Right on the heels of my Quantcast posting; I’ve decided to give Quantcast some respect for helping me figure out which of the microblogging services are on the rise. My gut told me Twitter and it looks like my gut was correct.

Initially I thought this chart was showing me the rise in interest in Twitter and the adoption of it by so many new users. However, ff we make this chart relative it even suggests that Pownce and Jaiku are loosing steam / users.

Is there anything wrong with Pownce and Jaiku? Jaiku yes, Pownce not at all. Jaiku was solid before Google acquired them but it has taken forever for Google to re-open Jaiku for the general public. Pownce on the other hand is a solid service and sometimes seems easier to use and more reliable then Twitter. Kevin Rose and gang are no strangers to high-use sites and I believe Pownce will compete better with Twitter over time.

Tonight Jason Fried from 37signals spoke at the Oriental Theater in east Denver. He discussed everything from client deliverables to the 37signals four-day workweek. In essence, Jason’s talk boiled down to three key points:

1. Don’t work on hard problems. Break them down and keep things simple.
2. Avoid distractions (open office environments, meetings, e-mail, etc.) get a site or product out of your head and into production ASAP.
3. Deliverables are bullshit, clients don’t care, the end product is what matters.

First off, I want to say I have great respect for 37signals and their impact on the industry. Having the chance to talk with Jason about issues such as: stopping IE6 support, disregarding Photoshop in the design process, and scaling with growth, was an absolute treat. Clearly the team at 37signals is one of the most innovative and talented in the industry.

However, I think 37signals dominance in the web products field has distorted their ability to critique the client-based approach. And while I don’t have knowledge to speculate specifically on day to day client interaction, I do have a few things to offer from a developer perspective.

Team chemistry is important.

First, people working from home all the time can be harmful to the group chemistry. Jason and team do a huge amount of work via telecommuting. Relying on campfire, screen sharing, and video chat interactions for the bulk of their communication. They feel this helps minimize distractions and keep people productive.

I’m not sold this is the way to go. I think it’s hard to truly feel connected and dedicated to your team if you don’t spend real time with them. When’s the last time you became really good friends with someone without spending some serious face-to-face time with them? For me it’s never happened, not once. And as great as chatting online is, it’s not the same as being in the same room and hashing things out. You miss the subtle face gestures, the inside jokes, the bantering, and the all around comradery that happens in the workplace. Part of the reason Imulus does great work is because we have dedication to one another. Even on days when I’m completely out of wack mentally I still find myself focused on helping the team. Why? Because I’m relied on to help create the great stuff we build. And I trust those I work with to do the same. As ridiculous as our office gets sometimes in the end we get shit done and we do it for each other and ourselves.

Deliverables have a purpose, it just needs to be refined sometimes.

Second, I don’t buy that all deliverables are bullshit. Just as some companies like to skip Photoshop (37signals) and go straight to coding, and others (Apple) like to make mockups pixel perfect it’s impossible to say that one solution is better than the other. Yet, we can agree that certain processes work better for certain people as well as certain projects.

Let’s talk about the way we work. Imulus’ basic approach is to offer the client a timeline, design brief, wire frame, and mockup of the final interface. Now, it’s important to realize that we haven’t always done it this way. In fact, for some time before I came to Imulus the wireframe process was basically nixed. What was the result? Instead of 5 hours spent reworking things in the wire frame process, 25 hours was spent reworking things in the development process. Look, we aren’t naïve, we recognize that clients change their mind and get new ideas all the time. However, we’ve found that most of this re-thinking takes place in the wire frame stage. And therefore we save hours of coding changes by altering the approach up front. In essence, if you’re building a car and the frame is faulty, why wait until the upholstery’s getting put on the seats to fix it?

Still, we know it’s a strong possibility that some of our deliverables are blown out of proportion. And as most firms do we will continue to collaborate and narrow down our inefficiencies. However, we have found that some deliverables are an extremely important step, and just because some projects or companies don’t require them doesn’t mean they aren’t important.

In conclusion

Clearly 37signals has clout and track record to support the way they work. And regardless of how that alters the Imulus process we love hearing about it. It’s phenomenal that they have so much passion behind what they do. I hope over time we can refine our own process to the point they have. Until then it’s great hearing a second opinion about things.

I’m from Philly so when I say any sandwich from a small deli in Estes Park, Colorado is better then anything I’ve had back East (Pat’s Steak Sandwich excluded) then you know I have to be serious. I’m talking about DeLeo’s Deli, recognized as one of the very best sandwich shops by The Food Network. Earlier this summer I had “The Big Reuboni”

Delicious corned beef topped with kraut, horseradish, banana peppers and Russian dressing, and finished with imported Swiss cheese…”To die for!”

Aside from the unbelievable menu selections; I think what is even more impressive is DeLeo’s customer service and passion for his work. Owner, Tom DeLeo, a transplant from Connecticut, is easily one of the most entertaining and charismatic people I’ve ever met. In this last visit, Tom remembered me from visiting the year before. I was floored that he recognized me, I have a tough enough time remembering my own Uncles’ names. While enjoying my Reuboni I realized it wasn’t just me that he recognized, Tom greeted everyone who entered like they were his best friend.

There are several factors which make DeLeo’s Deli a winning mix and hopefully a longtime staple of Estes Park. I personally believe that like his terrific sandwiches, these ingredients are the key to running a highly successful business.

• Passion! This guy loves creating sandwiches.
• Good Story. He’s an ex-insurance executive who was disenchanted with that way of life and was looking for something a bit simpler.
• Love of People. He adapts to every visitor and brings a smile to all who visit. It’s as if he can instantly read each customer like a book.
• Great Product. The sandwiches alone could sell this place. Tom could be the “sandwich Nazi and people would still frequent his deli.

I love my job, I’m excited about what we do, where we are heading and the team I have to work with. However, sometimes I think it’s really easy to get caught up in the daily grind. People like Tom remind me to keep it real; to wear the passion on my sleeve and throughly interact with every customer from the heart.

Tom, thanks for making a kick-ass sandwich and keeping it real, even if my Philly friends have now disowned me.

Last Thursday we had several hours of straight interviews, all but one of them were outstanding candidates. The first round of interviews for us is a “get to know” session. In 1 hour we have to get at the essence of the person. We actually put a good chunk into the person’s “blink factor.” If we aren’t feeling just a little bit of love in the first 2 minutes, then the candidate is going into an uphill battle.

After the “blink factor” we really want to know the person. How did they come into their career choice? What are they passionate about? Are they multi-dimensional? Are they a ridged or free-thinker? etc… Then we start analyzing the skill and experience level. Resumes don’t amount to much; just because a candidate lists every single program they’ve worked on doesn’t mean they are qualified for the job. Likewise a track-record of short job stints doesn’t mean they hop from company to company. In fact, one of the candidates in the last round of interviews didn’t list a job which lasted longer then 1 year. However, during the interview it became clear this candidate was very passionate about his line of work and the stints were not by choice but by circumstance.

The next part of the evaluation is the 4 staple questions which apply to everyone we hire at Imulus:
1. How do you rate your organization skills?
2. From 1 to 10, where are you with your writing skills and can we see samples?
3. Do you like formal meetings or ad-hoc gatherings?
4. How do you like to be managed?

Sure, they can lie their way through these questions but if they make it back to the second interview then the WHOLE OFFICE will have a shot at uncovering the real truth. At that point someone will smell bullshit. Anyone at Imulus has veto power, it needs to be a unanimous decision.

The last part of the evaluation is asking the question, is this person the best fit for the job? I would have hired several candidates if we were looking for an mid-level .NET person or Web developer, but we are looking for senior level experience. With just interviews and references to go off of it’s often tough to gauge how the candidate will respond to a real-working environment with our office dynamics, workload and management style. This is the part of the interview where I believe you have to trust your gut. I’m a big believer in quantifying data and looking at things scientifically but sometimes that feeling in the pit of your stomach is often the best judge of a situation.

I’ll guess you’ll see shortly who we’ve decided on.

In the last few years we’ve had a handful of clients ask us to adopt a performance based payment model. Usually these are start-up companies who are cash strapped and looking for an alternative to paying our service fees. I’m intrigued by the idea of performance based web work however I’ve yet to find a model which I believe is both fair and incentive driven.

I’m still trying to find the right solution. I’m not sure what works best, but I have a pretty good idea of which models I think will tank. Here are a few situations which we’ve been confronted with.

Ecommerce Web Site
The client was offering us a small percentage of overall sales along with a partial reduction in our regular hourly rate. The client was hoping that we would be incentivized by the offer they made us. There are several problems with this model for both sides.

1. What about offline sales, phone calls, emails or faxed orders? We can track the online sales but we have no visibility into the offline orders.
2. How competitive is the product / offering? We have no control over the price of the product or which products are in-stock. We could dedicate plenty of effort building a great system but if the client’s products are overpriced or lack selection then sales revenue won’t materialize.
3. How much is the client willing to pay for marketing? Our agency can do the SEO / SEM work but ultimately SEM and online advertising incur real costs, and not just man-hours.
4. What is the level of marketing they are willing to pay for and who has final say in terms of strategy and creative?
5. Our team could sit back and collect commissions for the client’s sale efforts. That wouldn’t be right, but under this sort of arrangement it could happen. Or vice-versa where the client could get away with doing nothing but filling orders.
6. What is the cap on the number of hours we would commit to each month? If we are spending 80 hours each month and sales commissions only equal $2,200 then our effective rate would be $27.50 / hr. If we agreed on a base hourly rate plus commission then perhaps hours wouldn’t be as important.

Lead Generation Website
In this scenario a client approached us to reduce our rate in favor of a lead generation forumula which incentivized us for creating “qualified leads” in Salesforce.com. To complicate the scenario we would be working with the client and other third parties including an SEO firm, Content Writer, and a PR Agency. The arrangement gave us 4 tiers by which our monthly charges were either reduced or increased based on performance.

We had an existing retainer in place which discounted our hourly rate by 20% for the commitment from the client for a fixed minimum of hours dedicated per month. This proposed program would start us at a reduced rate which is 40% less then what we typically charge. From that, if we perform well enough, we could make 20% back, bringing us to our current retainer rate. On the other hand, if the performance dropped, our hourly rate could go down to 50% of our regular rates. In my mind that is not an incentive, it’s a carrot and stick.

The proposed formula work like this:
Qualified Salesforce.com Leads / Total Unique Visitors = % Conversion

Here are the problems with this formula and the overall scenario.

1. What if the budget for SEM goes up and the third party SEM company starts driving 15% more traffic, but the traffic isn’t qualified? It will dilute the conversion percentage.
2. What is a Qualified Lead? In Salesforce.com we can drive leads but the aspect of qualifying them is arbitrary. Ultimately, that aspect comes down to trust but it sure would be nice to remove arbitrary valuation.
3. The SEO & PR companies are going to have the highest influence of the company’s natural rankings. If these two players hurt or hinder traffic then we suffer as a result.

We counter offered the client a true incentive program which kept our retainer rate at a discount of 20% while suggesting the incentive to reach full rates if we exceeded expectations. If we knocked expectations out of the ballpark, then we would be rewarded with a 10% increase to our regular rates, making work in this client particularly attractive. Unfortunately that suggestion was not accepted.

Does anyone else have similar stories to share? In browsing the web I found these.

GraphicPush: Commission Based Payment for Web Design

Manifest: The First Step in Creating Passive Income