The Federal Government Wants to Change the Way It Procures IT Services and it’s a BFD

GSA. RFQ. BPA. MVP. ADS. The federal government is all about acronyms, and we’re pretty excited about the hearty alphabet soup recently served up by the General Services Administration’s digital service agency, 18F. In fact, it’s a BFD. 18F was created last year to change the way the government creates… Read More

Empowering Content Managers via Google Analytics Dashboards & Training

In addition to reporting your site’s performance to leadership, it’s vital to empower your content managers/contributors with the real-time data they need to make key decisions. For more on our analytics work, take a look at our recently-released White Paper, Universal Analytics: How Will You Get the Most Out of… Read More

Community Contribution: Our First Official “Sprint Day”

One of the biggest challenges for companies in the Open Source space, is how to make sure they contribute back to the community. Contribution is a core value at Forum One, but that doesn’t mean that it’s been any easier for us! This year we are testing a new structure… Read More

Evolving the Nation’s Report Card – Improving Data Visualization Through Usability Testing

In a recent post, Evolving the Nation’s Report Card – A Study of Designing New Reports, I discussed the design evolution reflected in two recent interactive reports for the National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP) program, the 2013 Puerto Rico Mathematics report and then the 2013 Vocabulary report. After developing… Read More

5 Rules for Leadership Analytics Reports

For more on our analytics work, take a look at our White Paper, Universal Analytics: How Will You Get the Most Out of It?   When helping organizations set up new web analytics reports, they frequently ask:, “Which data do I need to include?” I always answer with… Read More

Sublime Text Packages for Front End Developers

Due to its simplicity and extendability, one of the most popular text editors used by front-end developers is Sublime Text. In addition to its elegant interface and fast performance, the ability to easily add additional functionality via 'packages' is one of its most attractive features. “Packages” are similar to WordPress… Read More

Programmatically Restricting Access to Drupal Content

Have a requirement like “I want users to not be able to add, update, delete or view content if some condition is true?” If so, hook_node_access might be all you need. This hook simply allows you to alter access to a node. Now let’s learn how to use it. How this hook… Read More

Finding Your Organization’s Voice

Welcome to our dandy guide to creating better content for your organization.   See what I did there? I just wrote a sentence that (hopefully) sounded casual, fun, and authoritative. I could have written: “Herein thou shalt find a vetted and venerable guide to developing distinguished prose for thy non-governmental… Read More

A Map Isn’t Always the Best Way to Explain Your Data

I love maps. When I was a kid, I stuck any map that showed up in our family’s latest National Geographic on my bedroom wall. In my teens, I posted the mega 70” x 50” world map on the ceiling above my bed just so that I could wake up… Read More

Hacking the Feds: Forum One Among the Winners at GSA Hack-a-Thon

Our team, made up of designers and developers from Forum One, along with Booz Allen Hamilton, Avar Consulting, and IFC International, worked on a solution for IAE’s Vendor Dashboard for Contracting Officers. We were tasked with creating a vendor dashboard for displaying GSA data that would enable procurement officers to… Read More