Milestone

So I have been spending a lot of time learning and working with divs for the homepage

It's taking me a lot of getting used to and the current design is not exactly where I want it to be but its getting there

I've also looked into getting a feed for the front page of the latest forum post but its proving difficult and it's going to take more time than I imagined to get that working.

I did find an antispam mod that seems to be working. I've been porn free for the last couple days so im pretty excited about that.

I've decided to throw out my original banner and I'll be getting a new one out with the updated color scheme.

My biggest problem outside of design and tech stuff seems to be getting committed and dedicated users since the commitment level is pretty high for the average user. I think I will need to advertise a bit more and maybe ask some of the younger students in new media if they are interested and willing to try this out. The problem is its really up to the users if they want to commit to it and since there are very few clients looking for work at the moment its hard to get people motivated.

Feedback Info

The following is a few questions I sent to some online friends and RL friends after asking them to take a look or post to BusiGo


BusiGo.org Feedback Sheet

1.Is the purpose of the site clearly stated?
2.Is the design appealing?
3.Would you find this site useful for you?
4.What features would you like to see implemented?
5.How would you suggest I get the word out about BusiGo.org?





User - Sovelis

1. yes
2. I think the design needs some work.
3. Yeah, I could see myself using a site like this when it gets populated.
4. Not sure on features I would like for this idea.
5. You could get more friends to post, I think it will be easier to get the word out when there are some example posts people can see to get started.


User - GT

1.Yes, it's pretty clear that it's a good place for collaborating about creating web sites
2.I like the opening page design.
3.Yes, in fact I have used it in the past to get help
4.I would like to see more examples, like a gallery of websites that people participating on the site have designed .
5.I think the best way is to post and advertise on sites where there are a lot of developers and web designers like http://www.slashdot.com or http://freshmeat.net.

User - Einahpets

1. Yeah.
2. The front page could be better, the banner could be redone.
3. I'm not sure I would use the site, but it is an interesting idea.
4. Maybe a way to rate users on how useful their responses were.
5. I'd consider posting to more design communities online like deviantart or something, not sure about getting business though.

User - Susan

1.Yes
2. Yes
3.Yes, I received some advice already and I plan to use the site again.
4. A place to show finished sites or designs made by collaborators on the site.
.5 Advertising online may be the best option since that is where the potential users are.

Capstone Identifications!

Audience!

a. Ideal target audience is up and coming business owners, team and club organizers, and designers looking to get established.

b. User's I have access to that I will be soliciting are friends and family members, online friends, and the new media department.

Deployment!

a. I'll be adding the current release to the pool

Promotion!

a. I'll add a request for participation on the pool

b. I'll be posting posters around campus to solicit users

c. I'll add a link of busigo.org to my FC sig

Feedback!

a. Pool reviews

b. Online forum posts

Feedback Summary!

a. Pool reviews

b. Forum posts

3rd Milestone

As seen in my gantt chart My site is very nearly done, the next step for users on the site is ready.
I've been trying to get some friends to start posting so I can get some content.

I'm happy with how its come out so far. I've been playing with templates for the site and trying to edit the css myself making small changes im looking for but some things have just been taking a lot of time. I'm not quite happy with the banner and it took a long time to get it positioned where it is.

The biggest hurdle I had to overcome was getting the album mod to work with a different template than the standard subsilver one. A lot of the directions were made specific to subsilver which I had to work around and edit some of the code involved (a lot of this became trial and error and took forever) I think its all working correctly now though.

Other than the album mod and template work I've done I also tried incorporating the free phpbb template to work with the actual busigo site that isnt connected to the forums. This was one of the main goals I had this milestone. busigo.org and the forum site still feel a little off but that should only take some more template tinkering and editing to my personal tastes.

Luckily all the functionality I was hoping for has finally clicked together and the cosmetic tinkering can be done while work with incoming content is gathered.

Second Milestone Review

For my second milestone review I will be showing the current forum I've implemented to my site using phpBB. I had a lot of trouble actually getting it installed but some help from Alex let me get it up and working and I've been learning quite a lot as I've been going.

I wasn't able to completely have the site working at this point as I would have liked and I have reflected my gantt chart to show this. I pushed a few tasks into the next milestone area along with the promotion part. This was needed as a few new tasks came up such as implementing a photo gallery to support the design side of the forums. This also pushed back putting finishing touches on the site.

I don't foresee this being a problem because originally I intended the next milestone to cover promotion solely which should not be hard to do simultaneously with finishing off the site.

What I do have ready for this review is the forum ready to be posted to and the main site BusiGo.org links now bring you to the selected forum areas.

What I will need in the upcoming weeks from my classmates is posts to work with as I can accept content with the current state of the site and forums. If anyone in class is interested in the service this site will provide feel free to try it out and create a post.

Gant for Milestone 2

My first Milestone Review:

Site design is progressing. The Major aspects such as building the forums will take place during the next couple weeks. The website should be fully functional and ready to go by the next Milestone review which will be the 4th of February.

After my next Milestone I'll be working on populating BusiGo where I will ask several friends and my classmates to give me some posts to work with. When this time comes I'm guessing I may need more posts on the business side because I imagine most of my friends and classmates would be on the designer side. I don't necessarily need legitimate businesses. If anyone is an officer in a campus club, or if anyone runs an intramural sports team on campus and would be willing to post to the site looking for a designer for a logo or website that would be great. It doesn't need to be paid work if you may be worried about that.

For designer posters I won't really even need any work for you to post. If some of you could simply post that you would be interested in doing some work in your spare time to bolster your portfolio (that is, if you actually are interested in that) then feel free to do so.

If I don't get enough posting I'll just have to create some filler content which shouldn't be to much of a problem for a start.

This is mostly planning ahead as the semester is only just starting at this point.

After my last milestone before break I plan on promoting my project. I'm not entirely sure about the details of how I'll go about that at this point but I do plan to research promotion during this next milestone period so I'm prepared when I get to the third milestone.

Most of this milestone is planning out the semester. What I do have so far already created is my hosting is taken care of, my shell website is up at the moment, and I do have a new banner that I've created in the limited time I've had thus far this semester.

Firstly, BusiGo.org is back up and sporting a new banner.

Secondly I have a new improved Gantt Chart

happy holidays

well im off for england for the holidays

currently busigo.org is down because i needed the webspace for a project for another class but it will be back up once i get back from england towards the end of break. .

For information on my project browse my blog or visit my pool entry, have a great break everyone.

BusiGo.org

BusiGo now has a home at busigo.org

its still at a very simple stage but i have the space now so i should be good to go

simple diagram of how the site will work

Text proposal

BusiGo

A proposal by Evan Turnquist

• Abstract

  BusiGo will be an online community targeting young and new business owners in need of web designers to bring their business into the Internet arena. This community will be equally for the upcoming and unknown designers. Business owners will be offered a forum to post s

  pecific needs they may have such as a website or logo for their business. On the other side, designers will have an opportunity to post theirs skills and freelance their work or look through the owners needs and find projects that appeal to them and make connections.

• Why

  This is needed because there are many young designers who aren't established yet. This community can springboard designers into creating portfolios and getting real world experience for their trade. There are also many business owners who don't know where to start when it comes to taking their business online and this community can connect them with peop

  le who know how to help them and get them going. The target is for new business owners. For example you could think of a business major student leaving college and starting a landscaping business. They would not have the resources to find or perhaps pay for professional established designers. This site is needed because it allows new artists and business owner

  s to cut out the expensive middle man that rakes off the top while building their portfolios and business.

• Where

  The problem I've found is that many sites that cater to business owners online needs direct them to their staff of established designers ready to serve. How does a new or casual designer break into the market. Not everyone has their own personal site for their craft and if they do its hard to get a lot of traffic there to work with. A community of new and established artists working with new and established business is something I can't find.

• When

• Who

Presently there are no collaborators for this project. What's interesting is that the people that may be interested in this service or community may be interested in collaborating on the project

itself. Since BusiGo is intended to be a tool for these two groups of people, anyone from either side may want to help according to their respective talents. I don't plan on this happening but it is certainly a possibility.

• How

BusiGo Budget

Website Designer	Evan Turnquist	$10 per hour	150 hours	$1,500.00
Software	Adobe Photoshop	$649.99	1 Copy	$649.99
Hosting	easyCGI	$7.96 per month	12 months	$95.52
Domain Name	BusiGo.org	$10	1 year	$10.00
Total Cost				$2,255.51

• Legal Agreements

No legal agreements are currently expected.

• Spreading the word

At the early stages of this project I will be going by word of mouth getting the initial posts up.

Once the original users are posting I will be advertising on the Internet through blogs and other community networking sites such as thefacebook to get more users.

Moving Forward

Been looking at some sites that are related to my capstone project but im not really finding anything new thats sparked an idea for my current project.. im feeling pretty useless doing more research and plan to start building the site this week becuase usually I can further an idea better by actually creating it and working through flaws as they occur.

Basically not much to post about now but soon there will be approaches and things to look at.

What is New Media - Jenkins

My capstone best fits the networked trait of the new media landscape. This is because my project focuses on bringing many people to many others in a way that was not possible in previous methods of communications.

Least like my capstone is the everyday trait. I'm not sure where exactly my project would fit here, nor do I believe it should. This trait seems to be pretty cosmetic and I'm not sure how I could or would want to emulate this trait.

I agree with many of Jenkins definitions although I do find that some of them although accurate are not desirable. "In some ways, these technologies have been a wedge between family members; young people often deploy media to cut themselves off from the people around them." This statement although true is a look at the problems with new media. Unfortunately my project doesn't do anything to combat this flaw.

control over their work

So another problem I am going to attempt to face is the designers control over their work. Many times they will release what they have done and be shot down or asked to rework and in many times completely redo what is needed. The issue with this is many times business owners may not realize what is the best design. This will be a difficult issue to tackle because ultimately it is the business owners right to go with what they want. What I may try to do to handle this is devote a section to critiques. This section would allow both sides to post the work created or created for them and have other designers make critiques on the work and have other business owners make comments that may help as well. I think this will really bring together the community feel and make people want to help each other more. This will also give designers the chance for others in their field to stand behind their work as good design to help the business owners understand. This is just a start because this may end up being the most important or new detail of the site setting it apart from other similar services.

Similar existing sites

So I found a similar site but with a different feel.

http://www.buyerzone.com/internet/site_design/qz_questions_678.jhtml

This site is entirely about already existing design firms and matching new and existing businesses with what they need.

What is different about what I'm doing is that instead of giving a list of bubbled questions to fill out and be sorted and sent on your way, I'm trying to create a community for discussion and mutual benefit for both parties involved. Also the biggest difference is my site is going to focus more on the designer. The only sites I could find like the link above and other similar services were for design firms, not for the college age, unemployed, or casual designer.

The designer

One thing that was mentioned was to empower the designer. How do I make sure that the designers are not getting used as slave labor in this project.

My first thought to avoid this is to have several sections instead of just two main ones (the help offered and the help needed) this will be expanded to many sections but my thoughts now are for at least 4. On the business owner side there will be a Professional Help needed section for current established business owners to look for hired work. The second section would be for more loose organizations that are not in need of a designer but would be interested a logo or website if offered. This 2nd free hire section is to help achieve my original intent of being an outlet for designers to get started or get their foot in the door or just see if online design is for them. The other side of the site would have two sections for the desginers to match the business side. One section for established designers looking for paying work and another for new designers or people interested only in developing or expanding their portfolio.

I think this distinction will not only attract more people to the site but also a wider range of experience and need.

building the site...

So I have made some simple websites before and have a bit experience with creating them but I am currently rusty. To create a community like this I'm going to first need to cover the basics again and then go a little deeper to make this come out nice. I don't think these 3 links deserve their own post so I'm just grouping them together for a small reference as to where I'm going to be relearning the technical side of creating a site.

http://www.htmlgoodies.com/

http://www.w3schools.com/

http://www.htmlcodetutorial.com/

Im pretty sure I'll be looking at a lot more than just these three but they are definately a good start.

My Project, an Explanation

I think something important that I need on my blog is a good explanation of what I intend to do.

I plan on creating an online community meant for young business people and young online designers. The goal is to make a place available for both of these groups to find each other and then accomplish both their goals which I believe may be hard to do when you are getting started.

The idea is a young business owner or maybe its just an intramural sports team leader or a campus organization president, or anything really needs a logo or a website made, or wants to learn to do it on their own. What they would do is make a post in the looking for help section. Then a young freelance designer browses the help wanted section and if he finds something he can or would like to do he contacts the person who made the post

This can also work the opposite way. Freelance designer can post their qualifications or some of their work to the help offering section and the business owners can browse through there to get in touch with someone who can help them.

The main initial intention is to create a way for less established artists and college students studying design to get a foot in the door and get some real world projects for a portfolio they can show to future employers or possibly even get them started before creating their own design firms.