Felines and Toilet Remote Controls
Month 2 of working at Aspiration has been a lot more comfortable. Getting used to all of the things that I had to work with during the first month made everything seem new and crazy. But, now that I'm used to working with all the software, the people and the mission, it's been nice. Aspiration is getting ready for our second annual Nonprofit Development Summit in November. It's basically an event to bring people concerned with nonprofit software together in one place to hash it out. A lot of organizations are supporting us by giving us money, like Google, or facilitating discussions/presentations (like Drupal and Joomla). Right now we're still in the early stages but part of my job has been talking to people in the nonprofit industry (especially people on the west coast) and check out their interest in the Summit and whether or not they would like to present or lead a discussion. That's pretty low-key at the moment but I'm sure once the end of October/beginning of November hits, it's gonna be like a cat in a dryer.
At the same time, I am working on a couple of websites for the organization. First, there is a wiki that I'm putting together for the Summit and second, we are putting together a Joomla!-based website for a new aspect of our organization called Answr.net (it will be another resource for nonprofits). I don't know much about Joomla so i've been learning as I go which I love. It's fun to just figure stuff out on your own, you know? But then you run into a brick wall and curse the day you burned your "So You Want to Learn Joomla!" book....
So, i've been splitting up my time talking to people, fleshing out wikis, playing around with Joomla and keeping the balls rollin here at Aspiration.
Speaking of Joomla, a couple weekends ago I went to Joomla! Day at Google in Mountain View. Joomla Day is a chance for people to get together and discuss Joomla with lead developers and also just general users. I was there as a "Joombie" because i had never used Joomla before. The only thing i knew about it was that my boss has a lot of Joomla swag. Regardless it was super interesting and Google was a fun to run around in. Everything is free which is a little unnerving. I walked in and there was this vending machine with Naked juice but it didn't take any money. It just opened. Free Naked juice. weird. That stuff is usually like $3 a pop. The cafeteria was completely open too. Free salads, entrees, Ben and Jerry's, cappuccino... Also, the toilets had remote controls! but I won't get into that unless you ask me.
Oh, and I got business cards which are pretty sweet. I give them out to anyone that will take them. I think that's all for me. Garcia out.
Comment from Josh King on October 5, 2008 - 6:58pm
Hey Matt,
I don't know how much you know about Drupal, but how would you characterize the usability of Drupal vs. Joomla? I know very little about Joomla but I've always wanted to mess around with it when I get the chance.
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In Solidarity,
Josh King
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CTC*VISTA Leader
Comment from Matthew Garcia on October 6, 2008 - 5:14pm
Hey Josh,
My experience with Drupal is very low (but I'm going to Drupal Camp this Saturday so that might change soon...) but the popular comparison is that Joomla is more user-friendly but at the same time more basic. But only slightly so.
The Drupal vs. Joomla conversation came up a lot at Joomla Day but the vast majority of people said that it was really a tossup and a matter of different "flavors." Some of the lead developers at Joomla day also do development work for Drupal and they would always say that "eh..... it depends...." So maybe i'll have a better answer for you after this weekend (since one day in Drupal camp will impart onto me years worth of experience. obviously).
Matt