ENGInE

It doesn't get any better than this

2009-12-08T01:15:00.000-08:00

OK, we've been running this ENGInE malarky now for over a year. I'd like to say it's been plain sailing, a bed of roses, a piece of cake, but if I did I would be lying.

We've launched all markets.....woohoo! We converted some South Americans, Romania is on the horizon and Turkey is expressing an interest.

Actually on that last point I'm a bit miffed. The lovely people from Turkey are flying over to talk turkey with us about ENGInE. I wanted to spend as much time as I could with them on the Monday/Tuesday that they're in the UK. They are coming over on a Tuesday, arriving at 1:00pm. I leave on Tuesdays at 2:30pm. I have one and a half hours to "sell" ENGInE. I mean I know I'm good (all modesty aside) but 90 minutes is simply inadequate.

We're launching a few new sites within Europe before the end of the year too.

The problem I have is that I'm not satisfied with the site. I want to change this, that and the other but I have no budget. This is beyond frustrating. And the problem with work-related frustration is that it's the prime cause of work-related stress.

Maybe I need a dose of flu.

Some classic authoring by the Greek team (Michael)

2009-07-06T01:44:00.000-07:00

I hate to do this to Michael because he is the loveliest of people with whom to work, and I know this will be fixed but....a classic authoring issue:

F*** it, I'll get a tray

2008-12-22T08:26:00.000-08:00

The catch phrase for the project, together with "Do you have a flag?"

The nominations

2008-12-22T08:12:00.000-08:00

Me for removing her network cable earlier in the day to work while my PC was renewed. Later Outlook and IE are not working. Tim asks if I have plugged in the network cable, which of course I hadn't. And previously for for stopping Firefly's deletion of the Irish database after the ENGInE launch with the reason that we still need it for the Dealer Websites (i.e. NONAV).

Tristan "Hightower" Knapp, who enjoyed the most comprehensive training of all when joining the club and who always managed to be in the office just-in-time for lunch, for making all FatWire "dementors" disappear by pretending that he understands 3 of the 4 levels of caching, for logging dependencies, where there are none and for his undoubtedly expert knowledge of Bundesliga soccer (although he still keeps putting the ball under the arm and starts running).

Lebas Ludovic and the rest of the FatWire team for mystifying the intuitive, confusing the obvious, concealing the apparent and for four wonderful levels of caching, which we still don’t understand, but impresses us immensely! And no, we still don’t understand the difference between a bug and a limitation.

Christian “who loves you babe, where is my lollipop Kojak” Hausen and Alex “Obelix” M. for proving that "remote access" actually can make employees such as Reiner more productive, especially when exploiting that Window-L hack.

Gerda-Marie "Trinity" for her incredible talent in creating worms, viruses and other very nasty softlets (new buzz word) on development which crash servers intermittently, unexpectedly and mercilessly, confusing other developers, while looking innocuously throughout the room saying “Siggi we have a session issue on Prod Management”. And also for deleting the wrong site and actually deleting the mothersite.

Alex “Boom-Boom” Seyder for secretly setting his layouts and wrappers to cached and un-cached on various environments, rewriting urls and redirecting us to places we no man has gone before. A true trekkie.

Guillaume, "I think we will have wine with the fish", for introducing table manners and dining culture to the FORD canteen, for savoring every experiment of the canteen like it was fois gras, for looking like you understood us when we were babbling german and for winning the "I almost understand FatWire" award.

Maren for improving our job security, by training others for our jobs on an unspecified location on an unspecified continent, which will not be named, but should only be referred to under the code name “India”. Maren – jokes aside – no hard feelings from any of us I am sure – one should never shoot the messenger.

Tim Bailey “the Mechanic”, for screwing up QA and PROD. And for just screwing up. Don’t you know that art is only to look at and that you shouldn’t touch it? And also for setting his alarm wrong and missing his flight, then almost doing it again the following week.

Heike “shortstop” for her capability of streaming information at such an incredible rate that most of us ended with a buffer overflow before even beginning to understand what she was asking us, and still being able to interject “I don’t understand it”, “It doesn’t work” and “I can’t do it” 22 times into a single sentence.

Anke Hoffmann, for promoting, demoting, accessitating (no, that isn’t a word), processing, TD-ing, hmmm… really no reason for nominating you – screw up more often and you’ll have a chance Anke!

Stephan Barfknecht “the Roaster” for asking “läuft das Band”, even though he is reading Wikipedia’s newest entry for “coffee roasting”while simultaneously writing XSS exploits for Heise’s forums. And for mobbing and for his incredible soft-skills. Where is Stephan? Did he mention why he isn’t here today?

Winni, for spending countless hours transferring byte value 0 from DEV to QA, and subsequently to PROD, after tireless testing on QA to ensure that 0 really is 0. Of course, first waiting for Anke to promote the issue, after Anke also was secure in the fact that 0 is 0 and also tested the issue. For suffering through all Ford processes, following them to the letter and number, displaying incredible dedication to the obtuse, frustrating, and but still necessary processes, and being the best Clark Griswald there has ever been…

Ingo, for giving us Achmed (chhh chhh you said Akmed) and “do you have a flag?”, his undying support for the 1 FC Hennes, for his love for multiple individuals for whom he is inspired to say “Schätzelein!” and for his own line in the Ardennes, which he calls “Categories”. Actually, he is the inspirer for the Jeff Vader award and should be respected as such. And yes, the hair color is natural if you were asking yourself.

Reiner Harth, for his incredible talent for showing up (fashionably) late for almost every Tuesday meeting, with a full cup of coffee and a note from his mother, why he was late; for challenging multiple people with his innovative F+S data model and for that very impressive wide-screen display on his desk. And then of course for his extraordinary efforts operating two keyboards at the same time and his outstanding contributions in identifying the "Windows-L" hack.

Mikheil. For being the most optimistic user of a broken data model, that I have ever seen, defending Java and Eclipse to the point of no return, and to being one of the most capable and chaotic developers I have ever met… With emphasis on capable – ok you are officially disqualified for the Jeff Vader award. Klugscheißer ;)

Paul getting stopped at customs and spending half the day with men with rubber gloves.

Christian falling off his bike

Rainer not telling anyone about getting married

Jeff Vader Award

2008-12-22T08:09:00.000-08:00

We had a bit of a competition to see who made the dumbest mistake or made themselves look the most foolish whilst working on ENGInE. I made it into the nominations but didn't win.

Here's our winner:

Sir Lord Siggi Baron Von Vader Ham of Cheem Beisenherz

Nominated by Tristan: Siggi, our fearless lead developer, for never doing anything, cancelling our developer’s meetings, always having a constant stream of assets publishing on some environment to which we have no access where we must acknowledge “oh he is important, very, very important”, not locking his workstation and thereby always being one step away from his sacking, always looking serious even when we are asking the most stupid question, but still understanding everything, accommodating everyone and being the quintessential leader. Oh, and there was that double-click on dev. But we won’t mention that. That was a clear grope for the Jeff Vader award

May the Force be with you!

I name this ship....

2008-12-22T08:04:00.000-08:00

We've launched.

Find us at www.ford.ie, www.ford.de and www.ford.co.uk.

It's been a long and winding road, and actually the road is never ending but we are there.

Enough

2008-09-30T15:35:00.000-07:00

I've had enough. I just want the project to be over now.

Launch dates slip through my fingers more easily than sand.

The Irish team are demonstrating an admirable level of patience that I will never achieve.

I feel as though every hour that passes brings with it a new problem or issue.

I'm mentally exhausted. My days are filled with too much emotion. There are highs and lows but it's the frustration that is so terribly draining. I'd love to leave work at work but I can't.

I felt I needed an escape, so I went to yoga tonight. As the group was relaxing I was thinking about problems and potential solutions, bugs, screw ups, issues, deadlines and priorities.

My colleagues are sick of me. My family are living with a monster. I struggle to see who the winners are.

I want it to end. I want the vision that we had all that time ago to be a reality. Almost there isn't good enough.

Mole

2008-08-21T08:37:00.000-07:00

The ENGInE team has a mole whose identity must remain a secret.

Today they sent me this:

It inspires confidence don't you think?

Numpty of the day award

2008-06-16T12:04:00.000-07:00

Apologies for my absence, I've been busy.

"About time" I hear you cry. I know, I know. A project of this magnitude, on three days a week, you're thinking it's amazing I find time to breathe let alone blog.

Well a lot of blogging happens in my own time and I have snippets of my own time seven days a week, and this is one such snippet. If you must know, I'm uploading pictures from the weekend to Flickr, and it takes forever, and I'm bored.

Anyway...Numpty of the day:

Large projects don't always run smoothly, rather like the course of true love. We spent most of today locked in a dark room trying to get our heads around a problem and come up with a solution. Coffee was a definite requirement at three o'clock when spirits and creativity were at a low ebb.

Let me explain the problem, without getting too technical.

Component copy was a feature of ENGInE, or so we thought. That's one of the problems with listening to sales people. They tell one things and one foolishly believes them.

Component copy allows one to copy a bit of one site, and plonk it into another site. It's a very handy (some would say essential) piece of functionality.

It appears that the product, as delivered, is missing this funky piece of code.

Today we ran through a million (exaggerating for effect) scenarios involving cutting, pasting, copying, sharing, translating, overtime, double time, triple time, intravenous caffeine, Prozac on demand and the rest.

It was just after we had discounted several of these many wonderful suggestions that Rishi said "Why don't we just copy that and then send it out?" which is exactly what component copy does and which is exactly what we don't have and can't do (right now).

This may not be funny to you, but after too many hours, and not enough coffee or calories, we found it rather too amusing.

So, sorry Rishi. I'm not picking on you, honestly. It's just that today hurt my head, and the laugh was needed.

Best laid plans

2008-03-10T08:37:00.000-07:00

No project is perfect. This project is far from perfect. But...

When we hit problems and delays we work our collective backsides off to try and get back on track. We try and catch back time so that we don't compromise the launch date.

I've been presented with numerous change requests where I've said "No. This will delay the project and it's a change that, whilst it's nice to have, isn't essential for launch. Make this a post launch change."

I guess it's all about the leadership behaviours that we all know and love and the Drive for Results motivator is the one that's driving me right now, and throughout this project. I guess that's why it's all the more depressing when something hits us that we can't control.

We always knew that hardware sourcing was a risk on the project. It shouldn't be a risk but it is. It should be as simple as outlining requirements, placing an order, receiving delivery and setting everything up. It's not that simple. Don't ask me to explain why it's not that simple because I'll start to get politically incorrect, but it's not that simple.

(If you detect some irritation then you're very perceptive.)

So we expected hardware on Jan 18th and we didn't receive it. Our new delivery date was February 28th and once again nothing was delivered.

We have received something now and we're going through the process of ensuring everything is as it should be and is to spec but it's almost two months late.

I've been trying to think of an analogy that demonstrates how out of our control this part of the development is, so here goes.

Imagine you plan to launch a car in one factory on January 18th but an earthquake demolishes the factory on January 15th. It takes time to recover and rebuild and it's something you couldn't have prevented because it was an act of God.

I'm not suggesting that our hardware suppliers and God are related, far from it, but both are seemingly out of (our) control.

Trenchcoat required

2008-02-05T13:24:00.001-08:00

There aren't many people on the team who have nicknames, or at least publicly known nicknames. Well we think Christian has coined one.

From now on Rishi shall be known as Columbo. He doesn't wear a raincoat but he does have a habit, just as a meeting is closing, of saying "Just one more thing."

In the thick of it

2008-01-21T01:56:00.000-08:00

OK, New Year, new boss. What's changed?

Well not much actually, but give Dave a chance, he barely has his toes under the table.

Last week I sat in on some Fatwire training. Fatwire is the engine behind ENGInE if that isn't too complicated. It's the platform/software/language upon which ENGInE is being built.

Dee, who took the course, probably got a bit fed up with me. I kept asking questions. I know it's quite difficult to shut me up at the best of times but we kept going off at tangents because I wanted to know about this, that and the other.

The good news is that I wasn't bluffing when I told all of you that the new Content Management Tool would be more user friendly and more efficient.

You see when I told you all that I was relying on information given to me. I hadn't seen the tool, except for a brief presentation from a Fatwire salesman, and we all know how reliable sales people are.

It is far more flexible than Firefly.

Test

2007-12-19T08:16:00.000-08:00

Brendan is off to South Africa to be Mazda's General Manager out there.

He says he'll still be logging in to check how the project's progress. I joked that he wouldn't remember this URL. We'll see.

So Brendan - if you are reading this then leave a comment and we'll know you still care.

And to everyone else - Happy Christmas and a Happy New Year.

I'm feeling a difference

2007-11-28T06:32:00.000-08:00

I saw three presentations yesterday, all about content.

This was a blessed relief.

I have read the ENGInE spec and it was dull. This is not a criticism. It's a document that wasn't created for entertainment. But I'm sure you can imagine that much of my work revolves around detail and the nitty gritty.

Content, however, is a completely different kettle of fish or at least it should be.

That's why the prospect of a day of reviewing content would seem to be better than the day job.

For six hours we looked at content, and I can't give you my reaction to it yet because Juergen hasn't seen it yet. But I will share some adjectives that I think can be used to describe the content of one of the presentations.

Interesting
Challenging
Different
Innovative
Unique
Un-Ford
Colourful
Difficult
Extensive
Pervasive
Noninvasive

And while we're on the subject of words, I'd like to state, for the record, that tangibilize is not a word. Unless of course you believe that words entered by the surfing public on www.urbandictionary.com should be counted as real words. If Urban Dictionary words could be included in Scrabulous then I'd win every time.

Dilbert to the rescue

2007-11-21T03:37:00.001-08:00

Thanks Reiner. This doesn't quite sum up where we are, but it's close enough to make me laugh out loud, and then need a drink.

Blonde moment

2007-11-19T07:54:00.000-08:00

Recently I've been put under pressure to produce a Business Owner View.

The example that ran to 165 pages was a little intimidating for someone that hadn't produced one before but, being the consummate professional, I started doing my research.

I figured I'd need help.

I wasn't too sure what a Contextual Motivation Model was, let alone a Motivation and Function Association Matrix or a Conceptual Network Model and these were just some of the components for the document that had my name against it.

I carried on reading and, to my relief, discovered that it isn't a Business produced document but one produced by IT.

I raised this and the task was placed with someone who already has enough to occupy more than his working week.

So although I've saved myself a horrendous task, someone else is now overloaded to the point where something's got to give.

The irony of this situation is that I can't find anyone who sees any merit in the production of this document.

No flying cars

2007-11-06T13:34:00.000-08:00

Mean Automakers Dash Nation's Hope For Flying Cars

Clever clogs

2007-11-05T05:09:00.000-08:00

I guess one doesn't become a senior manager without there being some substance to one's knowledge and capabilities.

But even though that's the case it is damned irritating when they spot something that you, as the expert, should have picked up.

We had a review with Stephen Odell last week and he spotted an omission in our presentation.

I'd like to say it was deliberate; something we left out just to check that he was paying attention, but that would be a lie.

So we'll go back and rework that bit, and acknowledge our inferiority.

Doubting Thomas

2007-11-05T04:53:00.000-08:00

Well actually it wasn't a Thomas, it was someone else who works in one of the markets - you know who you are...

"I don't have any faith in you, I mean Ford of Europe, delivering this on time." - (s)he said.

"Good point." I said "I can see where you're coming from, but we feel we're different (in so many ways) to other projects you may have encountered."

"Have you built anything yet?" they asked.

"Er no, but we hadn't planned to at this point in time." I replied.

"I'd be willing to place a bet that this project will be late." (s)he responded.

Now I know what's it's like to sit in the market and receive the product of the Ford of Europe machine. I know not everything is delivered when originally planned. I also know what it's like to work in Ford of Europe trying desperately to make things happen, according to the plan.

But wasn't it Henry Ford that said "History is bunk."? What has happened before doesn't need to have any bearing on our future. And, by the way, we are still on track to deliver on time.

Maybe I'm naive. I know I'm an optimist (which can be a curse). But I still think this is possible.

Would I put money on it? I don't bet.

Flux - in a state of

2007-10-10T14:05:00.001-07:00

You could call it indecision and you'd probably be right.

I'm just having the wobbles about Help Me Choose. We've dithered and we've mithered and today Brendan and I took some half strength brave pills.

The thing is I'm not sure we've gone far enough.

I didn't roll over and I didn't relent without good reason though. It's easier, from the business perspective, to build complicated and strip stuff later if necessary than to build simple and add complexity later.

So on this one I'm sticking to the spec, but I'm not stuck like glue.

I can't wait for the gorillas to have a play (and yes I know it's guerillas but I don't get to make the chimpanzee joke unless I spell it gorillas).

The gender agenda

2007-10-10T14:03:00.000-07:00

I've read 'Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus' and over the last week I've been aware of media coverage (particularly Guardian and Radio 4) of Deborah Cameron's book 'The Myth of Mars and Venus.'

It seems John Gray was writing a lot of tosh when he penned his book citing the many gender differences that are now part of our everyday vernacular.

Anyway, as I read around the subject I found a cool website.

The Gender Genie takes text (about 500 words) and analyses it so that it can guess your gender.I selected a couple of my blogs that didn't make it obvious I was female and cut and paste.

Guess what - I'm a man, but only just. The analysis produced a score of 652 for male and 640 for female.

I'm not quite sure what to think, or how to react.

Ireland

2007-10-02T07:03:00.000-07:00

Ireland are our pilot market and I'm there now, having taken them through the 'where we are now' presentation which also starts to touch on the what we need to do next and planning for next year.

The term pilot market seems to be quite adventurous, quite exciting, quite daring.

And alternative term, and one I've encountered today is the concept of Ireland being guinea pigs. Now this has an altogether less glamourous feel. Being a guinea pig almost implies an element of being a victim. I wonder if the terminolgy reflects the level of nervousness being felt right now - the fear of the unknown. Maybe I need to work on improving confidence and a measure of my success in this regard might be to look at the terminology used.

If Ireland view themselves as adventurous pilots in six months time, I will have succeeded.

Progress

2007-10-01T02:08:00.000-07:00

Well I've now caught up with the stuff that happened while I was away and I've attended numerous reviews of creative.

Homepage creative is agreed and looking spectacular.

Dealer Locator is looking amazing and the functionality is smarter than the current solution.

Help Me Choose is work in progress but is looking really good.

I have a flash demo of the homepage - if you want a walkthrough let me know.

I've got it

2007-09-17T15:22:00.001-07:00

OK, I know it's nearly midnight and I should be getting my beauty sleep but, I've got it. Eureka!

Help me choose should be a wizard of some sort. A Selector Wizard, or maybe a Car or Commercial Vehicle Wizard. Anyway Wizard - cool word. Just saw it on the tfl.gov.uk site and had a blinding flash of the obvious.

Wizard of Doom anyone? Well I thought it was a good idea.

Maybe I've just read too much Harry Potter.

Choose-O-Matic advice please

2007-09-05T13:17:00.000-07:00

Salespeople are told that they should qualify a customer and find out about their vehicle requirements rather than asking about budget.

This seems to make sense. Have any of you gone in to buy a car, or anything else, and been insulted with the budget question before a salesperson has even asked about how you plan to use the product, or what features you might be interested in?

But even if this is the case, would it be fair to say that you have a rough idea of the amount of money you will be spending on a purchase?

What I need to know, for Choose-O-Matic, is whether we should use a price filter to try and point the consumer in the direction of the right range of vehicles for them to consider. Additionally, if we do include it, should it be the first item in the list for consumers to adjust, or the last item?

The return

2007-09-05T01:14:00.000-07:00

I'm back.

Apparently it's been an eventful few weeks. When I've caught up, I'll post an update.

I'm catching up on developments and trying to remember my password.

I'm also off to present to the FoB team this morning and have the pleasure of providing Mark Simpson's team with an update on Friday too. (I know - I don't do Fridays, but this is the exception that proves the rule.)

New Team Members

2007-08-20T08:21:00.000-07:00

We have to welcome 3 new team members.

A Belated one to Alex Milosavljivic who joined 4 weeks ago.

And two new starts today Paul McGrath as a Business Analyst and Arpana as the 2nd Project Manager at Wunderman.

Welcome to the ENGInE Team, you dont know what you have let yourself in for

Name Competition

2007-08-10T08:17:00.000-07:00

I almost forgot we need to come up with a name for the Help Me Choose, Compare-o-tron-a-matic thingermy bob:

Current suggestions are:

Help Me Choose
Inspire Me
Inspire-o-tron
Compare-o-tron

Answers on a comment or email please

Bad week, Good week

2007-08-10T07:47:00.001-07:00

The bad news is that we have missed a deliverable of the creative content for the CMS. Even worse news is that it looks like bad communication is the problem again. On top of this there is a problem that the dynamic content creation of fatwire means that Akamai cache will not shield us from all the traffic requests.

Well after that I hear you ask whats the good news.

Well Ford IT and Wunderman have been tasked to recoup the lost time for the deliverable miss. Initial discusssions are looking promising. The architects will come up with a plan to overcome the cacheing issue.

On top of this we have made some good steps forward in the creative look of the web site and been told to come out of the comfort zone of blocks and grey and move forward with more colours and circles. Even the suggestion of the logo moving was not shot down in flames, but I dont know anyone who wants to take this Mark.

I'm a Lady don't you know

2007-08-09T01:31:00.000-07:00

I have the dubious honour of being Ann while she is away on Holiday.

Handing over the reins

2007-08-09T01:09:00.000-07:00

I'm off on holiday for a bit (and it is holiday not 'gardening leave').

I thought we could experiment while I'm away. Other authors may be posting to this blog.

This is probably a good thing. You'll have a change in perspective and a change in style too.

In the background

2007-08-08T06:49:00.000-07:00

Now we've started to focus our attention on the fluffy stuff it's easy to forget the other work that's going on.

Choose-O-Tron-O-Matic Explorer user experience is finished, Dealer Locator specification is starting, data modelling for Features and Specs is on-going, technical specifications are emerging.

A project update has been delievered to colleagues in France, Germany, Spain, FCSD. Follow up meetings are being arranged where necessary.

The teams aren't idle. In fact things are a little stressful at times, so I went and bought my own Stress Reduction Kit.

Good news, bad news

2007-08-08T06:37:00.000-07:00

Someone used the meebo chat widget to ask "what's the point of going online if the content is sooooooo out of date?"

Well do you want to hear the bad news as well as the good news?

The last three weeks have been occupied with the creative for the navigation and the homepage.

Navigation is pretty much nailed and homepage is almost there. The great news is that these look amazing.

OK, so what's the bad news? You know what, I don't want to tell you the bad news because it'll depress both of us.

He likes, she likes

2007-07-13T14:04:00.000-07:00

How many of you are married, or living with someone?

And how many times have you been shopping for furniture, curtains, lights, bed linen, cushions, rugs and you can't agree easily with your partner on what you should buy?

Well if you find it's difficult to make a choice you're both happy with, you're not alone.

Men and women like different things. I know this isn't rocket science but the presentation we saw on gender website preferences resulted in a workshop to discuss in more detail what this means for us.

There is a male and a female aesthetic, and they are quite different.

This doesn't just apply to websites, it applies to everything and there are some genetic reasons for the differences.

More than 8% of men are colour blind or dichromatic. Is it any wonder men are more conservative when it comes to colour.

Women have more cones at the back of the eye which help the brain interpret colour. Is it any wonder that women enjoy and appreciate colour.

1/2 % of women are tetrachromatic which means they see not only the primary colours: red, blue and green, but also colours at the ultra violet end of the scale. Even more reason for the female appreciation of colour.

Men have better spatial awareness - the ability to think in 3D. This explains why men are often good at parking and why women appreciate parking distance sensors. The result of this is that men are more comfortable with 3D images whereas women prefer 2D images or images of items in context.

There are other differences that are harder to explain through physiology.

Anyway this doesn't mean a group of male designers can't design to a brief targetting women, but it does mean that they need to be aware of what women want if they want to get it right.

And it also means that if you argue with your partner about furnishing and decorating the home it's not necessarily because your partner lacks taste.

The next big thing from Apple

2007-07-10T07:58:00.001-07:00

How very dare they?

2007-07-05T12:12:00.000-07:00

Those pesky VW folk have been reading this blog. Which one of you squealed.

We found a Compare-O-Tron.

Thanks to Neil for pointing this out but 'How very dare they?'

Wunderman Conference in Nice

2007-07-03T05:09:00.001-07:00

You may have heard about the 'Did you know?' presentation.

Here is a prettier version. Be patient while it loads.

Choose-O-Tron-O-Matic

2007-06-29T14:15:00.000-07:00

Just a little update; the Choose-O-Tron, otherwise known as Choose-O-Matic, is now the Car Range Explorer.

There is no promise that this will stick, especially if consumers get to do some testing.

The blogger's dilemma

2007-06-29T08:37:00.000-07:00

Easy Peasy

2007-06-29T08:30:00.000-07:00

If any of you are looking at this blog thinking "Doesn't Cardus have anything better to do with her time?" I'd just like to point out a few things.

1. It's a nice easy way to communicate and doesn't clog the Outlook inbox
2. It's opt in communication - you know it's here, you're interested and that's why you're reading. It's not SPAM
3. It really is easy for me to do and actually takes less time than an e-mail
4. Even the stuff that looks difficult, like the widgety things on the left hand side, took minutes to set up
5. It's more chatty and personal than a formal e-mail, which suits my style and hopefully makes it more engaging
6. It's prettier than e-mail
7. Are you still reading...?

If you want to set up your own blog (personal or work related) and you're not quite sure where or how to start - I'm happy to help.

Terminology

2007-06-27T07:01:00.000-07:00

I'm in a no win situation. I sit betwixt the 'Business' and IT and I'm expected to have an understanding of the language used by all sorts of groups within these various organisations.

I sometimes forget that I'm the conduit for information transfer. And it occurred to me today I use phrases from one side of the organisation without thinking too much about whether my audience knows what 'full image bleed' or 'EPMO' means.

To the uninitiated 'full image bleed' could be quite gory. I also wonder whether I invent phrases or terms just because it's easier for me to understand.

Perhaps someone should invent a Babelfish assistant. I envisage a device that might sit on a desk in front of a presenter and it provides a simple, easy to understand translation of business or technical phrases that aren't in every day use. Or maybe we need the true Babelfish from Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy that sits in the ear of the listener.

Mr Creosote eats a wafer thin mint

2007-06-26T05:42:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we saw templates, and templates, and templates and variations on templates.

You know the feeling when you've eaten so much cake you couldn't possibly eat another piece without being sick? No? That's just me then.

Well I feel I've gorged on templates and couldn't possible see another one. Which is a shame because we have a second level review tomorrow. Maybe I'll be feeling better by then.

We also gained a better insight into the way Choose-O-Tron (an alternative name for Choose-O-Matic) could work.

There have been discussions and arguments and I think we're close to finding the right way for Choose-O-Tron to work. Getting there has been, what seems like, a long road.

For those of you wondering about the title of this post:

Nothing ventured, nothing gained

2007-06-19T01:22:00.000-07:00

This project is on the tightest schedule imaginable and we are constantly looking for ways to remove time because, as we all know, time is money.

Time is also a big fat delay between you using Firefly and having a brand new shiny ENGInE tool.

One of the things we thought we could do, which is outside the normal process, is deliver bits and pieces from a large package delivery, and deliver them early.

The original plan was to deliver one large User Experience (UXP) package on June 30th. This would contain things like navigation, templates and associated template philosophy, content philosophy and accessibility.

Our revised 'clever' plan took elements from this large package and tried to deliver them one at a time ahead of the June 30th deadline.

This gave IT early sight of things which meant they could start work early.

This has sort of worked. Things have been accelerated and IT have had early sight of material they wouldn't have seen until the end of the month. But it's not been a perfect process.

Maybe we should have forseen problems but I am an eternal optimist and when somebody shows me the possibility of doing something quicker or smarter or with better quality, I jump on it and want to make it happen.

What we didn't realise was that if you tie down one template before you've worked on some of the associated templates, you hit issues that mean changes are necessary to the template that's already been agreed and packed up in its box.

So we thought we had the first template defined, but it's now undefined, or at least in flux. The changes might be minor but any change, even a minor one, can be significant when it means a change to specification.

I don't think we're worse off for trying to do things more quickly. I think we're better off than we could have been. But it means things aren't quite going to plan.

Being the eternal optimist I can see the benefits of going through a bit of pain now. We're learning about how to work together and I think that will make us a more effective team moving forward.

Choose-O-Matic and fluffy stuff

2007-06-18T02:31:00.000-07:00

Last week I saw the latest thinking behind the Choose-O-Matic, and the Vortex of Doom has gone.

Whilst this is disappointing because I quite liked referring to the Vortex of Doom, it is good news for the project and the end user. The user experience we are considering now is much simpler and intuitive. I'm an advocate of keeping things simple.

I'm very conscious that everyone involved on this project is what I'd called an expert user. We need to accommodate the internet novice. Keeping things simple will help the novice and expert users.

I also saw a million different creative executions. OK, I'm exaggerating a little but there were a lot of executions. You could have played spot the difference with some of the ideas because the variation was very subtle. I can't remember all of the ideas but I know I liked a lot of what I saw.

This brings me to another problem. What I like isn't necessarily what the majority of users will like. Which is why it needs testing, with real people. Not that I'm not real - I'm not an avatar honestly. It's just that I'm probably not average. :)

Choose-O-Matic and Vortex of Doom

2007-06-18T02:26:00.001-07:00

Last week I presented the project to date, to Brendan's team.

I mentioned and showed early thoughts on Choose-O-Matic and the Vortex of Doom. Now you and I both know that Choose-O-Matic and Vortex of Doom are just working titles. (Vortex of Doom is merely an element of Choose-O-Matic.)

After the presentation on the train Tracey pointed out to me that I can appear rather serious when I present, and she thinks that some of those in my audience might have taken me at face value. So if anyone from Brendan's team talk seriously about a Vortex of Doom or Choose-O-Matic then don't blame them, blame me.

They are working titles, and in fact the Vortex of Doom no longer exists....

Health warning

2007-06-11T04:15:00.000-07:00

Facebook can take over your life.

Is there such a group as Facebook Anonymous for the poor souls who get addicted?

I also know people who are addicted to MySpace and World of Warcraft.

I think that good old fashioned conversation could well be a thing of the past, very soon.

What do you think? Msg me, e-mail me, leave a comment. :)

Search Engines

2007-06-06T08:36:00.001-07:00

Try this:

Open Google.

Type failure into the search box.

Hit "I'm feeling lucky".

Mood board and Territory

2007-06-05T08:34:00.000-07:00

At the same time as a look at the first template wireframes we also got a sneak peek at the mood board for our creative direction. Did I tell You about the Territory - if I didn't I should have. Sorry.

The territory that we have for the project is perfect. It addresses exactly what we need from the site. This is a public blog, so I can't go into too much detail, but you can feel comfortable that we have a territory and it's the right territory.

Anyway - we saw the draft mood board and it was spot on for our target consumer Paul but I'm not sure it worked for Antonella and we need something that will work for everyone.

I think it just needs a few tweaks but it goes back to gender differences and the fact that men and women want different things from a web experience.

First template

2007-06-05T08:30:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we took a look at the wireframes for the first template.

It's looks good, I think.

I discovered that it's really difficult for my brain to work with wireframes. I need pictures to make it come alive. To be honest, I need moving pictures.

We have a plan for something that's dynamic and interactive and static wireframes displayed in PowerPoint just don't do the plans justice.

Choose-O-Matic

2007-06-05T08:27:00.001-07:00

Now over my dead body will we actually call this application Choose-O-Matic, but at the same time as we saw the Navigation we saw the thinking behind the Choose-O-Matic (a working title only - honestly).

The Choose-O-Matic will help users who are new to us, and unfamilar with the range.

It's interesting. It's definitely different. And secretly...I would like to call it Choose-O-Matic. But don't tell anyone I said that.

We have a winner!

2007-06-04T04:35:00.000-07:00

We have a name: ENGInE – European Next Generation Interactive Experience

Congratulations to Inga Nordby at Wunderman. A prize will be winging its way to you.

Gender research presentation

2007-06-04T03:34:00.000-07:00

Navigation

2007-05-15T08:35:00.000-07:00

We went through the draft navigation proposal this week.

What we saw was different but conventional, if that makes sense, which it probably doesn't.

It was similar to the current nav. but also very different.

I think that's a good solution.

We'll have the surprise of something that's new but the comfort of something that's familar.

Men are from Mars

2007-05-09T08:15:00.000-07:00

I went to a seminar last week which discussed the difference between men and women.

Now I know there are some fairly obvious differences, but this particular presentation was about website preferences.

Actually the presentation was done by folk from Glamorgan University who had done research about what kind of websites the two sexes design and build and, as a follow up, learning about which website designs the sexes prefer.

Allow me to summarise:

Men build sites that have few colours, lots of straight lines, lots of positive, assertive, technical copy and a design that is very traditional.

Women build sites with lots of colour, few straight lines, friendly, cosy copy and a design that is likely to differ from website design norms.

And men prefer sites designed by men, women prefer sites designed by women.

Stuff it full of content

2007-05-09T02:32:00.000-07:00

One of the big things to come out of the requirements gathering process was a big bag of content ideas.

We define content as something that isn't an application built into the site. So product information, flash animations, videos, downloadable brochures and a WRC calendar are all content.

The following are applications that are either built in the site, or hosted within the site structure: dealer locator, configurator, e-Profile, Features and Specs etc.

So it turns out that everyone is an expert at producing ideas for content. The surprising thing is that many of the ideas could be executed on today's site.

I'm wondering what's stopping us from executing these ideas. Are the people with the ideas in the wrong place to make it happen. Do the people with the ideas and the responsibility lack budget or time?

If we have a budget and time issue then we need to know about it now because there's no point in having the best website ever, if nobody has the budget to create the content.

In attaempt to prevent this from being a problem we plan to have a Content workshop. The idea will be to consolidate all of the content ideas and do the sift we used for requirements: TBD and AIB and then to prioirtise the ideas and see what we think we can accommodate and afford ready for launch.

There will be some things that are likely to be a constant feature on the site and then there will be items that are bespoke for a particular campaign, things that have a shelf life.

Either way we need Juergen Teubenbacher to be fully integrated into this part of the process, because the vision is that content for the NWP will be an integral part of the work of Juergen's team.

More pictures

2007-04-25T08:41:00.000-07:00

There are team member pictures missing.

If your picture appears here and you're unhappy that there's an omission of someone else's picture, then it's easily rectified. You know how to get in touch.

The team

2007-04-25T07:53:00.000-07:00

Parry

Mark

Tim

Roz

Chris

Rishi

Brendan - looking worried

Haven't a clue who this is.

Reiner

Neil

Christian

Acronyms

2007-04-25T07:38:00.000-07:00

We invented some new acronyms in last weeks Requirements Matrix workshop. I feel that acronym proliferation is a key role for any employee of a large organisation:

TBD - Too Bloody Difficult

AIB - Am I Bovvered

TBD was used to categorise items that would have extended the timing of the project beyond something that was reasonable.

AIB was used to categorise items that wouldn't provide the consumer or the content author with any discernible benefit.

Bringing it all together

2007-04-18T06:06:00.000-07:00

I feel exhausted.

I've just come through a three day process during which we took all of the requirements gathered so far and sifted and sorted and thrifted and ordered.

I feel I've been bludgeoned by a baseball bat. Actually that's a little unfair. It's just been a very intense few days with a lot of discussion, argument and decision making.

Mark reckons we're the best team he's ever worked with. Neil tells me we've managed to get through a lot of work and we've worked effectively. Christian is impressed with the outcome of the meeting.

So I should feel really good but I just feel tired and drained. I do feel good that we are in good shape for the next Project Review Board next week but I think I'll be getting an early night tonight.

A trip to Germany

2007-04-09T05:38:00.000-07:00

I had a really productive meeting with the Ford Germany, Wunderman Germany, FCSD Europe.

They had done a lot of preparation for the meeting which is great because all of that hard work can be fed directly into the Wunderman central team's work.

Much of the requirements that were very detailed were done from a web author's point of view. The great news was that most of the requirements are already planned.

I also had the opportunity to present some of Brendan's presentation that was used in EuroDisney. The feeling I got was that my audience were really pleased with the plans we have in place for the new system.

Inventing a cool name

2007-03-29T13:39:00.000-07:00

I love the internet. I was idly surfing tonight for inspiration for a cool project name. I found this article. It made me laugh, but also gave me a few good ideas. I hope it brightens your day too. :)

Inventing a cool name for a software process

The exciting new trend sweeping the nation is to invent your own software development process (bonus points if it’s agile; minus points if it simply adds or subtracts practices from XP), then put it up on the web and wait for it to be cited in offhanded sentences in books and half-researched articles:

"Some examples of popular agile processes are Crystal Clear, Scrum, , DSDM, and Spiral."

Typically, the book or article then totally fails to extrapolate on the characteristics of, or differences between, the processes it’s just casually tossed off. The reason is because most of the time, the details don’t matter in the slightest. The book/article isn’t listing these processes because the author wants you to go and actually try them out, for pity’s sakes! Most likely the author just wants to make him/herself sound vaguely knowledgeable.

So, if you’re inventing your own process and you want to get it mentioned in books and articles, the most important aspect by far is to give your brainchild a cool-sounding name.

A huge mistake that some process inventors make is to start by defining the process, and then only later try to think of a name that sums up – as succinctly as in a single word or two – what the process is all about. Trust me, this never works: don’t even be tempted to try it! A name which is tailored to a predefined process will sound awkward; never quite a perfect match. It’s a bit like screwing the Marmite lid onto a jam jar by mistake.

Worse than that though, names which are based on the process tend to be way too literal. If an author is trying to think of a name which matches the process, he’ll end up with something like Feature-Driven Development, or Dynamic Systems Development Method. Yawwwn. Metaphors are a much better way to go.

The most reliable approach by far is to first think up a cool name, grab its domain name before anyone else does, and then dream up the details of the process to fit the name. And remember to choose something highly metaphorical: nothing too literal. Scrum (even though it sounds a bit too much like “scrotum”) is a good, if hairy, example of a metaphor which was obviously chosen before the process was fleshed out.

Let’s meander through a fictional example. What would be a cool name for a development process? It needs to be the sort of name that:

(a) fits into a list of other software processes;
(b) looks the part... and yet
(c) stands out from the crowd.

How about “Coal”? Not nearly good enough. It suggests latent heat, slow-burning embers, or a process which takes millions of years to complete; not to mention getting stuck beneath thousands of tons of rock strata. That doesn't sound very agile at all.

No, the ideal name must be much more dynamic, especially if it’s to sit side-by-side with the really trendy agile methods. How about “Maelstrom”? That’s more like it! It suggests movement, iterations, order emerging from chaos, that sort of thing.

Let’s try it in a list of brethren software processes in a typical half-baked article on agility:

"Agile development is taking the development world by storm! The number of projects adopting agile methods is matched only by the number of agile processes springing up to answer the flaws discovered in the last-most-recent agile process that sprang up. Some examples of agile development processes are: Scrum, Extreme Programming, ICONIX, DSDM, Maelstrom, Crystal Orange, Coal, and Adaptive Software Development."

I don’t know about you, but out of that list, Maelstrom definitely seems like the most interesting and dynamic of the processes. Its very name oozes the vital essence of agility.

So, now that we’ve got an incredibly cool name for our new process, we need to extrapolate the process itself to fit the name.

Dictionary.com defines maelstrom as:
1. A violent or turbulent situation: caught in the maelstrom of war.
2. A whirlpool of extraordinary size or violence.

Visually, this definition suggests that our new process will have much in common with Boehm’s Spiral method. The Spiral method looks like this:

Figure 1-1. The Spiral Development Process

The premise is that you start in the middle, then spin around in ever expanding circles until you understand the requirements etc. If nothing else, it could add an aerobic element to your early morning stand-up meetings.

Of course, we don’t want our new process to be too similar to the Spiral method: there must be something to distinguish it besides just the name. So what we could do is make our spiral, whoops maelstrom, start at the outside and work its way into the centre. Pure genius. Besides, that’s much more like how a maelstrom operates in real life.

So, here’s what we have so far:

Figure 1-2. The Maelstrom Development Process, In-Progress

What other characteristics of a maelstrom can we work into the process? Well, whirlpools don’t really finish in the middle: like, the water’s reached the centre so the whole mechanism just stops. That wouldn’t be very agile anyway, as in the agile world software is never done. So we need to represent the fact that each new iteration starts again at the outside edge. Again, this differentiates us from Spiral, in which one whiz around the spiral represents several iterations.
Also, a whirlpool speeds up as it nears the centre. Ships that are caught in its relentless grip, once they’ve spun around its rotating maw a couple of times, stand no chance. Their fate is sealed. So we need to reflect that in our process by stipulating that the nearer each iteration is to a release, the more resistance there will be to change. In other words, there’s no way back. This might not seem very agile, until you realise that there’ll be lots more ships (aka iterations) following quickly on behind.

Evolving competency is another area that we should address. Most processes operate on the premise that as the project progresses, the team’s knowledge and understanding of both the problem and the solution will evolve. Here’s another area where we can distinguish our process.

With Maelstrom, as each release gets to the centre of the whirlpool, it essentially "drops down the plughole" (getting the product out the door) and disappears into the end-user’s hands. The programmers never get to see each release again, which makes maintenance costs non-existent: a major advantage of the Maelstrom approach.

XPers might claim to have flattened Boehm’s cost-of-change curve, but Maelstrom goes one better: it’s actually reversed the curve!

So here’s the finished process diagram – ready to be copied and pasted into countless books and articles:

Figure 1-3. The Maelstrom Development Process

Finally, to virtually guarantee the casual citing of this process in future books and articles, we could define a whole series of Maelstrom-based processes, tailored to different kinds of projects. This is similar to the Crystal series which has Crystal Clear for small projects, Crystal Orange for medium-size projects, and so on.

With Maelstrom we could have Maelstrom Teacup for tiny, 1-person projects; Maelstrom Ship-Scuttler for medium-sized projects of 15-30 people; Maelstrom Pacific for big, big projects; and the ultimate, Maelstrom Big Scary Black Hole at the Centre of the Universe, for really big, monolithic government “sink-a-thons” for which million-dollar budget overruns are more or less expected.

Hopefully this article will spur you on to develop your own development methodology. There’s a process land-grab going on right now, so there’s still time to make your mark on the software scene. Good luck with your cool new process. To get you started, here are some potential cool process names to work with. Feel free to grab one and get started extrapolating your ideal process from the metaphorical opportunities abundant in your chosen name – but remember that for the purpose of getting your process regularly cited in pointless lists, the details don’t really matter, it’s the name – and the metaphor it implies – that count:

Octopus, Tiger Bright, Archipelago, Silver Blue, Inferno, Virile, Agile Dream, Kitchen Sink, Legless, Spaghetti Monster, Vorsprung Durch Technik, Cliffhanger, Coalface, Koolaid, Lunchbox, Spirogyra, Helix, Deoxyribonucleic Acid
In fact, genetics gives us a veritable three-course dinner of potential cool process names: Chromosome, Mitosis, Metaphase, Telophase, Interphase... hey, how about "Anaphasic Software Development"?

Or we could take our cue from Scrum, and use names from team sports formations: Huck, Huddle, Lineout, Halftime Oranges, that sort of thing. If you can find a sports-related name that also sounds like a slightly rude body part, then you just might give Scrum a run for its money.

But failing that, simply choosing an offensive body part or organ is also a worthy second best.

Good luck!

Resignation

2007-03-24T11:16:00.000-07:00

Working on our account must be good for your resume.

I found out this week that the Wunderman Project Manager has resigned. Clearly this is disappointing just because when you have someone good on the team it's a wrench to see them go.

The good news, I think, is that his departure isn't caused by working on our account. He has been offered something much bigger and better (i.e. more responsibility) elsewhere. No matter how attractive our project was, it was too good and offer to refuse.

And the other good news is that I am assured that the replacement, who has already been identified, has an excellent reputation and is equipped to handle the unique challenges of our account.

Apropos of nothing

2007-03-24T11:09:00.000-07:00

I was visiting a friend today who happens to be part of the B car team.

We were talking about work and travel and I discovered that the B car team have priority on the company flights. This explains why I've gone backwards on waitlists. Essentially it means they can book flight with only two days notice and jump ahead of other would be travellers.

I also discovered that Wednesday is B car day, whatever that means. The implication of this is that a lot of the team travel back and forth on this day making it difficult for any non B car person to book flights.

So, in summary, don't travel on company flights on a Wednesday. And just because you have a seat when you book, don't assume you'll have a seat when you fly.

Eating elephants

2007-03-19T13:44:00.000-07:00

There's an old question: "How do you eat an elephant?" and the answer: "One bite at a time."

This project is a bit of an elephant. It's huge, I mean really massive.

So we've broken the project down into chunks, which can be 'eaten' one at a time.

This means that we can manage these chunks more easily, because they become more manageable. It's easier than trying to control one huge beast.

It also makes it easier to define the project, again, because it's now made up of smaller elements.

This may sound like a small development but actually, the impact is considerable.

e-learning

2007-03-08T04:30:00.000-08:00

Had a great meeting with UpFront yesterday. For those of you who haven't encountered them, they're our supplier for dealer e-learning.

We have so many parts of the company preparing assets for delivery via all sorts of different channels that sometimes it can be difficult to keep track.

We were impressed by the e-learning tool, and especially by their turnaround times.

It was interesting to see that the films we are using of our latest models have originated with UpFront. One of the main reasons I wanted us to meet was to try and develop a more efficient way of sharing assets. It's a little adhoc at the moment but with better planning we can influence the UpFront creative work so that their material can be used for more than just dealer training.

A lot of the language used in copy for dealer training could easily be used in other channels like the National Web Portal. The great thing about consistency between copy used for dealers and copy used online for customers is that hopefully when the customer meets the salesperson, they're talking the same language.

I was also very impressed with the nifty flash editor they have developed. If any of you have any feedback on this tool I'd be interested.

Comments

2007-03-08T04:09:00.000-08:00

Sorry folks - didn't realise comments weren't allowed for non Google account holders. All fixed now - you can comment without creating an account. Much less hassle. :)

And thanks to Jane for pointing out the error of my ways.

Submitted names

2007-03-07T01:43:00.000-08:00

Name suggestions so far are below. Your comments will be taken into consideration:

Vistaview - Looking to the future from a great height.

REVolution

Encite - Engage. Insight. Incite. In site

Nucleus - Every living thing has a cell structure. In the heart of that cell structure is the nucleus. The nucleus holds most of the DNA of the organism and is responsible for maintaining the integrity of the cell. Not unlike our NWP. It should embody ‘Feel the Difference’ and we will be responsible for maintaining its integrity moving forward. Also – it refers to things living and breathing – like the NWP should be.

Architect

Ford epub - Ford electronic publisher toolkit

Ford InPuT - Ford Internet Publisher toolkit

Fimas or Fims - Ford internet management system

Firefox PEWS - Pan European Website Solution

Kandoo

Saphire

Lynx

Frisbee

Firefly XP

Firefly Plus

Firefly +

Phoenix

KISS - Kickin' Internet Services Solution

First

Go

Live

Ford Portal

Sierra

Capri

Flight

Sirus

FordUp - because this tool will be used by Ford to Update and Upload information in the web

CristalBox - because it will be in this tool where we are going to change what our customers experience behind their screen (the Cristal box)

TIAB - To Infinity And Beyond

samWARE - Site Authoring and Management WARE

BATFINC - Best Authoring Tool For InterNet Content

Bware+ - brochureware plus

Sware - Site Management Ware

Tinternet - site management for dummies

Tangerine dream

Tangerine

Orange

Orange blossom

Tango

Mushroom

Magic

Mississippi

Phoenix

Orange bureau

Sunrise

AURORA - which means New Beginning in all languages

Tailwind

Browserve

Fawkes (Ford Advanced World-wide-web Key Enterprise System) - As you may know, the phoenix in the book "Harry Potter" is called Fawkes. Phoenix rise from the ashes to something new and beautiful. They can carry very heavy loads, their tears can heal open wounds and their voice brings confidence to the honest and good people. All of this (somehow - ok it is a strech) also applies to Firefly Next Gen.

Fatwire

Feelwire

Feel-Ford

Absolute genius

Out of the Blue

Big Blue

Cruyff

Goldfish

Optimus Prime

Gestalt

Chrysalis

Meebo widget

2007-03-05T02:44:00.000-08:00

You may have noticed another change to the blog. I've added a meebo widget.

"What's a meebo widget?" I hear you ask.

Well it's a piece of code that enable the chat window in the top left of the screen to appear. If it says I'm online then you can chat to me. Obviously, you could pick up the phone, but I could be online when I'm out of the office.

If I ignore you then it could be because I'm not at work - or I'm in a meeting. Don't take it personally. :)

I know this probably won't get too much use but this took 5 minutes to set up. I think it's cool but then I love little technology tools like this.

New bits, tidbits

2007-03-03T13:42:00.000-08:00

You may have noticed an addition - Tidbits.

Google, once again, have come up with a useful tool. Google Reader is worth a look I think. It can be very tempting to stay and explore for a while but I'd only recommend this if you have developed the art of fast skim reading.

Google Reader is a new tool and it attempts to make it easier for you to track your areas of interest in the webspace. Check it out: http://www.google.com/reader/view/ but don't blame me if you get sucked in and find it difficult to escape.

Anyway, from the selection Google Reader served up to me I extracted a handful of interesting bits and bobs.

Blog, blog, blogging along

2007-03-03T12:37:00.000-08:00

I am relatively new to this blog lark. I started a personal blog over a year ago. After playing with a number of themes and locations I'm fairly settled with a solution that I've used since September.

Blogger, the system used for this blog, is very easy to use once you get the hang of it. I don't think it's 100% intuitive but it gives professional looking results for the minimum of effort and starting couldn't be easier.

To create your own blog, go to: http://www.blogger.com/start and follow the simple instructions. I'm happy to help if you get stuck, just comment here. Problems that you're experiencing could be useful for other people going through the same. It's good to share. :)

Project Review Board

2007-02-28T08:22:00.000-08:00

We have a Project Review Board who are our conscience and our guides. They also make the really difficult decisions that might require funding or a strategic change of direction.

This week they will be reviewing our status.

It's a difficult time when things can appear worse than they actually are. The project scope is still hazy which is reasonable given that we are still collecting business requirements, but it means that when time and money are estimated it makes sense to assume the worst. This means that cost and time estimates can look a little frightening. This is OK providing we understand that the estimates are 'worst case scenario' and things will improve.

It's also a difficult time because everyone is enthusiastic about what is possible. The air is full of ideas and creative thought. If we did everything on everybody's wish list we'd still be working on the project in 2020. But we don't want to disregard all of these things out of hand just because they might cost a bit more, or take a bit more time.

This is a time to collect all of the good stuff in preparation for the analysis that determines the what's in and what's out. That's where some of the really tough decisions will have to be made.

Can you bear the excitement?

2007-02-28T08:17:00.000-08:00

We've had a flurry of late submissions to the competition to name the new NWP tool.

If you want to submit a name I won't be consolidating and shortlisting until Monday or Tuesday of next week so you could probably squeeze a few extra submissions in.

Suggestions will be posted here next week. Watch this space.

Find out more

2007-02-21T13:35:00.000-08:00

There's going to be a nice little get together of the Marketing Managers in March. I think someone called Mickey is invited. Anyway this is a great opportunity for us to communicate our thoughts on the new system, which will definitely not be called Firefly. :)

The future is here

2007-02-15T14:58:00.001-08:00

A European Communications strategy meeting has helped us with the direction for the new site.

For those of you who haven't seen the Book of Surprises - you need to take five minutes to absorb it.

Google

2007-02-15T14:54:00.001-08:00

I met with Google and we had a lot to talk about, mainly questions, and mainly questions asked by me.

There was an interesting discussion about a Saturn promotion using Google Maps.

We discussed a Google search product that could be integrated into the new website to improve in site search. This is one of a few alternatives to improve search functionality.

Consumer Generated Content was mentioned because we want to know how other companies moderate this material.

There is Google Analytics, Google Base, Google Video, YouTube etc.

Additionally Google have conducted research among car buyers. No real revelations but research is always interesting.

Google really are taking over the world and this blog is only available to you because of the mighty Google.

Features and Specs

2007-02-15T12:04:00.001-08:00

One thing that research says again and again is that Features &Specs is an area that we need to improve. We have made a half hearted attempt last year and this but frankly it has barely moved the needle and, it simply isn't good enough.

I think we would be failing abysmally if we launched with carry over functionality here.

Fortunately, we don't have to. Burrows have suggested a data warehouse solution that could feed the new Content Management Tool (whatever it is called). The timing is compatible and the budget is something I'll endevour to find.

It doesn't matter what the project is, there's never enough time or money. One thing I try to keep in mind is something someone once said "Lack of money has never got in the way of a good idea."

Configurator

2007-02-15T11:48:00.001-08:00

We had a couple of meetings on Configurator. The first challenge was to understand how Configurator works. There are a scary number of systems involved in producing the class leading toy that we perhaps take for granted.

We discovered that we can consider playing around with the tool and integrating the application on more than just a surface level. We're still not sure whether that's what we want to do but it is important for us to understand the possibilities.

It's also worth remembering that what we have is liked by those who use it and I am very aware of the phrase "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". However there could be a stunning and irresistable solution that makes it all worthwhile - it's too early to say.

We also determined which bits of the Configurator puzzle can be available for change, and which cannot.

New name

2007-02-15T09:49:00.000-08:00

We need a new name.

Firefly is history, or will be history once we've launched our brave new world.

The last newsletter asks people for suggestions and we've had a few. Some are better than others.

It's a competition and the best name, i.e. the name that is chosen, will win a prize.

Some contestants are keeping their powder dry. Brendan, at the last count, had 36 suggestions. That's either greedy or very enthusiastic.

One thing I do know - the winning suggestion will not be Firefly.

Several kick off meetings

2007-02-15T09:30:00.000-08:00

The first thing we did was to meet with the Fatwire team. It was a revelation.

Fatwire is the software that will drive our new websites.

Having worked with Firefly for a while I have become used to it's restrictions. Naturally most of the questions we were firing at the Fatwire team related to limitations we experience with the current system. I don't think there was anything we wanted to be able to do that didn't seem possible in the new system. If there's anything you would have asked the Fatwire team, leave a comment and we'll ask for you.

The next thing we did was have a kick off meeting to introduce the key content and application stakeholders to one another. Included in this meeting was a 'quick and dirty' user experience thought starter. This caused great debate and we had to stop ourselves from designing the answer, before we knew what the question was. The biggest applications impacted by this meeting were Configurator and Features and Specs and there were follow up meetings arranged to dig into the detail of these applications.

Then we needed an IT kick off meeting. This was an attempt to nail down more of the detail of what will be done, by whom. It's always tricky to do this before the scope of the project has been identified and before completion of the initiation phase things are still a little hazy. One of the key outcomes of this meeting was the need to mesh the IT and Wunderman work plans because as they were presented in the kick off meeting, there was a huge disconnect.

Somewhere in the midst of all of these meetings we had funding sign off - sighs of relief all round.