Return on Intention

 Web Standards Primer [43:07m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Emily Lewis spoke on the first day of BarCamp Albuquerque about web standards and markup. Her presentation wasn’t in keynote or powerpoint but rather a small standards compliant website you can find here.

Me and my wife met in Tampa, Florida over 10 years. I had an interesting time in Florida, being a transplant from New Mexico, it was quite the culture shocking experience. While we now live in New Mexico, and my wife is now over the culture shock that she faced, we are pretty happy here. There is one thing that could use some work in the beautiful Albuquerque area, and that’s the seafood restaurants. 

Wy wife has spent over 30 years in Tampa before she was dragged across the country to the middle of the desert. She loves seafood. There isn’t alot of seafood in New Mexico. Burritos, Yes. Crab legs, not so much. You can imagine the excitement she felt when during a trip to WalMart we discovered you could buy gift cards to restaurants. In between the gift card for Chili’s and Applebee’s was one for Eat at Joe’s Crab Shack. We had no idea there was a Crab Shack here in New Mexico.  We rushed home and looked on the interweb to find our Albuquerque Crab Shack location only to find that there isn’t one. 

I understand that you could buy one and mail it to someone in another state, but by having this card in there for a restaurant that is 8 eight hours away in another state doesn’t do me much good for local family or friends. What this has essentially done has made me not buy ANY gift cards from WalMart because I have no idea which ones I can use here and which ones I can’t. If that sounds a little silly to you, then I suggest you talk to your customers more. You’d be surprised the things that make them not buy. 

This whole thing could be cleared up with a sign, or some section devoted to local or non-local chains. That is all it would take. Its the simple things that can reduce the barriers to purchase and give you more share of wallet.

 Chris Kenworthy on Web Analytics, Heat Maps, A/B Testing [42:57m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Chris Kenworthy is the owner of the premier development site Dream In Code. Chris spoke at BarCamp Albuquerque this year about all the experience he has gained from launching and bringing Dram in Code to profitability.  Chris says that to get real results from a website you need to pay attention to the numbers. In this talk he goes over Web Analytics, Heat Maps and A/B Testing.

As it turns out, I believe that Chris is now offering his expertise to clients as a consultant.

 ROI - Frank LaFond at BarCamp Albuquerque 3 - Technical Debt [25:28m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Frank LaFond knows more about QA than anyone I’ve met. This year was Franks second appearance at BarCamp Albuquerque, he spoke last year on testing. This year he talks about technical debt and the trade offs that companies must make between building their technical assets and the temptation of quick profits.

Running time is 25:27.

Upgrade NM has now come to close and we successfully completed the two projects we worked toward. We set out to rework 1st-mile.com and our own Upgrade NM site and we made it. Of course as with all web projects the work is never really done, but at the end of the weekend we accomplished what we set out to do. 

The 1st-mile project has been posted on the Upgrade NM server so people can poke at it and see what it looks like. You can also see the origional version of the 1st-mile site at 1st-mile.com. You can also look at the new Upgrade NM site and make a suggestion for the next go around, or sign up to participate next time. 

Overall this was a lot more relaxed that the sprint we did last year, probably because of the extra day we had this time. Somethings remained the same; however, like the bottle-necks that happen waiting for one person to get something done before another person can start their part. I guess that is just the nature of the beast with this type of activity. It was also fun like last time. Something magical happens when a bunch of like minded people get together to get something done. I think we all learned something along the way as well, which is always a good thing. 

I guess this kind of thing is starting to gain some momentum. Here locally we have done two of these events, but this morning as I noticed that WOW was having an Extreme Markover. I guess we all like to help out and give back.

For more information check out my previous post for what happened yesterday and see some of the work in progress. You can also check out “My Weekend with Upgrade NM” on A Blog Not Limited (from Emily Lewis) or “UpgradeNM Sprint #1” on Story to Tell (from Daniel Lyons) to read their account of the weekend. You can also see photos on flickr by searching for ”Upgrade NM”.

THE PARTICIPANTS

Here is a list of people who helped out, and basically what they did:

• Michael Bernstein – Plone & Python developer – back end integration and upgrading of the 1st-mile site
• Markie Casias – Javascript – Wrangled some jquery for the 1st-mile site
• Reid Givens – Design, Mark-up and a dabble of jquery – Designed both sites, did the mark-up for Upgrade NM and did a tiny bit of jquery for the 1st-mile widget
• Emily Lewis – Mark-up and content development – Content creation for 1st-mile, did the mark-up for 1st-mile and tweaked the mark-up for the Upgrade NM site to make it more accessible and to allow for graceful degradation.
• Daniel Lyons – Programmer – Wrote he back end for the Upgrade NM site with Gabe and helped sort out the tough stuff on the 1st-mile homepage widget.
• Jack Moffitt – Quality Assurance and Programming – Tested the sites for bugs and helped sanitize the data input for Upgrade NM.
• Gabe Ortiz – Programmer – Wrote the back end for the Upgrade NM site with Daniel
• Eric Renz-Whitmore – logistics and content – Eric, while not a web developer, was helpful in making sure we had the space, internet access, power, food, Mountain Dew and also helped pull some content for the 1st mile site. 

It’s really early in the morning and here I am writing about Upgrade NM day 1. I guess it’s not that early, but earlier than I want to be awake for today. Oh well, we’re not gonna stop now, we had a good day yesterday and I think we will meet success today for this years Upgrade NM.

Upgrade NM is like the sprint we did last year. It’s an event where many New Mexico web developers get together and try to do a complete web site build in a short period of time. Last year it was a day and this year we are using the weekend. The event last from 8am to 8pm both Saturday and Sunday and all planning and work must be completed in those hours. This year we are redesigning, upgrading, adding functionality and new content to the 1st-mile.com website. We are also going to build the UpgradeNM.org site so in the future we can involve the community in the process of identifying projects and participants for future Upgrade events. 

We do it as a way of giving back to our community and to show the local area that there is talent here that accomplish these types of projects. Often this kind of work gets outsources out of state, and there is not good reason for it. We have a great talent pool right here in town. It’s also fun just to get all of us together and see what we can do, and help out some folks who might not be able to get this level of help normally. 

So here we are about to start day two and we are looking pretty good. We have a new design and and some new content we need to get integrated into an update version of plone that is running the current 1st-mile site. We also have the design and front end markup for the UpgradeNM site and we just need to build out the back end. So far its been a great run and think we have enough done and enough time to finish it. Keep a look out to hear more after today is over to see how far it all got.

Here is the original 1st mile site:

Here is our current version:

Here is the current media-wiki install for UpgradeNM:

Here is the new design for Upgrade NM:

Here is who participated today:

• Reid Givens (of course)
• Jack Moffitt
• Emily Lewis
• Michael Bernstein
• Mark Casias
• Eric Renz-Whitmore

There is a concept in software development (at least web development) called agile that seems to be part of a larger trend. First lets talk about agile, then the trend.

In traditional web development, you sit down with a client and try and plan out a huge project. This can take months, going back and forth over what it really needs to do, how it needs to do it and so on. What you end up with a giant planning document and estimate that spells out what is going to happen. Many clients like it because it gives them a solid number they can attach to the project and budget for. It is all very rigid and if something changes a barrage of paperwork follows to ensure that the original document and budget is adjusted to reflect the changes. This is all about control and a clear map. Then there is agile.

Agile works like this, you set up a really rough plan of what you want, then the developers go and start building. Then you get back together and decide what is good or bad and go back to work. Rinse and repeat. The theory is that you can get a project developed faster because your not trying to guess how everything will work and plan it all out. You’re making it up as you go (at least the developmental details). Essentially you take all the planning time and exchange for actual development and testing of concepts. This is all about flexibility. All in all this seems to work, and get projects done in about the same budget range but usually faster, or better.

This seems to be part of a larger common theme. We used to all have to go to an office and punch a clock, but now there are a lot of telecommuters and “I don’t care when you work, just so long as it gets done on time”. A closer example for me is this years BarCamp Albuquerque. BarCamp is a volunteer run conference driven by and for a specific community. Traditional conferences are set up in advance and planned to death. They have to be. You have to get a venue, speakers, food and on and on. When the date for the conference is set the year prior, thats it. If you have something else going on, the conference is not going to change dates to accommodate you. BarCamp did.

BarCamp’s date was set two months prior to the event. It was also set on a holiday weekend. (That was my fault. I didn’t notice). After the conference was “full” in a few weeks, the “registered” attendees started to unregister in waves. Apparently they noticed it was a holiday weekend and had other plans. BarCamp moved back two weekends to accommodate, and the attendees came back. A traditional conference would not and could not do that.

It seems that being flexible is the way in which we all want to work now. We are all busy and have to juggle many different things. I hear work life balance is one of them, but I wouldn’t know about that, owning a small business . Take a minute to consider the ways you do business. Are there steps in your process that are inflexible? What would happen if you changed it? How much planning do you do? How often does it go according to plan?

I’m not suggesting that you drop everything your doing and fly by the seat of your pants. I am suggesting you take a good look at how you operate and ask a few tough questions. Like in web development, most often big up front design specifications are only done to create an airtight contract. What good is an airtight contract? It allows you to nail someone who screws you over. Think about that…. is that the right way to engage in business? Yes we need to reduce risk, and yes we need contracts, but at what level and cost? Perhaps the right approach is one based more on collaboration. A process that is based more on getting things right and taking a few risks, not trying to guess how everything will go to the letter and have enough ass-coverage to go to court. No plan ever survives contact with real people, so why do we try so hard?

So what?

I can’t tell you how to live your life or run your business, but consider:

What (illusions of) control can you give up to make your life / business better or faster?

When hiring a web developer (or other profession) have you done enough research / due diligence to make a decision based on them and their capabilities? (rephrase) – Are you hiring them for what could be (making real value for the organization and market) , or what shouldn’t be (with a plan for when they screw up)?

Just some thoughts – there is a comment section, What’s your take?