Categories
Business The Social Collective

Free Breakfast Seminar in Alexandria, VA on 4/9

Join association thought leader Jeff DeCagna, Chris Hopkinson of DC-area startup DubMeNow and Chris Bucchere of The Social Collective for a free breakfast seminar entitled “Strategies for Association Success in the Era of Social Business” on Thursday, 4/9 in Alexandria, VA.

Registration is limited, but there are few spots left. Sign up now!

Categories
The Social Collective

Adding Context to my.SXSW Tweets

There has been quite a bit of chatter that we’ve been following in the SXSW community about the launch of my.SXSW. Fortunately, most of it has been good news. (Phew!) We’ve also gotten some great, constructive feedback and some fabulous ideas for new features that we wish we would have thought of ourselves!

There’s one issue that has come up a few times that we’d like to address in this post. Several people in the community have expressed concern about the lack of context in tweets coming from my.SXSW. (This only applies to people who have integrated their Twitter accounts.)

We’ve applied two changes to The Social Collective software to help with this. First off, we changed the application source from “The Social Collective” to “my.SXSW” with a link back to the my.SXSW site. Also, we added a “on http://my.sxsw.com” link back to messages that notify people when you join a group.

Keep the feedback coming — we’d love to hear from you!

Categories
Featured Posts The Social Collective

SXSW Launches my.SXSW Powered by The Social Collective

sxsw2009Austin, Texas – February 2nd, 2009 – Today South By Southwest (SXSW), announced the launch of my.SXSW, the official social networking and scheduling tool for the 2009 conferences and festivals. Using my.SXSW, attendees can access the site to interact with one another, build their personalized conference schedules, join exclusive groups and form lasting relationships with other attendees. The social networking software was developed by SXSW and BDG, an industry-leading provider of a white-label conference social networking solution called The Social Collective. my.SXSW, powered by The Social Collective, represents a groundbreaking new way for SXSW attendees to enhance their offline conference experience through socializing online.

“We’ve always wanted to provide a space online for registrants to network before, during and after the ten days in March that they spend in Austin,” said Scott Wilcox, CTO of SXSW, Inc. “This year we teamed up with BDG to implement The Social Collective as my.SXSW, our new online registrant directory and social network. In addition to our collaboration with an outside team, we have tried to use the feedback we’ve received over the years to provide social networking opportunities for SXSW registrants. BDG and SXSW put a lot of thought into my.SXSW, resulting in a user experience we know will be a hit with our community.”

my.SXSW offers several new benefits to conference registrants, many of which are being introduced for the first time at SXSW 2009:

—Personalized and shareable event schedules
—Badge photo and avatar uploading and editing
—Rich media event pages with MP3 downloads, photos, band and speaker bios, etc.
—Seamless integration with Twitter, Flickr and Facebook
—Interest groups with integrated messaging
—Event/Schedule change notifications
—Social Networking (public profile pages, follow people and be followed)
—Private and public messaging on events, in groups and everywhere else
—Intuitive mobile device experience (to be launched just prior to the event)

For filmmakers looking for distribution, bands looking for producers, small businesses looking to develop their brands or digital creatives looking for new collaborators, my.SXSW provides a unique opportunity for people from all corners of the globe to get together and communicate before, after and during the event.

“We’re excited to see The Social Collective in use at SXSW,” said Chris Bucchere, CEO of BDG. “SXSW has come to be known as a trendsetting conference, not just for music and film, but for technology as well. The market for growing communities around conferences and events is just beginning to develop and of course SXSW is setting a great example of how to enhance people’s experience at their event using the right combination of web, e-mail, SMS and mobile tools.”

The Social Collective’s rich registration and schedule APIs enable seamless integration with the SXSW registrant and schedule data stores. As a result, there is no additional sign up or site registration needed. my.SXSW is open only to Film, Interactive, Music, Gold and Platinum SXSW registrants. Sign-in instructions will be sent via e-mail shortly after payment is confirmed and registration is processed by SXSW.

About SXSW

MUSIC AND MEDIA CONFERENCE features a legendary festival showcasing more than 1,800 musical acts of all genres from around the globe on over eighty stages in downtown Austin. By day, the Austin Convention Center comes alive with conference registrants doing business in the Trade Show and partaking of a full agenda of informative, provocative panel discussions featuring hundreds of speakers of international stature. In its 23rd year, SXSW remains an essential event on the music industry calendar. SXSW Music takes place March 18-22, 2009.

The SXSW FILM CONFERENCE AND FESTIVAL explores all aspects of the art and business of independent filmmaking. The Conference hosts a five-day adventure in the latest filmmaking trends and new technology, featuring distinguished speakers and mentors. The internationally-acclaimed, nine-day Festival boasts some of the most wideranging programming of any US event of its kind, from provocative documentaries to subversive Hollywood comedies, with a special focus on emerging talents. SXSW Film takes place March 13-21, 2009

The SXSW INTERACTIVE FESTIVAL celebrates the creativity and passion behind the coolest new media technologies. In addition to panel sessions that cover everything from web design to bootstrapping to social networks, attendees make new business connections at the three-day Trade Show & Exhibition. The newest element of the event is ScreenBurn at SXSW, which adds specific gaming industry programming as well as a three-day Arcade to the mix. SXSW Interactive takes place March 13-17, 2009

Find out more at http://www.sxsw.com

About The Social Collective

The Social Collective provides a fun and interactive means for conference attendees to meet and network with one another in a safe and secure environment before, during and after any conference or event. It improves attendees’ conference experiences and gives conference organizers more happy and loyal customers. The white-label product/service offering includes branding of the conference social network, integration with existing registration and e-commerce systems, data migration, site archival and Twitter, Flickr and Facebook integration.

Find out more at http://thesocialcollective.com

For more information, contact Elizabeth Derczo, SXSW, at [email protected], 512/467-7979 ext. 209 or Jennifer Dunleavey at The Social Collective, [email protected], 703/234-7910

Categories
bdg dev2dev Plumtree • BEA AquaLogic Interaction • Oracle WebCenter Interaction

Chris Bucchere’s Oracle Open World Schedule

oracle_open_world_unconferenceI’m headed to Oracle Open World on Saturday, 9/20. Here’s my proposed schedule. Like I said earlier, I’m probably going to spend most of my time in the unconference anyway, but here’s what looked interesting to me.

[Editor’s note: I’ve removed the gCal from here because it defaults to the current date, so it’s not really usable anymore, now that Oracle Open World 2008 is a thing of the past.]

If you’d prefer, you can also access this schedule in XML or ICAL format.

Categories
bdg The Social Collective

Conference Social Networking Made Simple

the_social_collective(2)Three and a half months have transpired since our stellar debut at BEA Participate. (In internet time, that’s a lifetime.) But better late than never, I’m very pleased to announce the launch of our marketing home on the web: www.thesocialcollective.com!

Please have a look and let us know what you think.

Categories
Personal

Friday Fun: Rails, Django and Caprese Salad

twitter(2)I had this Twitter argument today with former coworker, fellow web developer and friend Bryan Hughes:

bucchere: The Spring Framework is driving me crazy. If this were Rails, I’d be done already.

huuuze: @bucchere If it was Django, it’d be faster and ready to scale.

bucchere: @huuuze I’m not interested in a religious war right now. Please don’t provoke me. 😉

huuuze: @bucchere No war — even the Rails guys agree: http://is.gd/1ZZu

bucchere: @huuuze Apparently Gluon is even faster than Django. But is anyone using it? You have to consider factors other than performance.

huuuze: @bucchere Um, Django’s used by thousands. It’s not some fringe framework. Guaranteed anyone that’s used RoR and Django will prefer Django.

bucchere: @huuuze How could you make that “guarantee” when you’ve never used Rails? I said I didn’t want a religious war, you damn Python Nazi. 😉

huuuze: @bucchere I’ve built a couple sites using Rails. How many sites have you built using Django?

bucchere: @huuuze bdg’s svn server just crashed. I have more important things to do than continue this pointless argument.

huuuze: @bucchere Then quit wasting time on Twitter. I’m not trying to start anything with you. Just be aware that RoR isn’t the only game in town.

bucchere: @huuuze There are lots of religions too. And if I want to pick one and say the others are “wrong” then that’s my prerogative.

huuuze: @bucchere Whatever dude. Not sure why you’d say Django is “wrong.”

bucchere: @huuuze All I’m saying is that language/framework wars are like religious wars. I have mine, you have yours. Leave it at that.

bucchere: Enjoying a homemade caprese — my favorite salad. (Now watch while @huuuze tells me his favorite salad is better than mine.)

huuuze: @bucchere Having never tried caprese, I have no opinion on the matter.

bucchere: @huuuze LOL. I’m glad we can still be friends. 🙂

huuuze: @bucchere Get real. I’m only friends with Christians and Django users. 😉

* * *

So the time it took me to compile this discussion made me wonder why Twitter doesn’t have threaded discussions. Summize (now search.twitter.com) has “conversations” but, like Facebook’s wall-to-wall feature, just because the posts occur consecutively, it doesn’t mean that they’re actually “in” the same thread. If I were re-writing Twitter, adding threaded discussions — and with it, the ability to reply to a specific Tweet — would be near the top of my list.

Happy Friday everyone (and happy 3-day weekend for hard-working and hard-twittering Americans)!

Categories
bdg dev2dev Plumtree • BEA AquaLogic Interaction • Oracle WebCenter Interaction The Social Collective

New Video: Demo of Conference Social Application

This is a 30-minute clip from the general session at BEA Participate from back in May. Jay Simons and I demo the social application that bdg built for the conference, known now as The Social Collective.

Categories
bdg

RubyNation Community Site Accepting Registrations!

bdg is very proud to be a RubyNation sponsor! The sold-out conference is just two weeks away. However, whether you’re registered or not, if you want to network with other DC-area Rubyists, please take a minute to sign up for the Ruby Nation community, which you can access at http://rubynation.org/community.

We built this site for RubyNation using our new white-label social networking product for conference attendees and other members of the local Ruby community. This application made its debut at the BEA Participate conference in early May. It attracted over 800 registrants and generated 75,000 page views during the week of the conference. And of course, it’s written entirely in Ruby on Rails.

If you’re coming to RubyNation, thinking about coming to RubyNation (or you’re a Rubyist who wishes he or she could make it to RubyNation), feel free to sign up for the site. Registration is easy and painless. Once you’re in, you can “pimp” your profile with an avatar or photo, links, RSS feeds and products that you know and love. You can view and participate in discussions about each session at RubyNation and you can create and join groups to interact with your peers about a variety of interesting topics about Ruby (or anything under the sun).

So, don’t waste any more time reading about this stuff — come on in and let’s get social at http://rubynation.org/community!

Categories
Software Development

Chris Bucchere Speaking at the NovaRUG on June 18th, 2008

Calling all local Rubyists! I’m speaking about modular page design in Ruby on Rails at tomorrow night’s NovaRUG. The title of my talk is “To Portal or Not to Portal: How to Build DRY, Truly Modular Mashups in Rails.”

The meat of my talk is going to come from these two recent blog posts:

Modular Page Assembly in Rails (Part 1)
Modular Page Assembly in Rails (Part 2)

I’ll be followed by Arild Shirazi of FGM giving a presentation entitled “CSS for Developers.”

Get all the details here.

P.S.: Free pizza!

Categories
Software Development

Modular Page Assembly in Rails (Part 2)

In Part 1, I explained how you can develop clean, DRY and encapsulated MVC code that allows for completely modular page assembly in Ruby on Rails.

In this follow up post, I explain how you can use a combination of layouts and content_for to apply title bars and consistent styles to your page components (or modules or portlets, or whatever you want to call them).

The code here is easy to follow and it pretty much speaks for itself. It consists of two layouts (which I called aggregate and snippet), a sample controller and two sample views. Let’s start with the controller for one page in your site that, say, aggregates a couple of modular page components together to show a nice view of company information.

Controller code (app/controllers/company_controller.rb):

def index
  render :action => 'index', :layout => 'aggregate'  
end

This controller simply delegates the rendering of the page to the index.html.erb view and tells Rails to use a layout called aggregate.

Now let’s inspect the view.

View code (app/views/company/index.html.erb):

<% content_for :left do %>
 <%= embed_action :controller => 'company', :action => 'company_list' %>
 <%= embed_action :controller => 'feed', :action => 'feed' %>
<% end %>

<% content_for :center do %>
 <%= embed_action :controller => 'company', :action => 'detail' %>
<% end %>

<% content_for :right do %>
 <%= embed_action :controller => 'home', :action => 'sponsors' %>
<% end %>

This view defines three content regions, with the end goal being to create a page with three columns of “portlets.” The left column contains two portlets: a list of all companies (company_list) and a news feed (feed). The center column contains a company detail portlet and the right column contains a portlet with information about sponsors. (Note that the portlets come from three different functional areas of the site, so they’re decomp’d appropriately into three different controllers.)

Now, let’s take a look at some layout magic.

Here’s the aggregate layout (app/views/layouts/aggregate.html.erb):

<table class="main" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td id="column-left" class="column" valign="top">
        <div id="region-left" class="region"><%= yield :left %></div>
      </td>
      <td id="column-center" class="column" valign="top">
        <div id="region-center" class="region"><%= yield :center %></div>    
      </td>
      <td id="column-right" class="column" valign="top">
        <div id="region-right" class="region"><%= yield :right %></div>
      </td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

I chose a table (yes, I still use tables) with three divs in it, one for each region of modules, but you could use pure divs with floating layouts or any other approach.

The three content regions, left, center and right, match up with the three content sections defined in the index view above using content_for. In case this isn’t obvious, when the layout encounters a page-level definition of a content region in the view, it renders it. If there is no definition for a particular region, the containing column will just collapse on itself, which is the behavior we want.

This is a slight digression, but note how I used CSS classes to identify the columns and regions in a general way (using classes) and a specific way (using ids). This allows me to style the whole module-carrying region with CSS using table.main as my selector, all the columns using table.main td.column as my selector or all the regions using table.main td.column div.region as my selector. I can also pick and choose different specifc areas (e.g. table.main td.column#column-right) and define their style attributes using CSS. As you’ll see in a minute, I can write CSS selectors to say if module A is in the left column, apply style X but if module A is in the center or right column, apply style Y. Pretty cool.

Now, let’s explore the module layout. (Note that I’ve been calling page snippets portlets, modules or components, pretty much interchangeably. I think this illustrates that it doesn’t make a difference what we call ’em — e.g. portlets vs. gadgets — the concept is fundamentally clear and fundamentally the same.)

Module layout (app/views/layouts/snippet.html.erb):

<div id="<%= yield :id %>"><%= yield :id %>" class="snippet-container">
  <div class="snippet-title"><%= yield :title %></div>
  <div class="snippet-body"><%= yield :body %></div>
</div>

This layout expects three more content regions to be defined in the view: id, title and body. Here are the matching content regions from one sample view (for sponsors) — for brevity’s sake, I didn’t include all the views.

Sample module view (app/views/home/sponsors.html.erb):

<% content_for :id do %>sponsors<% end %>

<% content_for :title do %>Our Sponsors<% end %> 

<% content_for :body do %>
Please visit the sites of our wonderful sponsors!
<% end %>

Now, because of some nicely-placed classes and ids, I can once again use CSS selectors to give a common look-and-feel to all portlet containers (div.snippet-container), portlet titles (div.snippet-title) and to portlet bodies (div.snippet-body). Of course, if I want to diverge from the main look-and-feel, I can call out specific portlets: div.snippet-body#sponsors.

If I really want to get fancy, I can use CSS selectors to select, say, the sponsor portlet, but only when it’s running in the right column: table.main td.column-right div.snippet-container#sponsors.

So, in summary, using layouts, content_for and some crafty CSS, I can create a page of modules that can be styled generically or specifically. Combine this approach with what I described in Part 1, and you can “portal-ize” your Rails applications without using a portal!

Was this useful to you? If so, please leave a comment.