Posted by Michael Lovitt
Sat, 14 Apr 2007 17:53:00 GMT
I’m writing this blog post on a plane bound for Alexandria, Virginia, where tomorrow we’ll kick off the first major project that Handwire has accepted in over a year. Handwire has been alive but mostly dormant for many months, but we’re about to wake it up again. The company is now composed of three people, three partners, Pablo, Trei, and me. And starting this month, Handwire is the technology partner of SportsBlogs Nation. We’ll be developing the custom software to power their massive and growing network of sports-centric blogs.
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Posted by Kristina B
Thu, 16 Mar 2006 15:47:00 GMT
I just read a good summary of the general message at SXSW Interactive (which echoed my own summary):
If there was one overarching message at this year’s conference, I think it was this: Businesses or services have customers, clients and/or users. And those are people. Human beings. The way of speaking to and otherwise communicating with those people is changing. The press release is boring. People would much rather read a blog. Corporate-speak is a thing of the past. There are ways to stay professional and better engage customers. Because no one is passionate or really excited about a company that they don’t relate to. The key is passionate users. With so many options for consuming services, it is key to incite passion in customers, clients and users. They should be proud to “buy your t-shirt”—believe in your culture, message and persona. It is the experience that sells. It is the experience that differentiates.
It’s that last sentence along with a question that we heard during the Fried /
Coudal keynote that’s got me thinking.
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Tags business, handwire, marketing, sxsw, sxsw06, sxswi | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by Kristina B
Wed, 15 Mar 2006 02:57:00 GMT
We’ve all been going to panels and parties, and though we are very close to achieving “plum tuckered” status, we’re keeping it alive for the rest of Interactive and then (gasp)... music. And when I say “it” I mean “us”. I, for one, both look forward to this time of year and dread it. Being an Austinite takes endurance sometimes.
Anyway, a bit about the panels we’ve seen. The general consensus in the office is that the Creating Passionate Users panel on Saturday was one of the best panels that any of us have seen so far. It scored not only on content but delivery. Kathy Sierra really did a bang-up job at conveying useful, intelligent perspectives in an engaging way.
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Tags austin, bugwire, dodgeball, handwire, kathysierra, meetup, socialite, sxsw, sxsw06, sxswi | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by Kristina B
Sat, 11 Mar 2006 22:08:00 GMT
Handwire will be making an appearance at SXSWi with an exciting announcement. We’re finally going to follow the advice of numerous friends and partners and launch Bugwire as a product.
A while back, Handwire was casting about for bug tracking software that met our needs. We wanted something that didn’t include a thousand other features to crowd the interface and increase the bill. We wanted something simple, low cost and with minimal setup time/effort. We looked and looked and found… nothing quite right.
Around the same time, Rails was gaining momentum and respect in the development community. We were interested, but understandably wary of using a nascent platform on client projects. We decided to apply our curiosity about Rails to the bug tracking problem, and Bugwire was born.
In designing the UI, we treated ourselves the way we would treat a client. It was probably the easiest requirements gathering experience we’ve ever had! Quite simply, our software PMs, testers, tech leads and programmers needed a system to queue up tasks and bugs. It needed to be available to all parties in realtime. We wanted each bug or task to allow file uploads. It needed to be capable of handling a back and forth discussion about each task or bug. Finally, it needed to allow clients to use it without showing them information about all the projects in the system. Visually, we wanted a clear, uncrowded interface.
Within about a month, we had exactly what we needed. Because we’re good like that, and because Rails really is a “rapid development platform”. We’ve been using it, tweaking it and sharing it with our partners and contractors ever since. The response has been resoundingly positive. It’s funny because Bugwire was truly meant to be an internal tool and experiment in Rails, but it’s turned into something so useful for us that we might as well share it and find out if others like it as much as we do.
We still have some work to do to make it available online as a subscription service. Keep an eye on this blog, as we’ll post updates, screenshots and other information here in the coming weeks. In the meantime, you can sign up for an invitation to be an early tester at www.bugwire.com. Sign up in the next 2 weeks for a special SXSW gift!
Tags bugwire, handwire, rails, sxsw, sxsw06 | no comments | no trackbacks
