360 Flex

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Monday, February 1st, 2010

Rain is a big fan of the 360 Flex conferences. We send developers every time, and have noticed the conference quality increase with each year. We are pleased to announce that we are sending 5, count them 5 speakers.

If you are considering going, I highly recommend taking part. If no other reason than to see our beautiful faces. Here is the link to register.

Here are the individuals we are sending, as well as the sessions they are teaching:

Speaker: Aaron Hardy
Title: Queue N Cache
Description: Take control of service calls by creating your own queue and dynamically shifting priority based off user interaction. Load what users are looking at first and and delay the rest for later. Show progress indicators in multiple locations for a single request. Once loaded, cache images in such a way that they can be displayed immediately anywhere in the app.

Speaker: Bryce Barrand
Title: Golden nuggets: How to find and keep top developers
Description: Part I. Even in a down economy, finding top developers is quite a task. For the most part, good people have solid jobs they love. Should you cross train? Pay hefty fees for head hunters? Monster.com? In this session we will go over a couple of options, and what we’ve found to be successful for procuring those “golden nugget” employees.

Part II: Once you have them, what makes them stay? How much does company culture make a difference? How about work load? What type of environment is cost effective for you as the employer and awesome for everybody around? We’ll also cover tips on keeping developers happy, and around for years.

Speaker: Garth Braithwaite (teaching 2 sessions)
Title: Flex 101
Description: Get up to speed on Flex quickly.  We’ll be taking a full day of training to cram as much Flex 4 goodness into your head.  This training is designed for those who have never used Flex.

Title: Your Flex App Looks Like Poo
Description: There is absolutely no excuse for not skinning your Flex 4 applications.  We will be exploring skinning Workflows, skin requirements, and creating custom preloaders.  Ultimately overhauling the interface.  Although user interface design principles will be discussed, this session will not teach you how to design.

Speaker: Chase Brammer
Title: Analytics Throwdown
Description: Clients will ask, and you will be forced to choose your analytics weapon. Learn about Adomniture’s and Google’s analytics tools and how you can use them to drive business. The session will be divided up into three sections. First, the high level details about the qualities and business benefits of each. Second, a simple walk through of how to use the tools. And last, how to implement and deploy those tools in your applications.

Speaker: Gary Rogers
Title: Automated Build and Deployment Processes
Description: This session would encompass the often misunderstood methods for automating flex build and deployment cycles. Several options and examples would be concisely presented including java ant, php phing and others, as well as how to wield the power of the command line flex sdk. I would present a brief tutorial on how to get started with these methods. Also, a sophisticated GUI based build server concept would be discussed. I would also weigh the pros and cons of nightly builds and scheduled deployments and how these impact various architecture phases of an application. Also arguments discouraging the use of SVN/CVS for deployments would be presented.

In case you missed it at the beginning of the post, here is the link to register.

Avoiding Design and Advertising Apathy

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Monday, August 31st, 2009

I ran across the definition “Design is art optimized to meet objectives” by Shimon Shmueli of Touch 360. I have found myself defining what I do for family, friends and even clients. For clients, it is not something they usually ask but something we volunteer in the context of explaining, selling or defending a design or design process. When asked about the difference between a designer and a fine artist, I have said we are the whores of the art world. For a fee, we create art that meets the client’s needs. Or maybe it is that we work a client’s needs until it is art? I think I like Shmueli’s definition better.

I will often hear “I know you are the designer, but could you explore or change this or that”. I have gotten to the point I anticipate this and reply along the lines of “We really don’t design for designers. Almost everyone should be able to see, evaluate and critique design – even if you can’t necessarily design yourself.”

The truth is, we are not actually designing for them. Maybe I need to be more forthright about this? We are designing for a demographic that they may or may not be in tune to. We are hired to understand and execute a solution for that audience. Both client and designer can certainly get it wrong when we don’t listen close enough, run with a false preconception, or are just lazy and offer them exactly what we think they want.

Got Milk

An example of lazy, and my latest peeve are the ubiquitous “Got Milk?” rip-off campaigns. Just across the street at a Beauty Supply shop they have this fine advertising example:

There are similar billboards littered across the Wasatch front but this landscape flyer was inspirational. I ask for one last campaign to clean this up, maybe “Got An Original Idea?”

Designers are at fault when we give the client what they want instead of what they need. They used to say in school to throw out your first idea. That first idea is the one the client (and everyone else) also thought of. For a moment you share that magical connection in a tired, cliché design or concept. Amazingly the client may also pick the idea because they thought of it also! On two recent occasions I, or designers I know have wrestled with this. We had considered removing an inferior solution that we thought might be too gimmicky. I had even jokingly said “I bet they pick that one”. I will say the solution was not horrible in either case, but I believe their audience would have appreciated something a little more sophisticated or original, even if the client did not.

Better Brainstorming

Do we act the prima-donna and pout or do we accept this silent change in objective – do we trade inspiring the audience for stroking the client? Even worse is when we are the ones who suggested the “Got Milk?” in an attempt to flush out concepts or fill a pause in the conversation. But there are no bad ideas in brainstorming, right? Possibly, but there may be better ways to brainstorm than we are practicing now or we might need to better prepare ourselves for a brainstorming session. I liked the simple process presented at Business Balls including defining the objective, setting a time limit, and monitoring the follow up process. I would add the personal brainstorming outlined in this article is valuable preparation for a group brainstorming. Laziness is where both client and agency can run into problems. A client needs to value and understand why they hired us. The agency needs refine its processes and better prepare for the creative possibilities.

Traffic Jam Diaries : 1

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Thursday, July 30th, 2009

Skinny Jeans on men.

Yes, they make it impossible to fart because they’re squeezing your cheeks together with a pressure that’s unachievable in any other way, but other than that, I fail to see any advantage to wearing them. They reduce sperm count, they make you look like you’re constantly on the verge of falling down, and they’re difficult put on without lubricant. And they don’t look good. On you. Oh, sure, they might have looked semi-normal on a Scandanavian named Aero and a Swede named Yan, but other than that, no. It’s like Gary Oldham’s hair in the Fifth Element. Sure, he could pull it off. But could anybody else?

Any comedy with Vince Vaughn, Ben Stiller, or Will Ferrell.

Likably clueless guys who get hit in the crotch and learn to overcome a measure of their idiocy (but only a tiny bit) for love are easy money. I get it already.

WTF.

I mean, WTF is up with WTF? It’s ruined the whole phrase. That phrase used to mean something! It used to be that only the baddest-a$$ kids in school would say that. That’s how you knew who to be afraid of. It’s how the social hierarchy was kept in order. But now it’s been reduced to three fairly benign letters that everyone and their little sister will use. WTF?!

Glossy logos.

It’s like putting bacon on crap. That first bit is tasty, but after that… You just can’t hide the taste of crap. Or skanky clothes on a marginally attractive (at best) woman. Oh, I know you looked, but you regretted it, didn’t you? Because your more attractive, more classy and more liked-by-your-parents-and-friends girlfriend saw you look, and now she’s gone.

And glossy does not automatically mean “web 2.0″. It usually means “I have no idea what the mission or brand of my company is, so I’m going to make things shiny and hope they attract the easily amused.” Problem with that is the easily amused aren’t very loyal. Go figure.

Oh, I’m sure they’re appropriate every once in a while; nearly everything is. But, like my momma always used to say, if your friends all dressed in women’s clothing, would you? I admit I’ve done a few such logos myself, at the behest of client demands (and always presented next to much more appropriate brands for their company that would last longer than the next couple of years when “Glossy” goes out of style). Yes, I did them, but, like those whose job is putting dogs to sleep, a little bit of me died that day because I knew I was doing something very, very wrong, and I’ll never get that part of me back.

Rain High Command Theme

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Friday, June 19th, 2009

Well we’ve finally updated our blog theme to reflect our programmers’ most deeply-held aspirations: global code domination through demonstrated intellectual supperiority. Thanks Jared for creating a design that helps make our humble dream a self-delusional reality for us . We’ve packaged up our new Rain High Command WordPress theme and it is available here for others who share our dreams.

Concentricity – A Tool for Planning and Accomplishing Anything

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Monday, April 14th, 2008

THE CONCEPTS

DEFINITION:

Concentricity: the quality of having the same center (as circles inside one another).

The traditional “target” image needs to be altered, however, to allow for a flexible application. The focus at any given moment will shift to wherever it’s needed, within any given aspect of a goal, as in the following diagram:

FOCUS of concentricity: to act as a tool for planning any goal of any size.

THE PATTERN

STEP 1) BRAINSTORM

Brainstorming is simply getting all ideas on paper. Not all ideas need to be GOOD. Just get them down. They can be discarded later. Brainstorming can be done as a group or individually.

Here’s an example; it’s the brainstorm that preceded the presentation of this topic.

I want to make sure that this is something that doesn’t just show what I know about the topic, but I want to make sure that this is something that is useful to everyone that comes to the training–designers, administrators, developers, and Andy. How will I do that? I will suggest some ways that might be useful to all of the demographics within the room. I have to remember to give a ten-minute summary. It needs to be something flashy and that makes the topic sound like it’s as useful as I believe it is. I have given a brief history about how this came about. I think that it may be useful to present how this is different than the Franklin-Covey approach. I have explained how this has helped me to accomplish certain things I have explained the kitchen situation as one example. I have talked about how this is useful from big situations to small situation. I have talked about how the piano students and I use it. I have talked about how it is a dynamic thing. I have talked about how this is a completely versatile thing. I have talked about how tit applies to every aspect of the organization process. I have talked about how this applies to all of the projects that we do. I have talked about how this gets clients and developers on the same page. I have talked about how the prototyping system is part of this. I have talked about how the user testing and use cases fit into this. I have gone through a project with them using the process. I have helped them to see how this is something that they could use. I have shown how this is something at so many different levels. I have shown how it will minimize backing up and having to redo things within the development phase.

STEP 2) OUTLINE

The step following the brainstorm is to refine the brainstorm into a working outline. The outline is organized with its most important ingredients first, and decreases in importance from top to bottom. There are examples of outlines at the bottom of this post with the mediaRAIN – specific examples.

STEP 3) REALIZATION

Realization is completing everything in the outline, working from specific to general. Each step that has substeps requires that the substeps be completed in order to consider the step completed. When completing an outline, work from specific back to general. In other words, realization is executed from top to bottom generally, but from bottom to top (specific to general) locally.

***THE EXAMPLE***

The following example shows how the three-step concentricity process can apply directly to a mediaRAIN project. You’ll want to skim over some of the content (such as the brainstorm) to just get the general idea of how a step may work.

COMPANY / CLIENT COMMUNICATION ENHANCEMENT

Step 1) Brainstorm

The experience that is gained as a company is only as valuable as 1) the people that have had the experience that still work for the company, and 2) those things that are written down and communicated. There are some communication issues that could so much better be worked out if clients, designers, project managers, and developers had access to 1) a central place to communicate for the projects upon which they’re working, instead of trying to communicate around each other with email, phone calls, etc., and 2) a place where things learned as a company could be shared. that way, the working outline, all ideas and concerns about it, and all communication about issues relating to it could be centralized, and everyone could have access to the information that is vital for everyone to have about the project. Since there are appropriate channels of communication and command, those need to be respected and built into the system. At the same time, everyone who is involved in the project needs to be notified when there is information from which all could benefit. It needs to be project specific when there are projects that are involved, and it needs to be company-specific when there are things that can benefit the company long-term. That includes a wiki that employees and employers could contribute to about specific activities and situations, so that if I have an idea about how to talk to clients, it can be reviewed by the person who’s in charge of the content on the wiki and reviewed by that person and then posted for everyone. Something like Google Talk could also be integrated so that those that need to could be involved in conversations about particular topics. Communication channels can/should be limited by the project manager so that clients don’t talk directly to developers when that’s not appropriate. Right now a lot of people get left out of the emails/phone calls/meetings when something gets in the way. This would be something that is less prone to that.

Step 2) Outline

The first outline clarified what the real goal was, so there was another, more specific outline, followed by this final version:

Step 3) Realization

To realize the outline, the following checklist takes the outline and turns it into a usable format, with assignable tasks, people responsible for them, and a timeline. The timeline may seem random, but is carefully planned according to the outline; subtasks are completed before larger tasks are counted as completed, so larger tasks have later deadlines than their “children.” All phases that can happen at the same time are planned to do so, since the framework has been organized from the beginning.

Of course, the three-step process of concentricity is used at every level during every phase of development, with more brainstorms, outlines, and checklists

– Bryan Elkins

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