AGILE WEB DEVELOPMENT VS WATERFALL

What is agile? Agile development is based on short ‘sprints’ where development teams quickly get working prototypes together within a matter of weeks. The focus is on getting something working in the shortest time possible. Once that’s done, the iterative process begins: working out the bugs, honing in on the design, and then test, test, and test some more. Eventually through this process the bugs will work themselves out. At least that is the goal.

So what is the waterfall method, you ask? Well it is almost the opposite. Waterfall projects have a defined set of objectives, desired functionality, budget, and time constraints–and the goal is to plan really well upfront, and hope that all of the pieces fall together in the end. This can lead to some late nights, stressful status meetings, and a lot of heads hitting walls. There has to be a better way.

With agile development, all parties have to agree with expectations. Since most people are used to the waterfall approach, it is difficult to show the client the beta updates without them getting very nervous about what the final outcome is like. We instead try to postpone beta reviews to the very last minute so that the working prototype looks its very best…only to find out that there are now other desired goals and objectives that could have been implemented along the way.

We don’t know if we’ll ever be a truly ‘agile’ development shop, but hopefully we can apply some of the basic principles behind this methodology to produce faster, better, less expensive web products for our clients.

Read more here on the Agile vs. Waterfall discussion

For more information about the agile process, click here

To see what Voltage can offer for web design and development in Denver, send us an email at: info@voltagead.com or give us a call at 303.664.1687 to discuss your web project with you.

VOLTAGE IS GOING TO DRUPALCON DENVER

With DrupalCon Denver fast approaching, we are getting our Drupal hats on over here at Voltage. But what is Drupal, you ask? It is a robust content management system (CMS) that we are turning to more and more for our development needs. We have worked on a number of Drupal 7 sites as of late using custom Drupal themes and Drupal modules for a wide variety of applications.

Now that VOLTAGE offers Drupal development, we are gearing up to learn from industry experts at DrupalCon Denver. From a DrupalCon Trivia Night, to our personal favorite topic: ‘No RFPs! Why Requests for Proposals are Bad for Business (and How We Can Stop Them),’ DrupalCon is going to have a wide variety of informative topics. This session is the Drupal-geeks version of the SXSW panel: OMG your RFPs are killing me!

Read more here on the anti RFP discussion

We are excited to join the Drupal community here in Denver and learn more about how we can leverage Drupal on more and more of our projects.

For more information about the convention, click here

To see what Voltage can offer for Drupal Development in Denver, send us an email at: info@voltagead.com or give us a call at 303.664.1687 to discuss your Drupal project with you.

VOLTAGE DOES DRUPAL DEVELOPMENT IN DENVER

Here at VTG, we find ourselves turning to Drupal more and more as our CMS of choice. But sometimes you gotta ask yourself, “Why Drupal?”

We’ve been asking ourselves that same question, and here is what we’ve learned:

Drupal is a powerful, robust platform–right out of the box. With the release of Drupal 7, users now have the most flexible, easiest to use version of Drupal to date. Some of the new features we have been leveraging on our latest Drupal sites are Features, (which allows developers to use a collection of different Drupal entities into a module that they can update), Views, the new administrative UI, new support for WYSIWYG editors, improved drag-and-drop admin tasks, an enhanced log-in system, a more secure password system, a new ‘shortcuts’ admin tool to access favorite sections of the admin, and a few more.

Read the rest of this entry »

The VOLTAGE x HIKAKIN christmas card was ranked 2nd in Adweek’s to 10 agency Christmas cards of the year!  We’re thrilled and if you haven’t seen it yet – check it out here!  Christmas mix and video. We owe a great big THANKS to HIKAKIN for his Beatboxing Badness and to all of our clients who made this year a great year! Thanks Reebok, Worthy, Centura, Xcel, Trice, Smashburger, SmartClick, Fresh Produce, Umpqua, Bold Earth, Cloud 9 Living, WW Reynolds, Covidien, The Wild Animal Sanctuary, our friends and partners at VJ, and many many others!! 2011 was sublime, wishing you all the best! We’ve also added a new Christmas mashup from DJ Riko here!! Enjoy and have a great holiday! Thanks to the Egotist for posting as well.

VOLTAGE is excited to announce it will be adding more account services and a strategic partner – Vladimir Jones – in 2011.  We are turning things up a notch. Yes, In the infamous words of Spinal Tap lead guitarist Nigel Tufnel – we are taking the business to “11” in 2011.

Vladimir Jones is Colorado’s most enduring, privately held, full-service agency specializing in integrated marketing, advertising, communications and insight. The agency staff of over 70 people is multidisciplinary and represents expertise in all facets of marketing communications strategy and implementation. VJ’s depth and experience will give VOLTAGE the business edge to grow with the increasing digital demand. To learn more about VJ, visit vladimirjones.com. To read more pub click here

2011 will definitely be “one louder” for VOLTAGE this year. THX VJ!

Voltage along with the talented folks at Vladimir Jones have launched a variety of rich media banner ads for Xcel’s responsible by nature campaign. We’ve produced a variety of standard flash banner ads, rich media banners, and custom game banners for the Energy company. One in particular launches an energy saving game that gives the user 15 seconds to pull the plug! It’s more challenging than you’d think, and there’s an easy way to win it – but sorry, you’ll get no Cheat Codes from us! Check it out on Meebo’s network.

Introducing ROBO:MAIL – A hi-tech email marketing system that functions a lot like Rosie from the Jetsons. You ask, it delivers. We’ve custom designed a number of email newsletters, promos, templates and campaigns for our clients over the last few months and have been using an email marketing system that lets you pinpoint customers with laser tight precision, deliver, and track well designed marketing communications. ROBO:MAIL is a great way to get more out or your marketing dollars, in comparison with traditional advertising and direct mail methods. What our clients have liked is the flexibility to email their lists whenever they want, customize the templates themselves, or call us to create specialized graphics or campaigns. It’s Robotics at it’s best with the support of VOLTAGE cyborg designers that compute creative at unearthly speeds. Call us for details : 303.664.1687. Samples below :