Thanks to Emily’s creative recruiting tactics, Computerworld contributing writer, Mary Brandel, contacted us about an article she was writing (Rock Star Coders) in which she wanted to “take a look at the growing subculture of developers who’ve gained (or think they’ve gained) something along the lines of ’star status’ in the world of programming.”  We were happy to talk with her (trade emails, mostly), and she got particularly good insights from Clinton, a Senior Developer at Viget.  She left off my favorite thing that he said, though:

“When I saw an ad for Viget, the phrasing appealed to me: it showed that they cared that their developers were *people* as much as code-writing machines. They realized that speaking at a conference - I spoke as O’Reilly’s OSCON last year - is a good quality: it shows you seek to expose your thoughts. Maybe that’s the core of being a rockstar programmer: you aren’t afraid to show your code and your ideas to the world, and that lack of self-consciousness propels you to greatness.”

Of course, he wasn’t responding to our rock star post.  That came a bit later. 

I like the article and appreciate Mary’s work on it.  Since we came off as the pro-rock star term slant, I’d hope that anyone who reads the article takes the time to read the job post.  I would think you’d “get” that we are in fact pretty light-hearted about the term. 

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I like “personality” in a web app.  It helps users form an emotional connection — a relationship — and that’s good for the user and the app.  The trick is to treat interactions between app and user the way you’d treat interactions between people.  Then, build your app with the “people” personality of someone everyone likes — charming, polite, a little bit funny even.

There are a few things to consider:

• Your audience.  The personality of BOOMj (social network for baby boomers) should be different than Nymbler (naming wizard for expecting parents).
• Your purpose.  Sites like Mixx and Twitter can afford to have amusing error pages because the state-of-mind of the user is rarely too serious.
• Your experience.  What is the user experience as they interact with your app?  Just as you would in the “real” world, communicate with your users in a way that takes into account the experience they’re having at that moment.

The advent of widgets, which allows a part of an app to be “plugged” into a larger site, creates a new challenge.  The personality of the widget needs to conform to the site it’s wrapped in. 

This morning, I was reading a very serious article on cnn.com about the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.  I was intrigued by the option to continue reading about the topic with the “From The Blogs” feature, provided by Sphere.  My state-of-mind was somber — this wasn’t an amusing topic.  When I clicked on the widget, I got this loading message:

“Sit tight, we’re getting to the good stuff” sounds good if I’m reading about the foul-mouthed posthumous tipper (how is this news, by the way?) but given what I had been reading, it stopped me cold, like someone telling a joke at a funeral.  I wasn’t in the mood for “cute.”

The technical solution to this issue is simple — it just takes planning.  The best web apps will increasingly offer highly-personalized user experiences where every interaction is more and more human (and charming).  If you’re building one, build this in.

I’m wrapping up a long weekend here at Viget, but before I sign-off for my pre-real-work-day nap, I wanted to get some more thoughts down on how it all went.  Hosting Startup Weekend was exhausting, in a good way.  As hyped, we started the weekend with 70+ people picking a business idea, and finished tonight last night by launching a site at midnight.  I can honestly say that it went better than I’d expected in almost every aspect.  Some examples:

• It launched.  I have to admit, I thought all along that we’d end up not launching, but to the credit of the dev team, at midnight tonight there was a somewhat functioning site live at holaneighbor.com.  It didn’t work well exactly, and it’s not really a compelling feature set yet, and the nicely designed screens aren’t in there yet, but technically we launched, and that alone is impressive.
• People stuck.  There were times Friday night, before there was any clarity in the concept, that I was sure we’d have no one back on Saturday.  The night ended on an upswing, though, and the vast majority of people decided to give it a shot on Saturday morning, which fed into the evening and beyond.
• I met a lot of good people.  I made new friends.  I got to know some folks I’d met before.  There’s nothing like collaborating in person with people on a project for stuff like that.
• Viget HQ held up.  Having recently moved in, I wasn’t sure how the space would hold up to all the people.  There are a few bumps here and there, but the space plan (big conference rooms, various huddle / collaboration spaces, the lounge, etc.) worked great for the distinct teams and break-out sessions. 
• It wasn’t about the company.  People were passionate and excited and wanted to get it done, but my perception was that it was more about having a chance to work with good people.
• Negative conflict was rare.  With so many talented, opinionated people crammed together forced to make group decisions quickly, I was prepared for some major blowups.  There were heated debates here and there, but things seemed to work themselves out with generally positive outcomes.
• The group had manners.  Pretty much everyone pitched in to help with the grunt work of keeping the office in shape (thanks, guys!). They appreciated Viget putting up the space, and they helped get it back to working order before leaving.  Even Andrew Hyde, founder of Startup Weekend, was here cleaning white boards at 1 am (4 hours before his departing flight).

Not surprisingly, just like with the first weekend in Boulder, it all came down to the dev team.  There’s lots of valid hype about how you can quickly build web apps these days, but the fact remains that it just takes time to build a really good product, and a lot of that time goes to writing good code.  Having launched anything at all is an accomplishment, especially given the potential complexity for the concept we chose.

What now?  Good question.  The group decided to decompress for a few days before figuring out a core team to take HolaNeighbor on to the next level.  There’s still a lot to do to make it a viable business, and I hope it has a life beyond today.  Can the passion for the concept that was alive this weekend carry on?  Only time will tell, but regardless, the experience of the weekend was certainly positive for me.

Update: checkout the article about Startup Weekend in the Washington Post.

I recently had breakfast with a guy (he shall remain nameless) who told an interesting story.  In short, it went like this: there was a 5 person start-up that built an impressive web-based software product.  They went to sell it to a large organization that had a 75 person development team (with, incidentally, zero testers or QA people).  Two guys from the product company met with the CEO and the head of technology.

That giant dev team had been struggling to produce anything of any degree of quality, and the CEO nearly blew a gasket when he saw what a tiny team was producing while his massive (and massively expensive) team was proving to be inept.  Funny thing is, the small product company didn’t get the sale because the head of technology blocked it, presumably by convincing the CEO that it wasn’t “enterprise ready” or something along these lines (i.e., covering his ass).

It amazes me how the combination of ignorance and people trying to protect their jobs can create such massive waste and inefficiency.  There are plenty of cases where big teams make sense, but 99% of the time your web application development project is not one of them.

Small teams.  Clear responsibilities.   Tight schedules.  Narrow scope.  Total accountability.   These are pretty simple concepts.

Last month I mentioned Rails Rumble, the app dev contest that went down last weekend.  The apps are done — 92 of them, in fact — and now anyone can go play with them and vote for their favorite.  Two Viget-associated teams participated:

Clinton assembled a tiny all-star team with Julia Kulla-Mader and Jackson Fox dubbed “Snack Nut Item” and built Clubhouse:

Clubhouse is a network for clubs or teams or any organizations, providing them with loose and fun event scheduling. Anyone can create and join clubs, create events, and plan the future! It is more filling than a good breakfast. It is like Meetup.com, but free, and what the people want. Also, iCalendar! Yeah!

Ben, who couldn’t play the whole weekend due to “social obligations” (otherwise he’d have been in VL South along side Clinton), formed a solo team called “Texasbenonian People’s Front” and built Irksome:

Irksome is a web-based client for IRC, providing all the normal features of IRC through a much friendlier UI – and with searchable transcripts!

Nice work, guys.  As DC’s Startup Weekend draws closer, I can already tell that the insights from the Rumble will be valuable.

Update: check out Clinton’s post about Rails Rumble on the Viget blog.  He makes some great points …