Download - WordPress for Government Websites

Transcript
  • 1. WordPress for Government Websites?!
  • 2.
    • MCP @ MIT
    • BA UPD @ UMKC
    • Planning Tech @ UMKC
    • Geek @ Luminopolis
    Jase Wilson
  • 3. Whats this about?
    • A. Managing small gov. websites
    • B. Time & money
  • 4. The Problem
    • Govs. need more web services
    • Info needs to be managed
    • Dwindling Budgets
  • 5. Options for maintaining small gov. websites
    • No CMS*
      • Hand code all content
      • Can be useful for very small, simple sites
      • Impractical @ 10+ pages
    *(content management system)
  • 6. Options for maintaining small gov. websites
    • One-off CMS
      • AKA roll your own
      • Custom CRUD (& possibly GUI)
      • Made in-house or by contractor
      • Useful in very unique situations
      • Unwise for most: abundant simpler options
  • 7. Options for maintaining small gov. websites
    • Language Framework CMS
      • Similar to one-off
      • Begins with a broadly distributed skeleton system
      • (Rails, Django, CakePHP, etc. etc.)
      • Good choice for enormous entities / complex sites
      • Impractical for all but largest gov. organizations
  • 8. Options for maintaining small gov. websites
    • Proprietary / Vendor CMS
      • Already built, ready to tailor
      • (Ektron, CivicPlus, etc.)
      • Purchased or SaaS
      • Can be extremely costly
      • Sometimes slow innovation pace
      • Risk of vendor lock-in
  • 9. Options for maintaining small gov. websites
    • Open Source CMS
      • Already built, ready to tailor
      • (Drupal, WordPress, etc.)
      • Core is free
      • Extensible (large communities of contributors)
      • Increasingly wise choice for small & mid gov. orgs
      • Of the people, by the people, for the people
  • 10. Drupal
    • de facto OS CMS for federal government
    • (whitehouse.gov, SBA, many others)
    • extremely competent
    • powerful when used correctly
    Open Source CMS choices for government
  • 11. WordPress?
    • Started as blogging engine
    • As of latest major release (Feb 23, 2011), Full blown CMS
    Open Source CMS choices for government
  • 12. Joomla Textpattern Cushy Silverstripe Frog etc., etc... etc., etc... etc., etc... etc., etc... etc., etc... etc., etc... Open Source CMS choices for government
  • 13. Open Source CMS choices for government Sometimes, you just need a kitten. vs.
  • 14. By the numbers: market share
  • 15. By the numbers: usable hooks* *hook = function endpoint for integrating extensions WordPress exposed hooks from v 1.2.1 to v 3.1 Drupal 7: 267 WordPress 3.1: 1469 http://adambrown.info/p/wp_hooks http://bit.ly/dIPaBFg Graph Source: http://adambrown.info/p/wp_hooks
  • 16. By the numbers: installations Graph Source: Jen Lampton, Why WordPress is Better Than Drupal, Developers Take Note (July, 2010) http://slidesha.re/917HF0 (excludes WP.com)
  • 17. By the numbers: registered extensions Graph Source: Jen Lampton, Why WordPress is Better Than Drupal, Developers Take Note (July, 2010) http://slidesha.re/917HF0
  • 18. By the numbers: registered themes Graph Source: Jen Lampton, Why WordPress is Better Than Drupal, Developers Take Note (July, 2010) http://slidesha.re/917HF0
  • 19. By the numbers: community size Graph Source: Jen Lampton, Why WordPress is Better Than Drupal, Developers Take Note (July, 2010) http://slidesha.re/917HF0 # of people in the community
  • 20. Still a kitten?
  • 21. More != Better
    • Although there are some advantages to scale:
    • More members = more knowledge & support
    • More users = easier to hire maintainer
    • More hooks = greater flexibility (in the long run)
    Its true:
  • 22.
    • Simpler setup & maintenance = less $
    • Big community = more managers in labor pool
    • Less moving parts = less things that can go wrong
    • Intuitive workflow = increased productivity
    • Platform agnostic = runs anywhere (even IIS!)
    • Tons of hooks = integration with other services
    • Perhaps most significant of all...
    So, Why WP?
  • 23. So, Why WP?
    • Its made for communities!!!
    • - powerful threaded commenting engine in core
    • - multiuser, multisite out of the box
    • - user levels, from superadmin to subscriber
    • - dozens of forks & plugins for forums (bbPress, buddyPress, p2, etc.)
  • 24. When WP?
    • * Local gov. sites for populations < ~50,000
    • * Special neighborhood / community sites
    • * Planning sites!
  • 25. Resources
    • Download core, plugins, themes http://wordpress.org
    • Extend http://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API
    • Hooks database (by Adam Brown) http://adambrown.info/p/wp_hooks
    • Help from advanced users http://wordpress.stackexchange.com
  • 26. Thanks
    • ? & !
    • [email_address]
    • @luminopolis