Tribe tech
03/12/07 20:44 Filed in: BitDepth+
His company, Sugar Islands.com builds both the website and the web-based database that drives the band's customer experience.
His tool of choice is Adobe's ColdFusion, which allows him to create a database engine for the band's content that's separate from the elaborate Flash based designs on the website.
Both are important to Tribe; the full-motion video that sells the costumes on the website is supported by an elaborate customer relations management database that tracks each customer through each year's presentation and allows the band to develop customer incentives tailored to reach their best clients.
"Carnival moves fast," says Stewart, "and a developer really can't hope to keep up with the speed of changes that a Carnival band demands."
Stewart spins a massive Dell 24 inch monitor around to show me the guts of the system, as far from the slinky lasses in skimpy glitter as it's possible to get.
On a dull, office folder yellow background are drop boxes for photographs and access links for various elements of the system. It's so businesslike, after watching pretty girls glide in and out of digital smoke, that I can't help but grin.
"It's designed at a level that would allow an executive assistant to make updates and changes even if they have no web savvy at all."
When Stewart starts talking about the system, it doesn't sound like a mas band, describing transaction systems working in offline mode, and taking the system to enterprise level to meet surges in demand, it sounds more like a corporation.
And Tribe works with the information in much that way.
According to the band's Director of Operations, Gerard Ramirez, the information is exported from the online database, pulled into an Excel spreadsheet and analysed using the same sorting and financial tools that any sensible finance officer would make use of.
"Tribe is very forward thinking," Stewart said. "They don't know exactly what they want out of the system, but they are constantly finding ways to make use of it. The system accomodates RFID smart cards, for instance, and there are plans to introduce that feature to the band in the future."
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