Monkey Love

They say that an infinite number of monkeys hitting random keys on a typewriter would eventually create the collected works of William Shakespeare.

I am but one monkey on a MacBook.  I don’t believe I’ll come close to achieving Shakespeare, but at least I have to autocorrect.  I may steal a few things from Shakespeare as I go, and probably Whitman too.

My name is Calvin and I’m new to Cheeky Monkey Media.  For my first blog post here I thought I should write something that’s a part introduction and part observation.  A few random keystrokes about the Technology and the People that make up the world of “Monkey Wrenching” as they like to call it around here.  This leads me to the first thing I’m going to steal from Shakespeare.

All the web’s a stage,

And all the monkeys are merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances,

And one monkey in his time plays many parts.

Oh, and there are many parts to play!  From the bare metal hardware that serves your website, up to the gorgeous User Interface that engages your site visitors, a lot goes into making that possible.  A lot more goes into making it awesome!

Between those two things, we have server monkeys, engineering monkeys, code monkeys, pixel flingers, project monkeys, sales monkeys, support monkeys, and more. They create, not only the sites and content on the web but the technologies and tools we use to get where we want to go.

One technology that holds a central place in the work we do at Cheeky Monkey is Drupal.  In the simplest description, it’s a content management system.  It allows users to create and manage content on a website. A website we can craft into a form that’s appealing to users and visitors.  Something that looks great and is easy to use.

But it’s much more than that.  In the right hands, it’s very powerful, and I’ve found many of those hands, (and feet), at Cheeky Monkey.  Drupal is an open-source project.  That means anyone from anywhere can contribute to it, making it better, and more secure, and adding functionality, and support.  There are thousands of us from around the world, improving, refining, and creating Drupal a little more each day.

I find that fascinating, but what’s more fascinating is why.  Sure, most of us working with Drupal are doing our best to make a decent living with it, but I promise you, it’s equally as much about love and perhaps a weird compulsion.  If you think about the amount of effort put in by members of the Drupal — or any open source — community, it’s more about who we are than just a thing we do.  Why else would people do it all day at work plus contribute code, bug fixes, answers and mentorship in our spare time too?

Cheeky Monkey Media is very involved in the Drupal community.  It’s part of the reason I was excited to come work here.  So I don’t think it’s just me when I say; We’re compelled to create and solve problems.  We’re compelled to improve things and grow.  That’s good for us, and it’s great for those we serve.

All the web IS a stage and we get to craft it.  To shape some small part of it, and to contribute to things that are greater than ourselves.  I’m happy to have found my way to Cheeky Monkey Media, so to close I’ll “borrow” from Whitman and say to you, and to my fellow monkeys:

The powerful play goes on, and we will contribute a verse.