This website is something of a personal memoir for me.
The "help-only" site is CivilHelp.com
My "business" (OpenRoads Support Services) site is CivilXLr8.com
This web, like many of my efforts, has a number of goals:
1. It is to provide a landing page for information about me in an environment I can fully control (rather than yield control to another entity (like LinkedIn).
If you're looking for just the basics, it's probably:
There is other cogent information, but this site is much more that.
2. It is my technology testbed for the Joomla! Content Management System platform.
3. It's a style sandbox. As a large aggregation of cross-referenced articles that is completely under my control without direct "user impacts", I intend to try things out that I can't in a working multi-user site.
Please excuse the formatting and stylistic issues if you're here for content. And, yes, this is more wordy than it should be if I were simply trying to fulfull Goal 1.
This is my testbed for me managing a large amount of data via the Joomla CMS platform. Joomla is massively extensible and I am continually experimenting on this site.
I have some other responsibilities managing other webs, but they're in use by multiple-users. I can't really experiment with them.
Why Joomla? Among other reasons, Joomla provides more user access control than, say, wordpress or wix.
My previous incarnation of this site was my first new web tech in many years: Bootstrap. Bootstrap is different than the old-school tech I used, HoTMetal5, Frontpage, DreamWeaver, and Expression Web. It was much cleaner than my previous designs. I really liked it. It was perfect for introducing myself and "presenting my message".
Bootstrap was sufficient for a few pages of content, but Joomla is far more scaleable and provides robust user participation and management. It's a full Content Management System that aligns with my professional, personal, and outreach/volunteer needs.
This is a huge leap beyond the old static tech.
I don't have the time to go build fictional training websites.
In the quest to put lots of content together, I chose to write new material rather than reformat old material. My other personal websites are outdated (static and ugly), but they document what they need to document (see GoOutLookUp.net as an example).
I had to pick one website of mine to reformat. The previous iteration of JeffMartinPE.com was very lean, and could benefit from additional content.
I came to really enjoy writing about the people of worked with. This site is less about what I do, than who I am, professionally at least. It's been a pleasure reminiscing and writing about the people I've worked with and what they've meant to me (Thank You!) I'm glad I'm writing it down, too many details have faded already. This is a good place for it - even though it makes a messy and distracting "professional messaging repository".
Why not sub the work out or go with a pre-built site?
As consultants, one of the most important things we can do is communicate effectively. I think this internet thing is going to catch on. I won't always manage complex interactive project webs, but I feel like I need to know it well enough to sub out the work, if necessary. I believe in strong foundations. It's been fun learning.
Take care.
-jeff