Presentations for March 2007

The February Presentations went well. For the first meetings of the year, we had a really good turnout. I have taken over the Web Publishing SIG as well as the Small Business SIG. I plan to have hands-on pet projects that we can all work on. My plan is for both groups to be loosely associated, so we can plan how/what we will develop in the Web Publishing SIG, in the Small Business SIG, and do the designing and devlopment from the plan in the Web Publishing SIG.

---

I have set up web sites for the Web Publishing SIG and the Small Business SIG. I have posted the Powerpoint presentations and examples from the meetings.

Here is what is lined up for March:

Web Page Design - Back to the Basics

Want to create a web site, but don't know where to start?
This month we will build a web page. We will start with nothing (but a dream), and will work out the details to create a nice looking page layout, and color scheme complete with content and images. Best of all, we will do this using free tools.

Come join us at the Web Publishing SIG on March 19, 2007 (the Third Monday) at 7:00pm.

---

Concept Mapping

Last Month, we covered Mind Mapping, which allows all facets of a project to be neatly organized stemming from a central hub. This month we will take it one step further, and discuss Concept Mapping.

Concept Maps are drawings used to organize information. Concepts are small bits of information or ideas. These concepts are connected to each other by using lines to indicate relationships. The relationships are clarified by using linking phrases to provide information about how the concepts are related. By laying everything out as a drawing, it is much easier to see how everything works from a high level view, which works out very well for explaining details of a project to customers.

If I haven't lost you yet, here are some examples of how I use concept maps:
Layout production workflows for data processing. Database Relation Modeling to work out the details of table relations. Web Site navigation Layout.

At this months meeting, I will create a concept map for a web development project. We will be using CMapTools, which is a very nicely laid out and intuitive knowledge mapping application, and... It's FREE! For those interested, you can find it here: http://cmap.ihmc.us/.

Come join us at the Small Business SIG on March 21, 2007 (the Third Wednesday) at 7:00pm.