Return on Intention

On Sunday January 28th, 2007 ten independent web developers, designers, marketers and coders got together for twelve hours to see how far they could get trying to build a web site for the New Mexico unemployed. The New Mexico Department of Labor has had some trouble getting a web solution that allows the unemployed to file their weekly unemployment claims. The NMDOL paid for and took delivery of a system that is supposed to accomplish this task, but it doesn’t work. It has been a very expensive and time-consuming journey for the Department of Labor. This story has also sparked a lot of heat with the taxpayers and the media. The Albuquerque Journal has printed many stories about it, one on the front page on January 7th, 2007.

If it has taken so many years (6) and cost the state an estimated $14 million to try and complete a working system, it must be very difficult to do. Or is it? To find out our crew of 10 independent professionals got together to find out in 12 hours.

We call the group Method Arts. Method Arts is not a company. It’s a consortium of independent or freelance web, design and marketing professionals that utilize the talent pool to accomplish large projects. The system has worked out very well for the members of Method Arts and their clients. The lack of overhead associated with keeping people on staff at a formal company has created better value to the clients and a strong product delivered from entrepreneurial specialists. The ability to form very talent specific teams has allowed Method Arts to overcome many complex problems. To take on the unemployment website problem, a strong swat team of professionals was assembled.

I (Reid Givens) was fortunate enough to be one of the team members for this project. While my main role was to help document the project through audio and video, I also got to participate in the strategy and planning sessions, a little design, a lot of research, and some content gathering. It was quite an experiment.

The rules for the day were that nothing could be started before 8:00am on Sunday the 28th. No planning, scripting, designing or anything that resembled work was allowed. All work had to be completed between 8:00am and 8:00 pm.

What did we accomplish in 12 hours? A lot. We had planned and designed a system that will allow the unemployed to login and fill out their weekly filings. We have a complete site concept, site structure, templates designed and code for almost every page, a mostly complete content management system, and the forms and database to accommodate the user accounts and registration and weekly filings. Is it done? No. Is it pretty? Not particularly, although much better than what they have now.

Why did we do it? The intent wasn’t to finish the project; it was to see how far we could get in 12 hours. It was a way to try and show that 6 years and over $10 million was more than adequate to get the job done. We also did it just to work together and gain some insights from the day. Everyone got something different out of the day, and it was great for all. What I got out this whole thing was the experience of working with highly motivated people that are really good at what they do. I learned some lessons and was exposed to many new ideas. I had the opportunity to contribute to a winning team. Given the choice, I would do it again.

To find out more about this project, a video documentary will be posted on the Internet when it’s complete. In addition a podcast will be posted here (on this blog). You can also get more information from the other Method Arts members’ websites and blogs. Visit the Method Arts website and follow the links to each members site.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 4th, 2007 at 1:48 pm and is filed under Announcements and News, Doin' it right, New Mexico. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.