SilverStripe.com Blog

Website Guidelines for the Napier City Council

Thu, 17 May 2012 12:12:10 +1200

On Monday and Tuesday last week Sig and Pete met Lee Tong at ALGIM 2012 in Roturua. This offered a good opportunity to catch up and exchange experiences and ideas.

Lee works as web developer and administrator for Napier City Council and maintains 21 council websites, databases and the corporate intranet. Since Lees time with the Napier City Council, he has taken their website from a static site to dynamic user interactive site. He has built many sites on the SilverStripe CMS and is an experienced user. He came to ALGIM to talk about SilverStripe and share his work regarding the “Website Standards and Guidelines for Web architecture, Design and Content” for the Napier City Council. The Napier City Council site has won ALGIM Web Awards in 2006, 2009 and 2011.

How did it come that you started looking for a new content management tool at Napier City Council?

We only had a CMS system that was built by me and it was not allowing our users to change everything that they required, it also did not give us the flexibility to design and build sites really quickly.

How many other CMS's did you evaluate?

I had look at a few CMS systems before deciding on SilverStripe, we looked at Joomla, Sharepoint and sitecore.

Do you think there is an advantage for government in using an open source tool?

I am a big believer of government using open source. The information available and the rapid development that you get from open source is amazing, you can’t get it from anything else, I don’t think.

Was the fact that SilverStripe is ‘Made in New Zealand’ a reason for you to choose it over other content management systems out there?

It was not really a consideration but it is certainly a benefit for getting questions answered and having the ability to be able to visit staff if we need to, and it is good for NZ to help a local business.

You created Website Standards and Guidelines for Web Architecture, Design and Content. What was the purpose of the document?

The purpose of the document was to provide a way for the facilities to understand how we could better work together as one organisation. It allows us to build on one platform and spend money more wisely. The document also allows us to work with other companies very easily as they know what is required.

What do you think are the most significant advantages of having such guidelines?

Faster website re-builds, saving council money and advancing our facilities with the latest web technology.

How is this document different from the New Zealand Government Web Standards?

It is more about creating a way to handle the large workload that most councils face with the large number of websites they look after, rather than actually what the standards are for the website.

Who uses the guidelines document you created?

All council facilities and contractors that are doing work for us or one of the facilities.

Does that mean that all Napier City Council sites have to run on SilverStripe in order to integrate with each other?

It does not mean that all facilities have to use SilverStripe but it is shown through the document what the benefits of using it are. So far we have only had great feedback and more facilities wanting to come on board.

What’s the most exciting thing for you when you think about using SilverStripe?

How easy it is to customise.

Local Government Update 2012

Wed, 09 May 2012 14:02:12 +1200

Gisborne District Council is a client of ours and their website has just been named the top council website in the country at this week's local government web symposium. ALGIM, who organised the event, produces a list ranking the country's 80 council websites on a variety of criteria including web standards and accessibility. Gisborne has done particularly well given their size and resources are considerably less than major urban councils. Karen Hadfield (pictured with me below), won a ticket to Webstock 2013 for her hard work!

ALGIM has also released a report into council websites this year, which continues to show council sites typically run on a closed source Microsoft .ASP-based platform, for example SharePoint. SilverStripe CMS is the second most popular platform used overall, and is well ahead of any other open source choice in local government. Lee Tong from Napier City Council initiated a user group at the symposium event, which will enable users of SilverStripe CMS in local government, such as Gisborne and Napier, to more richly collaborate.

At the symposium, I gave a presentation about current themes for council websites. This provided both a retrospective into ideas we spoke about two years ago (video), and what's new in 2012, such as using responsive design to present content better on smartphones within a modest amount of budget and energy. It's also clear that, for the most part, councils are getting their content under control, and can increasingly focus on the services, online payments, and consultation processes they can offer online. If councils can collaborate on approaches and platforms more than they have in the past, these complex offerings can be created without cost duplication and be built to be user friendly and to a much higher calibre.

Video: 5 themes relating to local government website by Sigurd Magnusson.

In the two days of talks, a common theme surrounded social media and engagement with communities. This was either in the context of consultations, but also around disasters and emergencies that councils have faced recently in New Zealand. Amelia Loye was one such example, who discussed connected government (video). As a consequence, I changed my other presentation, which was at the end of the day, into an open panel that generated great discussion that would have productively lasted for hours.

Video: Social Engagement Panel

ALGIM do a great job at getting council staff from all over the country talking with each other. We thank them for putting on the event and look forward to supporting them and another initiatives that support collaboration and progress across government.

12 years at SilverStripe: Q&A with the founders

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 16:39:58 +1300

It was a leap year, the year 2000, that saw 29 February become the day that CMS history was written and SilverStripe officially incorporated. Two years ago we did a little retrospective to see how it all began with Sam, Tim and Sig. There were three fearless young guys fresh out of college who knew the world was their oyster; the world was waiting for them to create something awesome. Tim’s life savings were spent on some equipment, they built their first website with ASP 2.0 from their bedrooms at mum and dad’s, and named their company Totally Digital, which is today known as SilverStripe. Luckily they soon discovered the beauty of PHP and matured into serious businessmen who today have the trust of some multi-million dollar organisations.

Last week, I met with these, still fearless but slightly older, guys to speak about the beauty of being young, innocent and taking advantage of opportunities.

How did it all start?

Tim: At the beginning, Sam worked with ASP from Microsoft as a technology. Then Sig introduced PHP to the game.

What was the biggest challenge you faced when you started your business?

Sam: Going from hobby to business. We were young and had no experience. Coming fresh from college we had no experience from previous jobs. And sometimes we had to make expensive learning curves.

Did you start with a big vision?

Sam: We were focused on the technology, making the business side of it up as we went along. We pretty much did what was in front of us.

Tim: At the time it was dotcom boom, all the hype and craze and a lot of energy and passion, but it was unfocused.

Sam: We saw the case by case individual needs and a client needed to be looked after in a certain way. So building them a website and a CMS from scratch was mostly in response to individual needs.

Sig: We had the idealism of doing something really wonderful with the web, but really; we had no plan.

Tim: We knew we wanted to take over the world, but we didn’t really know how. We saw and took the opportunity to build the tools that would eventually shape the future of business.

Sam: It’s much easier to be idealistic when you’re young. We had no sense of limits, and were arrogant enough to think we could achieve anything. We started very broad - we did everything from building databases to websites and CMS’s, right through to building a scoreboard system for an indoor sports centre.

Sig: Then we found what we liked doing and what we could make money on. We had no mortgages or kids; so we had nothing to lose. It was low risk. Some monthly income in the early days allowed us to experience and dabble in what was going on in the Internet.

What’s the advantage and disadvantage of starting a business when you are quite young?

Sam: The younger you are, the bigger risks you can take. You might not have money, so you don’t have to worry about losing it. One of the good things about the software industry is that the amount of capital you need is very low. This enables young people to start out and gives them that extra opportunity, especially those trying to start out with skills in the IT space.

Is there anything you would do differently today if you could start over again?

Sam: I would choose carefully what I want and focus more on that. We went in many directions, and it helps a lot to focus on what’s important, and really hone in on that.

Tim: We had a good lot of lessons learnt. We had a lot of bad experiences and bad clients. So you should really define for whom you want to work. But in saying that; you learn from bad experiences, too.

Sig: Either direction, it probably would have just been a different set of mistakes. Something we could have done is actually set our sights higher, set the goal and really channeled that.

Can you name a couple of lessons learnt?

Sig: The matter of funding your business through cash-flow, as opposed to taking large investment, is a worthwhile process that constantly refines everything you do. You can’t go the wrong way for too long, or you get into trouble. But focusing on the cash-flow helps you to quickly learn if you’re heading the right way.

Sam: Aim to create a company you’re proud of and passionate about. Its not enough to follow a good idea; you need to deeply care about what you are doing.

Tim: The range of different personalities and opinions among the three of us has been a learning curve in itself. We have our conflicts, but it is always constructive and we always come to an agreement.

Is it difficult to be friends as well as business partners?

Tim: The business was first, the actual friendship came later.

Sam: I met Tim around the time that we started the business. The most significant similarity in your relationship is that you’re doing business together. It becomes the substance of the relationship, and although it doesn’t necessary diminish the other side of the friendship, it by sheer volume it can come to dominate it.

Tim: It would be difficult to work together if you didn’t like each other...

Sam: ..you are sort of getting married, you’re spending half of your life together, your deeply reliant on each other, and if you were to leave, the others would be screwed. You’re committed, and tied to each other in a meaningful sense. You can’t just hand in your notice.

Sig: There needs to be an element of loyalty and respect, too; we try to row in unison. We need to be in sync and heading in the same direction.

What do you like most and least about your job?

Sam: I like watching this company growing into something that is bigger than every one of us. It stands alone. The tough part is when you have to make a decision that is best for the company, but you know you will disappoint someone. But I have to take the responsibility of the consequence of my decisions.

Tim: I like the ability to indirectly touch half a million businesses, then all of their clients too. That’s the beauty of the net. What I don’t like is to see so many opportunities out there and not to have the time or resources to take advantage of them.

Sig: I see web as the major medium in which the world’s humanity is interacting. It is rapidly changing and rapidly increasing its influence in the world. It’s a fun area to be in and to even contribute to. My dislike is the same as Tim’s; all those missed opportunities. How often have I thought: “If only someone built this iPhone app”.

How much of SilverStripe is driving revenue and how much is ideology?

Sam: It is both; ideology and profit. Have your cake and eat it too. We see open source as that opportunity.

It is important to create a business that makes money, otherwise it won’t last. I like Tim O’Reilly’s analogy: “Profit in a business is like gas in a car. You don't want to run out of gas, but neither do you want to think that your road trip is a tour of gas stations.”

Tim: We commercialise the open source tool by using it for our clients. The CMS and Framework give us the USP we need to be ahead of the competition. This is how we grow and why we have an international brand.

Sig: It really is a strong mix of both. If it were just one or the other, we’d either have no customers or no community.

Sam: I would say that we’re socially conscious capitalists.

What’s special about SilverStripe?

Sam: We are kiwis, we’re not very good at listing the reasons that we are special. (laughs)

Tim: We have a good, fun work environment.

Sam: SilverStripe has a culture that focuses on the things that matter; like giving people the freedom they need to create great work. We don’t want to create a bunch of prima donnas. People here are talented, they listen and learn. We are problem solvers, we help businesses and we need our knowledge and talent for that.

What is open source for you?

Sig: It’s partially creator of good will, marketing, and deriving satisfaction for our developers, as well as a billboard for our customers, so that prospective customers are able to fall in love with something real. They can try it before they invest any money. Broadly, its a much improved software. Without open source, it’s too easy for a software to get stuck in the hands of one vendor.

Sam: We wouldn’t be here if we hadn’t open sourced. Industries that focus on capitalising intellectual property directly are struggling. Open source in the software space is an attempt to grow a software businesses without locking down IP, and in that sense, I see open source as the future.

Tim: We give value away for free. We make good profit, but not mega profit. We are not capitalised like other companies, which keeps the playing field level. Software is a way of codifying ideas and thinking. Ideas get more actionable, and open source keeps that knowledge on the table.

What would you do if Google knocked on your door tomorrow?

Sam: What is the outcome going to be? What we’ve created is pretty special. If someone was going to help make that even more special, then maybe we’d consider. But if it was to be swallowed up and consumed by another big ecosystem, then we wouldn’t be keen on that.

Tim: Our vision for SilverStripe was always to create long term value rather than something we’d sell overnight. We’ve had offers in the past, but we never seriously considered them.

Sig: Buying a company usually means buying the customers and sunsetting the product. That is entirely against the idea we had when we founded the company.

Thank you very much for this interview. Congratulations to 12 years at SilverStripe!

Part 3: Q&A with Developer Mateusz Udowski

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 12:09:22 +1300

After talking to Sam and Alex, the final post in my series about SilverStripe’s adoption of Agile and Scrum, will be a conversation with developer Mateusz Udowski.

We will talk about how the changes have affected him and why he thinks SilverStripe is now more intelligent as a whole than it was before.

Mateusz, what was the most interesting thing that happened during the change? What was the most surprising?

I was expecting we would have problems with completing less exciting tasks such as testing, but that didn’t happen. Shifting the responsibility from individuals to the group gave space for everyone to work efficiently.

Also, we needed some structure and after we started working as a team we began to collaborate and everything seemed to fall into place. I think the main reason for our success was that the team members regarded each other as peers.

What's different now?

The biggest change is that there is no penalty for helping each other out anymore. The budget is relevant on the team level, but not on individual level, which means we can share problems and solutions.

One can clearly see what to work on now, and what needs to be worked on next. Tasks and impediments are clearly visible and are not being swept under the carpet.

Reducing the size of the team from 40 (whole company interacting semi-randomly) to 7 (Scrum team) makes it easier to work together, mainly because we get the chance to learn about and respect each others’ strengths, weaknesses and habits.

What is your day like now versus before?

Less stressful. It's possible to get more work done because we can focus on tasks and clearly see at any moment where we are in the sprint and in the project.

Folk wisdom has it that when you force a person's brain to focus on many things in parallel, their IQ falls considerably, and that's how it feels now - less chaotic, more intelligent.

What are you more more confident about now?

It's easier now to apply creative solutions and "refactor fearlessly". We have shifted from delivering at all costs to delivering high quality products up to capacity. Peer reviews, test coverages and testing by many people all contribute here.

It is possible to enhance how the team works both technically and from a process perspective. We can now build on top of what we have achieved in previous iterations because there is a "we" - a stable team.

What did you have to learn? What was the hardest to learn?

Not to tell people what to do and how to do it. It never worked well anyway. The other important ability is to be able to discern when is the time to say "no" to factors that would break the Scrum process.

How do you think you benefitted from working with a coach?

I've seen many of these Agile elements previously in different combinations and contexts, but never all put together.

A good coach will give you the confidence to apply all these principles now, immediately, and to a achieve good result. Otherwise we would probably be stuck in the step-by-step approach which would stop halfway through and ultimately fail.

Pointing out the future possibilities is also helpful, showing that it's not the end of the road.

What's been in it for you?

There is more room for error and to try things out, hence more is possible. Short feedback loops and peer reviews provide a platform for learning and a cushion for failure.

Would you recommend Scrum and Agile to others?

Yep, without hesitation.

This has been an interesting and valuable coaching experience for me. I know that Silverstripe will reach new levels of excellence through Agile and Scrum and their commitment to team work.

I am proud to have been able to contribute to their success and to have been part of SilverStripe’s journey.

I wish you all the best and look forward to seeing more great results in 2012.

Part 2: Q&A with Scrum Master and Project Manager Aleksandra Brewer

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 12:09:22 +1300

This is part two of my three-part interview series about the adoption of Agile and Scrum at SilverStripe.

Last week’s interviewee was SilverStripe’s CEO Sam Minnée, and today I will talk to Scrum Master and Project Manager Aleksandra Brewer. Alex works with one of the Agile teams at SilverStripe and has likened working with me with a visit to the dentist.

Alex, what was the most surprising thing that happened during the transition?

Some of the surprising (although maybe obvious) things were that (1) it's possible for more than one person to work on the same user story, (2) work goes faster when people collaborate, (3) sprint planning that results in greater understanding of stories and tasks necessary to complete them really speeds up the work during the sprint - everyone knows what needs to be done and can pick up a simple task and complete it.

What's different now?

I love being able to see the day to day progress of the team - it's so visible on the board, plus the work seems to be going faster, with several people going through small tasks all the time. With the acceptance criteria being defined and discussed before the start of a sprint, and with the Product Owner being available to answer any additional questions and provide feedback throughout the sprint, there is virtually no possibility for any team member to go off on a tangent.

What are you more confident about now?

Talking to clients is easier now, as they are much more involved and ultimately responsible for making decisions about priorities. We (the team) make recommendations, share our knowledge and inform the client about pros, cons and consequences of the different options, but in the end it's up to them to make a final decision.

All along the course of a project clients know exactly where we're at, what's being built, etc., which they love. The transparency of Scrum, although scary at the beginning, is really beneficial for both the team and clients.

What did you have to learn? What was the hardest to learn?

The hardest thing to learn was to give up the control over what the individual team members were doing from day to day.

How do you think you benefitted from working with a coach?

Working with you has been a bit like going to the dentist - painful at times, but all along I knew it was good for me, and I'm in better shape now than I was before. It's been good to have you keep us on track, and point out things that now seem obvious, and yet were not at first.

Would you recommend Scrum and Agile to others?

Definitely. I couldn't imagine going back to the old ways, negotiating "resourcing" among Project Managers, developers being on several different projects at the same time, and not knowing when a project would end because of the uncertainty of developer availability.

Part 1: Q&A with CEO Sam Minnée about Agile at SilverStripe

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 10:25:45 +1300

Guest blogger Sandy Mamoli is one of NZ's leading Agile advocates, a Certified Scrum Master and became New Zealand's first Certified Scrum Practitioner in October 2007.

One of her major Agile initiatives was working on Sony Ericsson’s global enterprise website. She has also worked with organisations such as the BNZ (Bank of New Zealand), the ACC (Accident Compensation Company), NZ On Screen, the National Library of New Zealand and Snapper.

Currently she is working as an independent Agile Coach helping organisations become passionate about Agile and Lean principles and methods, and to be as Agile as they possibly can and want to be.

When SilverStripe approached me to help them take their Agile implementation to the next level, I was excited about the opportunity to work with this local Wellington business with employees from a wealth of different countries.

SilverStripe wanted to improve the way in which they deliver client projects, increase employee happiness and, in general, just do the best possible job. To achieve this, we decided to move away from the existing Agile-like approach and introduce Scrum, with its focus on client-driven iterations, early feedback and continuous improvement.

During the past six months I have been working with sales, management and delivery teams to help SilverStripe adopt Scrum right across the organisation, and to make it the core of everything they do.

In this three-part series, I will interview the CEO, a Scrum Master and a Developer. We’ll talk about their experiences including the biggest surprises, differences, and how they found the changes working out for them.

Today’s conversation is with SilverStripe’s CEO Sam Minnée.

Sam, what was the main thing you wanted to achieve? Did you achieve it?

Although SilverStripe has favoured an Agile approach over waterfall methods for some time, we wanted to introduce more structure around our development and project management processes. As we are now successfully running the bulk of our work with Scrum, I would say that we have achieved it.

What is different now?

Prior to the change, we had a different set of people for each project. Everyone would work with several different groups of people on several different projects. This made it easier to find resources for projects, but it was subtly killing the team's sense of ownership of a project's success. Despite it being painful (many people had to be moved onto new projects and be taken off old ones) we made the decision to re-shape our developers, designers, and PMs into four consistent delivery teams, that collectively work on all the projects assigned to them.

Now developers and designers are much more invested in the big picture of the work they do - it's not all up to PM’s anymore.

What are you more confident about now?

Teams have a much more accurate picture of a realistic amount of work, and so I'm more confident about our capacity.

Why did you choose to engage outside help and how do you think you benefited from working with a coach?

In short, we wanted a fresh perspective. We could read books about Scrum or send staff on training courses, but this would have only gone so far. It was difficult for the SilverStripe team to see outside of the way we run projects, and it's easy to say "oh, that's a nice idea, but it would never work in practice", when challenged to make more dramatic changes.

Sandy has helped introduce Scrum and other Agile techniques and principles to many different organisations and was able to provide assurance that we weren't going to go down an unrealistic path. The result was that we could confidently make more dramatic changes to the way we run our business.

What did you have to learn? What was the hardest to learn?

The biggest lesson was that a change in attitude is more important than the process. The process is designed to encourage the emergence of correct attitudes. One major shift for us was the notion of delivering production-quality software at the end of every Sprint. It is very easy to fall into the trap of leaving polish and testing for a "stabilisation phase" at the end of the project, or to enter into a massive piece of work that, like a jigsaw, is completely useless until the last piece is put in place. It didn't really seem like that big of a deal to us, but it subverts the whole process. At its core, Agile is about accepting that things aren't going to go to plan, and constantly being in a position to launch with what you have. Requiring a stabilisation phase or leaving mandatory features until the end mean that you introduce the risk that you are leaving a show-stopper dormant until then.

Would you recommend Scrum and Agile to others?

Yes, I would. I strongly believe that Agile techniques are much more likely to result in a successful project than traditional waterfall techniques. However, I would caution people not to assume that it will be a quick fix or a change limited to the development team. In particular, stakeholders need to find new ways to manage the risks associated with engaging in a software development project; you cannot expect that provided a detailed specification, a fixed timeframe and budget can be adhered to. It would be great if that worked, but projects approached in this way frequently fail. Instead, a team needs to keep focused on finding out the best way of meeting the project's high level business drivers within the project's constraints, as unexpected issues arise. That way you can ensure that business goals are met within the necessary timeframes and budgets.

In part two, I will talk to Scrum Master Aleksandra Brewer who works with one of the Agile teams at SilverStripe.

Happy New Year from SilverStripe

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 12:45:37 +1300

2011 was an exciting year for us. As well as launching websites such as www.aa.co.nz, www.plunket.org.nz and www.yha.co.nz, we made a lot of progress on SilverStripe 3 and have now released the alpha 2 version for our developer community to test.

Our ongoing mission is to find better ways of using the web to help make our clients better. Our open source CMS is a big part of this, but we have also been investigating the way in which we work. To that end, we have been working with agile consultant Sandy Mamoli, and we are successfully using Scrum to deliver our web projects.

2012 promises to be even better. Although I can't give the game away too much, there are a couple of things that I am particularly looking forward to this year:

We're launching SilverStripe 3, a massive step forward for our CMS and Framework

We're expanding our Auckland offices

Here's to another year of using the web to make our corner of the world a better place!

Sam Minnée
CEO

Merry Christmas from SilverStripe

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 11:48:24 +1300

While much of the world is about to celebrate time off with family and friends with snow falling outside, for us in New Zealand and Australia the festive season is the height of summer, the time for beach parties and barbecues in our back yards. We'd like to thank all our customers, supporters, and our open source community for helping to make 2011 a wonderful year for us.

Our office shuts down today and reopens fully on Monday 9 January. We look forward to working with you to do awesome stuff on the web in 2012, through great work and with the exciting release of SilverStripe 3.0.

Ministry of Science and Innovation shows innovation on the web

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 00:00:00 +1300

When the Ministry of Science and Innovation (MSI) is looking for a web presence, it has to be something extraordinary. MSI is a new government agency driving science and innovation to increase New Zealand's economic, environmental and social performance. It does this through its strategic leadership and by partnering with the science and innovation sector and through the networks it builds across government, research organisations, business and industry.

In saying that, it seemed almost a natural step that MSI would use world wide celebrated, local, open source CMS SilverStripe to build their website. Our team at SilverStripe Ltd., the company behind the open source suite, built the site and found the collaboration with MSI to be a good match in terms of culture and philosophy.

MSI has a goal to connect all players in the science and innovation ecosystem. It also provides research and development funding to grow export focused companies who can compete globally. Accordingly, the goal of the website was to explain in an easy to understand way what MSI is about, and how people can access funding.

The NZ government is generally very open about what they spend tax payers money on and is proud of the results of its investments. Based on this philosophy, the MSI website was also created to provide information on who received what, how much funding was provided from MSI and to showcase the results through case studies.

With this in mind, there was a lot of content to go into one website; 273 pages and sub pages, and thousands of pages with funding records. SilverStripe then faced the challenge of presenting all of this information in a user friendly and helpful way.

The solution is a clean and fresh design that is focused on clear communication and usability. Different sections for different audiences create a well sorted and easy to navigate content overview, and an advanced and customised search function makes it easy to search the funding database.

Simple and easy to follow HTML5 info graphics illustrate the New Zealand science and innovation landscape and provide an engaging and fun way to learn new things. The info graphics are editable in the back-end and even work on an iPad.

The promotional tiles that structure the content can be updated entirely on the fly, with photos and text linking to any page on the site. If the user wants to share the content, they can click on any of the provided Twitter or Facebook icons and share the content via their accounts.

The project wasn’t all smooth sailing, as SilverStripe faced a few challenges along the way. Julian Meadow, Project Manager at SilverStripe explains the biggest challenge: “The info graphics needed to be created in HTML5 in order to support the iPad. But a lot of desktop users visit the site with IE7, which doesn’t support HTML5. It was a challenge to find a work around for this issue, but in the end we mastered it.”

In terms of design, SilverStripe partnered with MSI design agency Ocean Design, who delivered the MSI basic brand rules and elements. Based on these guidelines, our Creative Director Felipe Skorski created the website framework and design.

The new website msi.govt.nz is a beautiful and very informative website that demonstrates that government work is anything but boring.

We are proud of the work we did. What do you think? Check it out and share your thoughts with us. We are looking forward to hearing from you.

Election 2011: The web experiment

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 14:39:18 +1300

Decades ago the first prime ministers and presidents transfixed nations with television, replacing incumbents who couldn't use the power of the new medium. It's now twenty one years since Tim Berners Lee invented the World Wide Web, and so high time to put telly to rest and let internet take over as the most influential medium for deciding who runs a country. Not because it's sexy, but for the uncontroversial reason that while TV commands people, the internet better fosters learning, debate, and discussion.

The last New Zealand Election Study is one term behind (i.e. 2008) but shows statistics you'd expect; for example, 70% didn't have internet or didn't use it during the last general election campaign, and that pamphlets, newspapers, and radio broadcasts were primary influences on voters. The 2011 election study will be published in March next year, and will no doubt show internet as having a higher influence. But I'd wager most of that website traffic is no different to TV and pamphlets because it would have been dominated by two categories:

News reported by Stuff, NZ Herald, TVNZ, 3 news websites
Political party websites

The main exception to this, in other words where the internet provided more than what old media can do, would be elections.org.nz and electionresults.govt.nz. These government sites are built to serve the mechanics of the elections: to help people enrol, know the address of a nearby voting booth, and later learn what the vote counts are. They provide a necessary service but don't help voters choose who to vote for or to take more interest in voting.

There were several websites that did set out to do this, such as vote.co.nz, OnTheFence.co.nz, TheyWorkForYou.co.nz and electionresults.co.nz/iPredict to name a few. All were (and are) good ideas and websites but are arguably just experiments in how to use the web for elections because none of them attracted a major percentage of the voting population. There's also obvious gaps:

A full calendar of public debates around the country and running some debates online. (Why not add video archives and transcripts, too?)
A popular mechanism to submit written questions to parties and see their answers, all in public view.
Simple forms of participation. The US presidential race in 2008 saw millions of people text message a key issue (e.g. Iraq, Jobs) to a Google project. This formed an interesting grass-roots political map visualisation, but the actual success is it got a whole lot of people taking the first step to engaging in political thought prior to election day. The trick is then to get some of them to learn and discuss further.

It will be fantastic milestone when all of these types of online resources are available, popular, coordinated with each other, (and politically neutral) weeks ahead of elections. Blogs, Facebook and Twitter also have a role to play. Half the challenge is building a fantastic environment of tools, information and resources, and the other half of the challenge is to get people to care and use them. If we can crack this, television can be left to be the thing you watch with your family and friends while votes are counted. But of course, you'll check the web in the ads to get more detailed real-time counts and discussion concerning your local area.

Thanks ALGIM, for fostering innovation

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 14:37:49 +1300

In celebrating innovation in local government, the 2011 ALGIM conference shows that while innovating is a real struggle, it is hard work, the spirit of collaboration, and the technology of the web that are its ingredients.

Every year, IT managers and their technical staff representing New Zealand's 80 councils meet. ALGIM, who has run the event for 31 years, provides three full days of presentations, food, and plenty of time for talk. But most importantly, the event encourages and celebrates innovation through showcases and awards. Given the IT department of a council is typically seen as the slow moving cog in an organisation that is already slow to move with the times, some healthy encouragement to take calculated risks and innovate is crucial.

Councils exist to democratically serve their communities and make them wonderful places to visit, live, and work. This costs money, which is in direct tension with rates increases and, is made harder by an economic and political climate pushing cost cutting. (Nelson City Council Chief Executive Keith Marshall expresses this tension clearly in his video presentation about leadership and the challenges coming soon to local government.) It's very refreshing therefore to see at ALGIM sessions how IT, and in particular the web, can actually be the example and inspiration for councils to transform. For example:

Windor city, Canada, is the automobile sister city of Detroit, USA. Zero revenue growth for Windsor city council over ten years is a much harsher economic reality than any New Zealand counterpart faces, and yet, their Executive Director of IT Harry Turnbell explained very clearly how they managed to keep their IT systems modern, including moving their website from brochure towards being a virtual branch open 24 hours.
InternetNZ Chief Executive Vikram Kumar explained (see video) how councils, the public, and social media can co-exist before, during, and after natural disasters affect cities. This is more than just a case of citizens having a desire to use Twitter and Facebook: social media tools cost effectively nothing, are substantially robust, create considerable goodwill, and deliver a valuable social service. These are all benefits to councils (which is also to say, their communities) so long as councils overcome challenges to do with loss of control over communication and having the resources and will to participate in realtime public conversations.
Dale Hartle, Porirua City Council website manager, won an ALGIM award for putting just as much thought into creating a useful new tool, called updates.co.nz as she did on ensuring other councils could pick it up and use it for their own regions. (Please do!)

Making the web useful to citizens is overall an expensive endeavor for councils, but efforts towards collaboration that Porirua City Council have started are right to be applauded - as is using inexpensive web tools and taking advantage of open source: these approaches are currently considered innovative but should be considered normal. This is the only way councils will be able to deliver a better service under increasing financial pressure.

Interested in helping us usability test our sites?

Thu, 14 Jul 2011 14:02:17 +1200

In order for websites to remain relevant and useful, we believe it's important to usability test them on a regular basis. We don't only recommend this to our clients, but we practice it too.

It's been just over a year since we redesigned silverstripe.com and the best way to check whether it's meeting the goals of our users (you guys!) is to usability test it. We're planning to do this over the next couple of months, initially via a short questionnaire and then with face-to-face interviews in Wellington.

In late July we'll be asking interested users the reasons why they visit both silverstripe.com and silverstripe.org and for details of what they're looking for when they're there. In August we'll be inviting test users to come into the SilverStripe office in Wellington, where we'll run through a series of scenarios to test how they navigate through our sites, and we'll then explore areas that could be improved.

After collating and reviewing all the results we're hoping to better understand exactly what our users want from our sites and how they should be structured to make them as user-friendly as possible.

We're interested in talking with a range of users, including developers, designers and clients. If you're keen on participating then please contact Julian (J) Meadow, our resident usability testing expert, and he'll send you more details. Those that participate in both stages will be rewarded with an iTunes or book voucher.

Of course, anytime you have feedback on our sites you are always more than welcome to let us know by filling in a feedback form, which can be accessed via the the footer on both sites. We really appreciate your comments, so keep them coming!

We'll keep you posted on progress over the next couple of months.

Useful usability testing - an introduction

Wed, 11 May 2011 14:16:37 +1200

Last week at ALGIM Web Symposium, our Senior Project Manager Julian (J) Meadow gave a presentation about usability testing on a budget to a roomful of those responsible for various local government websites.

He discovered that most people in the session had been part of usability testing before, with almost everyone present wanting to do testing on their own sites - but no one had ever run their own testing before.

Here at SilverStripe Ltd, usability testing is one of the many services that we're proud to offer. Usability testing helps you understand how users interact with your site and whether their needs are being met. It helps to uncover any difficulties users are having, and provides valuable feedback on how to resolve these issues. Perhaps you've heard that usability testing is expensive, and you think you can't afford it. The truth is it's not expensive and you can't afford not to do usability testing.

Of course, we understand that your budget might not stretch to bringing in an outside company to do the testing for you. Instead, we’re happy to give you J's slides for free so you can get started thinking about how to run your own sessions.

Usability testing on a budget (by J Meadow)

View more presentations from silverstripe

Some extra points to think about:

If you find a group of people that you use for testing once, you can reuse the same people again - involve them in card-sorting for IA, user focus groups, and any other testing you might need to do.
While it might take you up to three days to do your first round of usability testing (including identifying and selecting participants), subsequent test sessions can be completed in less time.
Do a little a lot - limit the focus of your testing to a specific area or page each time in order to get the most clear results, and the next time you can choose a different area to focus on.

And of course, if you'd like further help from us, get in touch. We also want your site to be as useful as possible!

Tasman District Council - a job well done with an audit to prove it

Thu, 05 May 2011 16:09:55 +1200

As part of the the Association of Local Government Information Management Web Symposium we attended earlier this week, the results of the ALGIM Council Website Evaluation and Audit were announced. This external review of all 80 Councils assesses compliance against the Government Web Standards, information and service content.

In the 2010, Tasman District Council were ranked 71st out of 85 councils* for their website. That's where we came in. SilverStripe Ltd worked with Tasman to redevelop their website completely. By moving the website onto SilverStripe CMS, we provided an open source solution, tailor-made to their specific needs.

Feedback on the site has been fantastic. The document integration in particular has been seen as changing the way the council looks at information as a whole. We were also particularly thrilled to see that after all that work, Tasman District Council now places third in the 2011 rankings, a fantastic result that has seen them rocket from near the bottom of the heap to the top.

Two of the features that we built for their site - Electronic Document Records Management System (EDRMS) integration and Google Maps integration - were nominated at the ALGIM 2011 Web Awards as best feature, with the maps integration, and the overall site placed third for the Supreme Website Award.

We were also pleased to see our other local government clients Nelson City Council, Gisborne District Council and Central Hawkes Bay District Council also ranked in the top 20 of the website evaluations. We know that councils have a lot of important information and services to share with their community, and we love to help them to be more responsive. After all, we're not just a company, we're citizens too.

* prior to the Auckland City Council restructure there were 85 councils - now there are 80.

Some thoughts on SilverStripe as a building block

Mon, 02 May 2011 15:06:16 +1200

SilverStripe is a great CMS, and now that we have our new product marketing manager Kerstin on board, we've taken some time to rethink the best ways to describe just what makes it so great. We're in a bit of an unusual position being a private company curating an open source product which is owned by its community in terms of use and code contributions. Our decisions need to take into consideration not just the commercial interests of SilverStripe Ltd, but also what's best for the software's growth.

Part of our rethinking is to do with today's release of SilverStripe 3.0 preview 1. This version sees a total separation of the SilverStripe CMS from the Sapphire framework, which means we're unleashing the full power of the framework which can be used for more than just websites. For example, we used it to build Dawn. Since Sapphire can be used separately to the CMS, it gets its own logo, but much more than that, we want to demonstrate all the benefits if offers as a foundation framework.

This also gives us a chance to examine what it is about SilverStripe that makes it different from any other CMS. Yes, it's open source, and yes it has a great community behind it. Those are great selling points for anyone looking to adopt a new CMS, but it doesn’t make SilverStripe strictly unique. So we looked under the hood of the code, where some marketers fear to tread. It was so nice and tidy in there! And that's what makes SilverStripe so great. The code is beautiful. Developers have total control, without worrying that content authors or designers are going to trip over something and accidentally bring the site down. You don't have to choose between elegant architecture and user-friendliness - with SilverStripe you get both.

Our code is intended to let you build whatever you want. That could be websites, mobile sites, web applications, programmes - whatever. Sapphire and SilverStripe provide the basic blocks. You assemble them to suit your needs.

We're pushing that idea at the CMS Expo in Chicago by using the concept of building for our marketing paraphernalia. We've got USB flash drives in the shape of a popular building brick to give away to those who come to talk to us in our booth, we're having a prize draw for a Lego Robot at the end of the conference, and as trophies for our SilverStripe awards, we'll be giving out Lego models of the Willis Tower (still known as the Sears Tower), in a nice reference to where the expo is held. We would have preferred a New Zealand landmark, of course, but unfortunately the Lego architecture series hasn't come down under yet!

Just like it's fun to see the amazing creations people build with Lego, it's also a thrill for us to check out what's new in the SilverStripe community showcase, and to see how enthusiastically people speak about SilverStripe. We might not have a SilverStripe Land, but with SilverStripe 3, who knows what’s possible? The building blocks are there, now we - and the community - just have to build it!*

* SilverStripe 3 will definitely not contain a physical amusement park. SilverStripe 4.0, however...

New CEO at SilverStripe

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 17:36:48 +1200

Changes are afoot with the resignation of Brian Calhoun. Brian and the Board have been discussing SilverStripe's future, and in the course of those discussions decided that now was a good time for Brian and SilverStripe to pursue different directions. Brian goes with the Board's thanks and best wishes.

Our former CTO, Sam Minnée, has been nominated by the board as Acting CEO to replace Brian. Sam was one of the three original founders of SilverStripe, so we know the company is in good hands. We have a huge year ahead of us with the launch of SilverStripe v3.0, and numerous other projects both small and large. We are very much looking to the future.

Sam says: "I am honoured to have been given this opportunity and look forward to building on the foundation created under Brian’s leadership. I am particularly excited to see through the launch of SilverStripe 3."

SilverStripe at the Algim 2011 Web Symposium

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 13:54:12 +1200

We're all a hustle and bustle in the office right now, because at the same time that some of us will be in Chicago at the CMS Expo, others will be attending the ALGIM 2011 Web Symposium on May 2 and 3.

The 2011 Annual ALGIM Web Symposium is now into its sixth year, attracting a variety of speakers and case studies from across the public and private sector. It's the premier event for website, online services and communication teams in the public sector (local and central government).

We've done a lot of local government work, including sites for Nelson City Council, Gisborne District Council, Taranaki Regional Council, the Metlink site for the Greater Wellington Regional Council, as well as the local elections site. We're looking forward to seeing lots of our clients again at the event. We're especially excited that the Tasman District site we worked on is nominated for three of the ALGIM Web Awards;

Best Redevelopment of New Website
Best New Feature Website (under 50,000 Population): SilverStripe / SilentOne Integration
Best New Feature Website (under 50,000 Population): Google Maps Integration

At SilverStripe, we're all about making websites that not only incorporate new technologies but are actually also useful as well. As part of this, our Senior Project Manager Julian Meadow will be doing a presentation on usability testing on a budget.

This presentation will explain how to run your own usability test sessions, within a limited budget and timeframe. The lessons taught during this session can be used to identify areas to improve an existing council website, not just test the effectiveness of website wireframes and prototypes.

If you’re going to be coming to ALGIM, make sure you stop by our booth to say hi. There's lots for us to tell you about, including the brand new SilverStripe v3.0. We'd be very interested to talk about the ways our open source software can help you reach your audiences cost-effectively and easily, and answer any questions you might have. See you there!

Come meet us at the CMS Expo in Chicago

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 12:15:21 +1300

In May, SilverStripe is going to the 2011 CMS Expo Learning & Business Conference in Chicago.

Hosted by the CMS Association, the 2011 CMS Expo Learning & Business Conference will feature over eighty information-packed CMS training sessions. Created for Web Designers, Developers and Business people, CMS Expo is the place to be for the most relevant, timely and actionable information in the fast-growth CMS Sector.

Attendees will learn the latest web skills, while making highly valuable business connections, all under one roof. Over eighty of the world’s top CMS instructors will share their knowledge and insights over these three energizing days. CMS Expo is geared toward all levels of expertise.

SilverStripe will be there to provide an update on SilverStripe CMS 3.0 plans. As well as having an expo booth, we'll be offering four training sessions, participating in interactive panels, organising a meetup, and giving out awards for websites built on SilverStripe. We're really excited to be attending, and look forward to meeting many of you there.

More details will follow, but for now the vital information you need is that CMS Expo Learning & Business Conference takes place on May 2-4, at the Hotel Orrington in Evaston, Illinois. Registration is now open.

Christchurch earthquake and its aftermath

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 14:15:45 +1300

Like everyone else, here at SilverStripe we are very worried about the devastation in Christchurch right now.

There are a number of ways that people can help with the recovery, via donation of money through various channels.

In addition to that, we would also like to offer our support to any Christchurch SilverStripe developers in any way we can assist. Please get in contact with us to see how we can help you.

Lee Middleton
+64 4 978 7329
lee@silverstripe.com
Skype: leemiddleton

SilverStripe 261st fastest-growing tech company in Asia Pacific

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 15:50:12 +1300

Deloitte's 2010 Asia Pacific Technology Fast 500 list has been released, and SilverStripe is ranked 261 out of all the technology companies.

The Technology Fast 500 Asia Pacific awards program is a ranking of the Asia Pacific region's 500 fastest-growing technology companies, based on percentage revenue growth over three years. Our revenue growth has been 151%.

This is the third year in a row that we've placed in the top 500. We'd like to thank all our clients and staff for helping us achieve this point.

For more information about the Deloitte Fast 500, please visit their site.