SharedBook: On Demand

Chickens, Pigs and Project Management

Managing in a rapidly changing company like SharedBook is a constant challenge. As the world around us is changing, and we have to quickly adapt, we always have to ask ourselves questions, seek the right answer, and the right answer from yesterday may not be applicable today. That is what makes life here so interesting. J

Lately, I’ve been going through this question-asking process with our open API. We have a group of people, working on extending the open API core functionality, extending it into a platform, by introducing all types of wrappers (check our resources section for Java, PHP and Python wrappers to make lives easier), and writing all kinds of applications and POCs (more about my approach to POCs here) on top. All this action and activity is great, but getting everyone on the same page is challenging. We need another meeting, but I always hesitate before adding weekly meetings for a large group of people.

This is where good methodologies come in handy. I have mentioned before that here at SharedBook we have adopted agile methodologies, starting from familiar methodologies like extreme programming and Scrum, and slowly through an ongoing learning process, developing our own working processes. I decided it was time to get back to the basics, and specifically, to a very disciplined methodology: Scrum.

Scrum is an agile process that can be used to manage and control complex software and product development using iterative, incremental practices (see more about Scrum here and in Wikipedia). Scrum is very structured, and one of its fundamental tools is synchronization meetings with chicken and pigs.

There is an old joke that goes like this: A chicken and a pig were brainstorming...

Chicken: 

 Let's start a restaurant!

Pig:

 What would we call it?

Chicken: 

 Ham n' Eggs!

Pig:

 No thanks. I'd be committed, but you'd 
only be involved!

(You’ll find a great cartoon of this classic
 story here) 

Following this methodology, we have started a weekly meeting of everyone involved in open API. Traditionally in Scrum synchronization meetings – only the committed team members (pigs in Scrum terminology) were to talk. Chickens (e.g. managers like me) were not allowed to talk, only listen.

Everyone updates on their status by answering 3 simple questions:

• What have I done on Open API till this meeting?
• What do I plan to do with Open API till the next meeting?
• What specific problems have I encountered?

The meeting was a success. Specifically, we identified two communication breaks, and did it in a timely manner, so that they were easily fixed without damaging the project. And, the meeting was done in exactly 30 minutes! Just the way we like it here at SharedBook: short and productive. J

Tech Support in SharedBook – Behind the Scenes

In my previous entries I've talked about the QA group in SharedBook, and about the way we struggle to locate and fix as many bugs as we can before launching any new feature.  Today I'll discuss our Tech Support group and the way we are dealing with all those bugs that 'got through' despite our best efforts.

In order to get some idea what Tech Support is you can view the following short, funny video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFAWR6hzZek

As I've mentioned before, working in a dynamic Beta environment with Open API and data integration clients can be very risky.  Not being able to test every feature thoroughly with the addition of the outside data that enters our application can cause many problems to be discovered by 'real' users.  Our tech support objective is to make sure those problems will not prevent users from using our application and will cause them as little interference as possible.

We discover problems two ways – loud and silent.  Loud, meaning that the user who encountered the problem has reported it to our Customer Care team.  In order to make it easier on our users, when our application generates an error the user is presented with a 'nice' error page containing a unique error ID and the ability to either report the error by e-mail or enter his own e-mail address for us to contact him.

In addition we also have a "silent" way – each time the application generates an error, an automatic e-mail is sent to the tech support group with all the error details. This allows us to check and even fix problems as they occur, sometimes before the user reported, or even noticed them.

As soon as we discover a problem, whether reported by a user or reported by the system, we start our investigation.  Sometimes that investigation will require a lot of 'digging' into the system logs and database because we don't always have a lot of info; usually it feels like trying to solve a very complicated jigsaw puzzle where you don't have all the pieces.  It is a very delicate and sometimes frustrating work, but we try to always remember that on the other end of the problem there is even a more frustrated customer who is having difficulties using the application and that we must do our best to solve his problem as quickly as possible.

"We received my father's Books! WOW! So very beautiful. What a tribute. We shared as a family on Easter Sunday, and it was beautiful. You did such a nice job. We were all very touched. I wanted to thank you so much. Please share with your company. I will let others know what a wonderful thing you have provided to us. Thank you for all of your help while I was ordering."

Responses like that make all the hard work and frustration worthwhile.

SharedBook in the News

It has been a great week around here -- we extended embedded photo support to our API and as a result, Blog2Print, our new blog printing widget. Photos now flow into the blog book structure along with the appropriate text, similar to the way content appears online.

Since Blog2Print is available in beta form, we expect some hiccups along the way. The feedback we're receiving from the user community is invaluable. Thank you for letting us know when things work, when they don't and what you think could be better.

If you're new to Blog2Print and/or interested in learning more, you can go to the site, or check out what some others have written including Kassia Krozser of Medialoper and Cristina Ledesma of 901am (which Robert Scoble added to his link blog). Michael Cairns of PersonaNonData also included SharedBook in a post on the new publishing experience earlier this week. Thank you to everyone for their interest!

Those Who Cannot Learn From History …

One of the greatest marketing lessons of all time can be found in the launch of “New Coke."  For those of you who remember, I need say no more.  For the rest of you: the details can be found almost anywhere, but the bottom line is that Coca-Cola, already the #1 brand in 1985, had its secret formula “improved” in April of that year, in an attempt to keep growing, and fend off an ever-aggressive Pepsi-Cola brand.  And, of course, during this attempt to grab more, they began to lose the market share they had, by alienating much of their core user base.  You can plug in a comparison to your favorite tale from Greek Mythology right here.

And today you can plug in CBS-101.  New Yorkers of a certain age (but who’s counting?) are rejoicing this week because CBS has, with much bravado, announced a return of its beloved oldies station to the airwaves in the Apple.  After being summarily dumped, without warning two years ago, in favor of a new format that held the promise of growth, the oldies are back. Why? Seems that the new format successfully halved the station’s audience ranking; it alienated their core user base.  CBS wasn’t happy with the stranglehold it had on the older-demo audience, and didn’t have the patience for the huge bubble of baby-boomers to move through and organically increase its numbers.  So out went the old, and in came the New.  Turned out the suits didn’t really know Jack at all …

But, whether it’s New Coke or Jack-FM, the marketing story is still the same: development of a brand, and loyal users is very, very hard, and once attained, should be handled with great care and much caution.  Customers have not merely given their money, they’ve given their trust.  Try buying that back.

New fashion or just another comeback …

From time to time I find myself pondering advances in technology and drawing comparisons to years past.

Take the whole push to virtualization, is this a break-through technology and/or concept? EMC’s VMWare certainly delivers good value and I’m in favor of it, but dare I show my system programming roots here when I say it feels to me like just a knock off of Big Blue’s VM/370 hypervisor which dates back to 1972 (it was in the public domain until 1980 when IBM started charging for it).

Who’s behind a resurgence like this, pure technologists, marketers, or the business folk looking to turn a quick buck?

There are countless examples of this ... are there really any new ideas?

Summer Roadtrip Tips (Tech)

It's really starting to feel like summer around here. The trains were noticeably less crowded this week and humidity has returned to the New York area after a brief respite. I just came across a great high-tech roadtrip guide on CNET that might be helpful if you plan to travel by car, bus or rail any time soon. This will tell you what to pack, give you ideas for keeping the kids entertained, and outline how to pick up Wi-Fi in even the most remote locations.

Good to Great

Back from the Fourth, this is a beautiful photo of the Manhattan skyline that Michael Cairns of PersonaNonData posted last night. From what I hear, our developers made some major progress while the New York office was off celebrating yesterday. Stay tuned for updates regarding new features including for you know what.  In the meantime ...

When I read Mor’s post the other day, it reminded me of a book that I’ve found really useful and turned to from time to time - Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't by Jim Collins. Good to Great offers a research-based common sense approach to business that includes identifying and focusing on what a company does best and empowering your team to pave the way to greatness. There are many principles highlighted within the book that can apply to startups and more established companies. If you haven’t read the book already, I highly recommend it. Jim Collins also wrote Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, among others.

More Thank Yous

OK, I promise this is my last Blog2Print update for a while (unless we introduce new features, add compatibility or decide to name a few sites where you can find the widget, which I reserve the right to do at any time!).

The Blog2Print beta program is progressing nicely. Thank you to everyone who has added the widget to their site(s), and for your feedback, which is invaluable. There are a few more people that we would like to thank for their early interest. Caroline and I spent some time with Allen Stern of CenterNetworks last week. You can read his notes here, which go beyond Blog2Print to PeoplesAnnotated.com and our custom data integration project with Legacy.com.

Kimberly Maul of The Book Standard was one of the first to report on Blog2Print, and Cheryl Hagedorn of Blooking Central seemed to like what she saw even though she stumbled into a beta issue, which has been corrected.

If you're new to Blog2Print, you can catch up via the press release here, and blog postings here and here. Remember, the first 100 to add the widget to their site(s) are entitled to a complimentary 20-page book.

The Power of a Good Team

Lately we have been very busy here in SharedBook with our new Blog2Print widget. It all started just a few weeks ago, with a short POC (I wrote about POCs earlier here), and now it has become a real product, which is attracting a lot of attention (as it should, seeing the end result: my family’s vacation blog just turned into a fabulous book, but of course, I am biased J). I’d like to take this time and share with you a little bit about what’s been going on behind the scenes these days within our R&D team.

As we get lots of feedback on this project, and want to give the first beta users the best experience, we have setup a team to make sure that we provide fast, on time solutions and feedback to our users, as well as to introduce the production version of this product (with many goodies to come!) on time.

Seeing this team in action is amazing. Everyone is joining the effort, asking to help. Developers are courageously entering unknown code (Collective Ownership) and extending it. Our pair programming (another agile development practice) rooms are busier than ever as people team up to solve difficult problems. And the feeling is one of moving forward very fast!

As a manager, I keep asking myself, how do you build productive teams? As a book lover, I naturally turn to books for advice. We have used this blog to recommend other Web sites, blogs and even podcasts (I truly recommend seeing Ze’ev’s list here: The Red Queen and Podcasts and Podcasts (part 2)). As a book lover, I want to take the opportunity to recommend a great book this time: Peopleware – Productive Projects and Teams.

This is a classic project management book, it claims that the main problems of software projects are sociological, not technological. With simple to adopt principles, this book lays the ground for successful team work. I can’t count the number of times I have read this book. Every few months or so, I go back to the book and read it again. Every time, I find something new to adopt and experiment with. I guess you just can’t digest it all at once!

Here in SharedBook we have all heartedly adopted this book’s approach, from team interviews for candidates, to emphasis on prioritization, working environment (hence our pair programming rooms), and creating a bonded team. And now is the time we reap the fruits of all this effort. 

As I keep telling everyone here: with a team like this, I know that even the impossible is possible!