Immuexa's original mission statement was "build cool tools that help real people learn, create, and communicate." I remember wandering the hallways of Lotus (whose management was mission & vision crazed), planning my escape and writing that mission statement in my head. Each word of it was important to me, especially the non-corporate "cool" and the phrase "real people", which begged a question often on my mind back then.

Over time, Immuexa's "mission statement" got much simpler. I decided to simply convey the "what we do" part of it: "custom-built software & websites". In doing so, I switched us from being a product-based company to being a service-based company. Rather than building cool tools, we were custom-building for others.

The company really did change after that, or at least our clientele did. We basically became a website shop, which looking back I realize was a detour. I deliberately put the "software" before the "website" in the tagline but everyone else got it wrong. They just saw the websites, though our real expertise was software.

I'm ready to go back to "cool tools." Not necessarily that exact mission statement, but the spirit of it: that vision.

Storybot progress halted in mid-May, though it's never been far from my thoughts since then. My goals for it have evolved quite a bit, particularly in the last two months. Now I see clearly that it'll be more than a photo program. It'll earn both halves of its name.

I'm a big fan of free agency, believing there's two kinds of workers in the world, "indoor cats" who lack a big-picture market-centered perspective and thrive better in a corporate setting, and "outdoor cats", who are more entrepreneurial, who go nuts if denied the freedom to always keep doing the best work they've ever done. I believe in the "hollywood model", where talent comes together on a project-to-project basis, and no one is tied to any one company for long. In the early days, hollywood writers and actors were paid a salary by the studios. Now producers get to pick the best talent for each project, which is quite simply a better model for all concerned. Software development is much like movie-making. The same benefits apply.

I'm also not fond of commercial office space. I pick developers who prefer to work from their own locations because, in my opinion, it's simply the most efficient and cost-effective way to do business. I've often wondered what could justify the cost of office space, seeing as that real estate stays empty two-thirds of the year. It's just wasteful.

Whenever I talk with someone who believes in office space, who can't imagine the kind of distributed development I've enjoyed for the last five years, who can't imagine that people can be productive if they're not hearing their manager walk down the hallway, I quickly concede that location independent, distributed development, isn't for everyone. It requires self-motivated people who can figure things out for themselves, who care more about the product than the politics.

A good hiring criteria: recruit people who have or could run their own business, who learn on their own. After all, we're not running a school, nor should we.

some days it sucks to be me :)


Microsoft Plus! Photo Story ... inevitable from Microsoft, yes. Story in the name? Criminy.

I've been reading a lot of good books lately, prepping to dive head first into some serious challenging software design & development. My current book is Linked, which explains in English the current work in making a science out of interconnectedness. Think "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" ... or better yet, try for yourself. I'm also playing with TouchGraph, an open-source semantic visualization tool. Be sure to try the Amazon & Google browsers.