What does OpenConcept do and how do you work with Drupal?

OpenConcept is a web development company that works with nonprofits, unions, political organizations and government agencies. We've been using Drupal since 4.6 and have been active on issues such as internationalization, accessibility and education. Drupal is the core application that we use when working with our clients, since we find that when customizing communications tools to meet their needs most organizations need the level of flexibility that Drupal offers.

How did you first get involved in Drupal development?

OpenConcept was previously involved in another CMS (Back-End.org) and so we became involved in doing development quite early in the process as we were looking at how to migrate our existing clients over to Drupal. We've always worked with our clients to build long term relationships and have a history of supporting our clients through significant upgrades and site changes.

Can you tell us about a recent Drupal-based project that OpenConcept did that was particularly interesting?

I asked our team about this and had a few different perspectives. We've found working with Panels2 and Views2 to be a great. Panels2 allows us to create "control panel" style pages which draw information from different sources. Views2 gives us more ability to query the database and build context-specific information pages. We did some interesting work integrating Sympa & Drupal forums that went well.

However, the the work we've done recently on improving the Connect module is probably the most interesting. There's something nice about adding a module that makes CCK even more flexible than it already is, but to create a module that has a lot of eAdvocacy capacity as well is very exciting. We are working with MakePovertyHistory.ca to implement this in their site, but are happy that there is starting to be more interest in it from the broader Drupal community.

What are you most looking forward to at DrupalCon DC?

Meeting people in the Drupal community that I've met previously is going to be a huge part of the excitement. I will be meeting in person and for the first time folks that I've worked with virtually since before using Drupal. It's also a big thrill to have informal exchanges between the best and brightest in this great community. I know that it will be a great learning experience for all participating in the conference. Finally getting a chance to see DC itself will be a bit of a thrill. We do a lot of work with online campaigns and political organizations, but Ottawa is a lot less influential on the world stage.