ExpressionEngine is for Lovers

Posted by seamus October 1, 2009

After over six months of not posting to the blog, I’ll admit that this comes a day late and a dollar short. Lots of stuff has happened since I launched the redesign and a couple posts in the SXSW whirlwind: new clients, new sites, new office, new dreams … but those are posts for another time. Tonight, I’m squarely focused on one of the most crucial components of our site design process, the content management system.

ExpressionEngine powers nearly every site I’ve ever designed and developed. From little brochure style sites promoting a friend’s upstart consulting business to big university departments and publishing institutions, it bends and flexes to serve readers, students, users and administrators. We don’t waste budgets fiddling with obtuse methods of “skinning” a overly engineered backend, nor do we bill clients for routine changes they should be able to do on their own. EE shields us as web designers from the most technical parts of development, and in turn we are able to shield clients from the most technical parts of EE. It’s a huge part of how Gridwork has grown and stayed viable even as the economy has tightened.

But it’s because of the supportive and friendly community that we’ve stayed so loyal and remained such huge advocates of ExpressionEngine. Which brings me back to the main reason I’m staying up to write this. I just got home from a pre-party for the EE Roadshow up in Seattle. And tomorrow, I’ll be attending the one day conference, socializing and learning with other users. There are very few times a year that I actually hand out business cards, promote Gridwork and meet new work people.

So I wanted to have something new on the site, even if it’s a little forced, just so it’s clear we’re still kickin’. But mostly, I wanted to say thank you to the people I just met and (in advance) to those I’ll hopefully meet tomorrow. You’ve fixed my code on the forums, taught me little tricks here and there, shared free add-ons that took you many hours to develop, sold me add-ons that saved me even more hours of coding and generally been pretty humble and friendly all along the way. Can’t ask for much more than that.