Hi folks,
Thanks, Gilberto, for thinking about our best interests. Let me give
the group some more background. This project, code-named IxDA Conan,
was launched over six months ago with a call for volunteer
contributions. We also put out a call for support in the
groups.drupal.org community. Today, IxDA Conan is operating with a
team of almost 20 IxDA members who are volunteering their time and
energy to make this project happen. I would like to take this
opportunity to thank all of our wonderful team members who have been
so hard at work behind the scenes:
Alok Nandy
Atul Thanvi
Ben Vaughan
Chad Vavra
Chong Lee Khoo
Chris Blow
Christopher Vestal
Jason Pamental
Jonathan Knoll
Joseph Rich Rogan
Maria Tagarelli De Monte
Matt Nish-Lapidus
Mayur Karnik
Neil Cadsawan
Shivanand Reddy
Tonia M. Bartz
In addition to myself in the Creative Director role, IxDA Directors
Amyris Fernandez and Nasir Barday are also on the Conan team. We have
a couple Drupal-knowledgable resources on the Conan team, and we
already have a sandbox installation in place as well as a sense of how
to approach the Drupal theme work. Everybody's hard at work on the
interaction design proposals even as I type. However, in numerous ways
we have determined that we are unable to achieve our organization's
objectives with volunteer resources alone. We are a community of
designers, not developers. We urgently need this infrastructure and
cannot afford to delay its implementation in any way. The rough vision
for this new community of practice system has been in the works for at
least two years, and you would not believe the amount of shepherding
and project management that it has taken to get us to this point.
Trust me on this. ;)
As I said, we've asked the community for assistance on this project
numerous times, and I'm sorry if you missed those messages. We've been
apprising the community about our project through the Board Blog and
this discussion list. Soon, in fact, you will see a call for community
feedback on the interaction design proposals for the new system.
Nevertheless, it's time to get serious and enlist true professional
resources who can create the stable, scalable and reliable
infrastructure to support IxDA's current and future growth. We chose
Drupal partly because it's so accessible and well-known, and so we
look forward to future member contributions that will add innovative
features and capabilities for our community. But right now, it's time
to get the show on the road!!
Cheers,
Liz, IxDA Vice-President
On Jun 21, 2009, at 3:00 PM, Gilberto Medrano wrote:
While I am willing to contribute without hesitation, I would like to
offer
some thoughts:
I am an interaction designer for desktop/web applications, but I have
created Drupal sites in versions 5 and 6 (custom themes, CCK,
overriding
nodes, Views 2, configuration, etc). I am wondering if there are more
people in this list that have experience in Drupal and would be
willing to
help before considering getting contractors to do it for us?
If we need custom modules then I can try posting about it in the
Drupal
community. We may be able to get a volunteer or else we can exchange
design-for-programming for Drupal itself (they are looking for
interaction
designers to help with usability issues for Drupal 7). We would
benefit
more by partnering with another community that based its approach on
people
volunteering their time for the greater good.
Again, I'm fine with the monetary contribution, just thinking aloud
on other
alternatives to get our Drupal work done.
Cheers,
Gilberto
On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 10:08 AM, IxDA Board of Directors <bo...@ixda.org
>wrote:
For the price of a cup of coffee you can help IxDA deliver our
next-generation platform to serve the needs of the interaction design
community. We can't do it without your help.
http://bit.ly/17AJoE
Since its inception as a mailing list in 2003, IxDA now supports over
10,000
discussion list <http://www.ixda.org/discuss.php> subscribers, 80
IxDA
Local
Groups <http://www.ixda.org/local.php> from around the world, an
annual
conference (with a regional conference on the way in South America),
several
budding community initiatives and over 12,000 people affiliated via
LinkedIn<http://www.linkedin.com/groupRegistration?gid=3754>.
Despite our ambitions, our current technology infrastructure is no
longer
able to support our needs, nor expand to meet our future ones.
You have the opportunity to expand IxDA's capability to provide the
next-generation website that will take us beyond the mailing list
of today.
We aim to develop a solid, extensible platform for our community of
practice
to meet and enrich one another and grow the discipline. IxDA has
chosen
Drupal as the technology framework for our new infrastructure. The
Drupal
framework will allow the IxDA community to grow and thrive with
improved
digital communications capabilities, easy sharing and searching of
all
types
of content, local group sites, and member profiles. However, we
can't build
the new website ourselves. This is where your financial support is
crucial.
I am IxDA. You are, too. Without the generous contributions,
participation
and support of the interaction design community, IxDA wouldn't be
where it
is today. IxDA is a member-supported organization, not a
membership-supported organization, so we collect no dues. You are a
member
if you say you are. It's that simple. Beyond the generous
contribution of
volunteer time, financially this means we rely heavily on
revenue-generating
events like our annual conference and on fundraising efforts such
as this,
which we haven't held since 2007.
Our goal is to collect $30,000 over the next four days, until June
26th.
Ambitious, I know, but not impossible. Consider this: If 10,000
subscribers
contributed $3, a fancy cup of coffee in some parts, we'd be done.
Or 1,000
contributed $30, often less than a good book these days. If you gain
anything from IxDA, won't you please give a little back? No amount
is too
big or small. As a thank you to all that contribute, we will hold a
drawing
each day and select one name to receive a complimentary
registration to
interaction'10, being held in Savannah, GA next February! (Note:
Each day
starts at 12:01 am GMT. No IxDA Board Members are eligible for the
drawing.
All registrations are transferable but not eligible for cash
exchange.)
Please contribute now!
http://bit.ly/17AJoE
Tell the community that you're supporting IxDA!
Retweet your support:
http://bit.ly/V7kdV
We would love to hear why you're a part of IxDA. Create your own IxDA
Support widget for your blog or site while you're at it:
http://bit.ly/12uHaE
How the money will be spent:
We want to be able to select a highly qualified development partner
who can
help sustain our organizational growth over the long term. The funds
gathered will be used to build, deploy and maintain the new
website. Any
funds not used in the current round of development will be used for
ongoing
website support and development. You can expect updates throughout
the
build
process for how things are progressing. Our goal is to have the
first phase
of work done by this Fall.
On behalf of the IxDA Board of Directors and all who care about this
community, I thank you!
Janna DeVylder, President, IxDA
________________________________________________________________
Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
To post to this list ....... disc...@ixda.org
Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe
List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines
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________________________________________________________________
Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
To post to this list ....... disc...@ixda.org
Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe
List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines
List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Vice-President, IxDA / www.ixda.org
CDO, Devise / www.devise.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
________________________________________________________________
Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
To post to this list ....... disc...@ixda.org
Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe
List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines
List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
