I hope you can join us.

You can sign up free for one or both days here: http://citizensconnecteddemo.eventbrite.ca/

Citizens Connected is a set of Drupal 7 modules that allow site visitors to sign online petitions and send email messages to their elected representatives, based on their postal code. It’s a flexible system that allows for a lot of customization by the organization, integrates with Salesforce and Mailchimp to store supporter data and allows for easy sharing on social networks. The alternative to this software costs organizations tens of thousands of dollars a year for software as a service. It is used by organizations like the David Suzuki Foundation and Environmental Defence to run their online campaigns.

In the new year, this software will be released as open source, and I would like to invite you to an event (online and in Toronto) next week to learn more about this software to see if it’s a fit with your clients. If you are interested in a more in-depth introduction, we will be around both days, giving you access to the code and inviting you to get involved with tweaking the modules.

The sessions will look like this, on both days. :

• Intro to Citizens Connected modules (1 hour)
• Intro to a prioritized list of improvements to the code
• Dividing into teams to tackle the new features
• Online participation welcome – register for more info

You are welcome to come for as much or as little as you like: come for the one hour intro, or be there for both days – sign up soon:  http://citizensconnecteddemo.eventbrite.ca/

If you are interested in being involved beyond the introductory presentation, we will have a list of prioritized improvements to the code, provided by the end users of the software: online campaigners from across Canada. We will learn about these improvements, then team up to tackle these challenges over the course of the day.

We are looking for the following roles:

• Drupal developers
• Data experts, to connect to various datasets
• CiviCRM developers, to ensure the code integrates seamlessly
• People who love doing end-user documentation (they do exist)

The goal of the weekend is to share this innovative open source software with more organizations in Canada, and to introduce the technology to a wider base of developers.

Please send this invite along to anyone who you think would like to contribute.
Questions? Comments? Please get in touch with me at eric[at]squair.ca if you have any questions.

Thanks, hope to see you on the 7th or 8th,

Eric.