Steve Johnson of Pragamatic Marketing‘s presentation (see below) at Business of Software offers direct insight into a developer’s work struggles. His points border on the edge of pessimism, but I can attest many of them are very real. If you’re on the business (especially sales) side of a company you may want to initially resist his points and humorous digs directed at non-tech roles and actions. However, Steve hit on several points that are worth highlighting.

• There is a perceived and sometimes real divide between your technology group and the the rest of the company. Specifically, between those selling, supporting and building the product.
• Communication reigns supreme. Many of Steve’s issues could be resolved with better communication (i.e. – give the dev team access to all parties involved).
• Even if you don’t assign a project manager/leader… someone is still doing it.
• Software/product development cycles don’t have to be adversarial, but it does require time.
• Salespeople need to consult the dev team BEFORE making promises to clients.
• Developers understand quantitative data. Show them the numbers or dollars for feature requests not one solitary prospect’s wish list.

I realize an hour is a long time to watch a video online, but if you work or plan on working with developers it’s worth some review. Steve also has some helpful files on product frameworks and gap analysis.

• Twitter – Some love it, others just don’t get it. I’m firmly in the first group. I find great links, have established new connections, keep myself amused and easily keep up with existing relationships. I’m going to start pulling my daily twitter posts into this blog. It won’t replace my blog, but will give you much more insight to my world and network. If you’re on Twitter, follow me and hopefully we’ll find new ways to help each other.
• Video, video & more video – For over two years, I’ve been engrossed in web video, its best uses for brands, monetization and distribution. I’ve blogged about Daily Idea and Almost Mediocre as my two video properties, but many more opportunities have arisen. We’ve launched another web show for PopCrunch (warning: explicit language). Ping me for more information or if you have ideas for web video.
• Startup work – Rob and I really changed gears with our startup and have landed our first major customer. We’re built a social platform for local media companies. Have you seen your local newspaper, tv or radio station’s web site lately? Good, then you know there’s a market.

I thank you for sticking around and it’s good to be back. Even though at times I live by my calendar and task list, this quote summed up my eighteen days of absence.

“Calendars are for careful people, not passionate ones.”
- Chuck Sigars

Flickr photo credit: Leo Reynolds

Revver Video Permalink

After seeing the successes of AM, I took some personally time-consuming and worklife-altering steps to create a web show. I bought a Mac, a camcorder and found a host to start shooting what we called Moxy TV. The learning curve was just insane! The Mac wasn’t and still at times is not intuitive, but I flew to LA and shot my first show with my AM guys’ help (good idea). I waited until I got back to Kentucky to start editing (bad idea) and after 15 hours of trial and error, I edited the first show. The result… not very good. I quickly learned audio was very important, which meant buying more equipment. I scoured many forums for how to shoot, edit and publish video. Since everything was new, there was no quick tutorial that solved all my issues. I learned by trial and error and many, many hours.

Four months later, Rob and I decided there were opportunities with a daily web show and after considering many options, we decided Daily Idea was our best concept (think lifehacker meets video with more fun). We knew the quality level had to be raised and while I enjoyed working on the videos, it wasn’t the best role for me to play. We set out to find a director that could execute our vision with creativity and efficiency. Finding videographers was easy, but finding a director you want to work closely with who can share in our vision and still be creative was seemingly impossible. Most startups need some luck and this time it bounced our way by finding Jay. After we found Jay, we snatched up two great writers (Chad and Jason). We auditioned several people and Jay picked Nikki Key to be our host and that’s been a great fit as well.

Fast forward to today, we’re in week four of being “public” and we’ve quickly passed the four figure mark of viewers. We’re happy with the growth of viewers and this week we have our first episode featuring a fast-rising name in the valley.

Here’s a few things you can do to get involved.

1. Watch the show below about how to ace a job interview
2. Leave a comment below on what you think
3. Grab our iTunes feed
4. Add us as a friend on MySpace
5. Join our Facebook group
6. Suggest an idea for the show

I take for granted most have access to a fast connection. I’m on vacation this week and with a terribly slow connection, I can’t upload my video interviews (arrgghh) and can’t download my feeds from iTunes. I had regulated myself to catching up this weekend and with today being my last in Hilton Head, it RAINS! No more golf, but I found a coffeeshop and started catching up. The biggest thing I’ve missed came from Andy Swan then saw others agreed (TechCrunch, Fred Wilson, Lost Remote, etc) and they’re all correct… WebbAlert is off to a good start. They have a nice formula for a good web show… great production, nice topics and a good host. Only drawback is they’re in a super competitive content space. I watch three other web shows that cover similar topics and time will tell if WebbAlert keeps me.

In my interview with Guy Kawasaki, we discuss how submissions on Truemors get to the top and why some get booted off for blatant self-promotion. Still not convinced Truemors can help, well listen closely to Guy’s insights and you’ll see they apply to almost all user voting sites. (Digg, Reddit, etc).