A few years ago when we started there weren’t that many companies like ourselves out there. These days, there’s quite a few. I feel it is important to share one very important thought we sometimes overlook: you should never forget where you came from, why you are where here, and where you want to go next.

Our solution, CEPs

When we first started (when there was only 4 of us) I thought it would be a good idea to keep an updated list of Concerns, Expectations and Priorities [1]. So we created that list in our private wiki (more on how we use our wiki in a future post). Every one of us went in and wrote down his concerns, expectations and priorities.

I feel like writing these things down was almost as important as writing down our core values for several reasons. One, it made us actually consciously communicate what we want to get out of the company (personal satisfaction, money, experiences). Two: it made us understand others better, because quite often, communicating personal wishes is a pain. And three, it became an unconscious goal to meet these challenges.

A few months ago we went through the first few lines we each wrote when we got started. Not only had we taken care of most of the Concerns, Expectations and Priorities we each had, we found we had surpassed them. Not only was it a realization of a job well done, it was also a great motivator for the future.

Concluding thoughts

How often do you have the chance to know what others really need in order to work passionately? Or how they feel the company you’re on should be moving? I imagine not a lot of large companies let everyone dictate direction. But small companies and studios definitely can - and should - let people chime in and take the helm. We chose to use our CEP list to keep everyone focused (even if unconsciously) on our goals. How do you do it in your company? Share a story, if you have one, of dealing with business growth pains in the comments - thanks!

[1]: For those curious, we had a different name for it in portuguese (PEP). This is actually a translation of that name. [2]: The photo in this post (of a slide on Sagmeister’s presentation on Happiness in Design) is by karmagirl on Flickr.

It’s pretty easy to let routine take over. No shame in that, everyone gives in. This weekend we popped out of the same old, same old and decided to build something new - sure, there was a motive (Rails Rumble 2008), but we just took it as an excuse. In 48 hours (well, we slept two full nights, so make that about 24) we sketched, built and privately launched a new product called Melee.

If you do agile work (design or develoment), you probably do the stuff Melee helps you with, but with sticky notes and office walls. Melee is an agile brainstorming app. What does that mean, you ask? Let me give you a couple of use cases.

1) You’re a design and development shop who just got a RFP for a new social network. You might brainstorm a few ideas, throw them at the wall, cluster them, prioritize them, and build a proposal. Melee is your new wall.

2) You’re a development shop that uses SCRUM (ed: if you don’t use it yet, give it a try, you’ll love it). You maintain a product backlog which is a list of things to do, ordered by priority, and before each sprint, you look at the backlog, decide what to do next, and proceed to be awesome for the whole sprint. Melee helps you maintain the backlog.

It’s meant to be used either locally or over the web, so it should be a great tool to dump, cluster and prioritize ideas on those product planning conference calls you all do (we know we do them, at least). It’s all Ajax-based so you see live what others are doing, and they see what you are doing too. The goal is live collaboration.

Anyway, it’s easier to see it rather than reading about it, but since we’re not completely ready to show this baby to you yet, how about a Flickr set with screenshots and photos of the development process? Fine, you say? Well here, then.

Launch details

Melee will hopefully launch as a beta later this week - we’re doing all sorts of work with Totspot and Goplan 2.0 but we *will* get this out to you. Here’s what we can tell you already: there will likely be a free version and a paid version to help with our costs of running the app. In the beginning, it’ll be free for all, anyway. We do hope it’s useful for you and your team. It’s useful for ours - heck, otherwise, we wouldn’t build it. More details really soon, promise. Did I mention that Flickr set already?

I have an iPhone and I love it. I love how it looks, how it feels, the possibilities it has as a platform, the whole experience. But now I want this. Sure, the form factor may be weird because it’s tall/wide, but if the tilt experience is as good as on the next few videos, I’m hooked.

Now obviously these are marketing videos, and a device like this is only as good as the combination of hardware and software it uses. But for now you’ve got my attention, Intel. Where do I sign? For those of you looking for more information, check out Intel’s press release or Boing Boing Gadgets, who are running an article on the prototype as well.

The full message to developers is quoted below:

We have decided to drop the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) for released iPhone software. We put the NDA in place because the iPhone OS includes many Apple inventions and innovations that we would like to protect, so that others don’t steal our work. It has happened before. While we have filed for hundreds of patents on iPhone technology, the NDA added yet another level of protection. We put it in place as one more way to help protect the iPhone from being ripped off by others.

However, the NDA has created too much of a burden on developers, authors and others interested in helping further the iPhone’s success, so we are dropping it for released software. Developers will receive a new agreement without an NDA covering released software within a week or so. Please note that unreleased software and features will remain under NDA until they are released.

Now maybe Pragmatic Programmers will be able to release their upcoming book on iPhone development, and more authors will feel free to write about building apps and services on top of the iPhone platform. Me, I’m glad to see the blog posts with iPhone development knowledge roll in. It felt a little weird to finally have what I’ve been craving for so long and not being able to talk about it. Good times.

[Thanks to Chris Messina for the heads up on twitter]

So I went in to take a look at the new browser-based Joost, and all is not well - particularly when it comes to experience. I login, and I get to my Home. First thing that happens, Joost asks me to install a plugin - which deep down means “browser, but not really”. So I bite that bullet and what do I get as a reward? A 15 second ad - great. And after I watch one of the videos that was tagged as part of Joost’s “Our Picks” section (a 2 minute video on robots), I get another ad. Thanks Joost. But no, thanks.

If you’re going to ask someone to sign-up for a product, at least reward them in some way that doesn’t envolve the feeling of being lured into installing stuff and watching ads. Not only will people just close the browser window and leave, they’re probably going to remember the crappy experience, tell their friends about it, and just stay away - quite possibly, for ever.

I know solving the internet TV problem is tough, but if you’re going to start somewhere, you should start by not frustrating your visitors - it’ll just remind them of good old TV. You know - the one we all stopped watching a long time ago. In fact, I think I feel like I had more control over the old one - at least then I could zap those ads with a flick of the finger.

PS: Where’s the real content? I’ve seen that video on robots, a video-clip by Pink and some report on summer festivals (and a total of 4 ads to go with those). Joost was called the future of television before, but honestly, if all TV is going to have is robot videos, pop music and awkward comics, I’d rather read a book.

My feeling is that you’re as impressed as I was when I saw it. This is a big deal. We’re creating all sorts of data every day, by using social networks, social software and the web as a whole. What we’re not doing, though, is using that data to its fullest potential. We’re still used to looking at our data as belonging to a silo (even though, as you know, many as I do defend open data) - which it shouldn’t be. The craigslist is a crucial example to me: CL isn’t going to implement (at least not if they’re sticking to their KISS approach) maps anytime soon. But that doesn’t mean that their data should only be visualized in their typical texty-manner. Data is data is data - we just need more ways to look at it.

Write the future

Ubiquity is a step in the right direction. A step I’m sure many of my readers will gladly want to help browser technology take. So get involved if you have the spare cycles and/or the right ideas. I’m not mobilizing you because I have anything to do with Mozilla (beside being a long time fan, I don’t), but because this is definitely a technology that benefits from creative input, in figuring out new ways to both interact with the system, and with the key component of all of this: our data in the cloud. Read the full Ubiquity announcement post here, and enjoy!

If you are portuguese, or are in or around Portugal on the 6th and 7th of September (that’s in 2 weeks), join us! We have a bunch of surprises lined up for this year’s edition, and things will get hacky and crafty at night - keep an eye out! For more information, go check out the official Barcamp Portugal webpage at barcamppt.org. See you in two weeks!

PS: If you *are* portuguese, there’s more information about the event on my portuguese blog.

Rest in peace.

From Gizmodo: There are no less than five apps to turn my iPhone into a flashlight, yet I can’t turn it into a 3G-powered Wi-Fi hotspot. Why? Because the SDK has more restrictions than Guantanamo—devs can’t integrate with the OS and have to steer way, way clear of copyright and trademark issues—so the most innovative, game-changing apps might not ever make it to your squeaky clean iPhone. That’s why we need more than Apple’s official app store—we still need jailbreaking, Installer.app (now Cydia) and the best unauthorized third-party apps to make the iPhone an ultra-powerful open platform we really want.

In all truth, I never expected Apple to revamp the iPhone as a fully open platform. I hinted at that a while ago in a previous post. But truth is I don’t think Steve and Co realize the potential of loosening the chains they have on developers. True, they don’t want third party applications to damage the iPhone experience (by, say, bogging down the operating system or creating potential security issues for iPhone users). But by not allowing full (read as more) access to the device’s capabilities, they’re encouraging users - at least the most adventurous - to hack away at the machine, and going rogue on them.

1) If I download an application to try it out, delete it, and then want to install it again - because that just might be the way I am with decisions -, why do I need a message telling me that I’ve already downloaded that application once, and asking if I want to download it again. Yes Apple, I do want to download it again, I just clicked the damn “INSTALL” button.

2) I have no idea why, but if I download an application on my iPhone, iTunes keeps complaining it can’t sync it with my Macbook Pro because it is not “authorized” to “play the item” (seriously.) on my computer. It’s not a song, so I won’t be playing anything, Apple. And do I really need to “Authorize Computer” for free apps? Come on.

3) Why is there no way for me to use iTunes to download a bunch of applications and then just drag Applications in and out of a device, just like I do with tracks and playlists? I know we’ve been there before, but this sync-everything experience is really boring and convoluted. Installing and uninstalling applications on OSX is usually a drag and drop experience, why smack us in the face with this absurdity?

I hate posts that only complain, so I’ll make amends right now. It’s not all bad about the App Store and the iPhones’ application management experience. I for one am quite happy about what Apple is doing with the iPhone and its promotion as a platform. But if you guys over at Cupertino could fix these things, now that would be great.

Note: using the iPhone App Store? How’s your experience been thus far? And if you’re inclined to share, what applications have you been using, free or otherwise?