Gerard Ramos and I went to the Big Summer Geek Out last night in San Francisco. We saw some great 5 minute pitches for new companies, my favorite being the startup TipJoy.
After the presentations, they opened the mic up for anyone to give 60 second elevator pitches for their companies. Here’s mine:
I’ve been having a great time over here with Oleg, Alex, Timur and the whole Flatsourcing Kazan team. We’re working really hard building some great plans for growth and from time to time we’re stopping to eat.
Identifying what we do to people is still very very difficult. I attended An Event Apart a few weeks ago and Jeffery Zeldman’s excellent speech about explaining what we do has had me thinking. All too often clients don’t understand the breadth of experience that is needed to put together quality work.
In the world of professional web development it often takes 7 or 8 specialists to put together your website. The below image from business week is something I dug up from 2004. It describes some of the unique positions in our industry:
What does Flatsourcing do? We’re number 6, the foundation for everything. After your project is broken into hundreds of subproject tasks, we get it all done.
Long answer: Try to do anything with it for which it wasn’t built. Content Management Systems are built to be installed, not to be customized or tweaked to your needs. Sure, extensions are available, but they are built by an open-source community, so there is no assurance that they work. Want a headache really quickly? Try to do something with a CMS that it wasn’t designed to do.
CMS-systems, particularly open-source ones, like Drupal, Wordpress, Joomla, and others are great. They aren’t proprietary and they are free. They are already developed, so you can just download the installer files and …voilà! you have a site in place. Upload your design, change the settings to fit your needs and you’re good to go. Instant website (almost).
We’ve been doing a number of CMS installs for clients lately. And through the experience of working with different CMS installs, we’re learning a lot:
The functionality of a CMS better be what you need. - Don’t decide what you want your website to do and then try to make your CMS do it. It’ll never work. You can’t custom-code a CMS. Sure, you can add extensions and try different ones until you find one that does more or less what you need. But this is a long and arduous process. If you are going to use a CMS, understand the functionality and limitations of the CMS before you decide on it and deploy it. If it will work for you as its designed, then great. If not, don’t try to tweak it to fit your needs. You’re asking for headaches.
Open source means no one owns it and lots of people built it. - There are a lot of moving parts, documentation may be limited, and customization may break it. Understand the ownership limitations of non-proprietary software. When your client says something isn’t working, is it because of the implementation or the programming? It doesn’t matter to the client, its just not working.
Be prepared to deploy the many updates that open-source platforms require.- Very rarely is it a set it and forget it type of deal.
Who ya gonna call? - When something goes wrong, or isn’t working, who built it? Your client is calling you. Who are you going to call?
Bottom line: Open Source CMS platforms are for implementing, not customizing. Make sure you understand the platform’s capabilities and its limits. If it fits your needs great, if it doesn’t, look elsewhere or build the software you need.
I did a quick video last week to showcase the Wednesdays at the Square where the Welcome, Party! will be tomorrow. All AEA-ers and NOLA BarCampers need be there. RSVP on Upcoming and follow me on Twitter for updates.
Today, finally A List Apart Magazine outlined there vision on new technologies. It’s easier to recommend technologies, when such finally does something to understand and re-group according to modern world tendecies!
P.S. Flatsourcing have been working with RubyOnRails since 2005. We are among the first! And it’s the CTO of Flatsourcing, Timur Vafin who initially recommended RubyOnRails as additional and potentially main programming tool for Flatsourcing! A lot of skeptics including me didn’t fully understood the potential and future behind it! I do now for sure already since 2005! Also A List Apart does now too since 2008! Thanks, Timur!
I recently read a brilliant article from the economist. It’s called “Nomads at Last,” and talks about how omnipresent internet connectivity will change your job like cars changed them in the 50s. Of particular interest to us here at Flatsourcing is what this means for labor.
The blackberry and the iPhone have essentially freed the sales force from rigid schedules and desk jobs. Workers become nomads, setting up meetings easily, selling when their is demand and planning when there is not. Chaining people to desks prevents the freedom of work-style and breeds a lack of motivation. We must motivate ourselves to do something great, as motivation is the only path to success. Easier said, if you’re hungry, you’ll find food.
Labor is now based on results and deliverables because management is mobile. After all, we’d all appreciate a more talented individual finishing the same job in less time.
At flatsourcing we provide web development services that free our clients from desks so that they can make more sales and more money. We implement this idea in our own staff as well. We work based on deliverables and satisfaction.
When you were in college, your professor said, “turn in a paper by Friday,” but didn’t care how or where you did it. Tomorrows workforce will be much the same: fidelity to the job not the desk.
Congratulations to the whole Flatsourcing team in Kazan. Two weeks ago they spent the weekend moving tables, chairs computers and furniture to set up in expanded office space in our building in Kazan.
We’ve been growing fast this year, and the new space is going to give us continued capacity to grow. This is an exciting time for everyone involved.
It’s been a great team effort over the last couple months as we’ve integrated new clients and worked through internal growth (like new office space) while while maintaining our high standards for client service. It’s been stressful but exciting.
Congrats to the whole Flatsourcing - RU team on the new offices. RoR development ninjas looking for a great job in Kazan should contact us. We’re hiring.
PS: Check out the cool office layouts that our lead designer Alex did. These are the actual office layouts.
An Event Apart, a web design conference is coming to New Orleans. We’re thrilled that our city will be hosting this conference and some of the world’s finest designers.
We decided that we wanted to get our BarCamp NOLA community back together and what better way to do that than to host a party for the AEA attendees. Better yet… why not invite everyone to a great party that’s already going on. So that’s what we’re doing:
Welcome, Party. // New Orleans welcomes An Event Apart to the city with a party in the park and free music.
An Event Apart attendees will get a chance to meet, mix and mingle with New Orleans BarCampers, designers and developers. We hosted the first BarCampNOLA in February, and this event will help the community build on our momentum, reconnect, and meet designers from all over the country who will be in town for the An Event Apart Conference.
For event coordination questions or info contact Chris Schultz (cschultz@voodooventures.com) or Will Donaldson (will@flatsourcing.com). Flatsourcing.com will be passing out cool Jazz Fest Grids (you’re staying for the Fest, right?).
One thing I learned on the Spring conference circuit is that company culture is a serious, serious thing. In some respects, the web nation really leads the charge on flexible human resources control. After a great conversation with Ben Gott of Indistr.com, I got to thinking about the Ruby culture. PHP and Javascript can come along too ;)
Ruby companies adopt the ruby mindset. We like to get things done quickly and efficiently. We focus on a user’s needs, while attempting to circumvent busy work through Ruby’s super cool time-saving conventions. We believe in handling business simply and giving control back to our clients.
In that respect, I think human resources has really come a long way thanks, in part, to Ruby. Construction is agile, as we often have to turn on a dime. You can’t work in a chaotic environment without an open, trusting, results-based relationship. The beer at the end of the day tastes a lot better when it comes with satisfaction of a job well done.
The hard part about outsourcing is finding someone reliable. Flatsourcing eliminated that problem and found quality developers for us that we could trust. The reason they can do this is because they have a real office in Russia where they can provide desks and office support for your team. No need to worry about hackers in a dark bedroom somewhere. The customer service is tremendous as well. Our project manager is always happy and cheerful. A real breath of fresh air!
We retained Flatsourcing to redevelop the portal for Synthasite. We had a tight launch timeline we needed to hit. During the last week we decided to dump Drupal and redevelop it from scratch in order to integrate the user management systems. Our team from Flatsourcing pulled a couple all nighters and was able to deliver the project on time. They cared about the successful launch of Synthasite as intensely as we did.
