I'd like to send out a warm welcome to one of our newest hires, Michael Walsh. Michael will be helping the company run, grow and manage our Public Sector business - both Program Management and Business Development. He also is responsible for opening our official field office in Washington, DC on Connecticut Avenue. With this move, and additional hires in the DC area , we feel confident that we will be able to better serve our customers and partners in this domain even more effectively. Read full article »

Our CEO, Tom Erickson, announced right around the time of Drupalcon, that I was joining Acquia to fulfill a goal of ours - to provide Drupal education on a scalable, global basis.

We're very excited to announce an offering that we've been working on for some time now with our partners at Chapter Three and Carahsoft - Drupal Training in the Washington, DC area. With Drupal becoming a core platform for supporting President Obama's Open Government Directive and the demand on Drupal talent to support customer projects in the DC area, we feel that a "Drupal in a Day" class and "Drupal for Site Builders" class will be highly relevant.

Drupal in a Day $410 * gov't discount available book now
Date: Monday, June 28, 2010
Time: 9:00AM EDT - 4:00PM EDT
Location: MicroTek, 1101 Vermont Ave., NW, Washington, D.C. 20005

Drupal in a Day will be an overview of creating a Drupal site from start to finish. Participants will start with a blank website and, already having seen the final site, will start with adding and managing users, creating user profiles, adding custom content and managing that content (including turning on and off comments, or setting comments to read-only). Participants will then create custom content types and look at Views to display this content in various parts throughput the site including creating custom blocks and custom list pages such as a blogroll or last five images added or latest blog posts added to the site. (more info)

Drupal for Site Builders $820 * gov't discount available book now
Date: Tuesday, June 29, 2010 and Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Time: 9:00AM EDT - 4:00PM EDT
Location: MicroTek, 1101 Vermont Ave., NW, Washington, D.C. 20005

Drupal for Site Builders is a 2-day, in-depth extension to the first course. This course is designed both for users with no Drupal experience, and for those who are familiar with Drupal and want to expand their knowledge, digging deeper into their sites. The course provides in-depth discussions on Drupal’s installation process and managing users, comments, and content. Participants will also review Drupal's block system, and learn how to use taxonomy to categorize their content. Read full article »

How refreshing it is when the US Government does something so right that my chest swells with pride and my heart fills with hope! How exciting it is that Drupal and Acquia can play a role in bringing openness to government. I'm referring to the Open Government Directive (OGD), an instruction from the President of the United States to all federal agencies to drastically change the way that government talks to and shares information with the public.

The OGD is predicated on three principles: transparancy, participation, and collaboration. Here I quote from the President's website:

Transparency promotes accountability by providing the public with information about what the Government is doing. Participation allows members of the public to contribute ideas and expertise so that their government can make policies with the benefit of information that is widely dispersed in society. Collaboration improves the effectiveness of Government by encouraging partnerships and cooperation within the Federal Government, across levels of government, and between the Government and private institutions. Read full article »