Phillip Djwa's Blog

Drupal Business Summit

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 The Drupal Business Summit is the perfect opportunity for Vancouver-area firms and organizations to discover what Drupal can provide for you. It's a chance to hear and talk to many people that are actively using Drupal today, as well as hear case studies that cut to the heart of why Drupal is used so much in both the non-profit and enterprise world.

To learn more and to register, please visit http://www.drupalsummit.com/city/vancouver

 

 

Does your website work for you? Not the only question you need to ask.

Does your website work for you? That’s a great question, but that's not the only question to ask. Our clients often come to us with a web redesign project, but they don't just come with one website; they have many. Campaign sites old and new, division sites, chapter sites, and not to mention Facebook, Twitter and other social media. (Pinterest, anybody?) So to ask solely about the one online property misses the point. The sum total of all of these online presences is what we call the organization’s Digital Ecology. It's much more relevant to ask, "Does your digital ecology meet your organization's needs?"

Working with Social Change Orgs

One of the things that we recognize at Agentic is the increased specialization that we have in working with social change organizations. These are typically not-for-profit, but can be government departments or societies. We’ve done literally hundreds of projects with organizations like this.
 

Opinion: Facts are meaningless

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I recently made a controversial statement during a presentation: facts are meaningless. The audience responded with nervous laughter, probably wondering how to digest this remark. But in our business of working with social change, this landscape means that we need to consider our work in this context.
 
When I talk about meaningless, I actually mean “meaning less.” In other words, facts today have lost their value. When someone states a fact, and that fact is contrary to our understanding, it would seem logical that we would change our opinion. Instead, we are seeing something far from that. Facts do not have an impact. Why?

White Paper: Interactive narrative - An emerging form

In a sense, all narrative is interactive. When someone is watching a film or reading a novel, they are interpreting the story and thus co-creating its meaning. Online, an interactive narrative is a form of narrative where there is a higher level of interaction than most narrative forms, between the author’s creation and the viewer/user. Whether or not this makes an interactive narrative a “good” story is another article. The purpose of today is to discuss and identify some physical forms of interactive narrative that can be experienced through digital media, given the emerging form.

 

Web Trends for Social Change Organizations in 2012

See the FutureOn Thursday, November 24, I had the pleasure of hosting a group of social change innovators for a breakfast presentation on top Web Trends for Social Change Organizations in 2012. Despite the early hour, we had a good crowd. I was pleased to present the top trends that I see in my unique position as a web developer that works with so many different social change organizations.  I see many of the trends that are impacting our clients and this was a good time to reflect as the year flips over. I'm always fascinated by how our clients overcome challenges and innovate their work to benefit social change.

White paper: Failure and the Client-Focused Approach

Smiley Face not smiling with FAIL written on itNobody wants to fail. Failure is something we naturally try to avoid. But what happens when it occurs? As agencies, we don’t often talk about it publicly, but of course we have failures. And within our failures lie deep insights and answers waiting to be uncovered. These insights can provide us with the biggest breakthroughs, especially when running a strategy agency. So, in that spirit, I’ve elaborated about one of our failures. And it speaks to a larger insight about our “focus-the-client” approach we really encourage.

Why We Still Build Websites

Man making a blueprintIt’s become increasingly clear that a number of firms are changing their work direction to focus more on strategy as opposed to web production. This means they are tackling the first steps of planning an online campaign and working to develop recommendations on strategy without executing the actual build. Then, other companies take on the task of actually building the website. This change presents an interesting comment on changing times in the web development business. 

At Agentic we develop both the strategy and the website build. For us, this is a good moment to take stock and consider just the opposite: Why do we build websites?

BC Self Advocacy Foundation Case Study

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Home page of BCSAF orgA recent project that we’ve had a chance to work on was a project for the BC Self Advocacy Foundation. This organization assists people with developmental disabilities to become full participating citizens in their own communities. Agentic was hired to work with the staff at the BCSAF to develop a new web presence and to help them engage their audience. One of the key issues for a group like this is making a website to be accessible to people with developmental disabilities. A developmental disability is a life-long condition that means a person develops differently, and more slowly than others. The

Summertime update

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 Vancouver has been a cold and wet place this summer, apparently with the most rain in 20 years! Still, we've been working away and are happy to welcome a number of new projects, including a web redesign for the Writer's Union of Canada, a strategic creative engagement for the Coquitlam Watershed project, and building a virtual community of practice for the Canadian government. It will be a busy fall and  it'll be the first time we welcome fall weather as an improvement over summer!