TECHNOLOGY

Everyone has a Content Management System, you can even buy one right off the shelf. We have one as well, it’s open source (no licence fees), it’s constantly updated, it has WYSIWYG editing and it can be linked to your existing online or digital business applications.

THE INITIAL CONCEPT
Over three years we have developed some pretty cool applications. Early on we decided that rather than start from scratch each time, we should put together a system that we could continually add to. The idea was that this would be flexible and… well good. To be honest this was as much for our sanity as well as being able to offer our clients more. This meant sitting down and deciding a platform that would be able to grow with our clients needs and allow us to adapt over time.

SO FAR…
Starting with the nice chaps at Nvable we built the central hub that allows us to manage ALL our sites through one platform. We developed an administration function that allows us to set secure access levels and then added a Content Management system that has What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) editing. Then we added a simple email marketing module that sends out multipart (text and HTML) emails to huge databases (like the Bunnahabhain Explorers) and a shop module, for shops like Bunnahabhain , that has postage by weight, automatic inventory and promotional codes. We now have blogging and portfolio modules, for sites like Good blog and Alex Telfer , and the system keeps growing.

A WORD ON OPEN SOURCE
Being believers in the future of the internet, a little nerdy and liberal hippies we decided that we wanted to make our project Open Source. This means that we have used nice FREE things like PHP, PostgreSQL and we are working with Nvable to release our platform into the wild world to allow other developers to play with it and hopefully add to it.

Usually when we speak to other agencies about our approach to open source they look a little bemused but we believe that you buy into our creative thinking. We have a content management system so that we can offer it to our clients as a solution but more often than not we prefer to ask the question ‘what do you actually need?’ Having the power to edit every single page on your website is great but if you don’t need it wouldn’t it make sense to invest in the parts of your business that WILL make a difference online.

With our system we are constantly updating, developing and building, as we make updates all sites working on our system improve. It all sounds sensible doesn’t it, you buy our system, we make sure you are always up to date. Of course we love developing new things, so why not challenge us to develop a module that can make your business more efficient and profitable or just contact us for a chat.

INTERNAL LINKS:

FURTHER READING

Guardian article on Open Source