Drupal themers are like cooks. We use common components (contributed modules) as a starting point for successful websites. Cooks also use common components—tried and true ingredients (salt, pepper, garlic, onions, etc.)—as the base for delicious recipes. The fruits of our labors are robust and flavorful. But somewhere in this busy world, saving time has taken priority.
"Methought I heard him think, 'Ay! I am fairly out and you are fairly in! See which of us will be the happiest!'" — John Adams, describing what he believed George Washington was thinking upon retirement
The Drupal world has been abuzz, of late, mostly owing to the news that Whitehouse.gov, one of the many online mouthpieces of President Obama's administration, has been moved to Drupal. Indeed, this has been hailed as a victory for all open-source technologies, and one outlet after another has offered mostly pleasing remarks about the switch.
Economic conditions have provided additional incentive for IT decision makers to explore open source technologies. Shrinking revenue streams have forced business to conserve cash. Using open source represents one way to do so, since not only are licensing fees eliminated, open source technologies can often be leveraged and supported at lower cost and with more widely available resources than
Jazz great Charles Mingus once noted that "Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity." The same thing could be said in business; as products and services get more complicated, moreover, making the complicated simple leapfrogs creativity in favor of genius.
I recently was asked by a client to provide some ammunition for selling Drupal to his management team. I found plenty info using my friend Google, but ultimately had to spend an hour or so organizing it into a concise list of bullet points that I thought addressed the broad spectrum of benefits that Drupal can provide. I thought I'd share with others who may need something similar at some point.
