> > size project where we need to better integrate Civi and Drupal.
>> > If there is any that can spend few hours pls reply.
>> > Paolo
>> > teodorani at gmail.com
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>> >
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>
>
> --
> http://samcohen.com
>
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