Community

The first annual Coders 4 Charities St. Louis was held this past weekend, October 16-18 at the CAIT facility in downtown Clayton, MO.  The event brought together over 50 geeks volunteering their time and talent to help nine organizations chosen for IT makeovers.  Needs included the setup and configuration of a network server & file shares, website makeovers, a brand new website for an organization that never had one, and applications to help charities fulfill their mission.

None of what was accomplished this weekend would have been possible without the work of Kevin Grossnicklaus who began the process of identifying organizations in need back in March.  With the help of the United Way, Kevin identified the nine organizations that were chosen for this years Coders 4 Charities event.

Along with the nine projects were nine team leads, each of which was responsible for doing some pre-event work to determine options for the project they were assigned, selecting a team, and working to execute the plan during the event.  I was one of those nine project leads and chose a project for the Violence Prevention Center of Southwestern IL which included a website makeover to provide the center with new capabilities and tools to fulfill their mission by making better use of their on-line presence.  Jessica Brandon, the director of the VPC worked closely with me to define their needs and what they would like to have in a website.

Robbie Prince of Royal Solutions the IT provider for the VPC also worked with our team to provide access to the hosting infrastructure.  Robbie was able to help us with accessing the web host to install and configure the content management software we used for our project.

The Project

The VPC has an existing website which is static and does not have any dynamic capabilities such as an event calendar, the ability to easily move content, nor the ability to accept on-line donations.  Jessica understands the need to have a website that both reflects the organization and provides tools for the organization to maintain their on-line presence to reach their audience and further support the organizations mission.  She was very excited to receive a website makeover and worked hard to prepare content for the new website.

Existing site:

Based on the requirements of the project, the hosting environment, and the teams experience I identified Dot Net Nuke as a candidate to provide the content management features.  Because of the availability of modules, themes and skins, as well as local resources who are very familiar with Dot Net Nuke it was a good choice overall.  Our choice was further validated when we realized that by the end of the weekend we had not written one line of .NET code.

The team researched and identified two specific DNN modules to help meet the VPC’s needs.  One was the Calendar & Events module which provides the capability for users to register for events and pay on-line via Paypal.  The other was the Forms & List module which provides the capability for the DNN administrators to create forms on their website and have the forms be submitted to the database and an E-mail address.

The Team

• Jessica Brandon, Director, VPC SW IL
• Rob Brown
• Chris Deweese
• Pat Illert
• Becky Isserman
• Ian Lackey
• David Phillips
• Kevin Queen
• Joyce Tritt

Left to right: Rob Brown, David Phillips, Joyce Tritt, Kevin Queen, Jessica Brandon, Chris Deweese

Collaboration Tools

For teams to collaborate, Assembla was selected as the source control and issue tracking system.  By the end of the weekend I was the “Ticket Master” and the team was used to my affinity for using tickets in the Assembla system to assign work and track progress.  Because we did not write code we only used the version control for the theme and skin files.

I am 100% impressed with Assembla and we will continue to use it beyond this weekend as we support the transition of the website.

The DNN Experience

Three members of the team were moderate to advanced DNN users and greatly helped the rest of us understand DNN concepts & terms and identify the right modules to use.  The rest of the team quickly learned the ins and outs of setting up DNN.  Initially we started with version 4.8.2 which was the version offered by the web host.  Robbie at Royal Solutions used the “Easy” button to install that for us on Friday evening.

The next morning as the team began to add content provided by Jessica, we determined upgrades were needed.  We followed some excellent blog posts by Mitch Sellers and upgraded seamlessly from 4.8.2 to 4.9.X and then to 5.1.4.

The Result

Final Thoughts

As I said, none of this would have been possible without the work of Kevin and Jessica, the assistance of Robbie, and the team.  Everyone on the team felt strongly enough that we are going to continue supporting the VPC as they transition to the new website and until they feel comfortable with all the new capabilities they have.  I can’t say enough good things about everyone involved.  They all pitched in and worked hard through the weekend on-site and virtually.  Knowing that there are so many geeks in the community that were willing to give their time over the weekend is a good feeling.

As IT professionals we have a unique set of skills that can help organizations fulfill their mission.  Having the opportunity to use those skills to benefit organizations in need has been a very fulfilling experience.  I come from a background of working with non-profits and I know how hard times are at many of those organizations.  The bottom-line is that these organizations needed help and we were able to provide it.

I thank Jessica Brandon and the VPC staff, as well as the other eight organizations for taking a chance on us and allowing us the opportunity to give something back to the community.  I look forward to continuing to work with these organizations and a Coders 4 Charities 2010!