Jeff Walpole

Jeff Walpole is the co-founder and CEO of the leading open source professional services firm based in the Washington DC area, Phase2 Technology, which focuses on clients and solutions in the online publishing, public policy, open government, international development and advocacy sectors. Using Drupal, Phase2 is crafting creative solutions for many open government initiatives. The firm also participates in helping large organizations like the Federal government, publishing firms, and the World Bank to craft APIs to publish data to the web. Jeff has a background that includes over a decade of CMS website development, and five years working with government clients as a systems integrator. Jeff holds a Masters in Business Administration, with a concentration in the Management of Global Information Technology, from the Kogod School of Business at American University and a Bachelors degree from Tulane University in Political Science.

A new model for public sector open source adoption using Drupal

The debate over whether open source software (OSS) is good for government is over. A close look will reveal the discussion has moved on to one of two things: 1) the necessary, but subsequent implementation questions to be sorted out – security, regulation, procurement, etc. or 2) organizational confusion about how to take the first step. In either case, the precedent of value has been established both within government and elsewhere to allow us to now move on to the natural next set of issues.

Drupal: The New Gov 2.0 Site Builder?

Last month I wrote about how Drupal supports five of the most effective open government sites in Five Government Sites Using Drupal Effectively for Open Government Initiatives. This month, I discuss how Drupal is close to being the perfect Gov 2.0 solution for savvy agencies – and soon, perhaps, a default solution for open government web initiatives.

5 government sites using Drupal effectively for open government initiatives

By now, most people in the Gov 2.0 community have heard of Drupal, the popular open source social publishing system powering close to 500,000 websites ranging from big government to Britney Spears. Drupal has seen steady growth from its inception as a Belgian grad student’s experiment in 2001 to one of the most heavily used open source content management systems in the world, downloaded by a quarter million people per month. A growing trend the Drupal community is following closely this year is government interest in the platform to further open government initiatives and broaden adoption across government.