Hank Luhring’s Blog

I heard about Yammer from the TWIST podcast (This Week In STartups).  TWIST is hosted by Jason Calicanis, a frequent guest on TWIT (This Week In Tech), and CEO of Mahalo.com, a human-powered search engine.

I was listening today to Jason talking with David Sacks, the CEO of Yammer.  David also founded Geni.com, and before that he was a co-founder of PayPal.

Both Yammer.com and Geni.com are really nice Web 2.0 applications.  Check out Geni.com and see how easy it is to get started on your family tree.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything THAT easy!

At Geni.com, they needed an internal application for collaboration, so they wrote one.  It has elements of Twitter and Facebook, but is private, and internal to the company.

The application they wrote worked so well for them that they decided to start another company dedicated to that application.  That’s what is now Yammer. 

I thought it might be good to try Yammer out at IssueTrak.  I thought I’d start small, so I invited just three people, and then quickly jumped over to Outlook and composed an email explaining about Yammer.   Before I could hit “send” the people I invited had invited lots of other IssueTrak people, they had uploaded their photos, they had posted messages.  I’ve never seen anything take off so fast!  I quickly sent a followup email saying go ahead, invite everyone in the company! 

IssueTrak has been on Yammer for less than an hour.  There is an org chart fleshed out, and 20 people are enrolled already, several with their pictures uploaded!  Amazing!

There is a great new site to get answers to questions regarding servers, networking and general IT.  It’s called ServerFault.com.  It was set up by Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky, the two fellows who created StackOverlow.com, probably the best site on the Internet to get programming questions answered.  StackOverflow is now getting over 3.5 million unique visitors per month.

Jeff Atwood writes a blog called Coding Horror.  Joel has Joel on Sofware. One of Joel’s popular posts  described questions to ask of a prospective employer if you’re looking for a programming job.  If the company doesn’t follow certain best practices, you might not want to work there.

Someone on ServerFault asked if there were similar questions to ask to see if a company was doing IT right.  Here’s the link to that post.

What was very interesting to me was that the question that got the most votes was “Do you use an incident/ticket tracking system?”.  As of this writing, that question got 37 votes.

The question “Do you perform system backups, and do test restores regularly?” got 33 votes.

We like to think that our type of software is important to organizations doing IT.  It was surprising to see that the use of tracking software for IT got even more votes than doing backups!

In her column in today’s Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan expresses the concern that with all the government activity taking place in developing spending plans, tax plans, additional regulations, new reforms, energy proposals, healthcare changes — we have to be careful not to kill the goose that lays the golden egg!  And what is this goose?  As Ms. Noonan describes it:

“The goose of course is the big, messy, spirited, inspiring, and sometimes in some respects damaging but on the whole brilliant and productive and priceless wealth-generator known as the free-market capitalist system.”

This is a quote from Graham Hill, who was recently on the Venture Voice podcast. Hill started a business called TreeHugger.com using his own money, and sold it several years later to the Discovery Channel for $10 million.

I started the company which became IssueTrak back in 1992, with no outside investment.  Not having a lot of money in the beginning can be a good thing.  It forces you to focus on what the market wants.  And like Graham Hill says in the podcast, the early experiences determine the DNA of the business. 

In our case, doing extensive custom programming early on forced us to listen closely to what customers need so that we could implement an effective software solution.  Today we continue to add features the customers ask for.

I highly recommend the Venture Voice series by Greg Galant.  Here’s a link to the Graham Hill podcast. I especially enjoyed some of the comments he made at the very end.  He said too much money can be bad for a company.  And you don’t need to be a non-profit to do good in the world.  A for-profit company can also be a vehicle for staying true to one’s values, and can give one the wherewithal to make meaningful contributions to society.

We occasionally get unsolicited comments from customers telling us their experience of using our software.  Here is one that came in recently:

“IssueTrak has gone from a good idea to a business critical resource in less than 12 months.  It has been enthusiastically received by our production (printing and forms), Information Technology, HR and Marketing/Communications Departments.  I am looking forward to a more productive 2009 as a result.”

Although many companies buy IssueTrak for help desk use, we see growing use of our product in other areas, especially in general issue tracking.

Yesterday at our company-wide meeting two different people spoke up to praise LaDonna Beauregard, our Vice President for Development.  Both people worked in Support, and LaDonna had personally helped them solve a problem that they were working on on behalf of a customer.  What impressed both people so much was that they didn’t have to make an appointment with LaDonna or fill out a form or jump through other hoops.  Instead, during a casual conversation the topic came up, and LaDonna took it upon herself to look into the problem, and either solve it herself in one instance, or encourage someone in her department to look into it in the other case.

Although we have experienced significant growth in the last few years, even being named to the Inc 500, we are still not a bureaucracy.  Outsiders often remark that they like dealing with IssueTrak, because things get done, problems get solved, needs are met, we listen. 

For IssueTrak team members to provide first-class service to our prospects and customers, we have to do that for each other as well.  I’m glad to see that’s happening.

We are looking into using Microsoft’s ASP.NET MVC.  At this point (10/30/2008), the first beta was released two weeks ago.  Before that there was a series of preview releases.  There is talk about a version 1 release around the end of the year.

It is interesting to me to see how interested Microsoft is in getting feedback from the development community on how to make the MVC product as good as it can be.  One small example is the issue of “area” routes.  Here is a discussion thread on the topic:

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/altdotnet/message/16483 

(Looking at the URL above, could the Yahoo groups application have been written using MVC?  That’s one of the benefits of MVC – URLs that make sense in terms of the application, as opposed to simpling reflecting how the file system is laid out.)

 In this particular discussion, Phil Haack has spent quite a bit of time reading the posts, asking questions, suggesting alternatives.  Finally he says this:

“We’re going to take a deep look at this. I’ll probably put together some samples later with guidance on this and run it by you to make sure we address these issues properly. At the very least, we want to ensure that guidance and the right extensibility hooks are available in v1, even if a full implementation doesn’t make it into v1.

Thanks for bringing this up again.

Phil”

This is a WONDERFUL sign that Microsoft realizes there are people in the development community that sometimes have ideas that might be better than theirs, and that they (Microsoft) will produce a better product if they listen closely to their developer customers.

It’s my understanding that Phil Haack is a decision-maker for Microsoft MVC, and for him to be actively communicating with developers is great.  He listened, made suggestions, those suggestions were rejected, he made other suggestions, those were rejected too.  He made it clear he wants to truly understand the problem, and he even asked how the area routes were implemented in a non-Microsoft package.

Developers today have a lot of choices in what technology to use when building applications.  With the commitment that Phil Haack, Scott Hanselman and others under Scott Guthrie show towards working first-hand with their developer customers, I think it is smart on our part to continue to use Microsoft’s developer tools.

Scott Hanselman, my favorite podcaster, has produced several podcasts on JavaScript recently.  One of the best was with John Resig, a developer of JQuery.  jQuery is an AJAX framework that is very quickly gaining acceptance among developers building rich internet applications.

jQuery is open source.  Microsoft products are not, of course.  jQuery is such a good package that people would like to use it alongside Microsoft’s offerings.

In an announcement a few days ago, Scott Guthrie from Microsoft said that Microsoft will include jQuery with their Visual Studio product.

The amazing thing is that Microsoft has not purchased and taken over jQuery.  Instead, they will simply include the jQuery library in Visual Studio.  The original jQuery team will retain control over jQuery.  If Microsoft wants a new feature added, they will submit it to the jQuery team, who will decide whether to include it.  The jQuery team will do the development, not Microsoft.

Since jQuery is open source, there will be no additional charges.

Scott Guthrie writes in his blog:

“Rather than duplicate functionality, we thought, wouldn’t it be great to just use jQuery as-is, and add it as a standard, supported, library in VS/ASP.NET, and then focus our energy building new features that took advantage of it?”

That makes a lot of sense.  It is an explicit acknowledgement by Microsoft that they are not the best at everything.  It also shows that in this case they are interested in providing top-notch tools for the developer community, whether under their control or not.

It is quite an amazing step they are taking, and great news for the developer community.

The User Interface 13 conference is coming up next month (October, 2008), and there is an interesting feature on the conference web site — they have nine podcasts of conference speakers being interviewed about the session they will be giving.  For example, Dana Chisnell is speaking for a full day on “Usability Testing Techniques: Collecting User Data on a Shoestring”.  UIE, the conference organizers, has recorded a 23 minute podcast with Dana so that someone can listen to her for a while and decide if they want to go hear her.  Other topics in the conference of interest to us include:

Bulletproof Ajax: Designing Interactive and Usable Ajax Solutions

Subject to Change: Product Strategy and Planning Tools for Great User Experiences

Visual Design for the Web: Communicating with Customers

The Essentials of Interaction Design

Bringing User-Centered Design Practices Into Agile Development Projects

New Perspectives in User Experience Design

Product Usability: Survival Techniques

It’s great that before we sign up, and can listen to the speaker being interviewed on a podcast!

Our IssueTrak software is built on Microsoft technologies — SQL Server, IIS, ASP.  Their technology is good, and widely adopted.  Will it stay that way in the future?

One way to judge that is to look at the people involved.  Microsoft has one of the most impressive technology executives around — Scott Guthrie.

He is a prolific blogger.  Although he only posts two or three blog entries a week, each blog post is quite comprehensive, with lots of code examples.  Not only that, but there are a LOT of people who respond to his blog posts.  The post he did last week discussing VS 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 Beta had over 350 comments from readers.  Many of these comments are questions, and Scott tries to answer the questions.  If he doesn’t have a ready answer, he’ll leave his email address and ask the commenter to send him an email with more details about the issue.  Scott then forwards the inquiry on to the appropriate person.

So although he may only post two new blog entries in a week, with the replies to comments that he writes, he probably posts dozens of entries.

Scott started out at Microsoft as a developer on IIS in 1996.  He was instrumental in formulating the concept of ASP.NET after IIS4 was released.  Today he is a Corporate Vice President in the Microsoft Developer Division, and runs the development teams involved in:

The .NET Common Language Runtime
Core .NET Base Class Libraries
IIS 7.0
ASP.NET
Silverlight
Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)
Visual Studio Tools for ASP.NET, WPF and Silverlight

I have attended conferences where Scott has made presentations.  He is a hands-on guy and knows the products intimately.  His presentations often have demonstrations of the technology he is discussing, where he develops live applications on the spot.  He is sharp, down-to-earth, and genuinely cares about coming out with useful tools that allow developers like us to come out with great products.

I have emailed him questions, and he has replied promptly to me with useful information.  There are videos of Scott explaining how they invite developers who don’t use Microsoft products to come to Redmond.  Scott’s crew takes them out for beer and dinner and listens to their reasons for not using Microsoft technologies.  This feedback helps shape the developer products Scott’s teams come out with.

We hear sometimes about Microsoft being the Evil Empire.  With people like Scott Guthrie on board, it is hard to look at Microsof that way.  I feel like I know him, and I trust him.  He has a rare combination of brains, work ethic, humility, and willingness to listen to and interact with customers.

Who wants to go Open Source when there are great developer technologies guided by someone as good as Scott, and backed by Microsoft support (which is worth a blog post itself)?

For Microsoft to allow someone like Scott to advance to the level of Corporate Vice President shows me they are a company we’re wise to do business with. More news by category Topic -: Buy phentermine saturday delivery ohio Tramadol hydrochloride tablets Picture of xanax pills Free shipping cheap phentermine Buying phentermine without prescription Safety of phentermine Pyridium Generic viagra cialis Cialis generic india Pink oval pill 17 xanax identification Buy free phentermine shipping Best price for generic viagra Information about street drugs or xanax bars Ordering viagra Snorting phentermine Hydrocodone overdose Lithium Amiodarone Get online viagra Order viagra prescription Order xanax paying cod Cheap phentermine free shipping Imiquimod Tramadol next day Linkdomain buy online viagra info domain buy onlin Pfizer viagra sperm Vidarabine Cheapest viagra price Prevacid Viagra cialis levitra comparison Dutasteride Lisinopril Thiotepa Female spray viagra Black market phentermine Betamethasone Cialis forums What does xanax look like Loss phentermine story success weight Order xanax overnight Viagra alternative uk Diet online phentermine pill Order xanax cod Mecamylamine Eulexin Cheap hydrocodone Buy cheapest viagra Viagra xenical Phentermine with no prior prescription Xanax in urine Macrodantin Cheap phentermine with online consultation Epivir Buy phentermine epharmacist Ditropan Woman use viagra Cialis erectile dysfunction Xanax withdrawl message boards Viagra online store Atorvastatin Generic ambien Is phentermine addictive Next day delivery on phentermine Buy online viagra Ethanol Natural phentermine Avandamet Xanax long term use Diet page phentermine pill yellow 5 cheap Cheapest secure delivery cialis uk Information medical phentermine Cialis experience Phentermine no perscription Compare ionamin phentermine Viagra cialis levivia dose comparison Noroxin Effects of viagra on women Buy cheap cialis Viagra shelf life Hydroxyurea Phentermine discount no prescription Buy cheap online viagra Dog xanax Online cialis Viagra class action Viagra price Phentermine without prescription and energy pill Hydrocodone cod only Nicoumalone Cheapest viagra Cheap ambien Vicodin without prescription Phentermine prescription online Phentermine snorting Mirtazapine Quazepam Isradipine Buy generic viagra online Xanax look alike Moxifloxacin Viagra experiences Piroxicam Nicorette Free try viagra Sotalol Cash on delivery shipping of phentermine How do i stop taking phentermine Xanax prescriptions Cheapest phentermine 90 day order Niacinamide Phentermine weight loss Phentermine