Giftag is gift registry Add On for FireFox and Explorer. It lets you pick things from any site, add them to a list, and share that list where ever you want. Its free, it supports open standards, and its recently been re-platformed on Google App Engine.
Here’s a quick recap from our development team about why we chose GAE, what we like about it, what APIs we use, what we wish it had, and a few tips for people getting started on GAE.
Here are links to the documentation mentioned:
Sharding Counters by Joe Gregario
Posts Tagged giftag
This is our first time at Demo. We’re launching a new product for Best Buy. Can’t say which one right now because its not public until tomorrow morning. In fact, I had to photoshop the pics below so I don’t give ours or anyone elses away. Big trouble if I do.
Day 1 was good. We got in, had a few hours to rehearse before the big dress rehearsal on the main stage. The dress rehearsal went fine- not great, not bad. At least we know what we need to work on. Expecting about 1000+ audience. 100+ media (biggest media turnout ever for DEMO). The rest are VCs and interested people.
Pic of the Main Stage
So far- I’ve seen a couple products that are pretty cool and a few that are kind of eh- still alot more to see. Really curious to see where we fall on the scale.
Day 2 has been fine- had the morning to work and then a mandatory meeting. Chris Shiply kicked off the mandatory meeting. What to do, what not to do, how to be the best on stage and at the event. Lots of rules about press contact- which I only imagine is needed- lots o stalkers I bet.
Here’s a pic of Chris addressing the 71 companies at Demo
Then we set up our booth at the Pavilion. Got a good spot right on a corner. And we get to show off some Best Buy product- a 37" Insignia LCD- WOOT. Bought it this morning at the store- it was a lot cheaper than the rentals here and now we have a TV for other events.
Here’s a pic of Gary and Curtis
Tonight we talked about dinner in Tijuana but I think that’s been revised to Ocean Beach. Probably the smart choice. After dinner- a CEO and Dealmaker networking event. Really hate these things but know I should go.
First day of presentations start tomorrow AM. The official list of products that will be launched is public Monday at 7AM EST
More updates tomorrow
The Crucible
Jul 21
I wanted to post a story about an experiment we tried this year- we called it the Crucible. It was a way to work differently, to get focused, to work faster. It turned out to be a brutal ordeal with both some good and bad effects on the team.
Our team has been practicing agile the best we can. I say practicing because its hard work, and its hard to get it right. We’re about a year into it, and we’re getting better- some weeks are better than others and after a year, I think we’re hitting a good stride.
In January of this year, we made a change with our development team to try to get better at agile. In my opinion, we were suffering from sitting in a stale corp environment and communication wasn’t all that hot. We had a deadline looming for development on Giftag- it was an important one- without meeting it, the project would have died. So we did something drastic (for our team)- We went from sitting in cubes and being nice and comfortable to 6 guys sitting in a conference room for up to 12 hours a day.
Doesn’t sound too bad I’m sure, but imagine 6 guys in 1 small room for 3 months. It smelled. Each person sat across from everyone else. There was no hiding. There was no privacy. There was heat- extreme heat from emotions, failures, wins. It was the Crucible.
The Crucible was great on a couple levels. Communication was great. Not always nice, but great. You couldn’t hide in the crucible so if you had a problem you had to bring it up. If you had an idea, everyone could help shape it. If you needed help, you turned to your left and there it was.
Our productivity was awesome- we did 13 releases to Giftag in that 3 months- great progress. Deadline met. Project lived on.
We would have stayed on in the Crucible if it weren’t for one small detail- the Crucible wasn’t sustainable. After a couple months, it got hard to come in everyday. That kind of heat is draining, the pace was too frenetic. People who were friendly with each other were now having personal spats. It got annoying.
So for the good of the team, we left the room and tried a different experiment. We went to the opposite extreme- everyone got to air out. Work from where you want. We had 1 weekly meeting in person and the rest of the week, the team got their work done how they wanted. We stayed connected through chat.
So what happened? Probably just what you think. The team continued to work hard, but communication suffered again. We ran into more problems. Our recovery from those problems became slower and still had some personal vendettas attached. Our releases slowed a bit.
As I write this, it seems obvious that it would happen this way. And we thought it might before we tried it. But it was still important to do. We had to find a balance for our team- one that motivated them, kept communication open, and allowed for fast recover from failures. It took us 6 months of trying, but today I think we found it.
We have a new space and new process. The new space is open. It lets developers pair if they want. We meet in person 3 days a week at a minimum. We hold a daily status scrum on chat at 10AM every morning. Our development is picking up- we’re recovering more quickly, new ideas are flying, and people are taking a new level of ownership.
The question will be, is this model sustainable? Stay tuned…
