WORKING... FINALLY!
Is it possible to build a web application that really fits people needs? Of course you can: to know what people need you must ask them.
This is how the idea of WorkOutLoud - a new product built with ruby on rails - was born.
WorkOutLoud will share its construction process on the web with the users.
Do you want to know what WorkOutLoud is all about?
Do you want to know what WorkOutLoud is all about?
Sep 28, 2008
A first draft of WorkOutLoud funtionalities
Hi everybody,
today I'm thinking about what functionality to include in WorkOutLoud, and it's a good idea to begin reminding myself of the main goal of this Web app.
Goal: "Working ... finally!", which means "Working well" or "Improving productivity to have more spare time".
People will use WorkOutLoud primarily because they want to be more concentrated on their job during work hours. Even if this could seem obvious, most of us know that it's not easily realized. Colleagues, email, and now social networking too, can become a productivity killer.
Let's go to the list of functions I'm evaluating to include in WorkOutLoud - hopefully with your contribution:
- Let people fill out their Work Log. This is the main functionality of the entire system, and it consists of a micro blogging channel. Users trace their working activity, leaving others to access that information (Q: public or regulated by a granting system?!)
- Allow people to create To-do lists
- Let them publishing small messages on a public and/or private Bulletin Board
- Allow people to send Sync Messages to others inside the system (probably the messages would have to pop up instantaneously)
- Provide a deadly simple tool to create small Notes or Memos
- A built in Live Chat to allow people to attend remote meetings
Probably version 1 of this application will only have the first module, the Work Log. Everything else could be added thereafter.
Note: I'm thinking to use the work "klog" to refer to the Work Log (as Web Log has becoming "blog")
Let me know what you think, comments are welcome :)
Sep 26, 2008
Which target for you killer app?
If you've got an idea and you decide to put time and energy on it, it's really important to identify soon what shape you want to give to your business and what target your initiative will have. Let's suppose you choose to set up a revolutionary service you can deliver through the Internet, using a web application that you have invented. Before you start coding or designing anything, it's really important you take a moment to consider how answering to some fundamentals questions. The first question you always face is what your target users are.
You could project your initiative to address consumers people or to address business professionals.
Which one to choose?
Remember: targeting business users is easier than targeting consumer ones. If you design and set up a useful service through the web and you think you can make some money renting it, it's definitely better and safer trying to bet on business users, if only they can appreciate the opportunity to save some money and rent your software instead of buying a package or implementing their in house solution.
For example, to provide your company with a calendar sharing solution, you could choose Microsoft Exchange. That can be generally considered a good choice, even if it's not exactly the cheapest one. On the other hand, the Internet is full of calendar solutions that can represent a good alternative to the adoption of Exchange. You can typically evaluate them for free on a period of at least 30 days, and then deciding to rent them for few bucks a month.
Deciding to provide services to the consumer market is of course possible but definitely tougher. Think about YouTube, Flickr, Google or to the new born Twitter. They all are targeting the consumer market and they are probably among the most famous digital known brands. They have many things in common: they all received several millions of dollars in VC funding, they all have a huge market value, they haven't understood how they could make money until they get big, and even if they have payable subscription plans, they make the real money through advertising.
Why? Because normal people have been used to have access to a great amount of Internet services for free.
All these initiatives focus their efforts on setting up a community, and that's a costly thing to do. You need infrastructure, you need bandwidth, you need web designers, software programmers, project managers, marketing people and you need money to be spent on making your brand well known.
Do you know what happen when people put a big quantity of money in your company? You lose control of what you created.
Want to build the next billion company? Good luck, it's more likely you win the national lottery.
On the contrary, deciding to go create simple but effective business product can make you on the right way to set up a 1 million dollar company in a few years (if you a re lucky) - as perfectly explained by David Henemeir Hansson at the Start Up School 2008 last April at the Stanford University.
Sep 24, 2008
Twitter vs WorkOutLoud
Tools like Twitter are revolutionary. They are changing the way people learn, collaborate and socialize and represent the evolution of tools like Blogger, Movable Type and WordPress. Twitter was born from the same guy that first made money with a blogging platform, Evan William. Twitter is the easiest way to "share the moment", using less than 140 characters to tell others what are you doing or ... thinking, wondering, etc. Twitter is a general purpose tool, not specifically thought for business, nevertheless it's core idea can be rethought and applied to professional needs.
The main difference between professional and consumer targets is that ordinary people use tools like Twitter to be notified about small and often useless notes published by interesting people. They want to be alerted as soon as their friends "tweet".
Business people want to publish what they do if only to avoid other people interfering in their workday activity.
Twitter was created to socialize. WorkOutLoud is conceived to help you work well.
The main difference between professional and consumer targets is that ordinary people use tools like Twitter to be notified about small and often useless notes published by interesting people. They want to be alerted as soon as their friends "tweet".
Business people want to publish what they do if only to avoid other people interfering in their workday activity.
Twitter was created to socialize. WorkOutLoud is conceived to help you work well.
Sep 23, 2008
What's WorkOutLoud
Everyone has experienced, at one time or another, how much more productive work can be during other people's vacations. The office is empty and you can really be focused and concentrated on what you have to do.
No interruptions, no one entering your office or calling you on the phone. Every time you are interrupted by others while you are working on a task, you lose concentration, you have to start again from the beginning, and no one seems to note that. Why?
Additionally, your boss and your colleagues need to be informed about your work, if only to be able to do theirs. This fact has made me think a lot, because there must be an easier way to keep people posted about your past and current activities, without being distracted so much. In the end it is really simple, you have to notify what you are doing frequently and in a standard way. You must publish that data if you can. That information must be accessible to all the people you need to keep up to speed.
That's what WorkOutLoud is all about.
This blog is the place where I will share the journey of analyzing and implementing what such a kind of web application could require. I hope to get suggestions and some help from all of you.
Ruby on Rails is the technology I will use to get the work done because it is the best framework available right now (and because I love Ruby programming language too). It's a technology developed by a European software developer, David Heinemeier Hansson, released in open source on the Internet 4 years ago. I hope to be able to share some ideas, thoughts, questions and code very soon.
-- Stay tuned
