Every add-on installed will increase maintenance time. When a bug pops up, there is more software to consider as the culprit.  Every time you upgrade ExpressionEngine, you need to audit and upgrade add-ons as well.  Of course, an add-on may save significant time on an initial build or add important usability features that save your client time every day.  Consider long-term maintenance when weighing the pros and cons of using a particular add-on.  This consideration extends to the client as well—some clients are better prepared to fund long term maintenance than others.

Learning how to use complex add-ons takes time.  Developers pull certain add-ons into their skill set and then use them over and over again, so that the learning curve is diminished with subsequent builds.  The danger here is for clients that may want or need to switch ExpressionEngine developers. An experienced EE developer may need to learn how to use the third-party software that is installed on a client’s particular site.  More popular add-on software is more likely to have easy portability from developer to developer.

Occasionally we build sites that we know from the outset will have a short life span, but the vast majority of our builds are expected to live on for many, many years. We want to ensure that any critical add-ons that we use will have a compatible life-span.  Has the developer of the add-on demonstrated a long-term commitment to their software? If we are in doubt about that, we want to make sure that we are able and willing to maintain the add-on internally if the developer flakes out.

Finally, there is the issue of security. I have personally never heard of security vulnerabilities in EE add-ons. I asked our lead software developer, Greg Ferrell, about this and he thought that a code vulnerability is possible, but ExpressionEngine goes a long way to prevent url security issues. According to Greg, particular scrutiny should be paid to any add-on that has a front-end form input as it’s up to the add-on developer to properly sanitize the incoming data.  He says that other kinds of attacks can happen, but would most likely have to be very targeted - the attacker would have to be familiar with the add-on code and the particular installation of it.

There is another security consideration that is under-appreciated: site developers will sometimes give add-on developers super-admin access to their EE installations for the sake of troubleshooting.  We do this regularly at Solspace, EllisLab does it occasionally, as do many other add-on developers.  A person with super-admin access to your site has the power to do a number of Very Bad Things to your site.  Does the individual going into your site’s CP have a transparent online presence and a track record of trust in the community?  You aren’t going to know before buying an add-on that you might need to grant super-admin access.  I realize this may sound far-fetched for the average upstanding EE developer, but compromises involving a person granted access to a site are not uncommon.  In general, be sure you revoke super-admin access of any person that is not actively involved in the development of your site.  If you do have a problem, you’ll have fewer sources under suspicion.

My general philosophy for add-ons is to use them sparingly, and to be cautious about using add-ons from developers that do not have a long-standing reputation in the ExpressionEngine community.  I do not have a list of add-ons that go into every build by default. Because I am not a php developer, I need the developers of add-ons that I use to demonstrate a history of excellent support.  If I decide to use an add-on from a developer that I am not familiar with, I ask one of the php developers on our team to review it.  As Michael Boyink points out in a post with similar points, “no one in the EE community is formally vetting add-ons.” We recommend ExpressionEngine to our clients because it is produced by a trusted company with a reputation for maintenance, security and support.  We want the add-ons that we install to match those standards.

This year, however, I wish most of all to thank you, our customer.

I wish to thank you for staying with us during what was a very difficult couple of years as we transitioned from EE1 to EE2. We were one of the very first companies in the ExpressionEngine add-on space. By the time there were significant competitors, we had a large library of add-ons available for sale from our store. Over time we won the loyalty of many EE developers. Once EE2 was released we had to scramble to convert all of our software to the new platform. And honestly, we were not at the time fully convinced that EE2 would fly with the community. So we opted to develop a method for having one code base work on both platforms. Paul Burdick and Greg Ferrell are to be throughly thanked and applauded for making it possible for a Solspace add-on to work simultaneously on EE1 and EE2.

Now that we have converted all of the Solspace add-ons that were slated for conversion, we are finishing the work of shoring up our existing code. As we see more and more competitors entering the marketplace and colliding with one another in sometimes friendly and sometimes otherwise ways, we are putting our faith in quality. Over the last few years we have redoubled our efforts at creating the highest quality ExpressionEngine Apps.

So I thank you. You are developers just like we are. You serve demanding clients just like we do. You count on us to deliver excellence so that you can too. You stayed with us during a very challenging time. You remained committed and loyal to our products and our work. We hope that we did not let you down and we thank you for being part of the family.

Sincerely,

Mitchell Kimbrough

It was not too long ago that someone in the community referred to me as a grandpa. It was not meant as a compliment. It was a constructive criticism. I was actually honored. But after feeling honored I felt nervous, nervous about the obligation that it entailed.

I have been in the EE community a long time, hence the grandpa reference. I am in the unique position of knowing what the vibe used to be like back in the day. It is with great pleasure that I say that the vibe is almost exactly the same now as it was in the beginning. But I am here, as grandpa, to keep it in check.

I asked people to reach over and shake the hand of the person next to them. I reminded people that THAT is who were are; friendly, open, generous, caring. I said that back in the day, anyone would help you at just about any time with an EE problem. If you did not get help right away with what you were trying to do or learn in EE, it was usually because EE devs were getting really busy with the demand for their solutions. I also acknowledged an unprecedented percentage of women attending EECI, a demographic change that is welcome and overdue.

I said that among being friendly, open, generous and caring we were also something else, something new as a community. We were powerful.

If you want to run a mom and pop business, you need a web developer. If you want to run a larger business, you need a web developer. If you want to run a nonprofit, you need a web developer. If you want to pass or defeat legislation, you need a web developer. If you want to elect a president, you need a web developer. If you want to overthrow an authoritarian dictatorship, you need a web developer. If you want to do any of these securely, quickly, reliably, you want to do them with ExpressionEngine.

This puts us in a position of power, as designers, coders, sys admins, etc. This is power that most of us have never experienced before. Most of us have experienced power from the blunt end, whether in grade school, high school, college. Most of us know what it feels like to be on the outside of the power group. Most of us know what it feels like to be excluded, ostracized, held back, held down. And now that we are in the power group, we are in danger. Power corrupts.

How is it that we hold the power? An example helps to explain and convince. In our past, Solspace has served political consultants. The vast majority of projects that we did with these political professionals were consistent with our own politics and ethics. However, one or two slipped through. I realized too late, a couple of times, that we had enabled the wrong message. We had supported the wrong side of an election. We had allowed the power and the money to put down legislation that would have helped The People. We had the power to walk away from the job. And if all web developers had also walked away, the message would not have made it into the world. The People would have been better off. This is the power we hold. We’re the gatekeepers now.

In my brief talk I said I had faith in us as a community. The nature of our work attracts people who worship and obey logic and reason. These are two profound checks against power. They are of course useless in a vacuum. It is through dialogue as a community that logic and reason exert their check on power.

What I really wanted to convey though was this, whether I managed it or not. We have power now. When you have power, you become more difficult to reach. Logic and reason begin to elude you. You begin to forget what it felt like to not have power. You begin to forget what it felt like to be put down and alienated and excluded. You begin to forget what you promised yourself when you did not have any power. You promised yourself that if you ever had a turn, you would speak up when you saw someone hurt. Remember? You promised yourself that you would let the experience of alienation happen to no one else. You promised yourself that you would make sure the community dialogue continued and that it included everyone and would do so in a way governed by and in obeyance to logic and reason.

Now that we have the power to see that people are elected to office or removed from office; now that we have the power to shed light on suffering or cause it to go black we need to hang together. What we were as a community in the very beginning was nice, but that same spirit is a necessity now. We need to hang together, keep talking, keep each other in check, and bring out the best in each other.

If you are using ExpressionEngine 2.3.0, it is recommended that you update to ExpressionEngine to 2.3.1 and Super Search to 1.4.3, as this will restore Super Search functionality to normal as well as the added security from the related fixes for ExpressionEngine.

As always, we want to thank EllisLab for their hard work on ExpressionEngine (making our work possible), and congratulate them on their most recent release.

I’ll be giving a short talk on the topic of client management. I hope to make a coherent, if not spirited argument that, just as you should choose your friends carefully, you should choose your clients carefully. And when you find that you have fallen out of step with a client and you cannot remedy the relationship, you should professionally part company.

This means you can get yourself a copy of some of our popular add-ons such as Tag for only $23.97, User for only $59.97, Rating for only $29.97, or Calendar module for only $48.77! 

Happy Birthday Mitchell!!

My favorite clients are the ones I learn from.

Google Analytics tracks a query string in a URL. On this site, we had Super Search set up with a post method and no query string. We had to do a few simple things to get this working:

• Make sure we were using Super Search 1.4.0 or higher. It won't work with older versions.
• Change the form method to "get".
• Change the form action to add a "search" segment at the end of the URL: action="{path=search/results/search}".
• Set up Google Analytics to track searches. Directions are here. Once it is set up, results can be found in Content -> Site Search.

This would not be possible with ExpressionEngine's native search, which uses a temporary hash for search results.

Tag 4 contains a new field type approach (EE2 only), which means that Tag Groups are available now. This means you can create and have as many Tag fields and groups as you wish. You’ll see that the UI/UX for Tag has significantly improved as well. Many other features, changes and bug fixes have been made to Tag (view change log).

While I have your attention, I’d like to shed some light on a little-known feature with Tag that’s been enhanced for Tag 4 - using Tag to display relationships between entries. Once you’ve assigned relevant tags to entries on your site, you can then display in your templates the relationships that emerge within this data to improve your visitors’ experience. The beauty of Tag relationships is that they happen automatically with very little input on your part. Regular relationship fields require a lot of work searching for entries to relate, and then constantly updating these entries over time. Relationships in this way quickly get outdated when new entries are added.

Tag, on the other hand, just requires the author to assign a few tags of their choice (or use existing tags that Tag suggests, based on the content in the entry’s custom fields). Tag does the rest. Using a simple template tag in your page, Tag will automatically display entries that are related to the entry being viewed, based on comparing the sets of tags each entry has. As in, if the main entry you’re viewing contains the tags: peanut, acorns, and pants, any other entries that contain one or more of those tags will show. Additionally, these related entries can be ranked by most tag matches. If an entry shares 2 tags in common with the main entry, it will be ranked higher than an entry that only has 1 tag in common.

This is a FREE upgrade for all existing Tag 3.x license owners. Most of these changes (including new UI/UX) are in EE2 only. Tag 4 on EE1 will appear almost the same as Tag 3.x. For those of you upgrading from an earlier version of Tag, please take your time and review the Change Log and follow the Updating documentation. We’re also available in the support forums to assist with your upgrade.

It could have gone the other way. I could have been annoyed by all the little detail choices that my new developer made. I could have wanted things done exactly my way. Had I learned that about myself, it would have been perfectly valid and fine. I would know that I was cut out only to be a single freelancer. And frankly, as one of my first clients advised, and I was to learn over the years, being a one person show can often be more profitable than building up a team. But that wasn’t me. I soon learned that one of my talents was for bringing really top notch people together into a team, a family where their most excellent work could be done.

The next thing I learned was that, since a big part of you is this company you are building, and the company you are building is in large part The Team, your team is a part of you. So the fun thing about it is that you have the chance to make you better. In fact, the team makes everyone on the team better. That’s the friggin’ point right?

So your team is you. Do you know how, other than through caffeine, you can make yourself smarter? There’s not really a way. You can read more books and junk, but that’s just accessories to intelligence. When you build your team, you are trying to hire people onto the team that are smarter than you. This makes you smarter. Hire people onto the team that are smarter, better, faster, more talented, more beautiful than you, and you get to be all those things by association.

None of this works though, if you do not protect the team. You have to protect the team both from internal and external strife as well as entropy. Do you eat junk food every day? Do you fill your body with garbage? No. So don’t feed your team junkfood. Feed them really fun, challenging, honoring, healthy, respectful work. Make sure that they exercise. Take them out for walks. Make sure that they play together well. And if someone else picks a fight with them in the park, protect and defend them. Let them clearly understand how quickly and forcefully your loyalty comes into play. If a part of the team no longer fits, if there is something unhealthy or if a pathogen gets introduced into that body, remove it promptly. And in the future, introduce new members to the team very slowly and carefully.

Do you want to run a marathon? Good. Do it. But prepare for it. Don’t think that you can take some steroids and pump up really fast. To run the marathon you have to build up your skills, abilities and endurance over time, in a way that you can sustain. This is building a team. Build it slowly and carefully.

Last thing. This whole team thing is one of the driving principles that will govern your decisions and how you shape your company. You need a mission statement that helps the team make good choices and helps them understand yours. You need courage, as a group, to live each day with gusto and intent. You need to feed your team, so the numbers guy has to make sure there is enough food to go around. And finally, when someone on the team or the team itself is challenged or hurt you need to get everyone back to a healthy and happy place and show them how challenge and pain lead to growth and opportunity.

I found myself casting around for solid ground upon which to stand and provide leadership during this trial. I knew that there had to be a team discussion about the matter, as that is how we deal with many of our biggest and most critical questions, through discussion. But I found as I went that I really had no suitable way to frame and guide the discussion. I lacked a mission statement.

A mission statement is your constitution. You regularly do, and should deliberate on the large issues facing your company and do so as a team. You should regularly convene your supreme court and talk reasonably and logically about the difficult questions and issues you face. And when you do, you need a guiding statement that governs how you conduct your debate.

Your mission statement is your constitution. It declares who you are as a team and a company and it encapsulates your intent and your priorities, your values. You use it to guide you through difficult matters and you use it as rational, reasonable, sober space in which to arrive at decisions and converse with those who dissent.

Your mission statement is that interpretive shape into which you mould the discussion of problems that come your way. It is that thing that exists outside of the team dynamic, yet nourished by it, which lets you move through your difficult times.

You will find, J, that without a well worded and well rounded mission statement, the decisions you guide your team to will seem arbitrary and capricious. They will thus be temporary and non-binding and they will beget more problems than they solve. While a well reasoned declaration of your mission, your purpose, will carry you through the challenges that await you and on to more fertile and fecund ground.