Return on Intention

Upgrade NM has now come to close and we successfully completed the two projects we worked toward. We set out to rework 1st-mile.com and our own Upgrade NM site and we made it. Of course as with all web projects the work is never really done, but at the end of the weekend we accomplished what we set out to do. 

The 1st-mile project has been posted on the Upgrade NM server so people can poke at it and see what it looks like. You can also see the origional version of the 1st-mile site at 1st-mile.com. You can also look at the new Upgrade NM site and make a suggestion for the next go around, or sign up to participate next time. 

Overall this was a lot more relaxed that the sprint we did last year, probably because of the extra day we had this time. Somethings remained the same; however, like the bottle-necks that happen waiting for one person to get something done before another person can start their part. I guess that is just the nature of the beast with this type of activity. It was also fun like last time. Something magical happens when a bunch of like minded people get together to get something done. I think we all learned something along the way as well, which is always a good thing. 

I guess this kind of thing is starting to gain some momentum. Here locally we have done two of these events, but this morning as I noticed that WOW was having an Extreme Markover. I guess we all like to help out and give back.

For more information check out my previous post for what happened yesterday and see some of the work in progress. You can also check out “My Weekend with Upgrade NM” on A Blog Not Limited (from Emily Lewis) or “UpgradeNM Sprint #1” on Story to Tell (from Daniel Lyons) to read their account of the weekend. You can also see photos on flickr by searching for ”Upgrade NM”.

THE PARTICIPANTS

Here is a list of people who helped out, and basically what they did:

• Michael Bernstein – Plone & Python developer – back end integration and upgrading of the 1st-mile site
• Markie Casias – Javascript – Wrangled some jquery for the 1st-mile site
• Reid Givens – Design, Mark-up and a dabble of jquery – Designed both sites, did the mark-up for Upgrade NM and did a tiny bit of jquery for the 1st-mile widget
• Emily Lewis – Mark-up and content development – Content creation for 1st-mile, did the mark-up for 1st-mile and tweaked the mark-up for the Upgrade NM site to make it more accessible and to allow for graceful degradation.
• Daniel Lyons – Programmer – Wrote he back end for the Upgrade NM site with Gabe and helped sort out the tough stuff on the 1st-mile homepage widget.
• Jack Moffitt – Quality Assurance and Programming – Tested the sites for bugs and helped sanitize the data input for Upgrade NM.
• Gabe Ortiz – Programmer – Wrote the back end for the Upgrade NM site with Daniel
• Eric Renz-Whitmore – logistics and content – Eric, while not a web developer, was helpful in making sure we had the space, internet access, power, food, Mountain Dew and also helped pull some content for the 1st mile site. 

Tags: Daniel Lyons, emily lewis, eric renz-whitmore, Gabe Ortiz, jack moffitt, Markie Casias, michael bernstein, Upgrade NM, volunteer, Web Designers, web developers

This entry was posted on Monday, December 8th, 2008 at 4:20 pm and is filed under Announcements and News, Doin' it right, New Mexico, The Wild Wild Web. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.