Washingtons Green Grocer is the brainchild of John (Zeke) Zechiel and his wife Lisa. After identifying the need for better produce and deliverables versus store bought goods, John and Lisa planted the seeds for Washingtons Green Grocer in 1994. Every week, Washingtons Green Grocer provides customers with tentative lists of fruits and vegetables that will be available, and each customer can pick and choose what they would like delivered (yep, home delivery!) for that week through their online account.

Providing unmatched service and 100% dedication to custom satisfaction, Washingtons Green Grocer has been wildly popular and has exploded in the DC metro area. They currently serve all of Washington DC and the surrounding suburban areas in Maryland and Virginia from Severna Park to Arlington and all points in between north and south.

How does it work?

Every week, Washingtons Green Grocer selects 12 to 14 different fruits and vegetables and delivers them to your doorstep. On Friday’s, they email customers a tentative list for the next weeks delivery. If there is anything on the list you don’t want, you can log into your account and customize your box. For example, you can choose to receive only 7 items instead of the full box, or substitute items for other items. Each customer can choose exactly what they want and get it without fail every single week. You can also set custom schedules for delivery, such as every other week, or once a month, or schedule around vacation time. It’s all up to the customer!

Application

Such business growth commands the necessity of a powerful web application to tie all the logic together and keep things running smoothly. After getting tired of the shortcomings of their previous system, Zeke contacted us and we started talking about a full redesign of the front end and a re-architecting of the back end. After planning and mind-mapping the application to the last detail, Inclind began work on the project early in the summer of this year.

Their initial website was built on a rigid and inflexible Coldfusion system. The first order of business was getting all the existing data out and into the new system and giving it structure to make it easy to work with. As with all our sites, we begin with a base install of Drupal 6 to build from. Drupal is the best CMF (content management framework) available right now. Other packages that are simply CMS (content management systems- Plone, Wordpress, Joomla) are not as adaptable and flexible as Drupal.

To handle the business end of things, Ubercart takes care of the day to day transactions for customers. There are over 5,000 active customers in the system. To make it as easy as possible to get started, we ask for your basic information up front and allow you to pick your items for delivery. After your account is created, a staff member at Washington’s Green Grocer selects the most appropriate truck route for you and you will begin receiving deliverables on the next scheduled day.

At this point, a customer can login at any time and adjust their delivery schedule, items for delivery, or halt deliveries. Customers can also browse recipes on the site and submit their own. Washington’s Green Grocer promotes healthy eating habits and you will find plenty of recipes on their website for that.

Backend

Along with the new visuals and customer functionality, we needed to build and provide lots of cool administrative stuff into the backend for easy management of customers, data, and content.

We also needed to be able to actively map delivery truck routes through Google Maps on demand and be able to filter them in a variety of ways. This helps Washingtons Green Grocer visually assess their delivery routes, their customers, and orders. We also also extended on that to provide filtering tools to narrow it down further to specific routes, specific clients, specific orders or orders with specific kinds of products.

Washingtons Green Grocer staff also have a variety of reporting tools at their disposal for viewing customer trends, requests, future forecasting, and production reports.

Check out Washingtons Green Grocer today!

Leif has a background in photography, web design, SEO, project/client management, and social media with a likeable personality to boot. He’s very active with social media (and we don’t mind that!) such as Facebook and Twitter. He’s also active in the community with his photography.

Welcome Leif!

It was without a doubt one of the biggest projects we have completed here. Blood, sweat, and tears beers were spent completing it and we are honored that it is featured on drupal.org. It is the culmination of many hours of teamwork.

At the end of July, we also gave a presentation to the Delaware Web Developer group from the University of Delaware at the WBOC offices in Milton, Delaware. They love the new Dogfish Head website and were curious to know how we utilized Drupal to make it come to life. Shaun Tyndall presented it to the group in a 100 minute presentation, with demonstrations and functional walkthrough’s from Pete Stein and Kevin Quillen. When it was over, they were treated to a Dogfish Head brewery tour and sampling of some of the Dogfish Head brews.

Speaking of beer, can someone get our President something better than Bud Light? Just saying!

I’ll admit, I didn’t really ‘get it’ at first. It clicked for me a few months ago when I changed the way I approached these applications.

“I Don’t Get It!”

Most people assume that these websites / applications are largely recreation and localized to only them and a handful of friends. This really isn’t the point of social networking. What’s the use of adding a few people you already know and making your account private? Nothing new can be learned or gained from that and makes it about as fruitful as sending a text message on your phone.

True social networking begins by opening yourself up to the world and interacting with others. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. There are a lot of crazy weirdos on the internet, but the chances that you will come across one is small, and even if you do, you can block them from all communication in a few clicks. I can’t vouch for MySpace, but I know that Twitter and Facebook are very big on security and deterring jackasses from contacting you.

The value in these applications lies in making friends with strangers and interacting with people online. How can these be used as tools? The best part about these sites is that it’s free across the board, there is no charge for using their services. With that its become a viable marketing platform for companies, bands, and entrepreneurs. Startups like CoTweet and LivingSocial have dominated the third party arenas, turning a sweet profit and infinite wealth of data from it’s users. Without going into too much detail, CoTweet allows you to share Twitter access within your company providing separate logins for users, but tracking everything they do. You can assign tweets to a user, receive direct replies, and it appends their initials to each tweet so you know who’s who. The advantage of this is you can have multiple people using Twitter on your behalf, instead of just one or two, and it’s all tracked.

Tweeting ‘n’ Bookin It

People love instant gratification, instant feedback and interaction. If they feel that a company is responding in real time, their opinion of them will be exponentially more positive than a company who takes 2 weeks to respond via email or phone. For instance, Comcast experienced a large outage last month. I tweeted that Comcast was down, and a few minutes later a representative from Comcast, Bonnie, had replied to me and asked my location so they could report back where users had no internet services. It didn’t fix our issue, but I thought that was pretty cool. Authorize.net had a datacenter damaged by fire, effectively halting credit card processing services for a LOT of people this summer. They sent all their updates out over Twitter, almost every 10-15 minutes, keeping their users informed of the progress and letting them know when service would return. That’s good customer service and PR to boot.

Consider another scenario, getting the word out. A lot of people have trouble letting others know about something they have to offer. That’s the beauty of Twitter and Facebook, they can be used for exactly that. I recently had a breakthrough in just how effective the two of these sites are combined last week. AOL Radio was running a promotion to advertise their new station, All Request. In the spirit of that channel, they were accepting tweet requests from 12PM to 7PM that day only. Whatever bands got the most tweets would be in medium rotation the first week or two. A plan formulated in my head, I knew that I had access to 45,000 to 50,000 emails of people between Twitter, Facebook and the message board for CKY. What if a percentage of them participated in this? Could we make a difference?

From Nothing to Something

I didn’t expect everyone to do it, but I figured if at least 10% did, something might happen. By 10AM I let everyone know what was going on, and by 8PM saw on AOL that CKY would be one of the bands played. We didn’t quite have the numbers to edge out American Idol artists as the Top 10 Requested, but who does? That’s millions of teeny boppers. But all things considered, it was a great effort and example of how this service can be utilized to your advantage. We gained exposure, word of mouth, and a spot on the station.

That same week, we tried the same idea and encouraged people to participate again, this time using Twitter and Facebook combined. Jimmy Fallon had put the word out he was looking for new bands to feature on his show, something ‘not radio rock’ that everyone knows (and loathes) like Nickelback or Three Days Grace. Everyone wrote in such a volume that Jimmy Fallon posted that they would be looking into it and applauded the effort of the fans in spreading the word. Would you ever think that a simple marketing campaign would get a response from a late night talk show host?

Now CKY has a good shot of being booked for the show, all because of some Twitter and Facebook marketing that took a few seconds by a few thousand fans, which can result in millions of viewers seeing them on a late night show. If half of them bought their album, or hell, even 10%, that’s a significant boost- and this is all without record label involvement or marketing firms. It’s a domino effect, hypermarketing, hyperdomino, (insert as of yet to be coined Web 3.0 terms).

The experience there really opened my eyes to the true potential of leveraging social networking applications. If you’re just going to update people with what you’re having for lunch, how many paperclips are on your desk or what you drank Friday night, don’t expect to get anything out of the time invested in using these websites. But if you’re looking to do more, you may find that you are rewarded with new friends, leads,  new clients, maybe even Jimmy Fallon.

Want to know what we’re up to? Follow us!

Twitter:

• inclindinc
• shauntyndall
• kevinquillen

Facebook:

• http://www.facebook.com/pages/Inclind-Inc/104739558550

Their new site has everything they have been wanting and more. Dogfish Head Brewery can now easily manage their 800 page (and growing!) website, all its users, media, newsletters, news articles, events, RSS feeds, and comments. They can add/remove ‘locations’ of where their product is sold, served, or distributed. This allows customers to log in and see where they can find Dogfish on the ‘Fish Finder‘. Try it out!

With that, the new site features a fully functioning community section and social network. Users can register on the website for an account, after which they can create a basic profile. From there, they have access to submit a map location to their Fish Finder, add or comment on threads in the Forum, submit questions to Dogfish staff in Ask Dogfish, comment on Dogfish staff blogs (Blogfish), and connect with other Dogfish loving fans. All applicable content is able to be sent instantly through Twitter/Digg/MySpace/Facebook/etc in a single click of the ‘Share’ button. We really went all out to flesh out the community side and give users stuff to do in between staff blogs and answering questions.

Our new system that was used on Dogfish Head Brewery has no official name yet, or I’d tell you what it is ha. We hope to have that nailed down soon. What I can tell you is that its the most feature complete, stable and scalable CMS you are going to find on the east coast. I would put it up against anything the competition has to offer from Maine to Florida with confidence ours is as on par or better than what else is available. Since the code is modular, its not coded for 1 strict specific project (as we used to) but rather, any client who comes in the door can have the same power, accessibility, UI and functionality of big time folk like Dogfish. In other words, it makes our platform highly scalable and consistent.

All ya gotta do is ask us.

As for the rest of the week, Pete, Trey and Kevin are representing Inclind at DrupalCon in Washington DC. They will be talking to fellow developers and programmers and sharing / showing off work. You can follow what we’re up to on our Twitter (either by going to the Twitter site, or the side of our page on this site, or adding us inclindinc).

Regional web development company Inclind Inc announces the launch of a brand new website this week for DJ Hook of Hook Productions of Bethany Beach, Delaware.Randy Vanderhook (DJ Hook) grew up with an ear for music. He joined the school band in elementary school on drums and continued with them on up through high school marching band for Indian River High School. When he had a chance to guest DJ he jumped at the opportunity and has enjoyed every minute of it since then, and Hook Productions was born.

With a huge library of thousands and thousands of songs (over 60,000!), DJ Hook prides himself on being one of the best DJ’s on Delmarva. Most DJ’s quit learning after figuring out how to hook up their system to a PA (public address speaker system) and still carry around bags and bags of CDs and large heavy rack based rigs. DJ Hook is constantly researching new techniques and using the most cutting edge hardware available, such as a computer based setup with a digital catalogue (making his setup far more compact and smaller than competitors).

DJ Hook has played numerous places in the Newark, DE area including Klondike Kate’s, Kid Shellie’s and East End. He has also performed at many popular hang outs in the beach area including Harpoon Hanna’s, the Chalkboard, Mackey’s, Fagers Island, High Stakes, Mickey’s Family Crab House, Brew River, Magnolia’s, Lifeguard competitions and many other private events such as weddings, anniversaries, birthday parties, corporate events and much more.Their new website (www.hookproductions.net) running on Inclind’s content management system allows Hook Productions to easily update the public on availability with their event calendar and lay out the booking process in detail. The calendar also shows public appearances DJ Hook makes, so you can attend events he will be DJ’ing at like Harpoon Hanna’s famous deck parties in the summer.

To learn more about how DJ Hook can cater your next event, please visit their website at www.hookproductions.net or call (302)-757-HOOK (4665). For more information on custom website development, please contact Inclind Inc. at (302) 856-2802 or online at www.inclind.com.

RAPA is the number one selling brand of Scrapple in the United States. Being a local company, they needed a trustworthy development team close to home to handle the overhaul on their RAPA Scrapple website. Powered by Inclind CMS (our content management system) RAPA has full and complete control to edit any of the content on the RAPA website, manage store locations where product is sold, manage photos and banners and even produce quotes for people wishing to order scrapple online through UPS with the UPS Shipping Tool. The UPS Shipping Tool integrates UPS Web-based shipping with our enterprise application(s) such as Inclind CMS (our content management system) and Inclind Commerce.

View RAPA Scrapple website »

The Dental Group

The Dental Group is committed to providing exceptional dental care in a relaxed, caring and professional enviroment. Continuous improvement in all aspects of our practice is essential to making each experience comfortable, pleasant and rewarding. We strive to build long-term relationships with an emphasis on trust and integrity to best serve the oral health needs of our community. They service some of our employees as well, helping us to have the bright smiles we have. Props Dr. Kuon. Powered by our powerful Inclind CMS (our content management system), their staff can easily update any portion of the website at any time, post Adobe PDF forms for new/existing patients, and create web forms like a contact form.

View The Dental Group website »

Baywood Greens is a scenic golf course community located just off Route 24 in Long Neck, DE.  This quaint location provides easy access to both the towns of Rehoboth and Millsboro while offering quiet, luxury homes in resort style living surrounded by an exclusively public 18 hole golf course. The Baywood Greens Clubhouse is host to a restaurant as well as a banquet facility, weddings, and other events.

The inventive new website contains numerous improvements with new features like virtual 3D golf course fly over videos of the new Duneside 9 holes, an interactive event calendar, current weather conditions, and abundant photo galleries of floral arrangements, gardens, weddings, and events. The golf course section website includes new pictures for each hole.

“We could not be happier with the site and we had a great experience working with the Inclind Inc team. The whole project was handled very professionally. We love it!” says Mark Coty, General Manager of Baywood Greens.

About Baywood Greens:

Robert W. Tunnell, Jr., principal of Tunnell Companies, is the visionary behind Baywood Greens golf course, the Clubhouse, Communities, and all their amenities. It has taken a lot of hard work, skill and determination to make his vision come to life. Now that it is finally here you can come and experience the beauty of it first hand.

The initial layout and design of the course was by Bill Love ASGCA (formally of Ault, Clark and Associates). Final design was completed by land sculpture extraordinaire Larry Dewitt and owner/developer Rob Tunnell, who turned original sketches into a work of art.

Baywood Greens is a public golf club located in Long Neck, Delaware that is consistently rated as one of the very best in the state.

The front nine holes are nicknamed the “Woods Nine”, while the back nine holes carry the “Water Nine” nickname. A third 9-hole grouping is planned on the north side of Route 24, which is supposed to be the “Sand Nine”.

The course is noted for having over 200,000 flowers, plants, shrubs, and trees that decorate the playing area.

With the future construction of a large hotel, the owners hope to vie for PGA tournament status.

To learn more about tee times, tournaments, restaurant menus, wedding packages, or events at Baywood Greens please visit their website at www.baywoodgreens.com or call (302) 947-9800. Call toll free at 888 844-2254. For more information on website development, please contact Inclind Inc at (302) 856-2802 or online at www.inclind.com.

The family-run company Lewes Dairy is best known for its old-fashioned ways of producing some of the freshest milk, cream and egg nog found anywhere. As long as there’s a market for fresh, local product, Chip Brittingham, President of Lewes Dairy, says he believes the Lewes Dairy will continue to operate into its fifth, sixth and seventh generations and beyond.

View Lewes Dairy website »

Jennicide: Jennifer Leigh

Jennifer “Jennicide” Leigh is a professional poker player, Playboy May 2008 model, FHM Model, and a native of Delaware. At the young age of 24 she’s made quite a name for herself on the national circuit. Her website features a full content management system and powerful ecommerce platform.

View Jennifer Leigh’s website »

Bling Salon & Spa

Bling Salon’s located in Lewes, Delaware is the brand new salon from stylist veterans Jessica Blakeman and T.J. Seeney. There is no better place to get your haircut than Bling Salon’s, as they feature professional stylists, vibrating chairs (so when you get your hair washed, your back is massaged), beverages, and a full spa service. The secret to my killer hair? Bling Salon’s. No one else touches this, baby.

View Bling Salon’s website »

Hotel Blue

Hotel Blue is redefining luxury in historic Lewes. “Blue” is an inspired fusion of coastal Victorian, contemporary design and first class amenities. Sixteen suites and rooms offering lush surroundings with a modern twist.

With original art by local artists, ice buckets that change colors, sinks that glow and mirrors that come alive, whimsy and surprise abound in Delaware’s first ‘Boutique’ Hotel. Tucked between the main street and the bay, Hotel Blue provides contemporary, European accommodations for adults…Each (room) offers a tile fireplace, flat screen TVs, fancy stereos, Frette® robes, original local art, small refrigerator and a clear ice bucket akin to a lava lamp that changes hues from ruby to sapphire to gold. The most surprising splash of color lights up the huge bath – transparent double sinks have blue lights strung underneath them…From the lobby’s cream and indigo leather sofas to the rooftop pool and fireplace, the 16-room inn exudes cool.

View Hotel Blues website »