Links to Inoneweekend blog and Lifespoke

I was ask where other information about Inoneweekend was available.

Here is the link to the Inoneweekend blog.

Here is the link to the company that the July 11th Inoneweekend event formed www.lifespoke.com .

Was Inoneweekend just another weekend coding event?

I have Blogged about Inoneweekend this week. Part of this was an effort to look at a small area the Information Technology side that I was interested in and to put forward some views that I personally believe about software development and project management. It may have given the impression that this was just a bunch of computer geeks gathered together to hack some code in a weekend. This was very much not the case. What Inoneweekend in Cincinnati July 11^th was in reality, a hundred very talented and motivated people working to produce ONE viable company? After July 16^th there are likely to be much written about this event. As you read about it I would like to give you some websites to visit. Inoneweekend will likely be compared to weekend coding efforts or to coding competitions.

I would like to first direct you to “Building Web Apps Really Fast: Why Developers are Drawn to Weekend Code-a-thons“.

This article does a good job of explaining weekend coding efforts such as

Blitzweekend, startupweekend, railsrumble, barcamp, hackday, superhappydevhouse, ventureweekend, and weekendaps to name a few.

 

 

I would also suggest you checkout the King of all coding competitions  TopCoder

 

As you compare the above to Inoneweekend you will likely find, as I did, that all aspects of what it takes to make a startup company work was involved in this effort. Designing and Coding software was just one functional area that some of these talented people worked on. So if you hear this event being described as just another weekend coding effort, take the time to visit some of these sites and really compare Inoneweekend to some of these other efforts. I know I found it to be a unique experience.

 

Some lessons I learned from Inoneweekend

This weekend (July 11^th) I attended Inoneweekend. This event brought together around one hundred people for the purpose of building a Internet Startup in just one weekend. I attended this event not to get rich but to see how this process could be done. Could a startup really be produced in a weekend? What process could possibly produce such results? So this Blog is about what I learned from attending this event from an IT process point of view.

 

First, if there is one word to describe this event it is FOCUS. I will not go into detail of how the startup was determined, what I will say is the there were 100 type A personalities and FOCUS on the final result was paramount the whole weekend. A concept for the Internet Startup was determined. Features and their associated customer benefits for the alpha release were determined. This became the goal of the IT group, to produce a product that would deliver these mission critical features and benefits.

 

With this goal in mind here are some observations. The reason we were all there was to create an Internet startup company. As a group we determine our must have requirements. But to deliver our product we still have to be able to provide certain functions that are common to most Internet companies. When you looked at what we were putting together (see Blog some time next week for link to details), you find that around 90 of what is required for a Internet Company is not related to the KEY feature and benefits. As such that 90 should follow the current best practices for those functions that exist on July 11^th 2008. If you have read my Blog then you may have come across a story about Southwest airlines and its focus. The story I likes was Southwest is the low cost leader not a low cost airline. If someone in marketing determines that some new feature would be attractive to the customer the first question asked is will it make Southwest the low cost leader. If you cannot answer yes then Southwest does not need that feature. The same had to apply to inoneweekend. We decided what features were Key to the concept in order to achieve an alpha release. Every other desired feature had to directly help us deliver those features or it was not needed for the alpha release.

 

So could we just code a product, of course not? What I observed in my years in IT is that you have three sides to any IT project.

First is the Business side. They will determine requirement, business process models, business rule, etc. It is the Business side’s responsibility to determine what will be built.

The KEY things related to WHAT product we will produce has to be determined by the business side.

Second is Architecture side. You have to know what hardware and software you will be using to code with. I the case of an Internet startup that is going to be created on one weekend you have an up and running hardware platform either physically present or hosted. The operating system generally Linux or Windows has to be selected and working from the go. A Web Application Framework has to be selected and installed.

The KEY things related to HOW we produce product has to be decided by the Architecture side.

The third side is PRODUCING the product. This means brining it to life by coding, scripting, mash-up, etc. Using the means available to produce the product required.

Now in the old days of IT you got all your requirements together and built your product.

Then agile methods of producing software came into being. However, even the most aggressive software development methods generally have two weeks between releases.

Inoneweekend has one weekend.

 

So you have to take the three sides of the IT equation and go into rapid just in time prototyping mode. You get enough from Business and Architecture to produce something useful. What is produced must then be turned over to both Business and Architecture who will be working together the whole time you are developing in order to provide what is needed for the product to move forward again. What is even more interesting is that you have to have several parts of the product being produced in parallel. This is iterative development to the extreme. To make it work the focus has to adopt and follow best practices and vary from them only if it needed by the concept to produce the KEY features. You do not have time to reinvent the wheel if there is already a application or code that can provide pieces of the 90 percent that will be best practices Business, Architecture, and Developers ALL need to identify them and make use of them were ever possible.

 

To make all of this work communication becomes critical. Again, following best practices makes communication more effective. If people have done their homework and are up on the current best practices in their functional area then there is little need to debate on the 90 percent of that will be best practices. This allows communication between the functional areas to focus on the 10 percent that will make or break the startup. Time is limited, Resources are limited, and you have determined that the KEY features must be delivered for the concept to work. This is project management HELL because there is no give. You can’t afford any wasted effort. If you cannot FOCUS, if you cannot communicate effectively, if you cannot quickly determine a best practice and put it in place, you will likely FAIL!!!

 

So did Inoneweekend succeed or fail? Google Inoneweekend Friday night July 18^th to see for yourself.

Gleaming ideas

As I prepare for Inoneweekend I have been going over information from past startup weekends. If you spend the time looking you will find a fair amount of information. Now I have been informed that the two events are not the same. However, they both have some things in common. The big feature they both have is brainstorming ideas at the start of the event. When I look at ideas the emerged from past startup weekends I find something interesting. Many of these same ideas can be found in different forms in blogs, posts, etc. It would appear that when you get a group of people together the odds are good that many of the ideas that will emerge have already been thought of by other people. With the Internet now belonging to the world you have millions of people communicating with each other. It is not surprising that similar ideas are surfacing all the time. An idea comes to the surface and struggles to reach critical mass. It seems that it boils down to an idea attracting enough critical resources to allow it to move from an idea to a proven concept.

 

Another interesting thing is the number of similar ideas seems to be an indication of the importance of the area or problem the idea is addressing. If a problem impacts a great many people then it just makes sense that many people would be looking at solutions to that problem. It has been stated that the shelf life of Business Intelligence is often measured in weeks. When a idea related to a problem that impact many people reaches critical mass, one can find several efforts to prove the concept all taking place at the same time. It is not uncommon for the group who can prove the concept first to be the one whose version of the idea survives. In the Web 2.0 world the ideas that create viable communities first seem to be the ideas that survive. These ideas that survive then become the targets for improvements. Most of the improvements are incremental. Again, one can find these incremental improvements surfacing on the Internet in blogs, chat rooms, etc. You find people talking about how this product is great but would be better if. This information is valuable intelligence that should be part of strategic decision-making for the company controlling the idea and it’s competitors. For the clues to the next blockbuster company are floating around the Internet today. This is something to think about as I prepare to take part in Inoneweekend. I have found several of my own ideas that I am working on for this weekend showing up in different forms on the Internet. It will be interesting to see just what intelligence I can gleam from others on these ideas.

Is a new business model emerging in Web 2.0?

A new business model is emerging on the Web. This one I have written about in the past. It involves virtual 3D worlds and merging of virtual and real world products. Webkinz is now a well-established company that produces real world toys that children can play with in a virtual world. Lego’s is another example of real world taken into the virtual.

Second Life showed that under the right virtual environment markets do exist for virtual products. Second Life also shown that semiskilled users to create these virtual products can use tools. Swedish avatar dress-up site Stardoll and German t-shirt commerce site Spreadshirt may soon be allowing users to take virtual clothes they create or see online and get them made in the real world. Most items will be in the line of emblazoned items at this time. Virtual world Gaia has also begun selling real-world fashion on its site. Following in the footsteps of Build-A-Bear workshops, Fashionology LA is a brand-new Beverly Hills store that lets young fashionistas design and make their own clothes. You can now customize you Nike items using a simple selection menu that displays the results as a 3D image. Now EA games release SPORE creature creator. This editor allows anyone to quickly and simply create creatures. These creatures then can be shared and rated by other users who have SPORE creature creator. The release of the game also came with the release of the official SPORE store. The store allows someone to have their favorite creatures printed on a number of items from tee-shirts to coffee cups.

A system seems to exist to create real life 3D creatures from creatures created by the SPORE creature creator editor. Samples have been created for press releases using color 3D printers.

 

So what is the new business model that is emerging? It is the mixing of user created products and virtual worlds. The editor technology is reaching the point where anyone with a little talent can now design products and items in a virtual world. The world of imagination has now been released. Instead of creating everything in a virtual world the model is now to create the tools which allow users to create virtual content. Not only is the virtual world marketing the virtual content created, it is also marketing the virtual creations as real world products based on the content created in the virtual world. Overall costs of creating virtual worlds is greatly reduced if the focus can be on creating the environment and editor tools that are used to create things within the world. SPORE will have millions of creatures created and rated by users before the SPORE game is ever released. The official SPORE store started selling user created items the first day the SPORE creature creator was released. By producing and releasing the editors before the game Maxis, Spore’s creator, is generating revenue long before it would have if it waited to release a complete game.

 

Creating the ability to create virtual items and interact with others seems to be the key to this new business model. Another important aspect is taking virtual products into the real world. For now it is just designs and images. In the future it is expected that the number and quality of 3D editors will increase in both number and quality. It is just a matter of time before the average person will be using 3D editors to design custom virtual products that can then be used to produce real world products such as clothing, jewelry, furniture, etc. Will everyone afford custom products, probably not. However, it will be the custom products that reach critical mass in regards to proven sales that will be the new products we will find on our retail shelves in the future.

Two interesting studies on kids and food.

‘McFood’ Better Than Food, Kids Say
This WebMD Medical News article refers to a study conducted by Stanford University researecher Thomas N. Robinson found that preschoolers say food tastes better when it comes out of a bag with a Mcdonald’s logo. It makes a very strong case for the impact that advertising is having on very young children.

Another study  suggests that children who regularly eat junk food are nearly three times more likely to behave badly than those who avoid it completely.

When you put these two studies together it sorta looks like the deck is stacked up against the average parent. We tell our Kids that fruits and vegatables are good for them. At the same time they are learning that junk food tastes better. Even worse than that we medicate a large number of children every year, mostly boys, that show behavioral problems and are then labeled with ADD. It raise some interesting questions!