Covert Experimentation with Panic’s Status Board App

Sometimes office inspiration requires a secret project with a codename.

“I hate you both. Can’t you just tell me already?” whined my colleague. There are few things she loathes more than not being in the know. “Whyyyyyyy do I have to wait until Monday?” It would only be a few more days before we revealed what it was we were working on.

I’ve followed Panic Software, their products, and their company culture for years. In high school I found myself dabbling in web design, creating sites for local companies and turning a bit of profit in the process. The day I downloaded their FTP client Transmit (originally called Transit), I began to understand the value of well-crafted software. Panic had already won me over years ago.

In 2010, the software company posted about an office status board they had cobbled together. It was a beautiful, elegant and magical way to display and disseminate company information in an approachable way. Since 2010, every place of employment I’ve had has gotten my pitch to build a replica, but recreating it was always prohibitively complex, required too much staff time, and seemed to be a pain to keep updated. Fast-forward to a few weeks ago when Panic posted the newest incarnation of their board, this time powered by an iPad app they had created to make building a replica possible for the rest of us.

As much as I love it, I don’t want this post to be yet another app review. You can read any of the well-written pieces that outline the awesome features (right down to the charm of the setup tutorial) or follow the growing ecosystem of user-created widgets that further extend the capabilities of the app on a daily basis.

Instead, I want to explore how a coworker and I turned a playful exploration of the app into a secret project, an internal pitch for funding and resources, and an opportunity to inspire ourselves (and perhaps the company) in the process—all in the course of a week.

Having worked in some form of agency setting over the last six years, I’ve come to know and recognize the signs of creative frustration in myself and my colleagues—feeling bored, run-down, or feeling generally defeated about their work. That’s agency life; we don’t always get to choose the projects (or clients) that come our way. Sometimes, you just need to build something for yourself to feel a little bit more in control. Panic’s new app provided an opportunity and an outlet. My fanboy infatuation with their company meant I was invested in a project I wanted to work on without my job depending upon it. Whatever the motivation, my coworker’s shared intrigue made us destined to ally. A side project was hatched.

This brings us back to my frustrated colleague who was wondering why we were sneaking off to empty conference rooms or sporadically giggling with excitement after exchanging covert IMs. It’s been a while since I got to test the hypothesis that secrets create intrigue and the opportunity to wow. Also, I wanted to get funding for a few TVs. I figured a surprise demonstration of a functioning prototype would be a much stronger sell.

While Applico has had some awesome successes, we’re still a young mobile company working to mature beyond the scrappy startup mentality. We’ve evolved and expanded our scope and skills as a company, but some of our culture has yet to catch up. In some ways, we’re that awkward pubescent teenager who’s not entirely comfortable in his body. And that’s OK. But if you take a quick tour of the office, your first guess may not reveal that we’re a mobile development company (we don’t have mockups on the walls, our devices are hidden in drawers, etc.). Since we’re experimenting all the time to find our versions of the homegrown Panic status board, why not create a highly visible embodiment of our company’s progress, success, and evolving culture?
[Disclosure: my opinions are my own and not necessarily that of my employer.]

Having discussed the process and value of MVP (minimum viable product) with many of our clients, Linke (my co-conspirator) and I approached our covert operation with the same rigor. What readily available information do we want to display? What ubiquitous technologies do we have at our fingertips to make publishing quick and painless? We employed a quick-and-dirty method, stringing together Google Docs, hand-coded HTML, and Dropbox to publish our project data. With a little assistance from Kelly in HR as well as some data entry support from Deana, we turned birthdays, anniversaries, and company holidays into a set of editable Google calendars to power the personnel tickers on our board. Fast-forward four business days and we had ourselves a Panic status board that easily qualified as MVP. We thought it also qualified as awesome.

I spent a bit of time during one weekend putting together a few lead-in slides for our surprise presentation scheduled for that Monday. The app itself is worthy of a guerrilla overview, but I hoped that extolling the virtues of its gorgeous design, playfulness, and utilitarian qualities would add context and value to our prototype. Perhaps in a bit of a nerd-giddy flurry, my planned four or five slides quickly ballooned to thirty-something. It had been a while since I’d put together a Keynote presentation, and my inner design wannabee quickly crept out of the closet. (Lately, I’ve also had a bit of an interest in increasing my public speaking opportunities and have been poking around the internets looking for inspiration; you can see obvious influences from Zach Holman.)

Aside from (eventually) learning that I awkwardly say “and what not” and “um” too much, the presentation seemed to be well-received. You can judge for yourself; I posted an overview with video/slides of the 13-minute ordeal last week. (It also proved just how easy it is these days to share a short presentation—materials and all—with the world.)

So, what became of all the secrets and intrigue? We got a quick commitment from our CTO to provision a 1st-Gen iPad that had previously made its way to the office’s Device Graveyard. (If you don’t have a shelf of discarded devices, this would be a great use for old, functional but broken-screened iPads, which are cheaply available online.) We’re still working on automating the data a bit more, but I’m hoping interest grows organically as my colleagues find value in the information displayed. No one is running out to Best Buy to snag a few TVs to vertically mount (yet), but I’m hopeful. More importantly, I’ve been catching wind of a few other secret projects brewing in the ranks. Perhaps they’ll need a secret code name for their project to help inspire themselves (we chose Operation: Grand Central). There has been more open discussions about how instituting a 20% time-like program would work and what it might look like. Most exciting, however, is a growing celebration of personal projects, interests, and talents around Applico. Unsurprisingly, there’s a lot we can learn from each other. Now, we’re closer to, you know, actually learning.

Applico Status Board, v1.

Today coworker Linke and I surprise-presented our stealth prototype project experimenting with Panic Software’s recently released Status Board iPad app. In order to drum up internal support for a larger installation, we decided to go rogue and crash the morning company meeting. In a speed-round preso, we gave an overview of the app’s delicious pixels, the process of prototyping using internal data, and ended by unveiling our Applico Status Board frankenstein creation.

As we could only find a few hours here and there over the course of last week, we strung together a few immediately-available technologies: Google Spreadsheet (auto-generates a .CSV file), Google Calendar (powers milestones and notable employee/company dates), as well as Dropbox (hosts some simple HTML and images).

UPDATE: I wrote a lengthy post around the motivations and experience of this project.

• presentation video
• presentation slides
• higher-res screenshot

This past weekend I got the chance to take a private tour of 1WTC. Its views were absolutely incredible. I’ve never seen the world from a non-moving vantage point that high, much less one that I know so well. I found it particularly incredible to be able to see the whole of greater NYC as if a map were rolled out in front of me. Also I found myself saying amusing things like, “oh, they razed Governor’s Island” or “there’s a bridge that connects Ellis Island to Staten Island? Weird.”

I went with my friend Travis, who wrote a better recap:

“Had the incredible and moving opportunity to tour 1 World Trade Center today thanks to a dear friend. The site is incredible: massive, clean, and progressing in every possible aspect—they’re already installing the marble of the lobby walls. And while my curiosity and the infrastructure geek in me were overwhelmed, so was my heart. To think that my cousin Steve Pollicino was last up at at those heights 11 years ago, soaring over the city, the world, made me stop and reflect. Life is precious. Make the most of it.”

Hands-down best part: getting to ride down the blue cage elevators that hang off the side of the building.

It’s readable, it’s simple, and it’s all-kinds-of-fantastic inline.

If you’re even remotely into this whole blogging or content-creation world, chances are you’ve already heard of Markdown. It seemed intriguing in theory, the simplicity and readability (especially compared to HTML) made sense, but I never found a particularly motivating incentive to sit down and teach myself. That being said, I struggled more and more to actually create content, citing the disproportionate amount of time it took to write, format and publish my theoretical posts.

Recently making the switch from retina iPad to iPad mini, I’ve been following the growing discussion and debate around the usefulness and power of the iPad versus a computer. Finding that the portability of the mini has encouraged me to travel with it more often than I had previously, I’ve been increasingly interested in doing more with my iPad. Writing on the iPad always seemed a little daunting, but if so many popular and talented writers managed to do it, perhaps they were on to something. Each and every one of them seemed to extol the virtues of Markdown, which makes sense when you’re writing on a device that lacks a mouse, arrow keys, and makes any kind of rich-text formatting disruptive to the actual writing process.

First things first, what is Markdown?

Markdown is a markup language that was created by John Gruber to simplify the workflow of web writers. Many bloggers, like myself, usually write our posts in straight HTML, which can be cumbersome and difficult to read through. Markdown provides a much simpler and easier to read alternative that can easily and instantly be converted to HTML using any number of free tools. — design shack

Sadly, there didn’t seem to be a fun, engaging app that would teach me the basics of Markdown (I tried finding one), so I settled for a simple YouTube tutorial by Podmetics.

iA Writer seemed super-highly recommended everywhere it was mentioned, happened to be on sale when I was poking around, and was named the Official Mac App of the Year. I purchased it on the spot. After using it for a month or so, I now completely understand why it comes so highly-regarded: it’s barebones, basic, and beautiful, making it simple and streamlined to use. It’s got great support across iOS and Mac devices, and iCloud actually works surprisingly well (it also has Dropbox sync). It’s pretty cool to paste a URL in on the iPad and watch it appear near-instantly on the same document open on my Mac. (My only complaint is that I wish the Preview window was a little more realtime, but I suspect parsing Markdown instantaneously would be a little jarring.)

Watching the tutorials and reading a few blogposts were all good and well, but I knew I wouldn’t really get the hang of it until I forced myself to use it. So I learned Markdown in an evening, writing this blogpost as the actualization and application of my learnings. Each subsequent post has only boosted my proficiency.

Turns out there’s increasing support for Markdown being built into a number of publishing platforms, whether Tumblr, wikis and collaboration sites like Teambox, and even to apps like Simplenote, which I’ve already been using for years. As Gmail continues to bury their rich-text editors and I find myself using Evernote every day for work, I’m often wishing I could be writing in Markdown.

Once you have started with Markdown it is likely that you will come to a point where it is indispensable. What you want is Markdown everywhere. If you’re in the browser typing an email to a fellow geek or in an editor with which has no out of the box Markdown support. — RocketInk

You’re going to love it.

Additional resources:

• John Gruber’s Markdown Guide
• Mastering Markdown: 30 Resources, Apps and Tutorials to Get You Started
• Dillinger - an online Markdown editor
• Quick-capture Notes Apps
• Lifehacker on Markdown
• MacSparky Markdown Field Guide - 130 pages and 27 screencasts of Markdown goodness for $10

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Marissa Mayer:

The price of attracting talent with a flexible work-from-home policy

In response to Yahoo’s work-from-home ban, there’s been no shortage of thoughtful pieces weighing the pros and cons of a telecommute-friendly office.

David Fullerton from Stack Overflow took the opportunity to write a great rebuttal to the Marissa Mayer situation: Why We (Still) Believe in Working Remotely. Read it. I’ll wait. It’ll only take a moment.

I’ve experienced both sides of the argument. The perks and freedom working from home can afford are no stranger to me; I’ve logged-on from flyover states while visiting family and I’ve also worked in sweatpants from a sun-drenched NYC home office. I’ve also endured the challenges being removed from your team brings. As project/product manager, my capabilities are significantly limited without the freedom to walk to the other side of the office and tap my teammate on the shoulder. (I’ve written previously about the tools used to try to overcome distance.) Still, managing and detecting the needs, moods, and sentiment of coworkers doesn’t often translate to flattened conversations on IMs, in a chat room, or via a phone or Skype session. Things take longer. Process becomes even more unwieldy.

I’ve been working remotely or with remote team members for so long, it actually surprised me how much more productive, effective, and fun my role as a manager has become after joining a primarily co-located team last Fall. Even still, we struggle with the challenges of those working remotely. We’ve got some incredible talent that commutes to NYC from Philly, New Jersey, and various parts of Long Island. We’ve also got a few developers in Boston, as well as an LA-based sales team. On occasion, the realities of weather, children, and the cable guy still force us to adopt some of the techniques used in a remote workplace environment.

Let’s come back to Stack Overflow’s retort. Not only did Mr. Fullerton make a few great points as to how he’s found a remote workforce beneficial for his company, but he took the opportunity to mention that they’re hiring, raising a flag to attract talent that might connect with Stack Overflow’s work-from-home policy. Or at very least, entice talent that respects the company’s values for embracing social technologies and an open-minded WFH policy, even if they themselves would prefer to work in-office.

That’s not the only carrot Stack Overflow is dangling to their talent. Take a look at the rather-attractive benefits they offer employees:

• 20 days vacation
• Flexible hours
• Ridiculous health insurance (no copay)
• Insanely great workstations, chairs, and desks
• All-expenses-paid conference of your choice once per year
• Gym membership reimbursement
• Free catered lunch and monthly metrocards (NY office)
• Employees will never be poked with a sharp stick

Speaking of perks, did you see that if a Google employee dies during their employment, their widowed spouse receives 50% of the Googler’s salary for a decade? No tenure requirement whatsoever. A huge feel-good perk with (I’m assuming) a very low payout risk to the company.

Other tech companies are becoming more and more transparent as to the flexibility they allow in day-to-day work. Zach Holman regularly speaks and writes about the (incredibly) flexible work schedule at Github:

Hours are bullshit. Hours are great ways to determine productivity in many industries, but not ours. Working in a startup is a much different experience than working in a factory. You can’t throw more time at a problem and expect it to get solved. Code is a creative endeavor. You need to be in the right mindset to create high-quality code.

He continues…

By allowing for a more flexible work schedule, you create an atmosphere where employees can be excited about their work. Ultimately it should lead to more hours of work, with those hours being even more productive. Working weekends blur into working nights into working weekdays, since none of the work feels like work.

In the end, work-from-home policies will remain a conscious choice for companies based on their values and business priorities. The continued debate will force leaders to clarify their policies to both existing and future employees. Yahoo is bound to lose great talent, but may make huge strides in efficiencies and innovation. We’ll all be following Ms. Mayer’s experiment closely.

“PUZZLEJUICE is a game that will punch your brain in the face.”

It came out a few months ago, but I still absolutely love the aesthetic and voice of this game’s microsite.

(The kicker has to be the “critical acclaim”, visible in the image above.)

The problem with apps, particularly ones that suck, is that we often feel nothing when we use them. They are not refactored and refactored and loved before they are wildly given to the public. They are released as ‘minimum viable products’ and we make pathetic sequels that make the story marginally better and we expect people to come back each time, pay their money and sit for hours and watch. They watch while we flail around and try to get them to use the app, or figure it out. Frankly, it’s embarrassing.

Chances. is a fantastic piece from Aubrey Johnson (via Svbtle) arguing the ways mobile app development could learn from the artistry and process of Hollywood. She also argues how some of this arcane blockbuster-driven institutional knowledge should be challenged when applied to app development and the general tech industry.

Continuous improvement, experimentation, and tweaking almost always produces a better app—it’s just that most clients don’t want to pay for it. In an agency setting, they want a fixed price, ever-ballooning feature sets, and are seldom interested in this type of long-term engagement.

BLOKK is a font for quick mock-ups and wireframing for clients who do not understand latin.

I absolutely love this.

hat tip @gogobrooklyn

“

I hope that being a female developer will cease to be a novelty.

I hope that you attend conferences and find yourself complaining about long lines for the bathroom.

I hope that you never have to see that look of shock when you tell someone you are a developer. Mostly, I hope you never have to hear someone say “good for you”.

I hope that when you attend a meeting that is mostly male, that you never get asked why you are not taking meeting notes. I hope you say “fuck this” more than “it’s okay”.

Luke, I am your ScrumMaster.

As some permutation of a project manager for the last seven years, I found this writeup fantastic: Top 10 reasons why Darth Vader was an amazing project manager. Most people can conjure an image of this infamous Star Wars Man in Black and his leadership qualities, but significantly fewer seem to be able to name the traits of a great PjM.

Here’s the article’s list a bit condensed (but be sure to see the full thing for all the Vader references):

• Number 10: Vader prioritized brutally. Over the course of Vader’s pursuit of the Rebel Alliance, you see him set and pursue priorities according to their strategic value. …
• Number 9: Vader made decisions based on objective data, not whims. Remember that Imperial officer who had to report to Vader that they had lost Han Solo in the asteroid field, and he choked him? That was some decisive action! …
• Number 8: Vader made commitments, and worked hard to keep them. If you think of the Galactic Empire as something of a SCRUM project, the Emperor would have to be playing the Product Owner role. …
• Number 7: Vader took time to re-charge, relax, and get some perspective.
• Number 6: Vader managed risk and expectations preemptively. Remember that time when Darth Vader went to Cloud City, bought off the management, then lured Han, Leia, and Chewbacca into a trap? Genius. …
• Number 5: Such a persuasive fellow. Of all Vader’s substantial capabilities, perhaps his most effective one was his ability to persuade people to do what he needed done.
• Number 4: Vader picked a methodology and stuck with it…until it didn’t work.
• Number 3: No problem is too big to tackle.
• Number 2: It is never too late to do the right thing. … One of the most profound moments in Vader’s career came when he took responsibility for all the morally wrong things he did, and did the right thing. …
• Number 1: Vader was never afraid of getting his hands dirty. Every project will have boundaries drawn around the responsibilities of specific roles being played, and Vader knew his own role in the imperial project. But he never asked anyone to do anything that he wasn’t willing to do himself, and he made sure he had a clear understanding and appreciation for the hard things that his team had to execute on. …

—hat tip: @christinelavard

NYC is a city full of incredible culture and opportunity, but it’s also a place with a vibrant and growing tech culture. Fewer people realize that there is also an abundance of great opportunities for continuous professional growth and networking.

Here are a few of my favorites:

• NY Tech Meetup: Boasting the title of largest and longest-running in NYC, this is by far my favorite tech event in the city. Whether you’re looking to stay up-to-date with some new tech creations, or just looking for a little inspiration or motivation to start your own, you’ll find it all here. Warning: there’s huge interest in this event, so you’ll need to be ready to buy tickets the moment they go on sale during one of their ticket release periods.
• Creative Mornings: The brainchild of Swiss Miss’ Tina Roth Eisenberg, this is a “monthly breakfast lecture series for creative types,” and my second-favorite nerdgathering in the city. Usually held early Friday morning, you’ll find free coffee and snacks, nerd networking, and a concise presentation. They’ve even gone global and regularly post their talks on Vimeo.
• Etsy Code-as-Craft Speaker Series: “Etsy Code as Craft events are a semi-monthly series of guest speakers who explore a technical topic or computing trend, sharing both conceptual ideas and practical advice.” Plus, you get to see their gorgeous Dumbo offices and look out on the Manhattan Bridge as someone waxes poetically about font faces or merging code. Plus beer!
• Hyperakt Lunch Series: This awesome visualization and design agency in Brooklyn hosts lunch events on occasion. While I haven’t been able to attend any events just yet, I’ve got a major crush on them. If you love luscious infographics, this place has dataporn for days.
• Huge Tech Events: Dumbo-based digital agency that puts on some groovy events in their awesome office space.
• The Product Group: A Product Management meetup with a fairly active member base, but sometimes a little dry.
• Brooklyn iOS Dev Meetup: Exactly what it sounds like. (Although usually it seems like companies or startups looking to shark some iOS developers.)

Single-Serving Mac App Store Utilities

I don’t like to talk about it, but there was a brief period as I started out with Applico where I had to use a PC. I’ve been MacSpoiled at both work and home for pretty much ever. I like to think of it as the ‘dark times’, but having to relearn how to use a PC had unexpected side-effects (beyond just frustration): I got to compare (or find workarounds for) some of my favorite baked-in OS X workflows to those native—or very much not native—to Windows. I can barely breathe, much less be productive in, a multi-tasking world without Apple’s Mission Control, Exposé, Spaces and Gestures, so I had to find alternatives and workarounds to be productive. Using Windows (and Windows products) also gave me a greater appreciation for apps and services that bridge the divide without issue (e.g. Evernote, Chrome Sync, 1Password, Spotify).

Never fear: I’m back to the bright side with a MacBook Air that I love dearly. With the mental rose petals and glitter that this return has brought me, I’ve been even more attuned to tweaking my über-nerdy workflows to really work for me. Assuming there’s a fix for nearly every annoyance or inconvenience, a little bit of research has led me to a few great little apps. Even better that all of which are available on the Mac App Store, making transitions and upgrades between computers almost brainless these days.

Stay ($15)

This is my most-favorite nerdy new addition. Project Management at Applico, like anywhere, has me constantly bouncing between my desk and various standup meetings or discussions with developers/designers/teammates daylong. All things that necessitate unplugging from my monitor for some amount of time. I’m all set with my windows in multiple spaces and spread between my monitor and laptop screen, I unplug, and end up with a stack of oversized windows scattered about. Five short minutes later my standup concludes, I’m plugged back in with all these windows suffocating on my laptop screen and my nice, big monitor’s expansive pixels grinning goofily at me, window-free and useless. Thanks for that.

Enter Stay, which “ensures that your windows are always where you want them to be, even as you connect and disconnect displays.”

I’m not opposed to paying $15 for quality software, but I am opposed to shelling out three beers for something that might not work. The developer actually offers a direct-download version (with 30-day free trial) as well as the Mac App Store version. Download the trial, verify it works great for you, then either buy the license directly from his website, or buy it from the Mac App Store, delete it, and put the direct-download version back in its place.

Wait, what? Yeah, you heard that right. There are times when Apple is great, and there are times when Apple is a pain in the ass. In the case of the Mac App Store, that pain is the ‘sandboxing’ developers must work within. As the reviews imply, this version doesn’t work with all programs and doesn’t play very nicely with Spaces. I missed it too, but the app’s FAQ very clearly spells things out for us. Lucky for me, the very responsive developer pointed out that he creatively engineered the app to recognize your purchase receipt from the Mac App Store in the fully-functional, non-Store version. Look at that, the best of both worlds. Kudos, Cordless Dog.

Cinch ($7)

Cinch is an app that actually emulates an out-of-box PC feature that I was surprised to enjoy.

“Cinch gives you simple, mouse or trackpad-driven window management by defining the left, right, and top edges of your screen as ‘hot zones’. Drag a window until the cursor enters one of these zones then drop the window to have it cinch into place. Cinching to the left or right edges of the screen will resize the window to fill exactly half the screen, allowing you to easily compare two windows side-by-side (splitscreen). Cinching to the top edge of the screen will resize the window to fill the entire screen (fullscreen). Dragging a window away from its cinched position will restore the window to its original size.”

Just watch this quick video demo if you don’t like reading.

There are a bunch of competitors to Cinch ($7): Moom ($10) and Divvy ($14) are the most-common ones. I liked the simplicity, design, and price of Cinch the best. It does exactly what it advertises and I use it all the time (works nicely to resize windows to full-screen after disconnecting from an external monitor per Stay above).

Caffeine ($free)

Maybe you need to continue to appear online, want some file-transfer to complete, or just don’t want your computer to go to sleep in an hour like it usually would. And you’re really too lazy to constantly adjust your Energy Saver preferences. Caffeine is the (free!) tool for you:

“Caffeine is a tiny program that puts an icon in the right side of your menu bar. Click it to prevent your Mac from automatically going to sleep, dimming the screen or starting screen savers.”

CloudApp ($free)

I’ve been using CloudApp for eons. Have some silly picture you want to send someone, but it would be easier to send a link? Just drag it to the menubar, a few seconds upload, and your clipboard enjoys a hyperlink to the image while you enjoy a gratifying plink sound.

Having worked mostly remotely for Voce, I was constantly sending big-red-arrow-annotated screenshots to developers saying, “fix this thing”. Pasting a CloudApp URL into an IM or Pivotal Tracker user story can be significantly simpler than attempting to upload it.

CloudApp does all kinds of other nifty things—you’ll see.

Applico Status Board, v1.

Today coworker Linke and I surprise-presented our stealth prototype project experimenting with Panic Software’s recently released Status Board iPad app. In order to drum up internal support for a larger installation, we decided to go rogue and crash the morning company meeting. In a speed-round preso, we gave an overview of the app’s delicious pixels, the process of prototyping using internal data, and ended by unveiling our Applico Status Board frankenstein creation.

As we could only find a few hours here and there over the course of last week, we strung together a few immediately-available technologies: Google Spreadsheet (auto-generates a .CSV file), Google Calendar (powers milestones and notable employee/company dates), as well as Dropbox (hosts some simple HTML and images).

UPDATE: I wrote a lengthy post around the motivations and experience of this project.

• presentation video
• presentation slides
• higher-res screenshot

For those of you viewing this portfolio feed on my personal landing page, MattLeiker.com:

I recommend clicking here to view my portfolio and all it’s rich formatting on Tumblr. 

For those of you viewing this portfolio feed on Tumblr:

Tumblr seems to be experiencing some big bugs with regards to pagination and backdated posts. There are just shy of 30 portfolio entries, only 15 of which on the first page (and even those aren’t necessarily the newest). Please see page 2 for additional entries until I’ve got this resolved.

MattLeiker.com, v4.0

Retired January 2012, you were simple, clean, and served me well. But you weren’t very easy to update and had no dynamic qualities. Shame on you. Rest in peace.

View the archived version. (My apologies in advance for any broken links.)

ABC News

Voce Communications; launched August 2011

ABC News was interested in moving all of their channel-level blogs to WordPress. They needed an enterprise-grade, dependable solution to incorporate their new designs, as well as simplify their publishing process. As the political season was just heating up, it all needed a carefully choreographed late-night switchover so as to minimize the disruption. Voce worked in coordination with ABC News’ design department, sales team, support staff, and QA groups to make the migration and switchover possible.

project management, on-site client meetings & presentations

Disney Properties Newsroom Network

Voce Communications; rolling launches began June 2011

One of the loftiest and most challenging projects during my time at Voce was the task of creating a unified, simple, and powerful Newsroom platform that could be utilized and customized by all the Disney Parks news properties. The project serviced the public relations and public affairs departments for Disney Parks, Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, Disney Sports, Disney Vacation Club, and Adventures by Disney.

This long-term project required collecting a set of unified requirements from numerous stakeholders and a changing team of corporate representatives. It required interfacing Disney’s legal teams, incorporating various rounds of feedback and approvals. It also demanded that we leapfrog Disney’s internal IT department, while satisfying audit requests. The Newsroom project also required designing a template-based system that could be adjusted and customized to each newsroom’s individual brands and needs. As the project neared launch, it necessitated that I create a dynamic digital set of training tutorials that could be continuously updated as we added and refined features. Ensuring that all the Disney stakeholders understood the new system and the intricacies of the custom elements we created especially for their needs, I visited the various teams on both coasts, performing presentations and training sessions. 

• http://wdwnews.com
• http://disneylandnews.com
• http://dclnews.com
• http://disneysportsnews.com

account management, primary client contact, project management, drafted & maintained SOWs, created product requirements documents, rough UX/design mocks, content migration, initial template & site setups, development QA, post-launch support, on-site client meetings & presentations, authored extensive tutorials, conducted on-site training

ESPN Front Row

Voce Communications; launched April 2011, upkeep through 2012

Lifting language from my announcement post on Voce’s blog:

The Voce Connect Platforms team is pleased to announce the launch of ESPNFrontRow.com, a WordPress-based corporate platform for ESPN’s communications department to offer “news about ESPN, employees at ESPN and behind-the-scenes activity at the sports media empire”, as Technorati aptly put it. Mike Soltys, ESPN’s vice president of communications, was quoted earlier in SportsBusiness Daily saying, “This is a way for us to speak directly with consumers.”

Seeing the incredible success of the work we’d done on the Disney Parks Blog, ESPN was eager and excited to finally have an official platform on which they could respond to issues, promote events, and give fans the behind-the-scenes look that they crave. We helped give them a simple and manageable set of tools to tell their tales. It also doesn’t hurt that the site is mantastically sexy.

account management, primary client contact, project management, on-site client meetings & presentations, drafted SOW, created business / product requirements documents, development QA, post-launch support

∂isney Creative Lab

Voce Communications; launched Jan. 2011, ongoing support/updates throughout year

The Creative Lab is an internal brainstorming and “cool sharing” site that allows cast members the opportunity to share “buzz” with the Imagineering team, executives, and peers. This could include internet memes, humorous YouTube videos, or outlandish images. Employees can then create an “idea” from a buzz by sharing a suggestion or concept as to how it could be similarly actioned or modified by the company. Fellow users can comment, vote up their favorites, and engage in discussions around ideas and concepts.

Similar to sharing a link on Facebook, the system would automatically grab text and images from a link to a website or video. Ideas and buzz could be sorted by a popularity metric. Users could even be ranked against each other by an engagement metric. The Lab also featured some great editorial tools for idea generation such as a homepage carousel, blog, a moderated Brainstorm area, bookmarklet, and a live feed of activity across the site that could be monitored. It even further integrated with various systems by incorporating hooks into the company authentication system and internal share tools. 

primary client contact, project management, drafted & maintained SOWs, created product & technical requirements documents, development QA, post-launch support, on-site client meetings & presentations

eBay Ink Blog

Voce Communications; ongoing 2010/2011

eBay Ink is the corporate mouthpiece for eBay as told through Richard Brewer-Hay. It showcases major corporate news, public appearances and presentations, featured sellers, and other various eBay-related tidbits. The site features a custom mobile presentation, heavily-integrated twitter components, and a beautifully polished design.

Originally designed and developed by Voce’s Platforms team, I was charged with maintaining feature requests, bug fixes, and support for Voce’s Social Media Marketing / PR teams.

primary client contact, project management, on-site support, development QA, rough UX mocks

National Center for Family Literacy’s Wonderopolis.org

Voce Communications; launched Oct. 2010, ongoing support/updates through 2011

Voted one of Time’s 50 Best Websites of 2011, Wonderopolis — “Where the wonders never cease!” — is a site targeted at families, teachers, and children to promote reading and learning in their daily lives. Funded by Verizon Foundation and created by the National Center for Family Literacy (NCFL), the site’s main draw is the Wonder of the Day post. Be sure to check out one of my favorite posts, featuring Emmy-winning writer and co-executive producer of The Simpsons, Michael Price: “Wonder #205: How Do You Write a TV Script?”. (The site also won awards from places of which I’ve never heard. Snazzy.)

Working in collaboration with the creative geniuses (and all-around awesome people) at Brains on Fire, Voce turned the delicious design pixels and Wonderopolis concept into web reality. Launched in Fall 2010 and ongoing through my time at Voce, this project was a personal favorite and especially rewarding partnership with the wonder-full ladies at NCFL. Beyond simply bringing the site to life and supporting ongoing new features and endeavors, we spent many occasions strategizing and planning the roadmap and future of Wonderopolis. I was also involved in executive discussions and negotiations with their funder, Verizon.

account management, primary client contact, strategic executive advisement, project management, drafted & maintained SOWs, created product requirements documents, development QA, post-launch support, on-site client meetings & presentations, mobile theme / iOS / Android app planning

The Pioneer Woman

Voce Communications; site redesign launched July 2010, updates through year end

One of my favorite examples of a self-made blogger (empire?), The Pioneer Woman blog — arguably better titled a ‘portal’ — showcases Ree Drummond’s life on the ranch. Her incredibly regular reporting spans the gamut from her personal life, cooking, photography, home & garden, and even tales of homeschooling her kids. She has a rabid avid fan base, where any one of her weekly KitchenAid Mixer or iPad giveaways will garner tens of thousands of comments, often in the course of a few minutes. (It’s a constant headache for our SysAdmin to keep her giveaways from melting servers or imploding WordPress.)

As one of the team’s hands-down favorite and most consistent clients over the years, we’ve been incredibly proud to watch Ree’s self-made success grow into her second (sure to be) best-selling cookbook and an amazing new show on The Food Network. (Yes, she really is as genuine and sweet as she seems.) Just read a few of her posts. Go ahead, I’ll wait. You’ll be back (well, after about 40 minutes disappear into thin air).

The 2010 major redesign was one of my first projects when I officially joined the Voce team. The design was (mostly) approved and it needed to be executed. As Ree was a seasoned blogger and WordPress extraordinaire, we took the opportunity to leverage the automated and hierarchical goodies that WP has to offer, creating some simple automated “super widgets” that automatically display content from different areas, categories, time periods, or tags. We made the archives and category pages easier to browse. Her luscious photos are now featured even bigger (and more automated for her Flickr process). Check out Ree’s “new blog” announcement post for more information (she even thanks us all by name halfway through).

project management, created requirements documents, development QA, post-launch support, authored tutorials

CBS Radio Interactive Music Group

RocketFuel, Inc.; 2009-2010

Under the strategic leadership of RocketFuel, Inc. and with a variety of partner vendors, we created a WordPress-based content bureau delivery engine and ecosystem of interconnected websites of 100+ radio stations across the US for CBS Radio Interactive Music Group (CBSiMG). This large-scale project spanned the course of 3 major phases over 2009 and 2010:

Phase 1: discovery, comparative analysis, requirements, strategy, schedule, vendors secured
Phase 2: content & programming plans, sales materials, org chart & job descriptions, marketing strategy, system design
Phase 3: finalized build, testing, training, launch rollout

KROQ.com was the first station to go live, with the remaining stations launching on a 2-week cycle throughout 2009 and early 2010. Additionally, we defined the vision for the Radio.com syndicated content portal to sit above the different genre and geographic categories of station sites. In one year the system doubled UVs and quintupled PVs / ad impressions.

Acting as both lead project manager and product manager, I tracked timelines and dependencies, managed scope, drove client decisions and development progress, defined deliverables and project requirements (PRDs), as well as managed eight distinct vendors. I also standardized and facilitated the rollout, content migration, and staff training (via nationwide training tour) of the station sites.

Examples of materials I created:

• Ownership of Master Project Requirements doc
• Executive presentation materials: sample 1, sample 2, sample 3, sample 4
• Defined suite of storytelling modules for publishing tools
• Extensive interactive training tutorials

Sample sites:

• KROQ (LA)
• Fresh 102.7 (NY)
• Kiss951 (Charlotte)
• AMP Radio (LA)
• 93•XRT (Chicago)
• B96 (Chicago)
• Radio.com

project management, product management, created business / product requirements documents, publishing strategy, development QA, post-launch support, on-site client meetings & presentations, led on-site training across US, authored robust training site documentation

National Hockey League’s NHL.com

RocketFuel, Inc.; launched September 2008

Nominated for a Webby Award (for whatever that’s worth), our work on the NHL.com redesign is still in production, faithfully serving a slew of hockey fanatics. RocketFuel was brought in to rethink the NHL web experience, improve the editorial toolsets for the newsroom, as well as increase sales and analytics opportunities throughout the site. We worked in partnership with vendors such as AKQA (design), CISCO, and NeuLion.

As my first major project with RocketFuel, I was quickly thrown into the pool. Working mostly on-site with the NHL internal staff I led the project management efforts for the redesign during its six month gestation period. Beyond typical PjM duties of timeline tracking, deliverables management, and constant dev task prioritization, I also produced product comparative analyses, evaluating potential integration partners on various offerings. I also worked on the team site and social network integrations, as well as on content and partner relationships for NHL’s mobile offering in the US and Canada.

Examples of materials I created:

• CMS editorial module requirements
• Executive presentation materials: sample 1, sample 2, sample 3, sample 4
• Rough UX mocks to illustrate requirements
• Flow diagrams

project management, technical liaison to analytics lead, assisted mobile partner integrations, development QA, post-launch support, on-site client meetings & presentations

Absolut / Live Earth Short Film Series

Great Works, America; Winter/Spring 2008

From the release:

Sponsored by ABSOLUT Vodka, the Live Earth Short Film Series – which debuted in July 2007 – will tour major film festivals in 2008 throughout the U.S. to generate a legacy of inspiration that will further underscore the need to act now.

To illustrate what an ABSOLUT World would look like, we harnessed some of the world’s most creative minds to create our Short Film Series to inform and inspire people across the globe to help solve the climate crisis. Partnered with Live Earth, we’ve created an experience where you can view these films in the digital ways which you’re most accustomed. Launching one film per week, all on the subject of climate change, and ranging from factual and dramatic to fictional and comedic, these films are directed by many of the industry’s most prominent filmmakers. 

As the digital lead for this project, I developed the overall concept, execution plan, created the technical requirements, as well as hired and managed the necessary contractors. Utilizing the WordPress platform as the editorial foundation for this weekly series, I tracked traffic stats through Feedburner, YouTube and Google Analytics. In a time before the value of YouTube had really caught on with corporate America, I urged Absolut to republish the 30 winning Live Earth short films on their own branded YouTube channel. Users could subscribe to the microsite, YouTube channel or even an iTunes podcast. I managed the designers, developers, copywriters and client approvals from Absolut and partner Live Earth.

I’m especially proud of this wacky job posting that landed me some wonderful talent for the WordPress development and maintenance.

project management, microsite publishing, drafted SOW & scope documents, on-site client meetings & presentations (east+west coast), managed development vendors in US & Sweden, contractor acquisition and management

AOL’s AIM Pages Social Network

AOL; 2006-2007

Considered an evolution of “the first ever social network” — AOL’s Member Directory —AIM Pages was more than just a social network tied to your AIM Buddy List. While only AOL employees really considered Member Directory the first social network, it was clear that AOL was a bit behind the curve to only just be considering investing in the social networking space in 2005/2006. (Remember that Friendster was on its last breath, Facebook was still private-ish, and MySpace was king.)

Weighing in on the AIM Pages team’s efforts from the perspective of my position with AOL Music, I was young and opinionated and of the impression that the great majority of executives working on the project hadn’t really even used MySpace, Friendster or Facebook the same way teens and college students had. Frustrated with what I was seeing, I eventually shot a 4 page “Matt’s Guide to What AIM Pages Should Be” document off to a listserv. Not twenty minutes later, I got a call from the head of Product Management, asking if I’ve ever heard of it. I hadn’t. Thus began my career as a Product Manager.

Tasked with the typical duties of a ProdM, I managed the product requirements, task tracking, bugs, UX/UI development, and overall progress of pieces or subcomponents of the overall initiative. I was responsible for Search, friends component (Buddy Gallery), the Buddy Feed (an early response to Facebook’s News Feed), settings pages, privacy and rostering, and the media modules. Working with operations, marketing, programming, legal, advertising, and corporate communications, I gathered feedback from various executive stakeholders as well as integrated focus group and user testing feedback. As one of the more rewarding aspects, I managed teams of developers in the US, Ireland, and Bangalore, getting to visit them regularly. I also travelled to train and support AOL’s various help desks and call centers.

AIM Pages featured a robust AJAX drag-and-drop modular publishing system, intending to grant publishing freedom to users stuck with a typical form-field layout like MySpace and Facebook. While ultimately a bit too ambitious (read: buggy) for a first- or second-iteration product on such a massive scale, AIM Pages was eventually abandoned and profiles were migrated to AOL’s costly 2008 acquisition, Bebo. I think mine even still exists there in some Frankenstein form.

Press:

• Mashable
• ReadWriteWeb
• TechCrunch

product manager, managed international dev teams (US, Ireland, India), focus groups & user testing