Introducing Notifire.me

I'm really happy to announce today that I'm launching a new web application called Notifire. It's an add-on to the web-based group chat software Campfire by 37signals, and it's a great way to add live chat support to any website.

So, what does it do?

The best way to see it in action is to check out the video at http://notifire.me/videos, but it's essentially a way to constantly monitor a Campfire chat room and get an IM or SMS text notification when someone enters the room. The IM includes a link to the room so you can just click on it and immediately begin chatting with the person that entered.

Why this app?

A little while back I started looking for an easy way to add live chat support to my website. There are a lot of solutions out there, but they're all really robust solutions for larger companies that are almost more like call center clients - tracking when people are on and off line, who's available, routing IM's, etc. These are fine, but they're more than I really needed, require yet another chat client, and are usually at least a couple hundred dollars per year.

Campfire makes it really easy to set up a public chat room, but I would sometimes forget to open that room in a browser window. Or, if I had the window open, I would miss the little sound notification that appears. And that's really the "problem" I set out to solve. All I really needed was a slightly better notification for when someone entered a public Campsite room.

Notifire does exactly this, and if I do say so myself, it does it brilliantly.

The technology behind the app

There is one portion of the application that constantly monitors your campfire chat room. When someone enters, it sends an IM or SMS message by leveraging Tropo, an absolutely awesome single API by Voxeo that lets developers integrate Voice, text messaging, and "normal" Instant messages (Gtalk, Yahoo, AIM, MSN, Jabber and even Twitter) into their applications.

Basically, Notifire constantly monitors the room, and when someone enters the room, uses tropo to actually send the message to people that have been set up to receive them.

Behind the UI design

This is the second Ruby on Rails application I've built, and I'm really happy with how it's turned out. (If you follow this blog, you know I've been leading software projects for years, but just recently started learning Rails). I purposely made a very minimalistic user interface on the application, because the idea behind this app is really to make your existing UI's (IM client and Campfire) work just a tad bit better for you.

This isn't to say I didn't spend time on the UI. In fact, I spent a lot of time trying to get the main page of the app where a user sets up a robot (a room monitor) just right. I worked very hard to only show relevant information to the user, while also not requiring them to move in and out of a lot of different pages.

I also borrowed heavily from some concepts that I love on the iPad - that sometimes the best way to tell a user what to do is with words - not graphics. I'm certainly not the only one to notice this - and there's been a bunch of discussion on the web about it. So, I challenged myself to create a UI that used only words and text fields. No graphics allowed. (John Gruber wrote an article about studies that Apple has done on UI design that I wanted to link to but couldn't find. Know where it is?)

Special thanks to Voxeo

I was only able to build this app because of the great team over at Voxeo, the company behind tropo. Voxeo has been a client of mine for years, and I've always really loved working with them. When I told them about my idea and the app I wanted to make they loved it, and played a huge part in helping to make it happen.

The whole thing with tropo is that it helps developers make their applications better. Because Voxeo wants people to use the Tropo platform, they're happy to help developers with their apps. A guy named Mark Silverberg was assigned to my project - and working with him was just awesome.

I know I'm not exactly impartial. I have a relationship with Voxeo that goes back over five years. They were one of my first clients when I started Ideal Project Group and they remain a customer today.

But I wouldn't put it on my blog if I didn't mean it. The gang over there is great, the technology is awesome, and if you're a developer looking to add voice, sms, or IM's to your apps, you should really check tropo out.

It's version 1.0

The hardest part about launching an application is doing so knowing that some bugs are going to pop up. There are a few more tweaks that I'd like to make, and there are some things I know need to be done slightly better. Specifically, I want to add some javascript to one page to make activating a robot a bit smoother that it is now. We've also got to work a bit more on constantly maintaining a stream to Campfire. It's working great, but there are occasions where a connection has been lost and not restored. We're working on perfecting this - but I still felt the app was ready for a release today. In the meantime - trust notifire - but verify it's working every now and then.

I'll be working hard to fix any issues that pop up, so if you check it out and notice anything funky, please send me an email at andrew@idealprojectgroup.com.

A final word

Anyone who has read this blog knows that I'm a huge fan of 37signals. I recommend their products often, I've read their books, and they've inspired me in a lot of ways. I've listend to Jason Fried give talks about business, I've watched videos of Ryan Singer teaching web design, and I've taken to heart advice given to developers by David Heinemeier Hansson.

Because of this, part of me is worried that my application will just look like a cheap knock-off. As if it's just me trying to copy them and failing to do so. I hope instead though that people see an application that was inspired by them, but is still very much me. And, if introducing this product helps tell more people about their products that would make me really happy - because it'd kind of be a way for me to say thanks.

What this project represents to me is that very often the best way to make something new or better, is to simply connect a few things that already exist.

By connecting 37signals, tropo, and popular chat networks, I truly believe that I've introduced one of the best ways to add live chat support to a website.

I hope you like it.

Remembering Cameron

Two weeks ago marked the one year anniversary of the death of my cousin Cameron, who was killed in a tragic bus accident down by Eastern Illinois University.

My family is very close, and his death has obviously had a huge impact on all of us. At about 11 years my junior though, our age gap was just beginning to close, and so my personal relationship with him wasn't particularly close. Certainly not in the way that his good friends or siblings are close to him.

I've always had a soft spot for, and been close to, his parents though. His father, my mother's brother, was the youngest of my Aunts and Uncles. When we were growing up he was always goofing around, cracking jokes, and basically acting like one of the kids.

A couple years ago, I asked him one thing that he knew now that he wished he knew at my age. His answer: he wished he would have known how fast the years between 30 and 50 go by.

I've been thinking about all of this lately because it represents the paradox of our lives. On the one hand, pretty much whatever we're doing probably doesn't mean all that much. Not when compared to the relationships with those that we're closest to.

Yet, at the same time, whatever we're doing matters a lot. Because it's what we've decided to do with the limited time that we do have. And to waste this, to "muddle through" with anything, is a complete waste.

How many people are still spending two or three hours a day in a car just so they can sit in front of a computer? How many people are settling for "careers" that make them miserable and steal time from their families? How many people aren't taking a chance because they're afraid to fail, when all failing means is that they then get to try something else?

When Cameron was alive, he had the generosity to register as an Organ Donor. As a result, when he died, countless lives were changed. His heart, lungs, liver, kidneys and other organs all went on to save others. And of course, that meant that still others didn't lose someone they might have otherwise.

How would we live our lives if the heart that was beating in our chest was that of someone else's child? What would happen if we lived that way now?

All us are prone to getting stuck at times, to losing some direction, and are tempted to settle for mediocrity. For me, the only way I can honor those that I've lost, is to remember that the time we have is extremely short, to take the lessons of loss seriously, and to remember them constantly.

So remember, whatever you're working on, it doesn't matter. But also, it matters a lot.

If you're not already registered to be an organ donor, you should be. It takes only a minute and you can do it online at http://donatelife.net.

Podcast Episode Seven - Interviewing a new author

In this episode of "What can a project manager learn from x?", I interviewed Tracey Bianchi, author of Green Mama - The guilt free guide to saving the planet.

I'm really grateful that Tracey joined me on the podcast. 

We had the opportunity to talk about the creative process involved with writing the book, the path she took to get the book published, and some of the main things she learned along the way.  You can check out Tracey's website at TraceyBianchi.com and follow her on twitter at @traceybianchi.

As always, you can check out the podcast in itunes or listen directly on the site by using the player below.

Thanks again Tracey.

We're all to blame

We've entered the second month of the oil gusher under the Gulf of Mexico spewing somewhere between 25,000 and 100,ooo barrels of oil per day into the water. And while there's plenty of blame to lay at the feet of BP, I fear we are losing site of the bigger picture of this disaster and what it really means.

Again, while there is plenty to blame on BP, we need to really understand what's going on here. In the same way that a drug addict will do anything to get their next fix, the United States of America is truly addicted to Oil.

Directing your anger at BP for this mess is akin to a cocaine addict getting mad at a straw for blowing out the bridge in their nose.

The hard truth is that we're all to blame. I'm to blame, you're to blame, and just like the drug war has done nothing to stop demand for drugs, punishing BP (while they should be punished) will do nothing to stop future disasters from occurring.

Is BP really more to blame for this mess than government subsidies that have been given to the oil industry, interfering with the free market and artificially driving down the cost of oil?

Is BP more to blame than the people in Nantucket who don't want wind energy farms being built off their cost?

Is BP more to blame than Ronald Reagan, who removed the solar panels from the White House that Jimmy carter installed in 1979?

Is BP more to blame than a nation of people that purchased SUV's that get 12 miles per gallon?

Is BP more to blame than the executive who could institute a work from home policy two days per week for any employee that works in a cubicle, saving huge amounts of energy, but doesn't because they refuse to embrace new technology?

No, they're not.

It feels good to blame BP because it means we don't need to blame ourselves. It means we're not at fault. And it means we don't have to change.

Here are the facts. The United States of America consumes about 20 million barrels of oil per day. The world consumes about 85 million barrels per day, which means about a quarter of that consumption comes from the United States. And it's estimated that the reservoir under the Gulf holds somewhere around 50 million barrels of oil.

This represents about 3 days worth of oil for the USA.

Think about that. We're willing to put an entire ecosystem at risk, drilling a hole 3.5 miles into the core of the earth, and a mile deep in the ocean, for what? For a three day hit on our addiction.

We should punish BP, but that's not going to fix anything. So every time you want to blame someone for this mess, say it's the fault of "BP and me". Because that's exactly who's fault it is.

This disaster must be our nation's rock bottom. We need to enter rehab, and we need to enter it now.

A little consolidation, some new services, and a redesign

I just launched yesterday a completely new site for Ideal Project Group. I'm really happy with the way it turned out. The old site looked good visually to me - and a lot of people told me that they liked it - but it wasn't working any more.

First off, inquiries were nowhere near what they should have been considering the amount of traffic I get on the site. So from that standpoint, the website was literally not working correctly. The other problem is that the site no longer did a good job of representing what I do and what my company does, so a major update was needed. Lastly, some of the things I've been working on have caused my company's presence on the internet to be completely fragmented. This is okay - because I've been doing a lot of stuff - but it was time to do some clean up and consolidation.

For the new site, I had a few key objectives in mind.

1) I wanted one website to present all the services my company offers. This now includes project management services, website building, product development, and general tech type services. (More on the last two in a bit)

2) I wanted the site to include - not just link to - the products that I've created. This includes the Android application GoFind, and the free web application I released earlier called ThirtyDayProject.org.

3) I wanted to tie this blog into my company site much more tightly and also link to my podcast, twitter feed, and a few other things in a way that made sense.

The Consolidation

Previously I had the main Ideal Project Group site (old), which was all about the project management piece, a Version one for Everyone site that talked about building websites and providing tech services, and then there is still this blog. So, I combined the V1 site and the main IPG site, and also pull in this blog's 10 most recent posts via Feedburner. I may end up integrating this blog even more tightly at some point, but I still need to make a few other decisions with Duarlander and personal blogging before doing so. For now though, I was able to style the feed and it looks really nice inside the new site.

Showing off my products

The GoFind page still exists for now - though this is likely the next thing to be changed - and ThirtyDayProject.org is a stand alone web app. So, I created a product page where I give a quick blurb about what each of them are, and link to their respective sites where people can get more detail if they want. This is much better than simply providing a link.

Some new services

In the past, small businesses would call from time to time asking me if I could create a certain piece of software. I would explain that I focused exclusively on Project Management and could lead a team of theirs but that I didn't have developers of my own.

I'm no longer going to turn down this kind of business, and am in fact going to be eagerly seeking it out.

I pulled together a team to create an Android app that was built and launched in six weeks. I built and launched my first Rails app with help from a bunch of people in under two months. I have great relationships with a number of developers and there is simply no reason that I should shy away from providing custom development for small businesses.

I've always lead software projects, and that's what I'll still be doing. The only difference is that sometimes I'll be working with a client's developers, and sometimes I'll be working with developers that I pull together. More flexibility, more freedom, more speed, and more business. All good things.

Very lastly, I'll also be working to help get small businesses set up with all their little tech needs. Maybe a shopping cart solution, maybe just getting a website and email up, or maybe helping a brick and mortar business get online with a podcast. This won't be how I make most of my money (I don't think) but I've worked with a couple brand new businesses lately to get them set up online and it's really fun working with these people.

You know who wants to get stuff done and move quickly? Someone that just started a new business.

So that's the story behind the new site. All my services in one place, a page to highlight things I've made, and tighter integration with things like this blog and the podcast.

Check it out at www.idealprojectgroup.com and let me know what you think. I'd love some feedback.