Dtek Industries

We’ve taken on a few new Drupal-based web sites lately, each with its own unique set of considerations and challenges. Fun stuff, and a full workload… Enter, Benj Fredrick!

Benj is a skilled developer, and has plugged in quickly to our projects and workflow. He’s worked with PHP and Drupal for years, as well as Perl, HTML, CSS, Javascript, and various web server technologies. Benj has developed many web sites for previous employers and as a freelancer, first and foremost the site for his beloved Fort Lewis soccer team . He is an active member of the Drupal community, especially around his home in Durango, Colorado.

Benj and I have been friends for years (we used to play soccer together in Seattle!), and we’re having fun working together.

Look for the fruits of our collaboration here soon!

I’m thrilled to be back in Seattle. (The Pacific Northwest is the best place to be in the late summer!) There are many stories to tell about the move out here from Brooklyn, but one particular bright spot has been my new office environment.

I mentioned coworking in my last post, but that was mostly anticipatory. Now that I’m settled in and have spent some time at Office Nomads, I’m ready to evangelize!

I’ve worked in many different environments in my career — from my first home office (literally in a closet), to independent studios, to small offices, to gargantuan, corporate office buildings (alright, those have just been for client meetings ) — and my current situation is my favorite, hands-down.

The coworking space offers the objective advantages of a larger office, while fostering creativity, community, and workplace synergy in a way that independent workers and telecommuters can easily plug in to, for a fraction of the cost of running their own office. And all this without the trappings of normal office politics

For a geographically-diverse business like ours, where our normal workday involves telecommuting together from across the country, that’s pretty spectacular.

As coworking enthusiasts always say, it’s ultimately about the people. There’s a great community at Office Nomads that I’ve enjoyed personally and has already proven valuable professionally. Kudos to co-founders Jacob and Susan for kicking things off, and cheers to all of my fellow nomads for creating such a fabulous workplace!

Well it’s the end of an era as we pack up the office here in Brooklyn!

The move will bring a lot of changes for sure, but I’m also excited about many things that will stay the same: I look forward to continuing to work with colleagues here in New York and elsewhere (more news on that front coming soon!), continuing Dtek’s tight partnership with Bad Feather, and continuing to share ideas and inspiration with The Media Spot.

And of course, I look forward to continuing the excellent relationships Dtek has with clients in New York and around the country.

Dtek’s move to Seattle will happen in a couple of weeks. Please note that we’ll be unavailable the week of July 19.

In Seattle, we’ve found a great new coworking office space at Office Nomads in Capitol Hill. As of August 1, the new business mailing address will be:

Dtek Digital Media
Office Nomads
1617 Boylston Ave, Second Floor
Seattle, WA 98122

Here’s to smooth sailing out west, and the next chapter in Dtek’s history: 10 years and counting. Onward and upward!

At the end of May we launched the Enhancement Courses web site for Editure, the sister site of Advancement Courses for Teachers (ACT), that also provides professional development and career advancement courses for educators.

Like ACT, the Enhancement Courses web site automates what was previously a painstaking manual data management and sales flow process for the company, and provides a streamlined and searchable interface for educators to find the courses they want quickly. The site is powered by Drupal, Ubercart, Features, and a slew of other community-contributed code, with graphic design from Editure, and our architecture, development and theming tying it all together.

We worked closely with Editure to ensure that both the ACT and Enhancement Courses sites facilitated the new workflow they wanted, and we worked quickly to be sure the sites were ready to go for their busy summer season.

Like ACT, the new Enhancement Courses web site hit the ground running, and sales are humming along smoothly!

Two female friends and colleagues of ours have been interviewed recently in the high-profile Lullabot “Drupal Voices” podcast series:

• Drupal Voices 95: Jen Simmons on Usability, CSS3, and Getting Bartik into D7
• Drupal Voices 100: Jack Aponte on Diversity, Power and Privilege in Open Source Communities

I’m thrilled to hear both Jen and Jack get some deserved respect, and raise the profile of women doing good work within the Drupal community and the greater technology workers community.

(And I don’t know her, but just today Ariane Khachatourians was featured talking about the DrupalChix group and women in Open Source.)