Successful Projects

Josh Catone at Read Write Web wrote an awesome post about what he calls “badge soup” – a term I absolutely love – which is a condition where you’ve got so many social media badges on your site your users can’t find the one they want.

Aza Raskin has developed a bit of JavaScript code called SocialHistory.js that solves the problem in a crafty and efficient way. SocialHistory.js works by exploiting the feature in modern web browsers
that automatically uses a different link color for visited links. The
JavaScript loads up a bunch of links from a list of top social media
sites in an iFrame and looks at which have been visited based on the
change in link color. From there, it can assume which you are most
likely to use.

Nifty, efficient and handy as all get out.

This is a major issue with almost every team running a project using an Agile methodology. Mike Cohn of Mountain Goat Software has a terrific post on his blog about how to handle those tasks that pop up during every iteration that have no specific stories associated to them.

I find myself once more in a familiar environment though my familiarity with it makes it no less frustrating and uncomfortable. The CEO of my current company has made the statement that the software developers need to work more hours. He has said, “We’re a start-up and the developers should work like we’re a start-up.”

I can’t tell you how many times in my career I’ve heard this comment or something very similar. It always shocks me though you’d think by now I’d be so accustomed to it that I would expect it and its arrival would offer no shock.

I guess what shocks me the most is the naivety of the notion that a software developer can code as effectively in hour 10 as in hour 1. Perhaps because I have been managing software development for so long I just don’t have a lot of patience for this attitude. It seems like any reasonable person could intuit that a developer only has a certain number of productive hours in a day. After that threshold has been reached the law of diminishing returns kicks in and at some point the number and frequency of errors negates the additional hours worked.

Jeff Sutherland the CEO of scruminc wrote a really good post on this subject back in late 2007 called Why Time Sheets are Lamein which he shows with supporting data the adverse effect of trying to shove software developers into the clock punching box.

I’ve just spent the last two days cleaning out my NewsGator Inbox. I’ve read, clipped or deleted over 43,000 – yes that’s 5 digits – posts. Obviously it’s been a while since I’ve read my 144 feeds. but now I’m all caught up – at least until morning.

The problem with having such easy access to RSS feeds is that I find myself subscribing to a lot of them because I have such varied interests. RSS rocks but it can be a bit overwhelming – like drinking from a fire hose – if one isn’t careful.

Thanks to a post from Erick Schonfeld over at TechCrunch I just tried a sweet little web app called Presdo. Erick is correct this is exactly what a modern web app should be. Simple. Easy to understand and use. Powerful. Fun and something that adds value or makes the life of the user better.

I just used it to set up a meeting between Ori and me to discuss the UI design for audio.

Try it. You won’t be disappointed.

Ben Hunt at Web Design from Scratch just posted a great post on what Web 2.0 design really is.

To paraphrase his post it’s NOT about shiny buttons and mirrored graphics it’s about 2 things really:

1) Simple, uncluttered design with the brand up front, and

2) Simple focus

Ben is right on the money and that’s one of the reason I go back to him time after time for tips, pointers and brilliant ideas.

I just got off a call with a company called Sonata Software wherein they tried to sell us on the idea of turning over some of our software development work to them.

Their selling point was that they can do Agile with an off-shore team. I have multiple issues with this concept starting with the fact that Sonata is a CMM Level 5 shop. Now, there is nothing written in stone saying that CMM and Agile are incompatible. However, my experience tells me that most CMM shops don’t get Agile because it is hard to break away from the overhead of CMM and move into the less formulaic Agile world.

The bottom line take-away from the call for me is that Sonata just don’t get Agile as a concept or a practice. This is yet another example of a company using Agile as a marketing hook. That frustrates me a lot because there are companies out there who have truly embraced Agile like Solutions IQ and Mountain Goat Software are done a disservice by companies like Sonata who only pretend for the sake of making a buck.

As a man I am saddled with an abundance of pride. This can be a good thing because my sense of pride in the work I do motivates me to improve and strive to always do better. However, pride can be a very dangerous emotion.

Take for example the situation where out of a sense of injured pride one makes a bad business decision such and severs a valuable business relationship – the old bridge burning. I see this time and time again in my line of work. It’s sad really that we as humans haven’t evolved beyond this silly emotion and all the harm it does.

William Law said in his book Spirit of Prayer, Pt.II:

Look not at pride only as an unbecoming temper, nor at humility only as a decent virtue: for the one is death, and the other is life; the one is all hell, the other is all heaven.

Very true words. We should all do our best to set aside our pride or at the very least monitor when it is motivating us to make decisions that we might regret.

Yesterday I participated in a golf tournament at Arrowhead Golf Course which is without doubt one of the prettiest golf courses I’ve ever seen.
I played on a foursome and we played best ball which was good for me since I’m not the best golfer. I did have one amazing hole a 172 yard par 3 that I shot with a 9 iron and landed about a foot from the hole. I won “closest to the hole” on that one and birdied it.
That was the best part of the day. The worst was when I let a club slip out of my hand and nailed one of my friends right in the side of the face. Talk about a game killer – I never really recovered from that.
If you ever get the chance play Arrowhead!

Brian Fling over at Blue Flavor wrote a really great post back in February about the Immutable Laws of Web Design and Development. I just re-read it today and it still holds true.