http://community.ingres.com/forum/blogs/pstout/ en Tue, 09 Feb 2010 13:24:21 GMT vBulletin 60 http://community.ingres.com/forum/ingres4/misc/rss.jpg http://community.ingres.com/forum/blogs/pstout/ http://community.ingres.com/forum/blogs/pstout/6-ingres-community-evolution.html Fri, 12 Jun 2009 18:27:06 GMT It seems like it's been about two months since I walked in the door at Ingres for the first time. It was a complete change of pace for me. Instead of passing through security gates patrolled by armed guards I just drove up to the building and parked. I didn't have to authenticate three times to enter the building. The door was a normal door, not a reinforced steel vault with a cipher lock. The office had windows! I could wear my earrings into work for the first time in 6 years. Not quite sure what to expect, I came in promptly at 08:45 wearing a pair of slacks and a tie.

Looking back, I was quite possibly the best dressed person in the building that day.

I was quickly introduced to the Ingres Community within my first week. Naturally, I had done my research on Ingres before talking to Doug and his team so I at least knew where to find the community and what technologies were in use on the site. I've been doing PHP/web development for many years, so I thought I knew what I was walking into. Write some code, get a paycheck, and then go home at the end of the day.

Wrong.

I’ve learned so much since I’ve been at Ingres. Aside from the obvious - learning about the Ingres database - I’ve had a chance to work with new web technologies that I had never touched, federated identity management, and a myriad of SaaS tools. Instead of slacks and a tie, my usual attire for work is an AE shirt and Old Navy jeans. I try to get in by 9 AM but usually miss my mark by a bit when I’ve been up late doing some ESD updates, a new community rollout, or collaborating with Grant and Alex in Europe. I’ve had the opportunity to influence an open source community and I’ve always been passionate about open source software and the freedom it allows you in development. My professional evolution, however, pales in comparison to the evolution of the Ingres community over the last 14 months.

Not so long ago, the Ingres Community consisted of a disconnected phpBB forum and wiki. The first step in the evolution was to get the forums off phpBB and implement a single sign-on solution for the community sites. Three solutions were reviewed and we selected vBulletin as our forum replacement. A similar selection process occurred regarding the SSO provider and TriCipher’s MyOneLogin was selected. After three months vBulletin went live and, powered by TriCipher, provided a seamless SSO experience across the main community properties.

The second stage of the community evolution was the look & feel. I’ve never pitched myself as a designer and the first attempt at a unified community look & feel definitely showed that. The good news was that all our community sites finally looked the same. The bad news was that it didn’t really look that great... At the end of the day, however, we had achieved another important milestone in community evolution.

That brings us to now. On June 5th the newest evolution of the community launched. The look & feel was redesigned from the ground up to provide a more modern and more usable interface. A community portal was created to highlight our community’s greatest assets, its members, and provide a quick overview of what’s happening in the community. We added community blogs, unified the community by linking legacy collaboration platforms, and expanded our reach into current social networking trends such a Twitter and Facebook. We’ve streamlined the login and user management system and developed cross-feeds of information. No matter how you like to communicate on the web, we’re implementing ways to plug into the Ingres Community.

The June 5th launch is not the end, but rather a beginning of a new vision for the Ingres Community. We plan to continue integrating, streamlining, and expanding the community. I’m extremely excited about the possibilities and look forward to watching our community grow! ]]> pstout 1 http://community.ingres.com/forum/blogs/pstout/6-ingres-community-evolution.html