We’re excited to be working with tap|QA – a highly experienced software QA and testing consultancy based here in the Twin Cities.  One of their fundamental business tenets is the importance of looking locally first, finding and training smart people to do QA right (QA stands for Quality Assurance, the sometimes under appreciated “red-headed step child” of software development).  Their tap|LAKSHORE software testing service competes very well against comparable offshore testing services.

We enjoyed working with two of the firm’s partners, Don Peterson and Tim Guilfoil and we’re happy to have had the chance to help them develop their new site.  Good luck tap|QA!

I’ve been noticing a trend for larger projects that have been coming to us lately. A surprising number of long term clients as well as new customers want to formally partner and work together to build web applications. I’ve had several conversations turn to creating a joint venture LLC or a cooperative agreement early on. We regularly get 3-4 of these a year but in the last 6 months, I’ve had at least 8 joint venture opportunities of one kind or another pass my desk.

What does this kind of arrangement do?

For our clients a joint venture can:

1. Reduce financial risk by lowering up front development costs – ArcStone bears a proportionate amount of the expense.
2. Give the project a jump start – sometimes we can we inject proprietary software into the partnership.
3. Eliminate the need for our clients to hire any initial, dedicated technical employees.

Joint ventures benefit ArcStone by:

1. Providing an additional revenue stream and an avenue for discovering new consulting opportunities.
2. Enables us to harvest some of the potential upside as the application becomes more successful.
3. Allows us to exercise our entrepreneurial muscles (which is a ton of fun) – having started three other online spin-offs, AssociationsOnline, HOAWeb, and Wonderfile – we love the start-up!

Is this a sign of the times – are other web developers seeing this trend?

The numbers are in. I’ve thought about this thoroughly and in keeping with ArcStone’s nerdy roots, created an algorithm.  I added up productivity gains subtracted employee gripes and moans and then divided by hours logged.

(Gains – Gripes) / Hours = X

The clear winner for best technology investment in 2008?

Our switch to Google Apps for our company email, calendar and documentation platform.

Google Apps has five elements that you need to know about…

1. User Management – to secure access and set permissions for your team.
2. Email – in this case Gmail, which is Google’s fantastic web mail service.  Users can also use mail clients like Outlook or Thunderbird if they wish.
3. Calendar – An online personal calendar which may be shared with your colleagues.
4. Sites - An easy to edit wiki system.  Need a quick wiki to organize a project, or documentation?  It literally takes a non-technical user 5 minutes to create a new site and start adding content.  You can then restrict content to certain users or publish to the web at large.
5. Docs – an online productivity suite which includes a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, and data collection application.   These have become very important tools in the tool box for us at ArcStone.  We use Docs for tracking basic spreadsheet information centrally like employee phone extensions and incoming leads, to collaborating on our 2009 business plan.  Google Docs also includes a slick form generation tool, enabling non-technical users to easily create online forms for surveys and similar data collection projects.  Google is clearly targeting Microsoft Office users, but I have to confess Google Docs still has a ways to go before replacing Office – don’t plan on using it exclusively.

And how much $$ for all these goodies?  If you have fewer than one hundred employees, the price is truly right. You pay them $0.  All it took for us was a DNS update so that Gmail started getting our our email and then some configuration / internal communication / training to make the transition.

Before you ask, no I’m not working for Google.  I just want to share something that’s working well for us.

If you’re an ArcStone client and you’re interested in making the transition to Google Apps, drop me a line.  If there’s enough interest, I’d be happy to schedule a group Webinar demonstrating how we use Google Apps and help you decide whether or not to make the move.

At ArcStone we ring a bell every time we launch a new web site. This little ritual always elicits cheers and smiles, shouts of glee and sometimes even whistles of incredulity.

I think little rituals are important for a company to cultivate. They become part of the culture – people learn them, and by actively participating can more easily become part of the group. These rituals help define the culture and give the participants a framework for interaction. Even unconscious rituals like trips to CSV, stepping out for a smoke with colleagues, or going to lunch on Fridays at Taco Bell collectively bring us together.

One of my favorites is our annual trivia contest. Everyone submits questions to me before our holiday party. I assemble them and read them off (usually punctuated by a lot of laughing, cajoling and tom foolery). We grade the results and the winner gets bragging rights / a fabulous prize. I think the trivia gives our party something that brings the group together – each shared experience make us a little closer. Kudos to Alicia Cermak for bringing home the prize this year.

So I want to start a new one – and I’d like you fellow ArcStonians to participate. Think of any highlights for this last year and let’s add them to the blog. We’ll be able to keep a record moving forward of some of the important/interesting/remarkable/funny things that happened this past year.

I’ve been doing this in my personal life for the last 15 years and it’s amazing what you forget and a lot of fun to review them and reminisce.

So here’s a start, please comment if you have anything to add…. Happy New Year!

(To be read listening to Aqualung’s, Brighter than Sunshine)

1. AMP Development – AMP CAMP

2. Launching Wonderfile

3. Completing ASIL Phase 2

4. Awesome new colleagues – Shawn, Belden, Pam, Dan, Arouna

5. Holiday Party at David and Lisa’s

6. Adding a 401 K benefit – mid year ArcStone Manifesto meeting

7. Welcome the birth of Talia Louwagie

8. Ryan and Angie tie the knot

9. Alicia’s bachelors of computer science and cake decorating degrees

10. Roberto marking Belden’s territory

11. New fridge and wet bar

12. IPhone frenzy

13. SVN, pizza and gin

14. ArcStone beer brewed by Nick and Carrie

One of the things many of us like about ArcStone is the flexible work environment. Flexible means (at least to me) a recognition that to be most productive and effective you need to have a sensible work / life balance. Sometimes people will be more productive at night, want to work in the early morning, need to take a half-day with little warning, take a two-hour lunch to fit in a work out, etc.

This “flexibility” has been an ongoing experiment. Despite my best intentions and knowing that it benefits everyone from employee to customer – it still occasionally annoys me.

As a manager I frequently need to have short status / update conversations with my fellow ArcStonians. The flexible work schedule sometimes gets in my way and forces me/us to be slower to respond than I would like. I think this is a common feeling for those in management roles over here.

A couple of days ago my frustration level hit a peak and I sent a long, whiney email to the entire office, ranting about needing better communication and consistency so that we can work together more efficiently.

I asked for feedback and help from people and yea, verily yea, I got it.

Over the last few days I’ve been able to reflect, collect, and review the responses from my coworkers. I’ve compiled a partial list below and thought I’d share our efforts with the world. Hopefully they will be of use…

(more…)

Remember the tired, worn adage – “If everyone went and jumped off a cliff would you do it?” Well…. to do what we can to try to stem the flow of the impending tidal wave of global eco-disaster, ArcStone’s officially going green.

Not that we weren’t green before, it’s just that our past policy was implicit and somewhat lazy. It’s past time to make it explicit and clear to everyone who works here or comes in contact with us.

So please forgive me for jumping on the green hybrid bandwagon, but it’s truly too important to remain complacent and do nothing. Imagine if every business did this. With enough critical mass, I’m sure we’d make an impact.

It starts with one household and one business at a time. As Lisa (my bride) so eloquently put it yesterday, “Action creates clarity.” We’ll clearly see results only if we act and adjust accordingly.

It’s time to act now – here’s the public unveiling of ArcStone’s First Greenification Agenda…

(I’ve written this in mostly general terms so others can copy and paste and use it themselves – ArcStone is following these guidelines and we will adjust as required and get feedback.)

1. Buy REC Offsets – Determine the amount of energy used within the last year. Here’s a calculator that can be applied for business (most seem to be for households). ArcStone generates approximately 103,000 pounds of CO2 per year. So we purchased RECs – Renewable Energy Credit) to offset our usage. View our certificate.
2. Consciously Consume – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

   Reduce
   – No paper plates, plastic forks, wax paper cups, etc.
   – Buy in bulk when applicable.
   – Favor local products with less packaging purchased from green suppliers.
   – Print only when necessary.

   Reuse
   – Sell and/or donate old office equipment.
   – Reuse draft paper printed on one side – set-up a station for this by each printer.

   Recycle
   – Black personal cans for trash – green for recyclables.
   – If there’s no recycling pick-up where you are – sponsor it (ArcStone is doing it for our building – good PR).
   – Dispose of waste / electronics properly.

3. Conserve Electricity / Gas – Use common sense. Turn on lights only as needed. Plug everything into power strips and turn off power strips when leaving the office. Program the adjustable thermostat, if you don’t have one, install one.
4. Encourage Sensible Commuting – Allow employees to telecommute as sensible. We typically allow non-support staff to telecommute two – three days a week. Encourage car pooling, mass transit, and muscle power alternatives for the work commute – at ArcStone green commuters (at least 3 / 5 day per week green commuting average) get earth day off and other special treats.
5. Meet Virtually with Clients / Vendors when Possible – Subscribe to an online virtual meeting platform and learn it well. We currently use – Adobe’s Acrobat Connect Pro which doesn’t require a software download for meeting guests. We like it.
6. Use Good Cleaning Supplies – Don’t buy cleaners with nasty chemicals – there’s really no reason for it. I like to ahere to the rule – if you can’t pronounce it, don’t buy it.

I consider this a draft of a living document – please feel free to comment and make suggestions….

I listen to a lot of audio books. I have had a subscription audible.com for over four years and have amassed a personal audio book library of over 150 books. For $21.95 per month I can download any two books in the audible.com collection – usually the retail value of each book is in the $30 – $50 range, so I figure it’s a pretty good deal.

I typically use my phone for the listening, which is nice because you always have it with you and it enables you to make really good use of car time. Currently I use an iPhone, prior to that I used my Treo, before that I used my Audiovox PDA running Windows Mobile (*cringe*, but I thought it was cool at the time). I have learned a ton doing this and would sooner lose my Tivo than my Audible subscription. I highly reccommend developing an audio book habit if you don’t have one already.

Of the 150 books in my library, I have gone out and purchased physical copies only three times. I am just finishing Kieth McFarland’s The Breakthrough Company and will be going to the book store to buy the physical book as soon as I’m done.

The majority of business books seem to focus on either the start-up stage of a company (think Starting on a Shoestring by Arnie Goldstein) or large company issues and sustainability (think Good to Great by Jim Collins). The Breakthrough Company fills a gap by focusing on the stages between start-up and massive. It profiles nine companies (much in the style of Good to Great) and through research and comparison has teased out principles and tactical priorities that have differentiated successful, growing mid-stage companies from those less successful.

If you don’t have the time to read it, go to Audible or iTunes and give it a listen – it’s well worth the price of admission.

I recently did a round of interviews on behalf of a client who is looking to take on signifcant web projects in 2008. It was different than the interviews we do at ArcStone – we’re large enough to have relatively fixed roles in the programming / development department (if not for the operational / sales side – but that’s another post). Our client needed someone who could not only do the web development, but also help them take their idea from 50,000 foot concept to specificaitons that non-technical staff could understand.

We posted for the job on Craigslist and Careerbuilder and narrowed it done to four candidates. The experience underscored for me how important the analytical aspect of web development is. I cut two of the interviews short with this question, “If we came to you with a high level outline for a web application, what would your next step be?”

There are a lot of correct answers – write user stories, refine the specifications with a detailed project plan, do wireframes, create work flow diagrams, etc. – but two of these “experienced” candidates totally blew the answers, hemming and hawing. Aye carumba – what are they teaching the kids these days?

When choosing a web developer, find out what their approach is when they plan a project. Make sure it will work for your organization and hold them to it – if they don’t do the planning, kill the project – you will be happier and more successful with someone else.

Birth is a messy operation. The creative process is messy. A software application that is gonna scale better not be messy.

Giving birth to a new software application puts you in the very zen-like place of being both messy / not messy.

Does anyone hear the sound of one hand clapping?

ArcStone is in the final pangs of the Wonderfile birth process. We have our first paying Wonderfile customers – yeah! We have a number of consulting projects that leverage Wonderfile’s SOA (Service Oriented Architecture – in plain English: using web services to access Wonderfile functionality from any web site). And we find ourselves in the unique position of having developed a really useful tool – a fantastic, shiny Swiss army knife for tagging and file management.

We love it, we understand it – the tool works for us – but we’re finding that those who jump into Wonderfile just don’t get it.

I have come to realize, that most of our clients aren’t ready for Wonderfile as a general tool. They just don’t have the time or inclination to fully grok it – there’s no way there gonna buy it.

I know that our customers (and people in general) will buy a solution to a specific problem. People will visit Google and look for solutions to ease their pain / scratch that itch.

What is more likely to happen? Xavier has to manage leases for his company – keeping track of all the docs, expirations, etc. He goes to Google – does he search on “file management keyword search tagging reminders” or “lease management systems”? My money is on “lease management systems” – he has an itch that needs scratching in specific terms, not general. The more specific we can be with Wonderfile driven apps and Wonderfile marketing – the more successful we’ll be.

That’s our charter and the next round of work for us – tailoring Wonderfile and marketing it to solve specific problems in specific markets.

The product development folks call this “development to commercialization” – I call it ArcStone’s biggest marketing challenge for 2008.

Wonderfile driven apps – coming soon to a web site near you.

OK – this is a little off topic, but I’ve been having a lot of very vivid dreams lately.

Last night I dreamt that I was praying with Mark Johnson (Mark works with me as part of the executive management team at ArcStone and is the managing partner in charge of our association CRMs AMO and CMO).

In the dream we were saying the prayer together in the morning before we started work.

When I got up, I wrote down the prayer. It has a ring of authenticity (being made of dream stuff and all), and I like it – so I thought I’d share it here….