An organic social network is one that arises naturally within a specific geographic community. Some users of geographically dispersed social networks, such as Facebook, feel "connected," yet report a lack of meaningful relationships. Because organic social networks arise from local relationships, they can provide meaningful and significant forms of support. And a Web site that supports these local relationships can have a significant impact on a local community.
The Green.org Sustainability Challenge is a simple challenge to communities (as well as organizations and individuals with IT expertise within those communities) to leverage Drupal to create location-specific Drupal instances. These instances form the basis for organically growing social networks based on existing local relationships and through local community-based activities. Such online communities can be sustained by volunteer labor, as well as generating revenue through advertising and e-commerce. Local social networks support the community and build strength to face and overcome local challenges.
A CMS automates routine tasks associated with developing a complex Web site. When a CMS is in place, it is relatively easy to add content and features to a site.
Drupal was chosen for the Sustainability Challenge based on its flexibility and features, the size of the developer community, and the confidence inspired by existing Drupal-based sites, such as Recovery.gov and FedEx.com. However, although Drupal is the suggested platform, those familiar with different platforms are welcome to use their preferred CMS. The process for starting a local Drupal-based Web site consists of the following:
- Installation and configuration
- Enabling a theme
- Adding a logo
- Understanding security updates
- Forming the local organic social network
- Adding content
- Involving local citizens in content creation
Installation and configuration
To get started, download Drupal or your CMS of choice, then install it on your server. Alternatively, you can purchase an inexpensive account at an Internet hosting company that offers "one-click installation," such as GoDaddy (see Resources). Figure 1 shows a representative control panel from GoDaddy; notice that the Your Applications section has a series of "quick-install" applications.
Figure 1. A CMS control panel
When Drupal has been installed and you have logged in, access the administrative area, from which you can perform a variety of maintenance functions, such as configuring new modules and adding new users.
Figure 2. Administer your new site
Themes are predesigned templates that can help you achieve a particular look and feel for your site. Drupal comes with several built-in themes, and a wide variety of additional third-party themes are available to choose from.
For example, Figure 3 shows an adaption of Acquia's Marina theme, used at the RGB Green site (see Resources). Acquia’s Marina theme was chosen for simplicity and compatibility — it has been tested on Mozilla Firefox, Windows® Internet Explorer®, and Apple Safari.
Figure 3. Modified Marina theme
To enable a theme, log in as the administrator, choose Site Building > Themes > List, then click the desired check box and radio button to enable and set an individual theme as the default.
Figure 4. Enable a theme
Click Save Configuration to update the site.
Note: To preview changes to your site and simulate what users would see if they were not logged in as an administrator, launch a different browser — for example, if you are using Firefox, launch Internet Explorer — then visit the site without logging in.
To add a logo to your site, click Site building > Themes > Configure in the administrative interface, then scroll down to the Logo image settings section. There, click Browse to locate a graphic for upload. The logo you upload is displayed on your main page.
Depending on how you want your site to look and whether you want to embed text in a graphic or have it be automatically generated, you can also experiment with different looks by selecting or clearing the Site name, Site slogan, and Mission statement check boxes beneath Toggle display. When you are done, click Save Configuration.
Understanding security updates
One nice feature of Drupal is the way it displays notifications within the administrative interface — for example, when there is an update to a module, a template, or Drupal itself. To avoid having your site hacked, it is important to sign up for the Drupal security e-mail list (see Resources), which sends out notifications about security updates as soon as they become available. It's also important to learn how to update Drupal, as well as how to upload new versions of modules and templates.
When the Drupal core software is updated, you need to be particularly careful about backing up your data. Because upgrading involves replacing files and directories, you can easily replace content accidentally that has been added to your site. For this reason, you should become comfortable with this so that when updates do come, they will not catch you off-guard. To help you back up your site database, I recommend installing and enabling the Backup and Migrate module.
Note: One benefit of going with a one-click installation is that some providers also automate the process of upgrading Drupal core software.
Forming the local organic social network
The best way to develop a community Web site is to get to know people in your local community, find out what they need, and discover what online resources may already exist. As you become more familiar with Drupal's capabilities, you will begin to see opportunities where a Drupal-based site can have local impact.
The possibilities are endless and can be as simple and meaningful as providing a place to gather and publish the life stories of community members, sharing news and events, and providing a place for local businesses to advertise. You can also leverage existing institutions and organizations in the community and invite them to participate. For example, Drupal can certainly provide a platform for sharing free educational content. With a bit of help, there may very well be individuals and organizations in the community able to contribute content to help people learn new skills or discover resources or opportunities.
What makes the social network organic is when you look for existing organizations and relationships to build on, such as community organizations or organizations like the Rotary Club. You can look for ways to help existing organizations and institutions connect with new people, highlight opportunities for involvement, link to available resources, and help people connect with each other. Then your local Web site and its social network arises organically from existing local relationships, and is more meaningful and relevant.
As you get to know the needs and interests of your local community, you can begin to add content that will be interesting and relevant to them. Google has a special feature called the Ajax Wizard, which automatically generates code that can be added to any Web site to facilitate the addition of customized news and other flexible features based on search words. It's a powerful way to add interesting and relevant features, and the code can be added to a simple content pane within Drupal.
To generate the code:
- Go to the Google Ajax Wizard.
- Select the desired wizard, such as the News Bar Wizard - Vertical.
- Enter in the desired information. In the News Bar Wizards, you can enter one or more search
terms separated by commas, as shown below.
Figure 5. Enter search terms for your news bar
- In Drupal, click Site building > Blocks > Add Block to
create a new block, then paste the code in the
Block bodysection. - In the
Input formatsection, set the content type to PHP code to allow Drupal to properly process the code. - Click Save Block to save the changes to the block.
- On the Blocks page, move your mouse pointer over the four-pointed
arrow icon, then click and drag your newly created block into the
desired position. The example in Figure 6 shows the "Green
News Google" block in position.
Figure 6. Position the news block on your page
When all is well, the Google Ajax Wizard does its magic, and the news block appears in position on your site.
Involving local citizens in content creation
To involve local citizens, you need to raise awareness about the Web site and channel people toward it so that they can register. A small team of volunteers can establish an editorial policy, perhaps in collaboration with a local community newspaper. You may wish to start by having people submit content by e-mail for review by editors, who can log in and post content. Or you might limit actual registration on the site to people who are long-term volunteers.
As your needs expand, modules such as Workflow (see Resources) are available to allow more sophisticated workflow capabilities (if you want to keep the site open, yet still have some control over what goes on it). According to Drupal.org, "The workflow module allows the creation and assignment of arbitrary workflows .... For example, a workflow with the states Draft, Review, and Published could be assigned."
Welcome to the open source CMS community
This article showed how you can use Drupal to set up a site that can support the growth and creation of organic social networks based on local relationships. To take your site to the next level, go out and find some people who care about your local community, get to know them, and find out how you can work together. You are also invited to visit http://local.green.org and register your community for the Sustainability Challenge.
Just imagine a social network of local communities: This is where the real fun begins!
Learn
-
Check out Drupal.org to sign up
for the security e-mail list.
-
Visit the RGB/Green.org Sustainability Challenge site
for details on the Sustainability Challenge. The first 100 people to register get a
free book on Drupal (currently under development). Early adopters also get special
help and are asked to help others. Information on the proposed Community
Sustainability Modules can also be found here.
-
Read an explanation of the RGB principle.
-
See a representative Drupal site focusing on
learning material about renewable energy that will be making material
available for syndication on local sites.
-
The CMS Matrix site allows you to easily
compare features of various CMSes.
-
Check out CMS EDU, an unbiased general-purpose
learning resource for open source CMSes.
-
Wikipedia
provides great background information on Web-based CMSes.
-
Acquia is a company focused on hosting Drupal
that takes some of the pain out of the process. Acquia makes some nice templates,
too, such as Marina — currently in use at RGBGreen.org and RGBBlue.org.
-
Visit aHa Consulting, a strong Drupal consultancy.
-
GoDaddy.com is well supported, and one-click
installations make it easy to get started with Drupal, Joomla, or other popular
CMSes — even if you have little or no technical experience.
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or explore
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Todd Kelsey is the founder of Communications for the World, a Chicago-based think tank. An aspiring sunflower farmer and digital archaeologist, he looks forward to hearing from people who want to change the world.
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